Monday, October 26, 2009
Literacy Carnival
Exactly two months
Can you believe that it is already the end of October? I can't! Today it has been exactly two months since the start of school. This is so hard to believe because it seems like just yesterday I walked into Dene high for the first time and my students greeted me for the first time!
But it truly has been two months and things are really starting to get interesting in room 114.
ELA 8K has started a unit called "Telling One's Life Story". In this unit we will be reading a novel called Go Ask Alice. This story is writen in diary format and is a 15 year-old girl's story of her battle with belonging that eventually turns into a drug addiction. We will also be reading poetry and short stories that show others telling their life story. Everyone has a story to tell and journaling/blogging is going to be a major way that students in ELA 8K will be given the chance to tell their story. You can check out the students' blogs here.
ELA 8J is still working on narratives of First Nations people. This works together with what we are working on in Social Studies. In SS 8 we are working on treaties in Saskatchewan. As a matter of fact, today we finished looking at the historical world views of different First Nations groups, such as the Cree, Dene, Saulteux, and Lakoda/Dacoda/Nekota people. Can anyone tell me one similarity and one difference between these groups?
As the end of the month is coming soon AMP (Attendance Motivation Party) is also coming up. This will be held on November 3, 2009 and invitations will be handed out to the students invited the day prior. AMP is for students with perfect attendance and less than 5 lates in a month. Hope to see many of the students there!
Mrs. Hepworth's grade 9 SS class will be putting on an Elder's Night at the Dene building on Tuesday, October 27 from 7-8 pm. All are welcome and those students in my SS class are asked to attend so that they know what they will need to do for the Elder's Night we will be hosting on December 1st.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons LostMyHeadache
But it truly has been two months and things are really starting to get interesting in room 114.
ELA 8K has started a unit called "Telling One's Life Story". In this unit we will be reading a novel called Go Ask Alice. This story is writen in diary format and is a 15 year-old girl's story of her battle with belonging that eventually turns into a drug addiction. We will also be reading poetry and short stories that show others telling their life story. Everyone has a story to tell and journaling/blogging is going to be a major way that students in ELA 8K will be given the chance to tell their story. You can check out the students' blogs here.
ELA 8J is still working on narratives of First Nations people. This works together with what we are working on in Social Studies. In SS 8 we are working on treaties in Saskatchewan. As a matter of fact, today we finished looking at the historical world views of different First Nations groups, such as the Cree, Dene, Saulteux, and Lakoda/Dacoda/Nekota people. Can anyone tell me one similarity and one difference between these groups?
As the end of the month is coming soon AMP (Attendance Motivation Party) is also coming up. This will be held on November 3, 2009 and invitations will be handed out to the students invited the day prior. AMP is for students with perfect attendance and less than 5 lates in a month. Hope to see many of the students there!
Mrs. Hepworth's grade 9 SS class will be putting on an Elder's Night at the Dene building on Tuesday, October 27 from 7-8 pm. All are welcome and those students in my SS class are asked to attend so that they know what they will need to do for the Elder's Night we will be hosting on December 1st.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons LostMyHeadache
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
One week and then a week off...
This week started off with an excellent day! While the weather is starting to get colder, there are many good things that are keeping the classroom busy.
8J has started a Treaties in the Classroom unit in Social Studies and in ELA we are working on Narratives of the First Nations. I am trying to link what we are doing in both classes so that students can relate better to the material. This will also help to make the classes more dynamic and help the material come alive. The hope of integrating curriculum is that school will begin to mirror real life. We don't separate our everyday lives into ELA or Social Studies or Science. Everything happens all at once so it only makes sense to have school start to look like that as well. We have read two narratives in ELA:
Premiere Brad Wall mandated that all educators teach Treaties in the Classroom. The Office of the Treaty Commissioner has come up with a great resource that lays out how to teach this sometimes controversial topic. We have only done a couple of days, basically an introduction, of this topic. One of the major topics that we have been discussing is how long the treaties were designed to last for.
"As long as the sun shines, and the rivers flow" is what is stated in the material and in the video that we have watched. What does this video mean to you and who put these conditions into the treaties?
ELA 8K is finishing up their final projects on Mystery at Latham House. They have two tasks:
Photos from Flickr Creative Commons - River (Levendis) and sun (Thai Jasmine)
8J has started a Treaties in the Classroom unit in Social Studies and in ELA we are working on Narratives of the First Nations. I am trying to link what we are doing in both classes so that students can relate better to the material. This will also help to make the classes more dynamic and help the material come alive. The hope of integrating curriculum is that school will begin to mirror real life. We don't separate our everyday lives into ELA or Social Studies or Science. Everything happens all at once so it only makes sense to have school start to look like that as well. We have read two narratives in ELA:
Premiere Brad Wall mandated that all educators teach Treaties in the Classroom. The Office of the Treaty Commissioner has come up with a great resource that lays out how to teach this sometimes controversial topic. We have only done a couple of days, basically an introduction, of this topic. One of the major topics that we have been discussing is how long the treaties were designed to last for.
"As long as the sun shines, and the rivers flow" is what is stated in the material and in the video that we have watched. What does this video mean to you and who put these conditions into the treaties?
ELA 8K is finishing up their final projects on Mystery at Latham House. They have two tasks:
- Create a cover for the novel. It must include a picture related to the novel, the title and the author. Stay tuned for pictures of how these covers turn out. I have seen the beginnings of this task and they look great!
- Write a different ending to the novel. It must be a page long, double spaced. The students will be posting these endings to their blogs which will be created this week.
Photos from Flickr Creative Commons - River (Levendis) and sun (Thai Jasmine)
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