How Does Art Reflect Culture Part 2: Our Art - My Culture

Tuesday, November 25th:

1. Curating Northwest Coast Animal Art (Example)
1. Open a word document and:
1. Create a title
2. Put your name on it
3. Save it as Name_Northwest Coast Art
4. Save it in you H Drive (firstintial.lastname (///samba) (H:))
2. Do a Google Image Search for an animal of your choice
1. use the key words "northwest coast art" in your search
3. Look at the pictures and look for designs you like and pieces of designs you could use in your own drawing
4. Choose 6-10 images and copy and paste them into your word document
5. Click on the image, then click "references", then "insert footnote"
1. copy and paste the link to the image as a footnote
6. Check out the example for ideas and to see the layout
7. Print it 
1. To the Mobile Lab printer 

Thursday, November 20th:

1. Sonny Assu's Art:

1. Look at Sonny's Art: http://sonnyassu.com/
2. Come up with one question about his art that you think the staff at the Art Gallery may be able to answer for you. 
3. Tell it to the person beside you and have them help you make it a better question. 
4. Write it down on a cue card. 

1. Northwest Coast Art, Symbolism, Legends:
1. Open this set of slides and read the instructions on the second slide or watch the instructional video

Genius Hour Idea Submission

http://astropt.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/keep-calm-and-stay-genius.png

Reading and Buddy Reading

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5311/5843147861_d9604b187f_z.jpg

It has truly been a joy watching the students step into their role as big buddies. The Grade 7's have been very supportive and encouraging with their Grade 1 buddies, and the empathy they show to their young peers is heart warming. 

Not only are the Grade 7's enjoying reading with their buddies, but its exciting to have a class that knows the value of a good book! Our school put on a fantastic book fair this week, and there's been a great buzz about books that are new to our students, or classroom, and even new loans from classmates. Its great to see!

The two-fold reading experience has provided an excellent set up for our deepening exploration into comprehension strategies, and we are having more and more conversations about what it means to be a good reader. 

Genius Hour

http://www.gallitzvi.com/uploads/8/6/3/2/8632116/9385562.jpg?250

We have set aside our Friday afternoons this year for something different, something unique. We will be spending our Friday afternoon's as "Genius Hour". Today our work was to unpack the process by looking at this graphic by Gallit Zvi, as we as a few other info-graphics that now live on our wall. Today we explored our passions, and thought about a few we would like to work on by doing something new, something more, or something different (step 2 of the process as Gallit describes it). Next week we will circle back to these passions and progress toward a project question that will drive our personal inquiry and lay the foundation for a the learning that we will share with the class in a few weeks time (step 3!).

How Does Art Reflect Culture? Project

Class definition of culture as a Tagxedo wordle

• Outline
• Groups And Centuries Doc (with links to first assignment)
• Link to Timeline in its own window

Planning and Leading PE Units

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/262/e/9/Football_players_silhouette_by_webdesigncreatives.jpg

One of the ways we've encouraged students to take on leadership roles this year is by allowing them to plan, prepare, and lead a 3 day unit in PE. The students have risen to the challenge, and the games, skills, and "main events" they have planned for us look great. We are off to a great start working on our fitness and flexibility with some gymnastics skills and activities!

Science Inquiry

On Halloween Day we decided to have some fun building density towers. Students made great observations of our demo tower, asked excellent questions about how we could change the experiment, and then collaboratively designed and conducted experiments using liquids and solids of their choice. It was an excellent morning! 

For many of us one lasting lesson will be not to swirl the old bottles of food colouring found on the Hart Highlands shelves - the plastic may have lost its structural integrity. What a mess!

Progress Reports and Student Lead Conferences

Students received Progress Reports today and made comments of their own on 4 areas of their learning. They also set some goals for the rest of the term, and committed to them by sharing them on our class wall. Well done students! I look forward to hearing how you feel you've progressed toward these goals in a few weeks time.

Parents please feel free to contact me any time if you would like to meet together with your student and discuss their learning.

Global Cardboard Challenge

This week we are starting our preparation for the Global Cardboard Challenge which will take place next Friday, October 10th.

More information will be posted here shortly, but for now here are a few videos to give you a taste of the learning adventure we will be embarking on:


Update: This Challenge was a huge success! I blogged about it on my personal blog here.

Team Challenges - Marshmallow Towers

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7228/6988820046_11f484efe4_h.jpg

As we reflected on our year so far and planned for our open house one of the learning opportunities that stood out for students was building marshmallow towers. The students loved the hands on learning, and I loved the rich conversation that followed about what we can do to make teams successful. While our constructions were short lived, we went apply our skills to building cardboard arcade games, and will continue to build on our teamwork and leadership skills throughout the year.

Top Ten Things You Need to Know About...

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Number_ten.jpg 

1. Find your most recent copy of your top ten list in the "Classwork" folder. Look for "schase", and then "top ten"
2. Please use the example to make sure you have everything you need on your list. Here are the criteria:
• set up your list from #10 - #1 most important
• capitalize every word in title, and use capitals where appropriate in your work
• make sure title reads “Top Ten Things You Need to Know About _____”
• minimum of one image
3. Check the capitalization rules we looked at yesterday to make sure you've followed all of them
4. Check the rubric to make sure your work meets your standards. 
5. Save it to your desktop
6. Open "My Computer", then "Dropbox", then "schase" then "top ten" and drag the file from your desktop to the Dropbox folder

Classroom Links and Resources

Throughout the year we will be collecting and curating resources to support and extend your learning beyond the classroom walls. We've used pinterest to share these resources. I also suggest checking out the HHLD collection of links here too.

Students - please start by checking out some Math resources here. 

If you come across something else you think will help your peers please share the link in the comments section at the bottom of this post. Thanks!

Welcome!

What a start to the year! As we look to October I think we can almost say that things are settling into place...finally! Students thanks for your patience and class with the late start and the changes we've experienced already.

I have enjoyed my warm Hart Highlands welcome, and look forward to getting to know this school and community better. Its been a joy to get to know you students in the last couple weeks and I think we are in for a very exciting year.

Parents, I wanted to share these slides with you as they set up classroom expectations and give you a bit of insight into what I value for us as individual learners and as a learning community. They were the first thing up on the empty walls of our new classroom, and will be something we will come back to often.


Thanks for checking it out, and I welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.

Steve Chase