Christmas Crunch

Dear Parents,

It's that time of year when everyone's hustling and bustling to get their shopping done, to get to all their holiday get togethers and everyone's down with the flu. I've been in and out of the class myself with a recurring bug since our return from Mono Cliffs, so we've been playing a bit of catch up this week, trying to get on track so that we can finish our patterning unit in math and our human body unit in science before we head off on two weeks of much needed vacation. So I do appreciate your understanding with the science homework that's been heading home the past couple of nights.

If you want to support student learning, you can check on the science page here, to check out the project outlines and a good starting kid-friendly website with animations and reliable information. We've also been watching clips from Bill Nye on Youtube to gather more background information on each system as a class. Students who are interested can certainly learn from watching the entire show (Usually there's a Part 1, 2, and 3) on their system, but some of the videos available can be a bit gruesome, so I would encourage monitoring this process to ensure students don't see more graphic information than they are ready to deal with.

I also need to let you know that we will be postponing our trip to the National Film Board since our planned date conflicted with other school events. Complications were also afoot with a brief attempt to rebook on the Friday. I will keep parents in the loop as to when this is rescheduled.

Regards,

Lisa Goegan

New Page, New Projects and Mono Cliffs

A couple of brief notes:

1. I have reorganized my site slightly to make finding new links easier, especially the new Human Body Project. Hopefully, you find this helpful. I'll continue to do this as new content streams are added.

2.  Links on the Science page lead to question sheets for each group to answer. Some groups may have more questions than others, but hopefully the work balances out since the questions will help guide more specific responses. I'm finding http://kidshealth.org/kid/ a useful starting point for research.

3. Today we watched a video and answered student questions about Mono Cliffs, our class trip coming up on November 28th. If parents have questions, please do email me at lisa.goegan@tdsb.on.ca and I'll do my best to answer them directly. Forms and money are due tomorrow, however; so hopefully you've managed to find the answers you need already and apologies if you've found the process challenging: this will be my first year at Mono Cliffs as well.

This has been an excellent, if busy, week in the classroom. I'm looking forward to our dramatic presentation of In Flanders Fields tomorrow at the Remembrance Day Assembly and to seeing many of you during interviews after school on Thursday and Friday morning next week. I'll be sending home scheduled times with reports. Thanks to those of you who have sent forms in already with preferences, it does help me when I'm scheduling.

All my best,

Ms. Goegan

Progress Reports

It seems like such a short time that I've been here at Indian Road Crescent, that it's hard to imagine that reports will be going home very soon. I've sent home forms for interview requests twice, but only received 10 or so back. Getting these organized will be a big job, with 29 kids in the class and several other teachers to coordinate schedules with, so please be patient, flexible, and get your preferences in as soon as possible!

We've got a couple of exciting things coming up in the next little while:

On November 10th, I'm expecting a visit from SciHigh, which will give students the chance to experiment with DNA and give the kids some insight into medical science.

On November 28 through 30, we're heading to Mono Cliffs for a few days of on-site environmental learning. Permission forms have been sent home regarding the trip and we hope to have them back promptly as well.

In late December, there's another field trip coming up as well to the National Film Board. On this trip, we'll have the opportunity to explore animation and make short stop motion films. I hope to see parents out on this trip, as it should be a good day out.

Again, I'm looking forward to having the chance to sit down and discuss student progress. Please stay in touch.

Welcome to the 2011/2012 school year.

Dear Parents,

I'm looking forward to a great year in Room 201 at Indian Road Crescent Public School. More content will follow here soon and you can click at left to be notified when new content is posted. In the meantime, feel free to scroll down and look at some of the things I did with my class last year. The mask artist, Anne Barber from Shadowland Theatre is one I hope to work with again this year as well.

 Please be patient as we settle in together and keep in touch as any concerns or questions arise.

Looking forward to a great year of learning together,

Lisa Goegan

Moving on...

It's with mixed feelings that I'm moving on to Indian Road PS as their new Grade 5 teacher.  I will definitely miss Clinton and all the wonderful people that have made it such a tremendous experience, but I'm also excited (and a bit nervous) about the new challenges and opportunities ahead.

Wish me luck, and please keep in touch (I look forward especially to hearing about any great books you're reading).

For Those of You Hanging About the City This Summer:

Two of the people our class worked with this year have things going on that you might be interested in checking out:

Anne Barber (She of the marvellous masks) is putting on a play called "Hansel and Gretel: A Case Study" on Ward's Island from August 9th through August 14th. More details can be found at shadowlandtheatre.ca

Matt Price (He of the hep hacking classes) is working with Mozilla to put on a workshop for kids to do more stuff with Hackasaurus and game writing in particular on August 10 or 11. Email me (or Mika) for more details.

Hope you're having a great summer.

A final 2011 post--Thank you for everything!

Anne, from Shadowland Theater, who we worked with on our masks, came by today to drop off photos. She'd had some issues with the camera, so these few are the best of the ones we've taken (the rest are more washed out, but do email if you'd like me to send along what I do have).

Thank you to students and parents for your kind words and thoughtful gifts. Have a lovely summer all!

First Names

No doubt you've been wondering about this post with just the first names of all the students in 305. I posted it to help students as they wrote their kind things about each other this past week. Yesterday, at graduation, I read out some of the lovely things they'd said about each other, and today I gave them all a copy of their own nice things, hopefully to keep for a while. (I slipped my own nice comment onto each sheet as well--the trick is to guess who wrote what, but I like the anonymity of it too)

Today we also sent home the movies that students collaborated on earlier in the year. It took a bit of work to get them edited (Thanks John!) and burned (Thanks Edwin!), and wrapped (Thanks Stephanie, JinJin and Alissa!). Thanks as well to all the parents who came in and helped us film! What I enjoyed most about watching the movies were all the little memories tucked into each of them--Rose's formality, Justin's mustachio, Edwin's absolute commitment to his role, etc.

Thanks for all the memories, and have a great summer.

What does gifted mean?

As we come to the end of this year together, I've been thinking about students moving on to new classrooms and new schools. With about half the students in 305, we've grown together for two years now and I'll miss the glints in many of those eyes I've come to know so well.

We have a number of things still planned, as many of you know: last Friday's labour history walk was an interesting pilot test that I look forward to repeating and refining. Many students had positive feedback about learning the "hidden history" of Toronto, which I think will be fascinating to explore further. In some ways, it was a serendipitous extension of the "commoning" project they had where they planned a playscape for Dundas Square, by becoming more aware of the city around them.

Tomorrow (Monday), we'll revisit the COBWEB program at University of Toronto, where students will continue to explore this program. Tuesday and Thursday, we have Mika's father, Matt Price, in to work with us again to explore web based programming (especially html) through a program called Hackasaurus. Students seem overwhelmingly excited by the chance to "hack" and remix web elements. We've got a school spelling bee and Play Day planned for this week as well. Next week, we'll start off our final few days together with a bowling field trip on Monday (June 27th), followed by Grade 6 Graduation on Tuesday and a final day celebration on Wednesday, June 29th. All in all, there's a lot to look forward to these next few weeks.

A parent in my friend network with gifted kids of her own passed on this video link and the gentleman speaking does a good job of summarizing some of the key things behind my own practice as a teacher (chiefly that challenge, structure and a recognition of individual need are key to the success of these students), but he also addresses some of those key questions people often ask about gifted education with research and data to back it up. Normally, I'd post something like this at the beginning of a year, but with all the upcoming transitions, it seems as good a time as any to reflect a bit:

Accurate Assessment? Asperger's Disorder, and Other Common Misdiagnoses and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children - IME Video Library

Making Toronto a Playground

I was inspired on my recent trip to Montreal by an installation they have at the Place des Artes that encourages people to play and build experiences together. Here is a video showing the piece:

Basically, it uses the movement of the swing to create music and, swinging together, small groups of people can create chords and music. Place Des Arts reminds me of the potential in Dundas Square, both are central places where people are encouraged to mix together and are used for various festivals and city events. 

One of the students in 305 told me of his ambition to become a playground designer and the idea hatched that this would be an engaging way for us to look at some of the geometry and science expectations. 

I've attached the project outline below. Students will be working singly or in pairs and I expect them to be able to use classtime to meet most of the requirements. 

T.O. Play

Here's an online version of a bridge builder game to help give you a sense of some of the physics involved:
Bridge Builder Game

New Science Links

This relates to the information 6's are collecting about the universe: Meteors

Today in the library, Grade 5's are continuing to work on their element powerpoints. There was an issue with the element file posted earlier, so a new file will be posted on the project outline page shortly.

Meanwhile, here are the links to the videos we watched in class:
Tom Lehrer's Element Song

Explosive Reactions to Alkali Metals

MythBusters Fun with Gas

Noble Gas Balloons

Putting Together Pieces in New Ways

As we returned to Literature Circles, it was important to me to discuss with students what parts of the process they enjoyed and what parts they had not. Not everyone felt the same way about all parts of the process. Some of the answers were surprising and some were not (Likes: talking about books, brainstorming as a group to write roles, Dislikes: Writing reflections).

Out of this discussion, we brainstormed some new roles to take the place of old roles that they had not enjoyed or found challenging. We also talked a bit about how to use the discussion to generate ideas for the reflection, which many students said they felt was "like cheating". I disagree, since I'm hoping that meeting helps spark connections students might not otherwise have made or fill out their ideas for writing.

The new roles included:

Political Pundit: In charge of researching world connections or issues
Mood Manager: A revamped Literary Linguist, focusing on how the author creates the story's magic
and the favourite, Devil's Advocate, where students find issues to bring up in their meetings and debate.

Here's the link to the google doc:

Room 305 Demands New Lit Roles (also on the links page)

Printing from Google docs has occasionally been tricky in the past, but I've done my best to eliminate issues where possible.

Music Marketing Project

Here's a list of information that students are encouraged to use while collecting data for the Music Marketing Project. Each group has already selected a band and created a logo for their marketing company. The next step is gathering information and I suggest Google docs as a great way of sharing information in a centrally accessible way.

Here's my list in any case:

Music Project Information Gathering checklist:
Band name and logo:

Band Members:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Key Songwriters:

Album names and dates:

Best selling songs:

When/where was band formed? Broke up?

Part of any scenes? Musical genres?

Who influenced them?

Who did they influence?

Individual Biographical detail for each band member:
Name:
Instruments played:
Songwriter? (name best songs):
Date of birth/death:
Place of birth:
Current/favourite city lived in:

Dates of marriage(s) and current marital status:

Names of child(ren) and years of children’s births, if any:

Other bands they were/are part of:

Suggested story collections for interview:
Band name and logo?
Interesting song names?
Were they at a particularly interesting historical moment (like Woodstock)?
What do they think of other bands (long standing quarrels)?
Embarrassing stories?
Jobs they held before “rock star”?
Your own ideas?
Visual collection:
Posters
Album covers
Tshirts
Key photoshoots

Links to sites and sources:

Poetry workshop

For anyone interested, Souvankham Thammavongsa will be leading a poetry workshop for youth on Monday March 14th at the Sanderson library. Some of my grade 6's may remember her from the tangerine or there are no pictures of my mother poems we looked at last year.

See info below:

Still Life Poetry: Write What You See

Register at 416-397-5970, or ksparling@torontopubliclibrary.ca

Ages 12-19

Work with Toronto poet Souvankham Thammavongsa and learn to see ordinary objects anew to make still life 'drawings' with words. You will truly write what you see!

Debate Links

Grade 6's will be focusing on a planned hydroelectric plant in Brazil. Here's the link that first brought it to my attention:

http://boingboing.net/2011/02/09/indigenous-brazilian.html.

Some other articles we've looked at in class:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-08/amazon-tribes-march-on-brasilia-against-world-s-3rd-largest-dam.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/01/brazil-dilma-rousseff-hydroelectric-dam

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5216293,00.html

More information on Brazil's energy strategy Brazil's english language site: http://www.brasil.gov.br/cop-english/overview/what-brazil-is-doing/the-energy-matrix/print

A video showing the overview of the proposed dam site:
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0830-belo_monte_google_earth.html

Grade 5's will be focusing on controversy about hydro-electric dams in Northern BC:


Some articles we've looked at in class:

http://www.bchydro.com/planning_regulatory/site_c/site_c_an_option/what_is_site_c.html

http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=43b4e082-0588-4147-ad0b-b1e07f41793b

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/04/18/bc-private-power-project.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/story/2010/04/17/bc-site-c-lekstrom.html

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/jumbo-deception-qatmuk-declaration-ktunaxa-collaborators-and-theft-sinixt-land-and-culture/609

An overview of the issue from the BC government:
http://www.empr.gov.bc.ca/EAED/EPB/Documents/History%20ofColumbiaRiverNov139web).pdf

A video clip from the CBC archives outlining some of the problems the Cree have faced with the power plant in James Bay

(Edited to add some new links to the Grade 5 side on 02.23)

Two Interesting Invitations

Recently, one of the parents in our class sent our class an invitation to a Raging Grannies event in celebration of International Women's Day. I'll be there and wanted to pass along the invite:

Hi Lisa,

I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to invite your class to come
see the Raging Grannies at our International Women's Day event at Women
and Gender Studies at U of T. A grade 6 class from Huron is also
invited. Its in the evening, so it probably can't be a field trip. But I
am happy to "chaperon" if students want to come to this. Of course, you
are welcome too. I think there is singing involved!

On the raging grannies: http://raginggrannies.org/

WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES IWD EVENT

THE RAGING GRANNIES, TORONTO CHAPTER


DATE: Wednesday March 9th
TIME: 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
LOCATION: Lash Miller Building, Room 59, Southwest corner of St. George, at the corner of St. George and Willcocks

best,
Michelle Murphy

For more information, contact me and I'll put you in touch with Michelle.

I also got an interesting invitation from Darren O'Donnell, whose recent projects include Haircuts by Children, to get kids to take part in a new show he's working on called "Monster Makers". He's running several free hour long workshops at Harbourfront on February 27th, if you want to get involved. Here's the link to the facebook invite page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193220287363539.

In other news, we're filming on Tuesday (I have confirmations from two parents helping out but would love to pin down two more for sure) and reports go home on that day as well. Confirmation of interview times will go home with reports.

The new pacing has been a bit tricky to adjust to this year, but when I look back over our year, I'm astonished and pleased at all the growth I've seen in the students. So many great experiences together already! and so many more to look forward to.

Snow Day!

Well, this is exciting (and almost unheard of in the Toronto Board)!

I'm enjoying my day off working on reports and keeping warm with lots of tea. Hopefully, we'll go tobogganing later when the wind dies down. I hope you all have similarly laid back enjoyable days.

I'm mostly posting to let you know that I've postponed the walking field trip tomorrow since the prospect of wading through 30 cm of snow to get to our destination seemed daunting. Instead, we'll go just before March Break.

Have fun!

Tying up loose threads

This week is a light one for the kids at any rate. We've finished our latest round of projects and have begun to work with Brigitte Berman, our video artist. I think it was a great first day. Students are prepping a pitch for Thursday and I'm off to coach a volleyball tournament tomorrow.

Meanwhile, reports are being written and marks are being finalized. Next week, I'll be setting aside a day for students who need to rewrite a math test to be able to do so. All those students eligible for rewrites have had the tests sent home to be signed, but I'll do my best to send a formal reminder home this week.

In many cases, I think the difference between a B and a C is simply a more careful approach to test taking: remembering to show work, reading carefully to answer all parts of the question and careful checking over after you're done can make up a lot of marks. Since we're a bit short on texts for the 6's, I'm also happy to photocopy chapters of the Grade 6 textbook for anyone wanting to review.

I hope students see this as an opportunity to build on their success and am happy to follow up with any extra questions you might have.

Regards,

Ms. G

Banethi Performance

Here's the video of last night's performance:



I'm really happy all our hard work with Andrew worked out.

Next week, we're on to work with Brigitte Berman, our video artist, and there's two walking field trips coming up as well:

On the 4th, we'll go to the Osborne collection to look at the history of children's books. This is a trip I've done before and I always find it fascinating. Hopefully, the students will as well.

On the 11th, we go to the Gerstein library at U of T, where we'll be looking at environmental change and running some computer simulations and experiments.

This year has seemed particularly busy, but I'm excited at all the opportunities the students have had to learn from different experts and in different mediums.

Brochures: a requested post

Both the Grade 5's and 6's have been working this week to put together a brochure. For the 5's, the brochure should explain the citizenship process using information from their textbook, while the 6's have each chosen a country to research. Their brochure will persuade the Canadian government to begin or increase trade with that country. Most students seem to be progressing fairly smoothly with the research, but are looking to make their brochure look as good as possible.

We went over a few key points in class together about brochures in general:
--The importance of the title page to attract the reader and give the main idea
--The final page should conclude by summarizing main points, making a call to action or by asking a question
--Brochures need a word/picture balance to communicate without overwhelming
--Brochures are a persuasive medium so it is important to remember your audience and your purpose

Then we headed to the computer lab today, where we looked at some key features in Word, like using columns and adapting margins, different types of bullets and font choices, etc.

Tomorrow, we have a double library period, which should prove useful in getting our work together.

Here are my suggestions for how to proceed:

1. Gather data
2. Decide on your topic headings and titles as well as basic layout (4 column? 6 column?)
3. Add main text information
4. Play with font size and wording to find the best fit for the space available
5. Decide on images and order of information
6. Review the outline and rubric: Is there anything you have forgotten?
7. Fine-tune font and colour choices, play with backgrounds and other fun stuff.

Of course, you can also choose to do part or even all of your brochure by hand, but a typed brochure automatically looks more professional and polished, so try to get your information typed in, if nothing else. Good luck and see you in the morning.

Cells and such

There's a science quiz tomorrow, which students should have written in their agendas. I just got an email asking me for the link to the website we used to investigate cells and thought I'd recommend them in general:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/

While this might be a useful tool for reviewing for the test, they also have different videos and web apps to explore that we didn't really have time to investigate in class. I keep discovering new ones.

Happy New Year

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who brought food or presents for the class or various school drives. Personally, I felt very blessed this holiday season. I hope that everyone has had a restful and fun holiday break. I know I did.

Starting the year off with some good memories from December:



And looking forward to new challenges.

January looks like a busy month. We have the concert on the 20th, where 305 will be performing some of our Banethi movements. We have two trips (one on the 21st to look at Climate Change and one on the 3rd of February to look at the history of bookmaking). I'm coaching Girls Volleyball for a tourney on the 26th.

And we also have Brigitte Berman coming in to work with us on developing our our short films.

Among my favourite presents this year was a videocamera, which I hope to use with the class. If you have any video equipment you wouldn't mind sharing or any time to come in yourselves on the days Brigitte will be here (see Calendar), we'd love to have your help and your equipment. It's always good to have as many hands on deck as possible during filming and we promise to take very good care of any equipment. The MACbooks our school has recently acquired should help nicely with editing as well.

See you all on Monday!