Please note that we will not be updating this page again until the end of August. Have a great summer!

We will regularly add updates here about what the students are learning in the classroom. These updates often include photographs, videos, and slideshows. Please make sure that you sign and return the Photograph Permission Form (that you will receive on the first day of school) as soon as possible, so that your child can appear here. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to email us (Gina Bucciacchio or Aviva Dunsiger) or leave a comment on this page.

June 24-27 – Language

This week, students are completing their current Genius Hour Project as well as their Quest2Matter Project. We will be tweeting photographs and videos of these projects throughout the week, and we’ll Storify and share all of our tweets on the Daily Shoot Blog. Language time this week will also be shortened on Wednesday because of Play Day and on Thursday because of our assembly.

June 24-27 – Math

This week, students will be finishing their math Play Day Projects. We’ll be sharing all completed projects with the phys-ed department. Students have been incredibly creative, and really used the ideas shared by their peers in other grades. In addition to creating their Play Day Rotation Model, students also need to finalize all of the math calculations this week, and share how they know that they’re correct. We’ll definitely be ending the school year with lots of productive math talk!

June 17-21 – Language

This week, students were out on Friday for our year end field trip, but from Monday-Thursday, they worked on their regular Genius Hour routine. They are completing their projects related to our TLCP and connected to their own reading, writing, and oral language goals. We conferenced with individual students during this time, and worked with guided groups as well. It’s great to see so many students addressing their goals, be it adding more details to their writing, including point of view in their completed projects, or editing their work before sharing it.

Then students continued working on their reading, writing, and media literacy Quest2Matter Project. Students are putting a lot of time into this project, and there are some incredible results. You can see lots of photographs and tweets about these projects on our Daily Shoot Blog. One of the groups of students in my (Aviva’s) room created a blog to raise awareness about acceptance. I shared their blog through Twitter, and these students have already received numerous comments and lots of praise about their work. Way to go!

Next week, students will finish these projects as well as their Genius Hour Project. It’s hard to believe it’s almost the last week of school!

June 17-21 – Math

This week, students were out on Friday for our year end field trip, but Monday-Thursday, they reviewed various math concepts. We spent lots of lots looking at multiplication and division, involving and not involving decimals. You can see numerous examples of student work on our Daily Shoot Blog.

Then we ended the week introducing our Play Day Challenge. Students are applying what they’ve learned throughout the year to complete this meaningful math challenge. They are very excited to finish working on this math project next week. Please check out many photographs of their work on our Daily Shoot Blog.

June 10-14 – Language

In Language this week, we continued with our Genius Hour routine. Students worked on their projects related to their own reading, writing, and oral language goals based on our current TLCP. Many students are finishing their final projects for the year. They are really working on adding more information to their work, considering numerous different points of view, and editing and revising their work before publishing it. We met with many different groups of students to see where they’re currently at and to offer them feedback for improvement.

We also started our Quest2Matter Global Project. Students are reading about global issues, reflecting on what they’re reading, making a plan to make a change, and creating a media text to highlight their plan. They’re working through the writing process and assisting each other to become even better writers. You can see some of their work on our Daily Shoot Storify Stories.

Next week, students will continue working on finishing their Genius Hour Projects and working through the Quest2Matter writing process component. We’re excited to share their final work with you.

June 10-14 – Math

In math this week, students finished their Math Community Projects. You can see much of their work in our Daily Shoot Storify Stories. Students also worked on creating repeating patterns by rotating various shapes and reflecting on the process.

We ended the week by spending more time looking at multiplication. Students are working on multiplying with decimals. They used based ten blocks to represent the multiplication question and work through the answer. Then they learned the traditional algorithm and explained how they solved each of the questions. You can see examples of their work here. It’s clear that students need to continue discussing what multiplication actually means. Their computation skills are improving, but the communication piece is so important. The Play Day Math Project that we’re going to introduce next week will help students work on developing these skills in a fun way as well. We can’t wait!

June 3 (PA Day)-7 – Language

Just like last week, most of this week was spent writing EQAO. Students also worked on their Genius Hour Projects. They are using our TLCP Success Criteria and their own goals to guide them as they complete their projects. Next week, we will be back to a regular Language routine. We are also starting a new project that incorporates reading, writing, and media literacy. We’ll share the project once we start it.

June 3 (PA Day)-7 – Math

Just like last week, most of this week was spent writing EQAO. Students also started a math project that incorporates expectations from many of the math strands. You can read about this project here. Next week, the students will be finishing this project before reviewing patterns (with rotations) and multiplication. We also have a special, free in-class field trip on Thursday, where students will be creating with 3-D figures. We can’t wait to learn with Geometro!

 

May 27-31 – Language

Most of this week was spent writing EQAO. Students also worked on their Genius Hour Projects this week. They are using our TLCP Success Criteria and their own goals to guide them as they complete their projects. Next week will be a very similar week as we finish EQAO.

May 27-31 – Math

Most of this week was spent writing EQAO. Students also reviewed surface area and volume with the use of our Chocolate Bar problem. Here are some photographs as students looked at different ways to use 36 cubes to create a package for their chocolate bar.

Chocolate bar packaging options (from math yesterday). twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 30, 2013

 

An interesting way to draw his chocolate bar package. twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 30, 2013

 

This group worked with @ajingrassia1, & they worked with numbers. twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 30, 2013

 

This group got into surface area & volume. twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 30, 2013

 

Exploring possible measurements. twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 30, 2013

 

Now the students are applying what they learned to create a community for a Grade 1 class. You can read more about our Community Project here. Students will be finishing this project next week.

May 20-24 – Language

With the long weekend, we had a shorter week this week. Since EQAO starts next week, we wanted to use our Language periods to continue to review the concepts that students are going to need for EQAO. We worked on reading comprehension passages, where students needed to use information from the text to support their answers. We also worked on generating more ideas for writing, and expanding on ideas with the use of concrete examples. Students even reflected on some of their own poetry writing from last week in this Lino Wall. Setting goals and looking at ways to meet these goals have helped students continue to improve their writing skills.

Students also use their individual goals to guide them during Genius Hour. This week, students continued to work on their Genius Hour Projects, and many students presented their finished projects today. You can see photographs and videos of the students working in groups, presenting their final work, and reflecting on their work on the Daily Shoot blog posts.

May 20-24 – Math

During this short week, we worked on multiplication and division in math. Through exploration, students learned the rules for multiplying and dividing by 10, 100, 1000,          10 000, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, and 0.0001. Here are some photographs of their conclusions:

We also spent some time this week reviewing the math concepts that have been taught throughout the year. Questions on previous EQAO tests can help students with this. You can even practice these questions at home by visiting the link here. Next week, we’ll continue to review math concepts previously taught this year, as students also begin writing EQAO.

May 13-17 – Language

In Language this week, we continued with our Genius Hour routine. Students are addressing their own reading, writing, and oral language goals in their new Genius Hour projects. We’re working with individual groups to offer feedback to the students throughout their project and to develop their reading comprehension skills based on texts related to what they’re learning.

Students also wrote their haikus for the Send Your Haiku To Mars Project. Working through the writing process, they generated ideas for their haikus, wrote a rough draft, revised their work, and wrote a good copy. You can see many of their examples in the Storify Stories on our Daily Shoot Blog and on our Grade 6 Blog. Early next week, the students will reflect on their writing and then continue to develop their skills through different reading comprehension and written language activities.

May 13-17 – Math

In math this week, we focused on probability. Students started to see the connections between fractions, ratios, percents, and probability.

Probability Anchor

After trying out some probability questions as a class, students then worked individually or in small groups to create a game based on one of the probability expectations. As they developed their game, they started thinking and talking about theoretical probability and experimental probability.

Here are some of their games:

Jersie & Taylor’s Probability Game. #probability6bd twitter.com/6band6d/status…

— Miss B & Miss D (@6band6d) May 15, 2013

 

Probability Game by Alley & Sophia twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 15, 2013

 

Probability Game by Alley & Sophia twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 15, 2013

 

Probability Game by Alley & Sophia twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) May 15, 2013

 

Next week, we’ll begin by learning about some rules for multiplication and division. Then we’ll be reviewing all of the math that the students have learned throughout the year. EQAO begins the week of May 27th.

Pencast On Percents

An email that I (Aviva) got from a student tonight inspired me to create this short pencast on percents. For students that are confused how to find the percent when the total is not out of 100, hopefully this pencast will help. Please let us know if you still have more questions about this.

Formula Review Page For Upcoming Formula Test On May 24th

We will be having a formula test on May 24th to review the key concepts and formulas that students need to know for EQAO. This will be a knowledge and understanding test that’s primarily multiple choice. Here’s the link to the handout for the test. There’s also a Livescribe Pencast below.

May 6-10 – Language

This week in Language, we continued with our Genius Hour routine. We worked a lot with small groups of students to continue developing their reading, writing, and oral language skills based on individual goals. Conferencing with small groups of students will be a big focus for next week as well.

Students also worked on completing their poems inspired by Commander Hadfield’s photographs. Many completed poems are shared on our class blog. Students also reflected on their work (based on our TLCP Success Criteria) and have set new goals for our next poetry activity.

My (Aviva’s) class also continued with our HAMILTON SPECTATOR’s Homegrown Sports Heroes activities, where students used evidence from newspaper articles to draw conclusions on various topics. These activities align with our current TLCP and allow students to practice their reading comprehension and written language skills. Student work is featured in our daily Storify Stories.

Continue reading and writing regularly at home. As a class, we’re really focusing on expanding ideas and adding more details to our written work. This is something that students can focus on at home as well, even when completing their Writing Wednesdays homework assignments.

May 6-10 – Math

In Math this week, we finished our unit on fractions and moved onto decimals, percents, and ratios. Students worked on showing their learning in different ways and communicating their thinking as well. Much of our math work is featured in our Daily Shoot Blog Posts.

As part of our Teapot Project for Social Studies, students also learned about determining the surface area of rectangular and triangular prisms. They learned about the importance of remembering the different area formulas that they’ve already learned this year. Multiplication and addition skills are also really important when it comes to surface area.

Next week, we’ll be focusing on probability (in math) and volume (in Social Studies). Students are also working on their multiplication and division skills as part of these different math units. Continue reviewing the basic multiplication and division facts at home (up to the 12 times table) if your child is having difficulty with them. Thanks!

May 7 – Fraction Review (Math)

April 29-May 3 – Language

For Language this week, we continued with our Genius Hour routine. Students are working hard at editing their work before finishing it. They’re also trying to look at new ways to incorporate point of view into their Genius Hour Projects, so that this literacy activity aligns with our TLCP. Many Genius Hour photographs and videos were shared on our Daily Shoot Blog.

My (Aviva’s) class also continued with our Homegrown Sports Heroes activities from The Hamilton Spectator. These reading comprehension and writing activities allowed the students to work on adding more ideas into their writing and proofreading their work before publishing it. Many of our completed activities are shared on the Daily Shoot Blog. We also shared a blog post of completed tweets on our class blog.

Students this week also began a poetry activity that links poetry, The Arts, and Science. Students are working alone or in small groups to research a form of poetry and then write a poem that aligns with one of Commander Hadfield’s photographs. Students are going to tweet their completed poems to Commander Hadfield, and we’re all hoping for a reply. They have been using this poetry writing activity as a way to express themselves through The Arts as well as to improve their writing skills as they work their way through the writing process. You can read more about this activity here. Here are some photographs and videos showcasing some of the poems.

Poem written by two students inspired by @cmdr_hadfield‘s images. twitter.com/6band6d/status…

— Miss B & Miss D (@6band6d) May 3, 2013

 

Inspired by a photo by @cmdr_hadfield. Bringing out some awesome poetry! twitter.com/6band6d/status…

— Miss B & Miss D (@6band6d) May 3, 2013

 

Read some poems together at home. Look at how the author expresses him/herself through his/her word choice and voice. Try writing in the same form as some of these poets.

April 29-May 3 – Math

In math this week, we continued learning about fractions. This week, we focused on comparing and ordering fractions. Here’s an anchor chart to help students with this concept.

Comparing and Ordering Mixed Numbers and Fractions Anchor Chart

We also made this anchor chart on finding common denominators that will help students as they work through the process.

Next week, the students will be completing an “exit card” in class that allows them to show us what they know on this fractions unit. They will also be re-doing the multiplication chart that they did two weeks ago and reflecting on their growth. Remember to review the multiplication facts at home.

We will then move onto ratios and percents. This is a very short math unit, and will be followed by another very short one on probability. Through Social Studies, we’ll also continue working on 3-D figures, nets, and isometric drawings. Our Teapot Project addressed many of these expectations. Then we’ll end May working on multiplication and division as well as reviewing the math units taught throughout the year. Students need to know all of these units for EQAO.

April 22-26 – Language

In Language this week, we continued with our Genius Hour routine for literacy centres and guided reading. Students really thought about their next steps and looked at ways to “bump up” their work. They got peer feedback on their projects throughout the process, and made changes accordingly. They also worked in small groups with us to discuss the texts that they were reading and draw conclusions based on the information in the texts. All of these activities align with our current TLCP.

Students in my (Aviva’s) class also continued with The Hamilton Spectator’s Homegrown Sports Heroes program. Twice a week, students responded to different articles that they read in the newspaper. They really focused on editing their work before posting it and using specific information either from the text or from additional research to support their ideas. Writing examples are published in some of our Storify Stories found on our Daily Shoot Blog.

This week, students also started learning about poetry. They began the week with “speed poetry,” where they really had to focus on sentence structure and word choice. Then we started analysing different examples of poetry, many of which were on previous Grade 6 EQAO tests. Today, students worked in groups to analyse their own poems based on word choice, sentence structure, beat/rhythm, and alliterations. You can see examples of the group work in our Storify Story from today.

Next week, students will continue studying poetry, as they look at different forms of poetry and how poetry and The Arts can intersect. They’re going to be creating their own poems based on photographs shared by Commander Hadfield as he explores space. Students are going to tweet their completed work to Commander Hadfield. We’re very excited about integrating Science and The Arts. We’ll share the assignment on the website after we introduce it on Monday.

You may wish to read poems together at home, and even try writing some poems as well. Try experimenting with word choice, voice, and sentence structure while writing together. Have fun with poetry!

April 22-26 – Math

In math this week, we started fractions. Students learned about creating equivalent fractions as well as converting mixed numbers to improper fractions (and vice versa). Both anchor charts are available here. Hopefully these will help support your child at home.

Finding Equivalent Fractions Anchor Chart

Greater Than A Whole Anchor Chart

You can also see some videos and photographs of our math learning on our our Daily Shoot Blog this week.

Next week, we’re going to review these two concepts, and also teach students about comparing and ordering fractions. Students realized today how much they need to know multiplication, mental math skills, and division to work well with fractions. Please continue to review these concepts at home. There are website links here that will help. Thanks!

April 19th – Math Test

Here are photographs of Level 4 answers from the math test on April 19th. We’ll be returning the test this week, and we wanted the students to see some examples of answers that were not only correct, but had detailed explanations as well. Communication is so important in math. If you have any questions about this, please just let us know (Aviva and Gina). – Geometry Unit Test Level 4 Answers

April 15-19 – Language

In Language this week, students continued working on their Genius Hour routine. Many students reflected on previous projects and realized that they needed to incorporate points of view. This time around, they’re finding unique ways to consider different points of view on the same topic, and even discuss the missing points of view.

The students in my (Aviva’s) class are also continuing The Hamilton Spectator’s Homegrown Sports Heroes Program. As the students complete the different reading comprehension and writing activities twice a week, they’re also reflecting on the Success Criteria that align with these activities. This is helping create a greater purpose for them for their learning.

This week, students also continued their What Can You See? Books. Not only were students creating media texts for various audiences, but they were also exploring various points of view. You can see many of the published books on our class blog. Next week, we’re going to start looking at point of view in a new way, as we start exploring poetry.

April 15-19 – Math

In math this week, we finished our unit on geometry, and students even wrote their Geometry Test today. After the tests are marked, we’ll share some Level 4 examples with you here (without any student names).

Students also started learning about 3-D figures this week. They not only created different prisms, but drew the various views on grid paper and drew the sketches of the figures on triangular dot paper. Students shared their learning with the world through our class Twitter hashtag, and you can see archives of these tweets on our Daily Shoot blog.

The rest of this math unit overlaps with what the students are doing in Social Studies as they create boxes for our Teapot Project. We’ve then decided to continue this math learning through an integrated approach with Social Studies. During math time next week then, students will begin a new unit on fractions.

April 8-12 – Language

In Language this week, we continued with our Genius Hour routine. Students continue to use the Success Criteria to guide their research and their final products. They’re also reflecting on their work, looking at strengths and next steps, and setting new goals for Language.

My (Aviva’s) class also started The Hamilton Spectator’s Homegrown Sports Heroes Program. You can read about some of what we did here. This program is really allowing the students to practice their reading comprehension and written language skills.

Students also completed their Story Art Projects, which aligns with our current TLCP. They reflected on their work, and again, set new goals for our upcoming project.

We just started our latest project: the What Can You See? Books that students will continue to work on this week. Talk to your child about how he/she plans to use point of view in his/her book.

April 8-12 – Math

In Math this week, we completed our Geometry Unit that will be assessed on the upcoming test (on April 19th). This week, students learned about congruent figures and similar figures. Below are the anchor charts that help explain these two concepts.

Anchor Chart for Congruent and Similar Figures

Please note that we will be posting a further review for the test under this link. Students are encouraged to use this additional review to prepare for the 19th. We will both be in the library from Monday to Thursday this week (during the first nutrition break) to help any students that have questions about Friday’s test. All students are encouraged to come to these review sessions. We have also set-up a Today’sMeet Room where students or parents can ask questions about the Geometry Unit and about the information included on the test. We will email you out the details for the Today’sMeet Room.

April 1 (Easter Monday)-5 – Language

In Language this week, we continued with our Genius Hour Projects. Some students are now finishing their second project, and they’re reflecting on what they did to meet their next steps (based on the Success Criteria) from their first project. Then they’re setting new goals for a new project. It’s great to see the students really taking control of their learning!

We also continued focusing on point of view. This week, we started our Story Art Project.

Story Art Project

Students were put into groups, and each group read a different short story from Nelson Literacy. Then students created a point of view organizer, highlighting what different characters thought, how they felt, and if people would want to become these characters in real life (and why). Students used evidence from the text and their own ideas to support their answers. Here’s an example of one of the completed organizers:

Students then developed a plan on how to share at least one point of view using at least one of The Arts (i.e., Drama, Dance, Music, and/or Visual Arts). Next week, the students will create their artistic piece, and then reflect on what they did, how they met their goals, and what new goals they want to create. We’ll also begin our We Can See books for our participation in a special global project (related to point of view). Look for more information on this project next weekend!

April 1 (Easter Monday)-5 – Math

This week in Math, we continued working on reflections and rotations. Students learned how to tell if a figure has rotational symmetry, as well as the order of rotational symmetry.

Students then applied what they learned by working individually or with a partner to create a logo that had line symmetry and rotational symmetry. Early next week, we’re going to share all of the logos with you and have a vote for your favourite logos. The winning logos will become the lock screens on different sets of iPads. Students are excited to share their logos for this meaningful activity!

March 25-29 (Good Friday Holiday) – Language

This week in Language, we continued focusing on our TLCP on point of view. Students created point of view organizers that looked at a single question from multiple points of view. They not only had to express the viewpoints of the characters, but they needed to link their ideas to specific evidence from the text. This was a great way to also get us back to our read aloud books (Divergent for Aviva’s class and Variant for Gina’s class), but with a specific purpose in mind.

Thanks to a number of tweets from our curriculum consultant, Kristi Bishop, and our Arts Consultant, Karen Wilkins, we also took this activity one step further by having students share these points of view in a Hot Seat Radio Show. Below is a recording of the show. I (Aviva) also wrote a blog post about this radio show, and then when we were planning Language for next week, we used the reflections from this blog post to help us with our plans.

Students also continued their Genius Hour Projects, where they addressed the Success Criteria for our current TLCP. For our Daily Shoot, you’ll often see photographs and/or videos where students show how they’re meeting the Success Criteria, and what they’re doing to ensure that they use their reflections, my feedback, and peer feedback to set new goals and continue to improve. Talk to your child about his/her individual goals, and look at ways that you can address these goals at home. Ideas may include reading, writing, and discussing different points of view, adding more details to written works, editing work for spelling and punctuation errors, making reference to specific evidence from the text to support different viewpoints, re-looking at word choice and sentence fluency in writing, and writing using various forms.

March 25-29 (Good Friday Holiday) – Math

This week in Math, we continued our unit on geometry. Students started by working together to create anchor charts for the different terms in this unit. We then used their ideas to create a grade anchor chart. Allowing the students to explore the terms in small groups, really helped them “play” with the topics and gain a better understanding of what’s being discussed. Here’s a copy of the anchor chart that we’ll continue to refer to throughout this unit. All students received a copy of this anchor chart to accompany their individual ones.

Anchor Chart for Transformations

As the week progressed, we focused on reflections (flips) and translations (slides). While most students were more comfortable with the translations, many students were initially confusion reflections and rotations (turns). The use of miras really helped the students see the difference. When they looked through the miras, they could see the reflections, and they understood how objects reflected across horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines. Please note that students can, and are encouraged, to use miras for all in-class work, tests, quizzes, and EQAO.  If you have any questions about this, please let us know.

Next week, we’ll continue review reflections and translations, but we’ll also introduce rotations. We have a fun, hands-on, in-class Math Art activity that we think will help students truly understand and apply what they’ve learned in this unit. We’ll be introducing this activity on Wednesday, so please talk to your child about it. We can’t wait to see what the students create!

Looking ahead, we will be moving onto fractions soon, and as part of this unit, we’ll be introducing multiplication and division. Students really need to know the facts. If your child struggles with them, you’ll find links to many multiplication and division games on our Favourite Links Page on the website. Please spend 10-15 minutes a night reviewing the facts. This will really aid with your child’s success in our upcoming math units.

March 18 – 22 – Language

In Language this week, students continued working on their Genius Hour Projects. They used their research to create their media texts, and then we sat down together to edit their work and look at ways to improve it and meet their independent goals. Some students presented their completed media text to the class, and then used teacher and peer feedback to reflect on their projects and set new goals for their next ones. A few students have begun a new Genius Hour Project. This reading and writing activity has given the class a great opportunity to really focus on our current Success Criteria for this TLCP, while also working independently on topics that interest them.

Students also reviewed the APE format for paragraph writing (Answer, Proof, and Extension), and used this format for different writing activities. This week, they worked on an EQAO Written Response Question where they had to pretend it was the 16th century and write a letter home detailing their adventures as they sailed off to find new land. To help students realize the importance of using evidence in their writing, we let them research about the 16th century, and then organize their ideas and expand on them in a letter. We used a checklist of the TLCP Success Criteria to give students quick feedback throughout the writing process, and then students used this feedback to edit their work. We’ll continue this approach for future writing activities.

Please continue to have your child read and write on a nightly basis at home. The more opportunities they have to practice these literacy skills, the better they will become at them. Thank you for your help with this!

March 18 – 22 – Math

In Math this week, students finished their GeoArt Projects that they started before the holiday. We had a GeoArt Sharing Day where groups shared what they created and offered feedback to each other based on the rubric. Some students tweeted positive feedback, and we captured their comments here.

Students also learned about the Cartesian Plane, and that there are four quadrants, but that we will only be learning about the first one this year. They then created their own Battle Shape Boards, and applied what they learned about coordinates by playing Battle Shape with peers. This was a great review of the X and Y axis.

Then we used an activity designed by our math facilitator to introduce the students to flips, slides, and turns. They had to move a gym mat from one end of a grid to the other end of a grid. Students experimented with different ways to do so, and then recorded their thinking in various ways. Throughout the process, they realized that using a coordinate grid helps ensure that instructions are interpreted the same way. Next week, we’ll explore this topic further as we look more at rotations, transformations, and translations.

March 4 – 8 – Language

Students continued with their Genius Hour Projects this week. Many students have moved beyond the research now, and they’re creating their media texts. They’re constantly referring to the Success Criteria and expectations to ensure that they do everything that’s required. Some students that finished their first project, presented it to the class, and then student feedback and their own ideas to reflect on their work. They completed a reflection form that they’re using to help guide them during their next project. You can see part of the reflection form here.

After our discussion with Mr. Clemens last week and the ideas generated through the comments in this blog post, we used our writing time this week to create some student-generated anchor charts. Students not only worked on “bumping up” their graphic organizers and written responses, but looking deeply at what is required for the writing process. This activity also allowed the students to focus on the Success Criteria for our current TLCP. You can see photographs of some of our anchor charts here.

Over the March Break, we’re going to work on adding this information to a glog that can then be linked to the website for students to easily access from home. Talk to your child about our current TLCP and the anchor charts that they use in class. How are they helpful? How could they use them at home?

March 4 – 8 – Math

In math this week, we continue to review angles and quadrilaterals. Students are working individually or in groups to share their knowledge of these math topics by completing this GeoArt Assignment. Here’s a sneak peek at one group’s assignment. There is also a reflection component to this activity that students will be completing when we get back from March Break. You can use the math criteria for this GeoArt Assignment as a guide to review angles and quadrilaterals with your child over the break. Have a great March Break!

February 25 – March 1 – Language

In Language this week, students continued to work on their Genius Hour projects. They spent time accessing sources, identifying main ideas, sharing their ideas in writing, and then applying what they learned as they created their media texts for an audience of their choice. Not only are students incredibly engaged as they explore topics that they’re passionate about, but they’re also continuing to do more reading and writing in the process. Students continue to develop their reading comprehension skills as they analyse the texts that they read and the movies that they listen to and watch.

We’re also beginning our newest TLCP, and this week students used work samples to help assemble our Bump It Up Wall. They found an example of a Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 reading response, and then generated suggestions to bump up the work. Later on in the week, my (Aviva’s) class created our additional Success Criteria for point of view. Here’s a video detailing the process. (Please note that as I was creating some Success Criteria checklists last night, I realized that I needed to make a couple of small changes to the Success Criteria to make it more grammatically correct. Sorry! I wish I had reflected on this at the time. I will go through this with the class next week.)

As we update our TLCP Board next week and begin adding anchor charts (please see this blog post and this week’s Planning Minutes about anchor charts), we’re going to create a glog as an electronic copy of this TLCP Board. Then students can access the TLCP Board no matter where they work. This idea was also generated as we planned today. Please check back after the March Break for this electronic TLCP Board!

February 25 – March 1 – Math

In Math this week, the students continued learning how to measure angles, and then they learned how to draw various types of triangles. Many students continued to use the manipulatives (i.e., tanagrams, string, playdough, and geoboards) to help them create these triangles before transferring them to paper. This is a great strategy, and we encourage students to do this even in a testing situation. They are even allowed these tools on EQAO. You can see many examples of their math work on our Daily Shoot Blog.

At the end of the week, students also learned about quadrilaterals. Before teaching them the various types of quadrilaterals, students used different tools (i.e., string, playdough, geoboards, whiteboards, chalkboards, and grid paper) to create their own quadrilaterals and explore the properties. Then we created this anchor chart together.

 

Next week, students will apply what they’ve learned about triangles and quadrilaterals by completing a special GeoArt Assignment. We’ll post the assignment on the website next week. Please note that this is an in-class assignment for the week.

February 18 (Family Day) – 22 – Language

In Language this week, we made a change to our literacy centre routine. We noticed that the students would really benefit from some more time writing and some more time responding to the texts that they read. As a result, we decided to move from literacy centres to Genius Hour. You can find out more about Genius Hour here. Looking at the needs of our students, we chose to add more structure to this Genius Hour routine, and create a planning template and instruction page to guide the students throughout the process.

My (Aviva’s) students, started their Genius Hour Projects this week. Students have been researching different topics, exploring the main ideas, writing about what they’ve learned, and even beginning to create their media texts. I’ve worked with individual students and small groups, and focused on topics such as, reading and understanding the text, making connections to the information in the text, writing using various forms, and exploring voice, word choice, and conventions in writing. Next week, students will continue to work on their projects, as I continue to work with them.

Gina’s students finished their Variant writing activity this week during literacy centres. They worked their way through the writing process, and Gina conferenced with individual students and groups of students as they wrote their drafts and edited their work. Her class will begin Genius Hour next week.

For modelled reading and independent writing, students continued to listen to our read aloud texts. They wrote about inferences and connections to the books, continuing to link their own ideas with specific information from the text.

My (Aviva’s) students also wrote their diagnostic assessment for our next TLCP (Teaching Learning Critical Pathways) on reading for meaning and point of view. Early next week, Gina’s students will write this diagnostic assessment as well. Then the students will work with us to create the Success Criteria for this new TLCP. We’re also going to look at a Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 piece of work, and students will use the Success Criteria to help “bump up” this work. We are all very excited to begin our next TLCP!

February 18 (Family Day) – 22 – Math

In math this week, we began our unit on geometry. Students started by constructing different types of triangles (obtuse, acute, right-angle, scalene, isosceles, and equilateral), and then labelling and sorting the triangles. They learned about the properties of these different triangles, and applied what they learned as they made their own triangles. You can see many photographs, videos, and tweets of student learning in math on our Daily Shoot Blog.

Next week, students will continue to work with the protractor as they measure angles, and make triangles with different given angles. Towards the end of next week, they’ll also begin creating and sorting quadrilaterals. We’re very excited to integrate math and the Arts next week, and you can read more about our plan here.

February 14th – Math Quiz

Here are photographs of Level 4 answers from the math quiz on February 14th. We’ll be returning the quiz this week, and we wanted the students to see some examples of answers that were not only correct, but had detailed explanations as well. Communication is so important in math. If you have any questions about this, please just let us know (Aviva and Gina). – Math Quiz On Measurement Level 4 Answers

February 11th-15th (PA Day) – Language

With the Snow Day at the end of last week, our Thinking Thursdays reflection was changed until Monday, and our Talking Tuesdays reflection was on Wednesday morning. Then we had our Math Quiz on Thursday morning, so our regular literacy centre routine was switched around a lot this week. We spoke about this today as we did some of our planning for next week, and we’ve made some changes to address needs of students, curriculum expectations, and timing constraints. Check here on February 16th to read our Planning Minutes for next week, and find out more about our changes to our literacy centre routine.

We did continue with literacy centres this week. Students worked in small groups and individually to practice their reading, writing, and reading comprehension skills. We also worked with guided reading groups to help students make connections to the text, and use their own ideas and information in the text to help them support their ideas.

For modelled reading, shared writing, and independent writing, students continued to work on the writing assignment where they reflected on what it would be like to live as a citizen in one of the communities in Divergent or Variant. We both noticed how many of the students used specific examples from the book as well as their own ideas in their writing. Next week, we’ll finish this writing activity: having the remaining students edit and revise their work. We’re then moving onto our next TLCP, which is linked to point of view.

February 11th-15th (PA Day) – Math

We started this week reviewing area and perimeter of a triangle, rectangle, square, and parallelogram. Students reviewed calculating the area using the different formulas, and applying what they knew as they answered different problem solving questions. You can see many examples of the questions here, and even listen to our Math Quiz Review Radio Show. On Thursday, students wrote the quiz on area and perimeter. Next week, we’ll begin a new unit on geometry. Please note that math quizzes will be handed back early next week, and we’ll post examples of Level 4 answers here.

February 4th-8th (Snow Day) – Language

We’ve had quite the weather recently, and with the Snow Day today (the 8th), some of our language activities for this week will be moved to next week. This week, students read Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Musician, and started answering the multiple choice and short answer questions about this text. Many students are getting better at looking back in the text to find specific examples to support their answers. We’re continuing to work on this during guided reading activities as well as modelled reading lessons.

For modelled reading and independent writing this week, students were given an assignment that links to our current TLCP (Teaching Learning Critical Pathways): divergent or variant writing activity They needed to write about what it would be like to live as a citizen in one of these communities. They key part of this activity was that they had to use their own ideas as well as evidence from the text. While students worked themselves through the writing process (i.e., ideas, draft, feedback, revise, and publish), we also did full class and small group mini-lessons to support the students in their writing.

Many of the students in my (Aviva’s) class were at the editing stage yesterday, and before students edited their own work and edited a peer’s work, I wanted them to work together to highlight errors in writing pieces. I took some work already completed by students, made some changes to it to produce more errors, and added all of the files to GoogleDocs. Students worked with partners and used the commenting feature on GoogleDocs to indicate the errors that they noticed. Here’s an example of one of the written pieces we used. After students got to work with the various examples, we created an anchor chart together to help with self and peer editing. These ideas can be used in addition to the ones in our editing checklist. Students can also use this anchor chart when editing their writing at home.

Next week, the students will finish this writing activity, and we will soon begin our final task for this TLCP.

February 4th-8th (Snow Day) – Math

In math this week, the students worked on finishing their Math Art Activity from last week. My (Aviva’s) students have posted all of their completed projects on the Grade 6 Blog. Gina’s students will post theirs next week. Students always appreciate comments on their work, so please feel free to look at their completed projects and add a comment. Thank you for doing this! I’ll be sending home a rubric with their mark next week.

We also continued our unit on area and perimeter, as we learned about how to figure out the area of a triangle. Below is a video, a screencast, and a Livescribe pencast that reviews area and perimeter and would be helpful as students study for next week’s math quiz.

We’re also going to host a Math Radio Show next Tuesday where students can demonstrate their understanding of perimeter and area as they communicate their thinking in a variety of ways. Marian Small, an expert in math, replied back to my (Aviva’s) comment on her math blog post, and her response has even inspired some of our review questions for this radio show. We can’t wait!

January 28th (Snow Day)-February 1st – Language

With the PA Day last Friday and the Snow Day on Monday, our morning literacy routine was slightly modified this week. Tuesday ended up being our day for the Thinking Thursdays discussion, and Wednesday was our day for Talking Tuesdays. Students worked on their Museum Day Projects on Thursday and Friday morning. These projects met various reading and writing expectations, as students researched different topics, interpreted what they learned, wrote down their notes, and applied their learning in the creation of a media text and artefact. We will be back to our regular literacy centre routine next week.

We still spent time this week working with guided reading groups on summarizing texts, making inferences, and making connections. Students focused on linking the information from the text with their own ideas, as they responded to different books and articles. Next week, we will start a writing assignment that allows students to independently apply what they learning during guided reading as they respond to our read aloud book.

Please remember that the Monday-Thursday homework assignments reinforce the literacy skills taught in class. Regular homework completion is important and align with many of the Learning Skills.

January 28th (Snow Day)-February 1st – Math

In math this week, students learned about how to determine the area of a parallelogram.

They then applied what they have already learned about area and perimeter, as they worked on this Math Art Assignment: Math ArtProject Expectations Students will finish off this project in class early next week.

As we approach the upcoming math quiz (on February 14th) here are a few things to consider:

• students will learn about how to determine the area of a triangle this week.
• the focus of the quiz will not be on conversions. Students need to know the best units to measure different places and items (e.g., the best unit to measure a classroom is in metres, but the best unit to measure an iPad is in centimetres).
• the textbook has lots of information that now no longer aligns with the curriculum expectations. We tried to highlight the key questions in the textbook in our Math Quiz Success Criteria – Measurement Math Success Criteria – but there may be some questions that are on the right topic (e.g., determining the area of a parallelogram), but now no longer apply (e.g., the need to convert units to figure out the answer). If you are not sure about specific questions, please just ask. We have been reviewing this information in class as well.
• it’s always a good idea to study a little bit each night. Regular review of math concepts is so important! We’re always available during at least one of the nutrition breaks (usually both) to help students with math. If your child has questions, please encourage him/her to ask us, and we will definitely offer the additional support.

January 21st-25th (PA Day) – Language

In language this week, we continued with our literacy centre routine. We had students look at previous Level 2 and Level 3 EQAO Reading Comprehension answers, and use the feedback to bump up the work. Starting this week, we showed the activity exemplar from the EQAO website, and we had students compare their answers with the ones on the website. Students then self-assessed their work, and made more changes to it. This was a new routine, and it took time to get students to critically look at their own work, but we will continue practising this in the coming weeks.

For modelled reading this week, we continued to read Divergent (in Aviva’s class) and Variant (in Gina’s class). Students reflected on what they heard. They worked on making connections and inferences, and using the information from the text to support their answers. We coupled oral discussions with written responses to help ensure that all students understood what was happening in the book and what this information actually meant.

This week, we also did a special media literacy and writing activity connected to Family Literacy Day (officially on Sunday, January 27th). Students worked individually or in groups to write a children’s story or fairy tale for a Kindergarten-Grade 3 audience. They could choose to share their story on our 105 the Hive Radio Show or in writing. Here are the details of the assignment: storytelling media project You can also listen to a recording of our radio show here:

Videos taken during the radio show are available on our Daily Shoot blog. Talk to your child about his/her children’s story, and try writing another one at home together. This is a great way to work on developing ideas, experimenting with voice and word choice, and using conventions appropriately.

January 21st-25th (PA Day) – Math

In math this week, we continued to work on perimeter and area. Students applied what they learned during our Duct Tape Challenge, when they had to design a landing plane that had an area of 500 centimetres squared. Students had to explain the different dimension options, and which one they would choose and why. This was a fun math extension for our special science activity.

This activity also had students examining the difference between 100 centimetres squared and 1 metre squared. Many students are really struggling with understanding the difference. As explained in class, to get an area of 1 metre squared, you had to multiple the length and the width, which would be 1 m by 1 m. Converting after multiplication is difficult though, so it’s better to convert first. This means that you would be multiplying 100 cm by 100 cm, which is actually an area of 10,000 centimetres squared. This is a problem that you may want to look at again at home together.

Next week, students will learn how to determine the area of a parallelogram. Then they will apply what they’ve learned through a special in-class Math Art Project. More information about this project (including the rubric used for evaluation) will be available on the website next weekend. You can also talk to your child about this project, which he/she will begin in class on Wednesday.

January 14th-18th – Language

In language this week, we continued with our literacy centre routine. We noticed though that many students are struggling with knowing what a Level 3 or a Level 4 answer might look like. While they attempt to apply our descriptive feedback to bump up their work, this is not done consistently, and they’re struggling with implementing these suggestions without us suggesting them again. We decided then to use the EQAO Sample Answers to help with this. We used a Level 2 and a Level 3 answer from the two short answer questions in last week’s The Green Detective. Even without seeing the marker’s feedback, students immediately identified the issues in the sample answers. Then they worked in small groups (on the first day) and independently (after that) to bump up these answers to the next level. As a class, we took some time to discuss their work, and assess these new answers. This approach definitely seems to be helping students understand how to answer these reading comprehension questions.

We also continued with our modelled reading. Gina’s class started reading, Variant, while Aviva’s class continued reading, Divergent. Students used the Commons, Today’sMeet, and Twitter to share their thoughts throughout the reading, and then we stopped to discuss important topics as a class. This oral component helped those students that were struggling with reflecting on the text. We will continue with our read alouds next week. We also have a special Family Literacy Day Language Activity planned for Thursday afternoon (the 24th). We will share more information about this soon!

January 14th-18th – Math

This week, we continued to review perimeter of a parallelogram, and then we moved onto calculating area of a rectangle and square. While many students already knew the formula (length times width), they found it more difficult to apply this formula when given a perimeter and being asked to find all possible areas and/or when given an area and being asked to find all possible perimeters. This is something that you can review at home if you want.

Here’s a video of one of the students in my (Aviva’s class) discussing her solution to an area and perimeter problem. It was during this reflect and connect that students realized the importance of sharing all of their thinking in their written responses. Pairing oral explanations with written answers helped students see what they were missing.

This week, we definitely noticed that many students are struggling with their multiplication and division facts. They really need to know these facts. There are some great website links under Favourite Links that can be used at home to help students practice these facts. If you want more suggestions, please let us know. Next week, we will continue to work on area, as students learn how to figure out the area of a triangle and a parallelogram.

January 7th-11th – Language

In language this week, we continued with our literacy centre routine. Students read The Green Detective, and answered the multiple choice and short answer questions. We continue to have the students highlight the information in the text that helps prove their answer. For the short answer questions, students are encouraged to share their big idea, and then use proof from the text to support their thoughts. Some students are struggling with this, and we’re supporting them in developing these skills during guided reading. While planning together, we discussed how most of the students are struggling with bumping up their work to the next level. For next week, we’re going to give the students an example of a Level 2 answer, and have them bump up this answer to a Level 3. We’re going to do the same thing in bumping up Level 3 answers to Level 4’s. We’ll model this in class, bump up some answers together, and then support students as they work individually and in small groups. Hopefully this approach will help the students improve on these short answer reading response questions.

For modelled reading, shared writing, and independent writing, the students listened to and responded to a story in class. Aviva is reading Divergent and Gina is reading Tunnels of Treachery (but will be moving onto a new book next week). Through both their written responses and oral discussions, we’re noticing that the students are thinking more deeply about what they’re reading. They’re connecting to the text, and they’re questioning what they’re reading. In class, we’ve been using the Commons, Today’sMeet, Twitter, and Edmodo to have students constantly reflect on what they’re hearing and reading.

When your child reads at home, make sure that you add in this time for reflection. Students can write down questions and comments before, during, and after reading. Even talking to your child about what he/she is reading is a great way to develop reading comprehension and oral language skills. If your child is a more reluctant reader, try reading a magazine, comic book, or newspaper article. These options can be great for discussions, and the different form might entice your child as well.

January 7th-11th – Math

In math this week, we started our unit on measurement. Students began to learn about perimeter. They looked at how to determine the perimeter of regular and irregular shapes. Towards the end of the week, we looked at how to determine the perimeter of a parallelogram. While many students know how to add up the lengths of all of the sides, this year, they learn the formula that P = (l + w) X 2 or P = 2 X l + 2 X w. We want students to understand this formula, so we’re having them work through why they get the same results for the perimeter of a parallelogram when using any of these formulas:

P = l + l + l + l

P = (l + w) X 2

P = 2 X l + 2 X w

On Friday, the students that were at school participated in an egg drop challenge, and they had to create a base for their contraption that had a perimeter of exactly 100 centimetres. This was a great way for them to apply what they learned in class throughout the week. Here’s a Storify Story that includes photographs, videos, and comments from this math and science activity.

Next week, we’ll continue with our unit on measurement, and students will learn about area. Then they’ll need to make the connection between perimeter and area. You can review these concepts at home with your children by determining the perimeter and area of different two-dimensional objects. Next week, we’ll review the formula for the area of a rectangle (A = l X w), so this is a good formula to review at home as well. Thanks for your help with this!

December 10th-14th and December 17th-21st – Language and Math

Thanks for your understanding during the couple of weeks that we did not update these sections of the website. We will be updating them again come the new year. Happy New Year everyone! We look forward to seeing you back at school on January 7th!

December 3rd-7th – Language

In language this week, we started our new, updated literacy centre routine. Last week when we were planning, we discussed the fact that some students are choosing word work games too often, and are not spending enough time reading and writing. We want to give students choice in their centres, but we also want to ensure that students get the most out of this practice time. This week, we had students relook at the centre activities they designed back in September, and update them by removing the games and creating more higher-level, purposeful practice activities. The results have been great! Students spent way more time this week read, writing, and thinking about what they’re reading and writing. Then on Friday, we had a special Word Work time, where students got to play these games. We sat down with groups of students though to work on spelling, grammar, or punctuation problems that we have observed in class. This additional support though is tailored towards the needs of individual students and is in addition to guided reading. We love that this new approach gives us even more small group support time, and has the students doing even more when they’re working on their own or in small groups.

We also spent a lot of time this week working on a very special media literacy project. We decided to enter the Mindshare Learning Video Challenge on Canada’s 21st Century Classroom. Both classes of students have loved this activity! They did a wonderful job of watching Heidi Siwak’s winning video from last year, analysing why it won, and using this as a mentor text to help plan our video entry. Students brainstormed ideas of what makes our classrooms, 21st century classrooms. They also used our Media Literacy and TLCP Success Criteria to create a checklist that we can use when planning and recording this video. We’ve now started narrowing down our ideas, and next week, we’ll be working in small groups to plan our individual parts. Then it will be time to record. It’s great how the students have really taken ownership over this project!

We ended the week with our Thinking Thursdays Radio Show. Many big topics were discussed this week, including the importance of “never giving up,” and the need for “boys literacy.” It was great to hear student perspectives. You can hear our radio show, and even see a video clip from it, on this blog post. I think that we all got excited when we saw this tweet today:

What a perfect way to end the week!

December 3rd-7th – Math

In math, we focused on mean, median, and mode. Students learned the definitions of all three, and then applied what they learned during various problem solving activities.

Here are the definitions that the students received at school:

This pencast sums up this topic well, and it may help students that are still struggling with it:

One thing that we noticed is that many students understand what to do, but are making errors in their calculations. Students can use a calculator for this unit, but they need to know if their answer on the calculator makes sense. Talking to your child about the reasonableness of his/her answer is a great thing to do at home. Even get your child to predict what he/she thinks the answer might be, and then do the math, and compare the results. Do the actual results make sense? Why or why not?

While we’ll continue to review mean, median, and mode in class, we’re also going to learn about broken line graphs and stem and leaf plots next week.

November 30th – Math Quiz

Here are photographs of Level 4 answers from the math quiz on November 30th. We’ll be returning the quiz this week, and we wanted the students to see some examples of answers that were not only correct, but had detailed explanations as well. Communication is so important in math. If you have any questions about this, please just let us know (Aviva and Gina). – answers for number patterns quiz

November 26th-30th – Language

In Language, we continued our literacy centre routine. This week, students read the story, Funny Money. Again, we had the students highlight the information from the text that supports their answer. We also had them reflect on the feedback we have given them before, and use our suggestions when answering the current short answer questions.

For guided reading this week, we continued with last week’s activity, and we showed the students how to take their sticky notes and add in an introductory and concluding sentence. Students then had to reword their points to link each of the points together, and create a summary that was informative and easy to read. Some students will be finishing this activity next week.

To link with Wednesday’s assembly on Free the Children, we had the students read an article in Nelson Literacy about young children that have made a difference. Students summarized this article using the format in this activity plan:

You can see the students working on this activity in the following video:

Students also conferenced with us on their writing throughout the writing process. Here’s a video of one of these conferences:

Next week, the students will be working in groups to create media texts to show a way that they can make a difference. They will be considering their purpose and audience when creating these texts. We can’t wait to see what they make!

We also continued reading Tunnels of Treachery this week. Students used Edmodo, our group on the Commons, and Today’sMeet to share what they learned in the book, ask questions about the book, and make predictions about upcoming chapters. Students also researched the head tax and indentured servants to learn more about the subject of this novel: helping them connect to the events in this novel. Students may wish to do more research on this topic at home, and even share their learning through a blog post or journal entry. What a great way to continue working on summarizing skills, while also making connections and exploring the deeper meaning of the text!

November 26th-30th – Math

In math, we focused on data management (graphing). Students learned how to create different types of graphs, decide on the best type of graph for the given topic, and interpret the information on a graph. It’s really important that students can make comparisons between the data, and infer why there may be these results. You can continue to reinforce these skills at home by going to Google Images, searching for “graphs of ________” (fill in the blank with a topic of your choice), and discussing the results. Students can also talk about the different types of graphs, and why these graphing choices are good or bad ones for this type of data. Students can always record an audio discussion or video discussion on the graphs they find, and bring in their recordings to share with the class. This could result in some great small group class discussions as well!

This week, we also had our math quiz on number patterns and solving equations. Students that were away today can write the quiz on Monday. We’ll be returning the quizzes early next week, and we’ll post some Level 4 answers here so that students can see what information needs to be included in their answers. If you have any questions about this, please let us know.

November 19th-23rd – Language

In Language, we continued with our literacy centre routine. This week, students read the story, Canadian Pump Brings Water To The World. Again, we had the students highlight the information from the text that supports their answer. We also had them look back at the feedback that we’ve given them in previous weeks, and ensure that they are not making the same mistakes each week.

Based on the results from the written part of the DRA (reading assessment) as well as what we’re seeing in the classroom, we also ran various guided reading groups that focused on summary writing. Students are either adding too much detail or not enough detail in their summaries. We had each small group create an anchor chart with us on, What A Good Summary Looks Like, and then we had the students use sticky notes to find the key points in each section of the given text. Next week, we’ll show students how they can use these key points, along with an introductory sentence and a concluding sentence, to create a well-organized summary.

For modelled reading and independent writing, we also introduced the students to the book, Tunnels of Treachery. After telling the students a little about the book, they needed to predict what might happen in the story (and why), as well as explain why we might be reading the book. Many students connected the book to our previous TLCP on acceptance and our current TLCP on citizenship. Once they wrote a rough copy of their paragraphs, they needed to use our student-generated editing checklist to edit their own work before writing a good copy. We love how the students made corrections to their own work and really tried to improve the quality of their writing.

November 19th-23rd – Math

In math this week, we continued to look at ways to solve equations. Students discussed different strategies they use from Guess and Check to inverse operations, and why they prefer one strategy over another one. Our math facilitator help us discuss balanced equations and what it really means for these equations to be balanced. Thanks for your help with this!

You can hear a recording of my (Aviva’s) class’ radio show on balanced equations below.

Students can use the ideas in this radio show to help them as they study for our November 30th math quiz on Unit 1. As well as reviewing for the quiz, next week we will focus on Data Management.

November 12th-16th – Language

In Language, we continued with our literacy centre routine. Instead of reading an EQAO passage this week though, students read various hockey stories from the Bulldogs Literacy Blog in preparation for our Bulldogs Literacy Game on November 14th. Students worked on inferring, understanding the deeper meaning of texts, making connections, and taking information from texts and their own knowledge to create media works.

During the Bulldogs Literacy Game, students tweeted about what was happening, how they thought the players might react, and even about how the teachers were feeling at the time. 🙂 Word choice and voice were big areas of focus for these tweets. You can read the student tweets here. Students also continued reflecting on this game during our 105 the Hive radio show on Friday. During this show, a group of six students recapped what happened in the game, and a group of five students, wrote and read their own hockey story with the same deeper meaning as one that we read earlier in the week: The Greatest Goal. You can read more about this radio show here, where we also include a recording of the show itself. There was lots of great dialogue that came out of this follow-up field trip activity.

We’re also beginning our new TLCP (Teaching Learning Critical Pathways), and the students worked together to help us create our new TLCP Board. We discussed the big idea and learning goal, and then the students went through the Language Curriculum Document, and identified specific expectations that could be reworded as Success Criteria. We then looked at a sample of Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 work, and students used the Success Criteria to offer descriptive feedback on how the Level 2 student could “bump up” his work to a Level 3, and how the Level 3 student could “bump up” her work to a Level 4. Our Bump It Up Wall is now ready for students to use and they continue to improve their own work. You can read more about this process here.

November 12th-16th – Math

In Math, we started learning about solving equations. Students learned how to solve equations using the Guess and Check method, as well as how to solve equations using the inverse (opposite) operation. Here are two videos that you can watch at home that explain both of these methods again (Video 1 and Video 2). While many students initially found this concept difficult, they had a better understanding of solving equations come the end of the week. We’ll review solving equations at the beginning of next week, and then move onto Data Management. We have a quiz on this patterning unit in math scheduled for Friday, November 30th. Students will receive a review sheet early next week (i.e., November 19th-23rd) to help them review for this quiz. Please note that even though integers is a part of this unit in the textbook, integers is not taught in Grade 6 math according to the Curriculum document. Therefore, you can ignore this part of the textbook when reviewing for the test.

A Note About This Unit In Math:

While we’re almost finished this unit in math, we’ve noticed that students in both of our classes are struggling with the division component of Divisibility Rules and the division component of solving equations (when it’s applicable). With our Board’s Math Delivery Plan, we don’t teach division until next term, even though we teach Divisibility Rules and Solving Equations this term. We’ve decided that we’re going to readdress both of these topics (i.e., Divisibility Rules and Solving Equations) when we teach division next term. We think that many of the problems that the students are having will be solved when dealing specifically with these topics in math. If you have any questions about our plan, please just let us know (Aviva Dunsiger and Gina Bucciacchio).

November 5th-9th – Language

In Language, we continued with our literacy centre routine. Students read Echoing Howls, and responded to the multiple choice and short answer questions. Again, they were encouraged to highlight the information from the text that helped them answer each question. During literacy centres, we worked with small groups of students on developing reading comprehension and writing skills. Students also worked with each other on various reading and writing activities, including some research activities that aligned with their science projects that were due on Friday.

We also started a Media Literacy Project, where students had to create a media text teaching primary students about acceptance. They could choose their tools and their specific topic, but they needed to consider the audience when planning their presentation. Some completed media texts are on our student blogs. Those students that have not finished this activity yet will work on it in class next week.

Students also continued to discuss the deeper meaning of the texts that they’re reading through Talking Tuesdays and Thinking Thursdays. On Friday, we broadcasted on 105 the Hive, and students shared what they’re learning from the books that they’re reading. You can read more about this literacy activity here and here. Below is a short video clip from the very beginning of our broadcast.

Also during language this week, we integrated social studies and had a chat with a group of students that live on a reserve. We were hoping to Skype with these students, but due to bandwidth issues, this was not a possibility. We used Today’sMeet to talk online with these students instead. These students answered our questions about their lives, and we engaged in some fun conversations with them. Below is a transcript of our discussion.

Social Studies Discussion

We hope to continue this conversation in the near future, where we can ask some more questions as we learn more about the lives of First Nation Peoples.

November 5th-9th – Math

Math this week was all about Divisibility Rules. Students learned what these rules are, and then they explored them through different problem solving activities. Many students struggled with this new math concept, as a large number of them still find division complicated.

If your child does not know the division facts, here are a couple of good websites that you can use to review them.

1) Fun4TheBrain Division Games

2) Math Games Online

While these are skill-based websites, please make sure that when your child plays these games, he/she is communicating what division actually means (i.e., breaking a number into equal groups).

There are also some great videos that reinforce the concepts of Divisibility Rules. Here’s the link to one with some great additional resources as well. There’s also this video on YouTube that a student in my (Aviva’s) class found. Thanks Sam!

The pencast below should also help you review the Divisibility Rules at home with your child.

If you have any questions about anything discussed here, please let us know (Aviva or Gina).

November 2nd – Math Test

Here are photographs of Level 4 answers from the math test on November 2nd. We’ll be returning the tests this week, and we wanted the students to see some examples of answers that were not only correct, but had detailed explanations as well. Communication is so important in math. If you have any questions about this, please just let us know (Aviva and Gina). – Level 4 Answers To The Math Test

October 29th-November 2nd – Language

In Language, we continued with our literacy centre routine. Students started reading a new text, Echoing Howls, and they answered the multiple choice and short answer questions that are part of this reading comprehension activity. Again, students worked on highlighting the information in the text that helped them answer the different questions. Students are continuing to recognize when the question is directly answered in the text, and when they need to infer based on the information in the text.

For shared writing and independent writing this week, we focused on word choice and point of view. Students wrote 140 character Halloween stories for a special Twitter challenge, and they also wrote Halloween riddles on their blogs. Below is a Storify Story of our Twitter stories.

Students also continued with our regular Talking Tuesday and Thinking Thursday routines, but this week, Aviva’s class recorded their Thinking Thursdays on the Internet radio station, 105 the Hive. You can read more about this here. Hopefully students will continue some of these discussions at home with their parents, as they talk about the deeper meaning of the texts that they read.

October 29th-November 2nd – Math

In math, we started a new unit on number patterns. Students learned about input/output machines, as well as recursive patterns. They worked together to discuss different patterns that they observed, and how they came to various conclusions. You can see some of these video recordings and screencasts on our student blogs, and you can also see a couple of them here.

Students also had a math test this week on our first math unit. After the test, a group of students chose to reflect on their learning in this unit, and they recorded this video. This is a great video to watch even later on in the year, as the skills that are taught now need to be reviewed throughout the year. Thank you to these three students for being great teachers, and not only showing how they solved this problem, but reminding us how to solve others.

October 22nd-26th – Language

In Language, we continued our literacy centre routine. Students read Digging For Gold, and answered the multiple choice and short answer questions that are part of this reading comprehension activity. Students needed to continue to highlight the information in the text that helped them answer each question. On Monday, they will reread their work, and make any changes to it before it’s marked. We continue to encourage students to use the anchor charts in the classroom to help them as they edit and revise their work.

We also continued reading, The One and Only Ivan, and students worked in groups to design a billboard for Ivan’s new home at the zoo. They need to apply what they know about the billboard for the Big Top Mall in their design of this new billboard. This week, students will write about the choices that they made when they created this billboard, and why they made the choices that they did. We will take photographs of the completed work to share on the student blogs.

This week, I (Aviva) was away at Minds on Media and ECOO, and while I was there, I attended numerous sessions that gave me some great new ideas to use in the classroom with the students. Gina and I are excited that our students are now part of the online radio station, 105 The Hive. Aviva’s students will do their first radio show on Friday, November 2nd for Thinking Thursdays. Instead of sharing their ideas in writing this week, a group of students will share their ideas orally with the world, as they talk about the deeper meanings of their texts and how they came to these conclusions. Students that are not talking, will be involved in a Today’sMeet and Twitter backchannel with other student listeners from around the world. This backchannel will allow students to reflect on what they hear and ask questions of the radio show participants. If your child is interested in being involved as a speaker on this radio show, you may want to spend some time earlier in the week discussing the deeper meaning in the text that he/she reads. We’ll be reflecting after the radio show, and then arranging for opportunities for Miss Bucciacchio’s class to host their own show as well.

October 22nd-26th – Math

For Math this week, the students continued working on mental math strategies. They learned about different strategies (e.g., Compensation, Friendly Numbers, Compatible Numbers, etc.), and then applied their knowledge through different problem solving activities. The focus of this unit was on communicating more in math. Sometimes this communication was done in writing and sometimes this communication was done orally.

On Friday, November 2nd, we have a Math Test on Number Sense and Numeration, and this math test includes understanding and using different mental math strategies. As we sat down at Starbucks today to plan for the upcoming math test, we decided to create a pencast of all of the key concepts covered on this test. You can use the pencast (below) to help your child study for the test. Even having your child listen back to the ideas that he/she finds difficult might help your child understand these concepts better. Please note that if you roll your mouse overtop of the number 1 in the bottom right-hand corner, you’ll see the list of other page numbers in the pencast. There are 8 in total. We hope you find this helpful!

October 15th-19th – Language

In Language, we continued with our literacy centre routine. For the reading comprehension activity, the students needed to highlight the information from the text that helped them answer each of the multiple choice questions as well as the short answer questions. They also needed to use a different coloured pen or pencil to edit their work, showing that they took time to make some changes to it. (This week we read Constellations for our reading comprehension activity passage.)

Students continued to take time during literacy centres for Talking Tuesday and Thinking Thursday discussions, and they even wrote in their Thinking Book some key ideas to aid them in their conversations. For modelled reading, we read The One and Only Ivan as part of the Global Read Aloud. Students continued to work on making inferences and making connections during and after reading. They discussed these inferences and connections as a class, and they wrote about them on Edmodo and on our Commons blog.

We also worked on critical literacy and media literacy with a special Gangnum Style-inspired reading and writing activity. Students analysed various texts, and even created their own media text. You can read more about this activity here, and even see specific examples of completed work.

October 15th-19th – Math

In Math, we finished our unit on Order of Operations. Students created their media texts showing their understanding of this unit. Finished projects are now up on the class blog.

We also started our unit on Mental Math Strategies. Students were initially presented with this problem:

Miss Bucciacchio and Miss Dunsiger are planning the Halloween Dance. There are 345 students that could go to the dance. 99 students are going on a field trip that day. The rest of the students can go to the dance, but to get in, they each need to bring in 4 cans of food for the food bank. If these students all bring in the 4 cans of food, how many cans of food will Ancaster Meadow collect for the food bank? Once you have found an answer, show another way of solving the problem (without calculators) to prove that you’re correct. Remember to explain your thinking.

As they worked in small groups to solve this problem, I (Aviva) recorded some videos of students sharing their thinking:

Next week, we will use these videos to create an anchor chart of different Mental Math Strategies, as well as explore these strategies some more in various problem solving activities.

Math Test Reminder: This is just a reminder that we have a Math Test on all of Unit 2 on Friday, November 2nd. Students have been given a review sheet, and you can find a copy of it here. There is lots of information on this test, so nightly review is definitely beneficial.

October 9th-12th – Language

With the Thanksgiving long weekend, this was a short week at school, but still a very busy one in the classroom. In Language, we continued with our literacy centre routine. To help the students answer multiple choice questions correctly, we showed them how to go back into the text and highlight the answer or the statement that helped them infer the answer. This strategy helped many students re-look at the text, and by doing so, they changed their initial response and corrected their answers well. (This week we read Comet’s Tale for our reading comprehension activity passage.)

We also spoke to the students about choosing the best activity to meet their desired expectations. Together, we listed different activities that meet the same expectations, and had the students take some time to consider which one will help them learn the most. As we explained to the students, this activity may not be the same for everyone, but really thinking about their own academic needs and choosing wisely is a very responsible thing to do. We were really pleased with how the students listened to these suggestions, and made some great choices about their centres for the week.

Students also used the centre time to continue their Talking Tuesday and Thinking Thursday discussions: allowing them to reflect on what they’re reading. Some students also used the centre time to finish some media literacy and writing activities for The One and Only Ivan. We continued reading this book this week as part of the Global Read Aloud. In our follow-up activities, students get to develop their reading comprehension skills as they infer, make connections, summarize events, and consider different points of view. You can see examples of their writing and media literacy activities on our class blog.

October 9th-12th – Math

This week in Math, we continued to work on Order of Operations. Students learned the importance of communicating their ideas in math, and not just explaining what they’re doing but why they’re doing it. Below is a video that my (Aviva’s) class recorded as we discussed this issue (and other ones) as part of a Math Congress.

Since we are completing this unit now, we also spent time today (Friday) making Success Criteria for Order of Operations. You can read more about this in my (Aviva’s) blog post on my professional blog. As a final task for this unit, students are working in groups to create a media text that explains Order of Operations. This is an in-class assignment, but you can read about it here: order of operations media project In class, students helped co-create the criteria that we’ll be using to assess this project.

Today (Friday), students were busy starting on this exciting math project, and the groups are already planning some creative projects. Here’s a short video explanation of what one group is doing.

We can’t wait to see the finished projects! This week’s Formula Fridays homework will help students review the Order of Operations skills taught in class and needed for this project.

October 1st – 5th – Language

In Language this week, the students continued with our literacy centre routine. We again got students to reflect on incorrect multiple choice answers, and take their time reading the text and referring back to it before answering the questions. We’re encouraging the students to question and clarify what they read, and taking the time to do so, is really helping most students improve the quality of their work. This week, students read and responded to the article, Comet’s Tale.

This week, we also took a break from our regular reading response activities on Wednesday and Friday to have students complete the in-class follow-up to Talking Tuesdays and Thinking Thursdays. Students are really starting to reflect on what they read and think critically about the texts that they’re reading. It was great to see the number of students that extended their discussion of books past the 15 minutes in their choice literacy centres. Have a look at my (Aviva’s) professional blog for some photographs, videos, and audio recordings of Talking Tuesdays and Thinking Thursdays.

During literacy centres, we also started DRA (a reading assessment). We’re reading with each of the students and having them respond to prediction question for a written follow-up. We’ll continue doing DRA next week, and then moving onto guided reading.

We also started the Global Read Aloud this week. The students love The One and Only Ivan, and they’re really working on their inferring skills as they consider Ivan’s point of view and what he’s trying to say. What’s interesting is that we’re both trying a new way to read Ivan: while we read, the students are reflecting on what they hear and sharing it in a way of their choice. Some students are talking to each other on Edmodo, some are writing notes in their Thinking Books or on a device, and some students are blogging. We stop throughout the reading to have students share some of their thoughts out loud, discuss them as a group, and then allow students to reflect on their own again. Below are some photographs of the class discussions and contributions. It’s great to see students understanding that “reading is thinking.”

It’s great to see so many students continuing these book talks at home, and we definitely encourage them to do so! Feel free to get involved in the discussion and write posts with your child.

October 1st-5th – Math

In Math this week, the students continued to work on addition and subtraction of whole numbers. They did a number of activities where they had to find missing numbers and needed to use their knowledge of addition and subtraction and the connection between the two to do so.

We also introduced the students to Order of Operations. Some students had already heard of BEDMAS (Brackets, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction), but in Grade 6, we do BEDMAS without the exponents. While working on some problems as a class, we noticed that students often forgot to write down the part of the question that they were not solving, which caused confusion later on. To help with this, we showed the students how to highlight what part of the question they were solving and copy the rest of the question exactly as they went line by line. Here’s an example of one of the problems:

You can continue to work on similar problems at home with your child. Also try adding brackets into an equation and seeing how these brackets affect the answer.

September 24th-28th – Language

In Language this week, the students continued with our literacy centre routine. We noticed that last week, when they were answering the reading comprehension questions, many of the students struggled with the multiple choice questions. While we recorded the correct answer on their paper, we wanted students to look back at the text to understand why that answer was correct. To show us their thinking, we asked students to pick two questions and write down why the given letter was the correct answer. This really helped the students reflect on their answers and re-look at the text.

We discussed why students might be struggling more, and we wondered if they were rushing through the reading comprehension activity to get to the literacy centres. To help reduce this from happening, we now set a timer for a given period of time (i.e., usually around 15 minutes depending on the length of the passage), and students need to stay at their desks working on this reading comprehension activity until the timer goes. This slows down their speed, ensures a quiet working environment for all students, and encourages students to check over their answers before submitting their work. If the students finish the reading comprehension activity early, they can read and reflect on a book or magazine article of their choice.

This week, the students looked at the final passage in the EQAO selection from last week: it’s called, What A Job. On Monday, they read and answered the multiple choice questions. On Tuesday, they answered the first short answer question, and on Wednesday, they answered the second short answer question and proofread their work. With the timing of The Terry Fox Run on Thursday, we did not have literacy centres. We didn’t have them on Friday either because of the PA Day.

For modelled reading and shared writing this week, the students looked again at their summaries from last week on Suryia and Roscoe. Using our Summary Writing Anchor Chart, students offered each other descriptive feedback on how to improve their writing. Then they read over the feedback that they received on their own work, made changes to it, and produced a final copy.

At the end of Friday’s PA Day, we were discussing these summaries, and we both agreed that many students need to work on determining the important ideas to include in their summaries. They are still including too much information. To assist them with this, we are going to work on modelled and shared summary writing next week, as we begin reading, The One and Only Ivan for the Global Read Aloud.

September 24th-28th — Math

We started this week by reviewing prime and composite numbers. We looked again at the factor tree, and how we can use this strategy to reduce a composite number to all of its prime factors. Students showed us what they know by completing an “exit card,” where they had to independently represent a number as a product of prime factors. Most students used the factor tree approach, and with good results. Some students forgot though that 9 and 21 are not prime numbers. We definitely noticed that students need to be familiar with the multiplication facts to apply them in this context. If your child is still struggling with remembering the facts, here’s a good website that you can use to review them.

This week, we also moved onto addition and subtraction of whole numbers. Students worked together to complete a variety of problems where they had to apply what they know about addition and subtraction. Here’s a blog post link that includes videos of the students sharing their thinking. Next week, we will continue to review addition and subtraction, and then move onto order of operations. After examining data at Friday’s PA Day sessions, we decided to try a different approach for introducing order of operations. We’ve created a problem that will allow students to investigate the order of operations and understand why it’s in place before actually being shown the process to follow. We’re excited to try this new approach, and can’t wait to see how it goes!

September 17th-21st — Language

In Language this week, the students continued with our literacy centre routine. Each day, they began by reading this sample EQAO passage called, Hannah’s Great Day. Just like last week, on Monday, they answered the multiple choice questions that go with the passage. On Tuesday, they answered the first short answer question. On Wednesday, they answered the second short answer question, and on Thursday, they proofread their work, and edited it using a different coloured pen. Like last week, on Friday, we conferenced with different groups of students, and all students went to two literacy centre activities.

For modelled reading this week, we read the students, Suryia and Roscoe. This book links to our big idea of acceptance. After listening to the story, students worked in partners to figure out the most important ideas in the book and write a summary. They edited their own work, and then next week, students will offer each other descriptive feedback on these summaries based on the Success Criteria.

We are doing a lot of summary writing in class, as summaries relate to our success criteria of finding the most important ideas from what we read. At home, have your child read a story and write his/her own summary. Below is an anchor chart that the students created in class that they can use to help with summary writing.

September 17th-21st — Math

In Math this week, we reviewed the information for Friday’s quiz. Students continued to work on place value, numbers up to one million, and ordering larger numbers. We also learned about multiples and prime factorization. Here is a podcast on common multiples done by the students in my (Miss Dunsiger’s) class. Below there is also a pencast on prime factorization:

September 10th-14th — Language 

In Language this week, the students began our literacy centre routine. Each day, they began by reading this sample EQAO passage on Guide Dogs. On Monday, they answered the multiple choice questions that go with the passage. On Tuesday, they answered the first short answer question. On Wednesday, they answered the second short answer question, and on Thursday, they proofread their work, and edited it using a different coloured pen. Since we’re still setting expectations for the centres and not doing guided reading yet, students did not have a reading comprehension activity to complete on Friday, but we did sit with individual students and small groups to conference with them about their reading and writing.

After completing their daily reading comprehension activity, students chose one literacy centre to go to, and they completed one of the activities that they brainstormed last week (see the information from last week for more details about this). Every day, we had different students reflect on their learning and share what they did during literacy centres with the rest of the class. Today, I (Aviva) had my students write about at least one thing that they learned at literacy centres this week. Some students shared their writing with the rest of the class, and you can see these video recordings below.

For shared reading and writing, we also looked at the article on The Lioness and the Oryx again. This week, the two Grade 6 classes exchanged summaries, and we used our anchor chart on Summary Writing to offer descriptive feedback to the other class. Here’s a short video of one group discussing their ideas:

After compiling all of our feedback for the other class, we shared this feedback with them, and then the students worked independently to “bump up” their work. Here’s an example of one completed summary:

This is one student’s edited version of last week’s unedited shared writing summary:

Students can continue to work on summary writing at home by writing summaries of the books, magazine articles, or newspaper articles that they read. They can use this student-created anchor chart to help them improve their summary writing.

September 10th-14th — Math

In math this week, we finished our first mini-unit on exploring large numbers, place value, and ordering numbers. Students continued to work in small group to explore problems related to this first unit. Our emphasis was on students explaining their thinking as well as showing their work.

On Friday, September 21st, we have a quiz on this first unit. We have given each student a math textbook to bring home to review the content for the quiz. We didn’t use the math textbook a lot for this unit, but the questions in the textbook definitely complement what was done in the classroom. Here is the Success Criteria for this unit, that will help students as they prepare for the quiz.

Math Success Criteria For Exploring Large Numbers and Place Value – Math Success Criteria

Please let us know if you have any questions about this upcoming quiz (Gina Bucciacchio and Aviva Dunsiger).

September 4th-7th — Language

In Language this week, the students worked in groups and explored the Grade 6 Language expectations to create their own choices for literacy centres/literacy work stations. You can read about the process here. Below is a list of each of the centre ideas along with the corresponding expectations: all student-generated. We’re sure that the list will continue to evolve as the year goes on.

At home, you can use some of these centre ideas to review the literacy skills taught and practised in class.

For shared writing and shared reading, the students read an article on The Lioness and the Oryx. Students worked in small groups to summarize this article, make connections to it, and research more facts on this interesting friendship. Today, both classes completed a shared writing activity where we used the individual group summaries to write a class summary of the article. Then we edited the summary together to make it even better, and both classes switched summaries with each other. Next week, we’re going to read the other class’ summary, and give them descriptive feedback to improve their writing. Then students will explore ways to “bump up” our class work.

Here’s is an unedited version of my (Miss Dunsiger’s) class’ summary. One of the students captured this for his Daily Shoot contribution.

Here’s a video recount of the same amazing story. This may generate some great discussion at home. Students can write or talk about what this story tells us about friendship.

 September 4th-7th — Math

Students are learning about place value in math. They are also exploring larger numbers. Towards the end of the week, we started eight math centres where students could represent the same number in different ways and explain their understanding of different numbers. Below are five videos of students explaining their thinking at these different centres.

Use these videos as a guide to help explore and compare larger numbers at home.

Miss Bucciacchio and Miss Dunsiger