Grade 7 students have completed their final projects. Our classroom is filled with beautifully designed and illustrated story books that we will be sharing on World Read Aloud day. These stories were carefully crafted over many weeks, without the use of a single dictionary. Students used all vocabulary acquired in class, took news words from the word wall, and used phrases spoken during spontaneous oral retell of the play. Samples of students work will be displayed in the front case by the office. The Grade 7 students have so much of which to be proud. The rough copies are marvelous pieces of evidence that demonstrate keen attention to corrections and thorough story-telling. Some stories are over ten pages long! By breaking the storyline down into chapters in order to avoid being overwhelmed, students completed worked diligently to comprehensively summarize the play: adding an additional chapter at the end as a story extension. Chapter 6 is particularly interesting to me, as students incorporated real life characters into the story, reintroduced characters from plays previously studied, and drew upon personal experiences to make the story meaningful to them. I will soon post a gallery of photos on the website so that parents can appreciate all the hard work and long hours my students put into creating incredibly rich final projects.
Grade 6 students have completed a unit of the eastern, western and northern French-speaking communities of Canada. It began with identifying the provinces, territories and oceans of Canada and learning how to say them and write them in French. Each student created their own map. Specific geographical vocabulary was taught to facilitate effective communication. The unit itself was inquiry based and my classes spent time in the library exploring the Giant Map of Canada, which was so big it took up the entire library floor!) The map had French labels so students first were asked to find as many French cities as possible. It order to do this, they needed to draw upon their experiences with the language in oral and written form. They needed to recognize familiar patterns and accents, and even the meaning of words. With this list, students shared their finding by physically placing themselves on the map. It became very clear that French speaking communities are located all over Canada, with larger pockets in Alberta and New Brunswick. Students then used iPads and QR codes on cards to research individual communities and share their findings with the class.
Back in the classroom, Grade 6 students are busy acquiring additional vocabulary in order to begin their story retelling projects. Individual work will begin sometime after March Break, but currently we are using this new vocabulary in the context of the play, asking and answering questions, and cooperatively retelling scenes from the play. This began with me modelling the writing process, thinking out loud as I crafted sentences, chose words and stressed a particular focus for that lesson (detailed sentences with adjectives and adverbs, making sentences longer by adding helpful words like ‘so’ or ‘because’ or ‘instead of’). We will begin March with small group cooperative retelling (chart paper, markers) and then peer editing. Descriptive feedback will be provided on little sticky notes and stories will be posted, errors and all, on the walls for revisiting.
I am looking forward to introducing the Grade 7 students to their next play. We will begin with making predictions and I will read aloud from the book, showing pictures as I read. We will discuss characters, begin the memorize dialogue and answer questions orally and in written form. One new facet of our studies will now include a weekly spelling test. Students will have five words a week that must be written correctly, used in a sentence and analysed for number of syllables. This spelling book will be kept at school.
I look forward to an exciting Spring filled with new learning and lots of opportunities for students to show off their talents!
Grade 6 students have completed a unit of the eastern, western and northern French-speaking communities of Canada. It began with identifying the provinces, territories and oceans of Canada and learning how to say them and write them in French. Each student created their own map. Specific geographical vocabulary was taught to facilitate effective communication. The unit itself was inquiry based and my classes spent time in the library exploring the Giant Map of Canada, which was so big it took up the entire library floor!) The map had French labels so students first were asked to find as many French cities as possible. It order to do this, they needed to draw upon their experiences with the language in oral and written form. They needed to recognize familiar patterns and accents, and even the meaning of words. With this list, students shared their finding by physically placing themselves on the map. It became very clear that French speaking communities are located all over Canada, with larger pockets in Alberta and New Brunswick. Students then used iPads and QR codes on cards to research individual communities and share their findings with the class.
Back in the classroom, Grade 6 students are busy acquiring additional vocabulary in order to begin their story retelling projects. Individual work will begin sometime after March Break, but currently we are using this new vocabulary in the context of the play, asking and answering questions, and cooperatively retelling scenes from the play. This began with me modelling the writing process, thinking out loud as I crafted sentences, chose words and stressed a particular focus for that lesson (detailed sentences with adjectives and adverbs, making sentences longer by adding helpful words like ‘so’ or ‘because’ or ‘instead of’). We will begin March with small group cooperative retelling (chart paper, markers) and then peer editing. Descriptive feedback will be provided on little sticky notes and stories will be posted, errors and all, on the walls for revisiting.
I am looking forward to introducing the Grade 7 students to their next play. We will begin with making predictions and I will read aloud from the book, showing pictures as I read. We will discuss characters, begin the memorize dialogue and answer questions orally and in written form. One new facet of our studies will now include a weekly spelling test. Students will have five words a week that must be written correctly, used in a sentence and analysed for number of syllables. This spelling book will be kept at school.
I look forward to an exciting Spring filled with new learning and lots of opportunities for students to show off their talents!
