Historical Models of Democracy: The Iroquois Confederation

Ms. Barrett and her gr. 6's were beginning a new Social Studies unit called "Historical Models of Democracy".  In order to get the students excited about the new unit, and to access their prior knowledge, Ms. Barrett engaged them in beginning to analyze the structure and functions of the Iroquois Confederacy.  They visited the five nations, they spent time in the Long house, they met their Clan Mothers, they went to war, and the Peace Maker paddled in in her birch bark canoe and encouraged the nations to stop fighting and committ to peace.  Have a look.

"It was like we weren't doing math."

Ms. Barrett's gr. 6 students reviewed all sections of their upcoming decimals quiz through station work: word problems, searching for patterns, sorting and rounding, illustrating decimals, fortune telling, long division, and estimating.  Students completed the stations in random order and had fun doing so.  One students said, "I didn't feel like doing any math today, but that was really fun; it was like we weren't really doing math!"

                                                               

Homonyms in 4C

Mrs. Campbell's students were collaborating and deciding on the appropriate uses of "Their, There, and They're".  They analysed sentences, shared their thoughts, develped criteria, and listed examples.  I think they have it:)  It was the use of chart paper that solidified the concept!

                                                                          

Jobs Board in ECS G

Mme. Gill's ECS students were busy completing jobs off their job's board.  Once students completed a job, they then moved on to another: sorting, patterning, writing, counting, cutting, and creating.

                                                 

Rock & Minerals in Grade 3

Our grade 3 classes rotated through our three teachers while Mlle. Thompson, our Rocks & Minerals specialist, taught a special lesson on fossils.  Students had a great hands-on time examining sample rocks, classifying and identifying rocks, and describing groups of rocks based upon certain properties.

Power of 10 in ECS - D

Mrs. Djordjevic's kindergarten students spent some time this morning showing me how good they are at math using the power of 10 concept.  The students began with two cubes in their egg cartons, added one and knew the answer was three.  I then asked Mrs. Djordjevic to give them the hardest question in the universe; one boy said, "That's harder than a rotten ball!"  Mrs. Djordjevic asked them to add five more and then raise their hand when they knew what the sum was.  Rocketship hands went up all over:)

3T Netbook: Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing

Today the children in Mrs. Stewart's grade 3 class invited me in to view their Animal/Human Hearing & CommunicationVenn Diagrams completed by researching their favourite animals using the class netbooks.  Students were engaged in their learning, they were collaborating with their partners, and they were interacting positively with one another.