Class Update

Hello Parents of 7A students,

I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently.  It has been very busy since we returned to school, with report cards, kid inventor day, science olympics, field studies, and our large scale indoor garden project.

Here is an update of what is happening in class:

Language Arts: We are working in LA on writer's workshops (adverbs, adjectives, colons, semi-colons, figurative language, and descriptive language are just some of the concepts we have been looking at).  We have also been working on reading comprehension through a program called Notice and Note.  The students have been kept very busy in LA and we are seeing a lot of progress.  We have also started a new read aloud called, "The Skeleton Tree."

Math: We have just completed our Transformations unit.  In this unit we learned about translations, reflections, and rotations. We just did the unit test on Friday.  Student's will be bringing home their tests to be signed by parents tonight.

Social Studies: We have been learning about the 7 years war, and how it influenced the Canadian Identity.  In terms of social studies skills, we have created timelines, talked about cause and effect, and examined the differing perspectives of the British, French, and First Nations people.  Students will be writing a unit test on this on Tuesday.

Science: We are working on a large project that is supported by Parent Council and that has been collaborated with a group called Nature's Ride from the U of C.  We wanted to look at global food security issues, as well as local issues like food deserts and food affordability.  The grade 7 students have been designing growing apparatus' that can provide nutritious food in an indoor urban setting.  We are in the middle of construction, and everything is really moving along.  Students have also researched what they will grow, the life cycle of those plants, and how they reproduce.  This research has effectively covered our Plants for Food and Fibre unit.  The design of our growing appartus' is part of our on-going CTF work.  This task is also connected to some of the field studies we have done, including Journey 2050, and our visit to the Alex Community Food Centre.

Once this project is complete, we will have the full indoor garden set up in room 211, and we will turn it into a teaching garden where we will have placards and information centres that describe how food insecurity is a social justice issue.

Options: Students started new options this month.  The grade 7's are going to do a play this year! Each of the options will take on one part of the play preparation.

Important Dates:
Please see the class website for upcoming important dates. There will be another blog post soon that outlines the rest of the field studies for the year.

Brandie