Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

Here are the videos from our writing assignment (done today) about the ideas/symbolism around yesterday, today and tomorrow.

"Yesterday" by The Beatles

"Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins

"Drive" by Incubus

Richmond Schools put on Flash Mob

Over 500 Students from several Richmond schools.

         
                             in Aberdeen Centre. Mrs. Rollins and my kids were there!

HW for Wednesday: WEAR PINK

PINK PINK PINK             PINK PINK PINK           PINK          PINK         PINK              PINK
PINK           PINK                   PINK                   PIPINK      PINK         PINK            PINK
PINK           PINK                   PINK                   PINK PINK PIN          PINK         PINK
PINK           PINK                   PINK                   PINK    PINK PI          PINK       PINK
PINK PINK PINK                      PINK                  PINK     PINK PI         PINK  PINKPI
PINK                                      PINK                  PINK      PINKIN        PINK PINKPI
PINK                                      PINK                  PINK        PINKP        PINK      PINK
PINK                                      PINK                  PINK         PINKP       PINK       PINK
PINK                                      PINK                  PINK         PINKP       PINK         PINK
PINK                              PINK PINK PINK           PINK          PINKP      PINK          PINK

HW for Monday

Math 7: Extra Practice 5. Due Friday (not Wednesday)

Math 6: pg 408- # 17, 18.   pg 398 # 1-6 but omit #3. pg 402 # 1-5 but omit #4

Social Studies: We will be using the iPads on Tuesday and Thursday this week.
Theme Books are due Thursday.

Science. Bring your materials on Wednesday for the game boards.

New Text Twist Record (and subsequent retirement)

While listening to Snow Patrol on my iPod (maybe that was the key). I am happy to say that I will be retiring from Text Twist after this marathon game. Was almost stumped on an easy word: "EITHER" at about the 30,000 point range but I got it with 3 seconds left.

99,090 points (almost double my old record). And no, Josh, I didn't use the Anagram simulator (or whatever you found that can do that to help you). The stumping word this time was "SNOUTS".

Real or Not?

The internet is a wonderful tool. One needs to always be aware as to the veracity (truth) of what you see. Use a critical eye to analyze whether the information is plausible or not and also look to see what source the information is coming from. Don't forget that you can use sites like Mythbusters Here or Snopes.com Here to "debunk" some of the stuff you might find on the internet that you aren't sure about.

Friday in class the topic of "Atlantis" came up. Was it real? I didn't really know what to say about that. I knew that is was a 'legend' and that Plato had written about it. It turns out that a lot of myths and stories have been lumped into the "Atlantis" story and that it kind of is spoken about when anyone is talking about any lost ancient civilization.

For those that believe there might be some possibility that there was a "lost city", one theory is that it may refer to the Minoan civilization. King Minos and the people who lived on the Island of Crete were flourishing at the time of the Ancient Greek civilization was just getting started but then disappeared very quickly. This may have given rise to the story of Atlantis. Was there a volcanic eruption that wiped them out in 1600 BCE? Was there an attack from another civilization? Was it a huge tsunami? Maybe the Minoan civilization was Atlantis? Maybe not.

Here is a great video that I just watched from PBS about this possibility that the Minoan culture might've been "Atlantis": http://video.pbs.org/video/1204753806

10 Year old boy takes on KFC

To try and get them to have more environmental packaging!

it's from Annie Leonard at the story of Stuff

Did it work? 

Making Books using Scribble Press

In Humanities (Social Studies and Language Arts) we have been learning about Ancient Rome. The students each researched a famous "dead" Roman and then created a storyboard of their life. After writing a life story based on their research notes, we have embarked on a journey using the mobile lab set of iPads that Thompson has been using. We have used a few different programs including Writers St and Scribble Press. In Scribble Press when we are finished, we will be able to publish our books to either Facebook, Twitter or email. Our goal is to have a finished product that we can share digitally with some of our family (online).

Here is a copy of my (hastily-made) book. The ones done by Division 1 are going to be much better than mine.
Mr. R's Roman Book

HW for Thursday

French: Worksheet both sides

Science; Get your test signed. Bring materials for board game (next Tuesday)

Socials Theme Book due Thursday
Current events 3 sheets due Friday

HW For Tuesday

LA: Finish the "quick write" that you chose today. Try to write at least 1 paragraph. Due Wednesday.

Science: Study for written test. Read Chapters 9 and 10. Study definitions, extreme environments, technologies, contributions of Canadians to the field and more.

Socials: Continue to complete 1 page per day on your themebook.

Hw For Monday

Math 7: Test Friday. Do whatever Purple pen assignment I gave you today for Wednesday please

Math 6: Both sides of worksheet

Gotye Song (Cover)

The original artist, Gotye (an Australian) is covered here by a Canadian band called "Walk off the Earth". They all play the same guitar in the video. They have also done covers of LMFAO and Adele recently. This video got over 50,000,000 hits just this month. Thanks to Mr. Out for telling me about it!

Walk off the Earth's Wikipedia page here:  WOTE

French Room Vocabulary

Watch the video, take the pretend quiz!

and...

Something Fun to do on the Weekend?

At my house, we usually play soccer, some basketball, go skating and play piano. If we lived in Utah, maybe we'd be able to do this:

Justin Bieber "marries" cancer stricken 6 yr old

Justin's stock just went up in my mind. Here is the story from CTV news:

Justin Bieber made a cancer-stricken girl's dream come true after 'marrying' her on Tuesday.

The 'Baby' singer surprised six-year-old Avalanna Routh -- who has battled deadly brain cancer since she was a baby - by flying her and her family from Boston to New York to meet him after reading her request on Facebook.

The pair then spent the afternoon playing board games, eating cupcakes, and signing autographs for each other before deciding they would get 'married'.

When asked how long she had loved Justin, Avalanna -- who has undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments -- said: "Seven years. No -- 80 years."

Justin -- who is dating Selena Gomez -- later wrote on his Twitter page: "That was one of the best things i have ever done. she was AWESOME! Feeling really inspired now! (sic)"

He then added: "#MrsBieber really inspired me."

Avalanna's mother Aileen said the meeting had been a dream come true for her daughter.

She said: "It was wonderful, just another fun moment."

Speaking of Avalanna's cancer, Aileen added: "She's beaten all the odds. It's a very aggressive, rare disease, and she's been in treatment for five and a half years."

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20120215/justin-bieber-avalanna-routh-afternoon-120215/#ixzz1mTKloEFE

Comic Master Graphic Comic Design

Go here: Comic Master

Make an 8 frame (or more) comic strip.

Your comic strip story Must include:

1. at least 2 characters
2. both thought bubbles and speech bubbles
3. backgrounds (at least 2 different ones in your story)
4. at least 1 example of an onomatopoeia (hopefully you remember what this is-they are often found in graphic novels and comics

It Must Not include:

1. profanity (ie swearing)
2. killing, bullying, or beating up of anyone

HW for Tuesday

Socials: Do 1 page in your theme book each night (title page/table of contents etc).

Science: Extreme Environments unit test next Wednesday (Feb. 21).

LA: All "The Skin I'm in Self-Evaluations" should be handed in now.

Top 10 Extreme Environments

From the Discovery Network, check out this cool slide show:

http://dsc.discovery.com/space/top-10/extreme-places/

Child Soldiers

There are still over 300,000 child soldiers in the world despite legislation 10 years ago that was aimed at preventing this terrible situation. Today is the 10th anniversary of Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.

Despite what you might picture, 40% of the soldiers are actually girls.

Retired Lieutenant-General and current Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire saw first-hand the effect of conflict on children when he commanded the UN mission in Rwanda in 1994. In recent years, he has worked to help end the practice of using child soldiers around the world: Along with relentless advocacy efforts, Dallaire founded the Child Soldiers Initiative to help raise awareness about the issue, and wrote the book "They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children."


He will also ask Parliament to consider using the sanction of the International Criminal Court to pursue those who finance and employ child soldiers, such as the financiers of piracy in the Horn of Africa (where many pirates are children, abducted and put to work by their adult bosses), and funding education and employment alternatives for children in the region.


Here is General Dallaire's organisation:
http://childsoldiersinitiative.org/  and another: http://www.warchild.ca/ that are trying to help put an end to children being involved in wars (one of the 6 worst forms of child labour- if you remember our unit from the start of the year). 

Hw for Thursday/Friday

Math 7: if you did not finish section 5.3 you need to complete this.

Science: if you have not handed in your chapter 10 questions, you need to complete this (they are pg. 187 # 3, 4, 5. Pg 189 # 3 and pg 197 # 1, 2, 3.

French: if you have not handed in your French poster you need to complete it by Monday.

Socials: Kim Junk-il current events are due on Monday.

Here is some interesting internet information about him (I'm not sure how much of it is true, but I know that he "believed" that he actually did shoot 38 under par when golfing. His bodyguards "helped" a little bit by kicking the ball in the hole for him a few times.

1) Kim hires a staff to inspect his rice, to make sure each piece is the same size. In possibly the biggest example of his OCD, Kim apparently hates eating rice if every grain isn't uniform in length, plumpness and color. So he hires a staff of women to go through each and every grain of rice before it enters his palace's kitchen, making sure each piece meets Kim's standard.

It's always good to see communism working -- everyone equal, a completely utopia, no one abusing their power -- isn't it?


2) Kim has his boyhood school blown up. More from his former tutor. Even though Kim's father was Kim Il-Sung, the former dictator of North Korea, Lil' Kim still had to go to school. Kim was a "rather ordinary student" who ended up having to work hard to do well.

(Which is pretty incredible, given that his teachers probably would've disappeared permanently if they gave him anything in the check-minus/frowny face range on an oral report.)

Years later, Kim ordered the military to blow up the school where he had worked so hard. The reason? That school was now teaching regular people, not just the children of wealthy communist officials, and Kim was afraid that it was giving students too much of a competitive advantage against his own children.

3) Kim shoots a 38 under par, complete with 11 holes-in-one, his first time golfing. You may not know this, but, according to the state-run North Korean media, Kim Jong-Il is the best golfer in history.

Back in 1994, North Korea's first golf course was opened in Pyongyang, and Kim decided to play it. He'd never golfed before, but wow, was he a natural.

In his first-ever round of golf, he shot a world-record 38 under par... including another world record 11 holes-in-one! And even though all 17 of his bodyguards were eyewitnesses and swear they saw that go down, for some reason, the round-eye devils at "Guinness" fail to recognize either record.

After that round, the media tells us, Kim decided to retire from golf forever, lest he ruin it for us mortals.

HW for Wednesday

Math 7: Worksheet Extra Practice 2

Math 6: None

Science: Finish puzzle and reading of chapter 10 for Thursday.

The Skin I'm In Self-evaluations are OVERDUE for those who have not handed them in.
As are your Hand and foot art portraits. Please complete these.

HW for Monday

Math 7: Both sides of worksheet. Due Wednesday. Also get your test signed

Math 6: Test Wednesday. MMSense # 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11. pg. 27

Social studies: 2 current events pages: Costa Concordia disaster and Northern Gateway Pipeline. Due Friday.

Art: Hand and foot art due Tuesday (tomorrow)

Grade 7's: Bring your green form in if going to Burnett

A post for the parents- Why Blog?

Why am I blogging? Why do we have a division 1 "guest blogger"?

For me, my blog started out as a tool for me to easily post links/videos and stories that I wanted to share on the projector in class. Now it has grown into a useful communication tool and has some added value as providing a platform for our students to do some learning beyond the classroom (because these days we can all be learners all of the time).

Here is a quote I found that addresses students blogging:

The ultimate goal is not to have students blog, it is to have students improve their literacy skills and have the ability to be digital writers, and to do things that would not be possible without the technology.  It is about students creating content to hyperlink to the world, to embed photos and video with text.  It is about students publishing, and then to have the opportunity to receive feedback on their work, review, edit and republish. It is about students producing work not only for their teacher, but for the world. It is about students having their own space to be creative and connect in new ways.  It is, ultimately, about students having greater ownership of their learning.

Make sure you take a look at the other blogs that are linked on this page by: Ms. Biorn, Mr. Out and Ms. Bahd (it's a great way for our students to know how she's doing at McNeely). Altogether, these are providing opportunities for learning outside of the classroom. 

Who "invented" the internet/cyberspace?

Well, it just might be a guy from Vancouver.

Well-known science fiction author, William Gibson, who was born in South Carolina, but moved to Canada to avoid getting drafted and now has dual citizenship is credited with coining the phrase: "Cyberspace". He wrote about it in one of his first short stories titled Burning Chrome. Since that book other authors used the term and it kind of caught on. Many of the ideas that he wrote about (using the internet, the "Matrix" as well as virtual reality) have also come to fruition even though they were only ideas in his head when he was writing about them.


Here is his (detailed) wikipedia page William Gibson

In my university days, I was a big fan of his writing and enjoyed many of his novels and short stories.
I read all of these ones (and a couple more)

            

HW for Thursday

Math 7: Study for chapter 4 test and finish your unit review questions. Definitions are not due until Monday.

Art: Hand and foot picture due Tuesday please. 

HW for THursday

French: SPorts quiz and oral (if you haven't done yours yet)

Science: Finish questions on page 183. # 1-5 and #8. Due Thursday. No exceptions.