Happy Triple Twelve Day! (12-12-12…)
As we are heading into the end of 2012, take some time to reflect and celebrate the learning that has taken place at Keeler School and in your classroom over the past four and a half months. Keeler School can be so proud of the growth and the work that students are undertaking, as well as the thinking that we all continue to improve in around how we design and develop opportunities for excellent student learning.
Thank you for utilizing our CILO time to effectively build upon the work we need to undertake. The discussion, conversations, thought and reflection that takes place is wonderful to watch and follow. As adults, we need to take the time to work in collaboration with others to design robust learning tasks and obtain feedback about instructional planning from colleagues and mentors. This will not only build up and develop our own understanding around enabling students to learn best, but as well helps us as a complete staff to assist in advancing the learning of all of our colleagues.
Have a wonderful afternoon!
D
UNFURL - Unraveling New Frontiers - Utilizing Real Learning 
The grade 1 team worked on developing an innovative culminating science project we named Colours Matter. We began by inquiring what students know about colour and what questions they had about the colours in our world.
Students will be asked to brainstorm a list of colours, common objects associated with that colour and where they would find or use that colour.
Students are going to be asked to choose a colour that is personally meaningful in the world.They would demonstrate their understanding by creating a poster and bring in a special artifact of that colour to present. Student are expected to demonstrate how their colour contributes to our world and what the world would be like without that specific colour.
We then booked a fun culminating field trip to Telus Spark, with students attending the Creating Colour presentation. Student will then be able to follow this up with exploring the hands on activities to further deepen their understandings.
We took a walk into the Land of Lego. Our initial steps include creating mini tasks that will challenge all levels of our mathematicians. Challenges require students to calculate perimeter, area, use number sense (skip counting, money ) while building a variety of shapes using lego. The tasks were designed to build on one another with new ideas and bigger challenges to eventually create mini Lego communities.
This planning of “Keeler Lego Learning Land” will end in a Grand Stop Motion Tour integrating many curricular areas.
There were many minds creating this project in room 15… It was collaboration at it’s best!
The Grade 6 Team was excited to close the chapter on our Interplanetary Colonization Operation Project by counting the votes from the ballot box used at our Recruitment Fair. Reflecting one more time on the experiences of the students over the course of the project has given us fresh energy to dive into our next round of inquiry.
We spent some time talking about how best to provide our students with the background information necessary for our unit on Athenian Democracy and the Iroquois Confederacy. This project will see the class divided in half, one side representing Athens, the other representing the Iroquois as each side attempts to persuade the other to change their form of government.
Bartel and I discussed ideas for div 2 starting the recorder and built upon the idea of Recorder Land. We also looked at ways to integrate music into the grade 3 social studies curriculum. We have thought about creating a unit based around the Lion King focusing on the connections between the movie, sound track and african culture. We have also looked at how the Lion King can make connections to the grade 2 music curriculum with understanding the basics of music, looking at african instruments, dance, and art.
The grade 1 team developed an independent culminating project in science we named Colours Matter. The students were asked at the beginning of the unit to share what they knew about colours and what questions they would like to explore.
The students will demonstrate their understandings of the importance of each colour in their world. After choosing a colour that is personally important to them, they will provide examples of where their colour appears, and how that colour is used in the world. The students will be asked to bring 1 object that represents their colour and present it to the class.
We then booked a program (Creating Colour) at the Telus Spark Centre as a fun culminating activity.
This afternoon the grade 2 team discussed and outlined our learning goals for the new year. We looked at how the students have progressed in their writing, and how to challenge them with new projects, focusing on elaborative detail.
For science we looked at how best to combine all the skills and knowledge they have learned about magnets over the past few weeks. We are in the process of designing a challenge for them to create a compass, that can be used later on for a new writing project, exploring the social curriculum of the Inuit, and Acadians.
December 12, 2012
Grade 4 Team:
As a team we examined resources that could support small phonics groups. We collaborated and exchanged resources and created an introductory unit for students struggling to acquire and develop phonemic awareness skills. Utilizing resources like the McCracken Spelling program to guide our planning we were able to develop a unit and will implement our work in the New Year.
We also began to plan and develop a science unit that focuses on Waste in our World. We brainstormed possible inquiry based projects and utilized the program of studies, Edmonton Science and Let’s Do Science to guide and assist in developing guiding questions for the unit and for students. We will start by building and developing vocabulary around the topic and then students will share what they may already know and understand about Waste in our World. We also began to investigate different wiki pages. We were looking for ways in which other educators have engaged students and enhanced learning through the use of class wiki pages.
This afternoon the Kindergarten team further discussed how to support our special needs students. We focused in on specific students and talked about their areas of strength and growth. We were in touch with some the Kindergarten team specialists to discuss next steps, now that we have some referrals and consent for service forms coming in and are ready to move forward with specialized service for Speech, OT, and PT.
We also discussed our current area of study which explores the multiple ways of celebrating around the world, and the similarities that are embedded between them. We are looking forward to researching Chinese/Vietnamese New Year, Eid, and Christmas in the days we have left in 2012. Our students are really starting to make connections between what they celebrate in their house and what other people celebrate around the world; which is very exciting for us all!