Mme. Vachon’s Grade 7’s have made the switch from Géographie to Histoire.  In beginning their investigations into New France and British North America from 1713-1800, many were surprised to learn that slavery existed here.

I came upon an activity that would allow them to investigate primary source material and investigate the realities of day to day life.  Through reading primary sources, students need to answer the following question: How significantly different was the life of ordinary citizens (commoners) and slaves in New France? They are responsible for presenting their conclusions and evidence through a poster, a PowerPoint presentation, or any other presentation method to be shown in class Friday, February 10th.

The activity can be located at the following url: http://www.mysteryquests.ca/quests/06/indexfr.html

I’m happy to announce that the first video based on the Là où je dors series has been submitted!  Take a look at Juliano’s excellent work!

Bravo, Juliano!

Today the Grade 7s enjoyed the first Mardi Gras project – a King Cake, baked  by Sam following a recipe from New Orleans. You can read about it on Sam’s blog.

Merci, Sam! C’était délicieux!

Woohoo! The video produced by Ms. Hansma’s Grade 8 students is finally (after several exasperating hours!) been uploaded to YouTube!

I will be sharing the link on Twitter and I will be uploading their work to the AKGTCanada website.

Here is their introduction to Rockland, Ontario:

Please take a look and let them know what a great job they did!

Before the break, the Grade 8s watched a few episodes of TFOs Là où je dors. These videos introduced them to students from around the world and their lives.  Students have been challenged to create their own videos about themselves in the same style.

They spent today’s class brainstorming things that could be in their videos (where they live, their name, what they like, their favourite things, family, their age, their dreams for the future, pets, their room, etc.) and some even began their scripts.

If students have their own devices, they can film things at home that they would like to include in their video.  If not, I have asked them to bring in some photographs that we can scan and later use in iMovie.

Tomorrow, we will be working on finding an appropriate due date.

I will be sending home a consent form later on should students wish to post their videos on their blog (it would have to be uploaded to YouTube first).

Here is a link to the TFO video series:

http://www.tfo.org/en/universe/la-ou-je-dors

*NEW* After a discussion with the classes involved, the following was decided:

Due date: Friday, February 3

Minimum video length: 60 seconds

Minimum number of sentences: 10

A complete list of success criteria and the feedback form can be found online in the students’ OneNote folders for French class.

Carnival season will soon be upon us, and this year the Grade 7s will be doing some research and some hands-on learning regarding Mardi Gras and how it is celebrated in the Americas. They will be responsible for answering the following questions:

1. Qui (who) fête le Mardi Gras?
2. Quoi (what) – Qu’est-ce que c’est le Mardi Gras?
3. Quand (when) est-ce qu’on fête le Mardi Gras? Pouquoi?
4. Où (where) est-ce qu’on fête le Mardi Gras dans le pays des Amériques?
5. Pourquoi (why) est-ce qu’on fête le Mardi Gras?

When this research is done, students can choose a hands-on project to go with their information. Some ideas are:

un masque, des bijoux, un char alégorique, un costume, des pâtisseries, autre….

Here are some masks that were made last year:

Welcome back and happy new year!

Today, Mr. Parks’ Grade 7’s watched the silent movie The Lion’s Cage starring Charlie Chaplin. Their assignment is to write their own soundtrack (minimum of 1 minute in length) for the movie and to present it Monday, January 23rd. This will give them 2 work periods before it is due. Students chose to either work independently or in groups. They can use the instruments we have in class (guitars, boom whackers, xylophones, glockenspiels, bucket drums and various other percussion instruments), as well as create sound effects with other things.

Mme. Vachon’s Grade 7’s will watch it on Friday the 13th, work on it the following Friday, and present their music Friday January 27th.

Before beginning, we talked about how soundtracks affect your emotions, help you to anticipate things, and help you make inferences while you are watching TV, a video, or a movie. For example, when watching a horror movie, we don’t expect to hear cheerful, happy music.

Looking forward to hearing what the students create!

All of my Grade 8 music students (Ms. Hansma’s and Ms. McPhail’s classes) have been assigned a task: to find a song about social justice and to report back to the class about the song they chose, a clip of the song, the title, artist, year the song was written, and the song lyrics.  They need to talk about what the song is about, what inspired it, and why it is important.

Students in Ms. McPhail’s class will be presenting Tuesday, January 10th.

Most of Ms. Hansma’s students have already presented their findings.

Ms. Hansma’s Grade 8’s have begun to participate in the pilot project “A Kids’ Guide to Canada”. The project will be open to all Canadian teachers and students January 1, 2017, but we don’t have to wait!

Students are working on deciding what to include in their “Introduction to Rockland”.  We will be going on a community walk and taking pictures as soon as all of the permission forms are in.

For more information, please visit the Guide’s official web page.

cbcmusic-cmcc-thanks