We’re Back

Hope everyone had a great Easter Break. I certainly did. We did not do a whole bunch, but we spent some quality time together as a family, celebrated my oldest daughter’s 8th birthday, and were fortunate to be visited by the Easter Bunny!! All in all, a really great week and I can’t wait to get back to school! Hope you feel the same.

We are entering the ‘home stretch’ of the school year. The last few month seem to fly by and I am sure that this year will be no different. Hopefully all of you haven’t forgotten much of the content we covered before the Easter break. We will see tomorrow!! For those of you that are curious, hopefully the terms point, line, line segment, ray, angle, acute, obtuse, right, straight, reflex, complementary, and supplementary are mathematical terms that ring a bell. Can you remember what the sum of the interior angles of a triangle equal?? Can you measure angles and construct angles?? In math, we will be wrapping up our Angle Geometry unit in the next week or two so you can expect a review and an exam!!

We will continue to look at the Earth, it’s plates, and the theory behind earthquakes and volcanoes. I will continue to use the Moodle site and introduce more technological components to the unit where it fits. I hope you are enjoying the different approach to learning.

Busy Times!

Today was a great day . . . very busy and eventful. The day began with Mr. Reimer teaching a couple of math lessons with my grade 6 math classes and he did a good job incorporating the SMARTBOARD. The students really enjoy the interactive component of the tool. Fortunately, I think (and am hoping) that when we return from the Easter break, Fairview school will have its second SMARTBOARD in my classroom!! Hopefully the division technology guys will be able to come in and install it over the Easter break. That would be awesome!

Our school had their annual drama production at it was really good. Our students worked really hard and had their dress rehearsal this afternoon for all Fairview students and the grade 4′s and 5′s from Oman. Their hard work payed off because it went off without a hitch. Great job everyone! The evenings performance was also a great success.

Mrs. Robinson came to meet the grade 6 classes today. They were very receptive to her and I know they will enjoy having her as their teacher to finish the year. She is an excellent teacher.

Miss Dodds departure is just around the corner. She will be missed. She did an excellent job and I appreciated the opportunity to teach with her. Fortunately, she will just be across town finishing the school year at the Comprehensive High School. I am sure she will visit when she has time.

We were able to have a brief assembly today to recognize many students for some of the great things they do. We are a school that focuses on the Virtues and we take every opportunity to pay tribute to students demonstrating virtuous behaviour and actions. I am constantly amazed at how much our students do for each other and the school. They are what make things tick around here.

After school the grade 6 boys had badminton tryouts. I was really impressed at how competitive it was for a bunch of guys just learning the game. I saw a lot of improvement in the short time the boys played after school today.

My daughter had her year end party for her hockey team tonight and it was nice to see her interact with the new friends she made throughout her season. It was her first year of hockey and she really enjoyed it.

I leave you with a video. It was one of the first short videos I saw at the theater before the original Shrek movie (years ago). I wish all of you a great easter break.

Time on Saturday

I have a bit of free time today so I thought I would write a quick post. I really enjoyed the opportunity to sit through the Student-Teacher- Parent conferences yesterday. All of you have grown so much this year as students and citizens. You should all be very proud.

As we enter the last reporting period, the time will seem to fly by. Often there will be a ‘spring slide’ (as I like to call it) and I personally challenge all of you to not fall into it. As the weather gets warmer and the sun shines more, it is often difficult to keep focussed on the task at hand. It is easy to look outside and think about the football team you are going to be on during the noon break or where the street hockey game is going to take place after school. These thought can get in the way of your learning. You have worked very hard so far this year and I have seen many students start to fall into bad habits after they spent the entire first part of the year creating good habits. Keep focussed and doing the things you have been doing so far this year. If you do, you can be assured of continued success. Enjoy your weekend.

I have to run, my daughter is involved in a hockey tournament this weekend at the Fairview rinks. This weekend, I am a hockey dad!!

How did it go??

It was great to get your comments!! I appreciate hearing from all of you and hope that this will be a site that you visit frequently.

There seemed to be some problems that arose from today’s assignment that were mentioned in the comments. I will give a possible explanation for them. A few of you mentioned you had trouble with the videos. I can only assume that they did not work (for some of you) due to the amount of users (at the same time) and often with the videos (if there are lots of people online) they take some time to load. I would imagine that the videos would work if you were to look at them when there were not so many users.

Another question asked was ‘how do you make a blog’? It is really simple. You can use WordPress (which is the blog site that this blog is) and apply for a free blog. All you need is an e-mail address. If you would like to subscribe, click on this link, and subscribe. If you have any question, let me know. I will be more than happy to help.

A third suggestion was for me to ‘get rid of the dead ends’. I will attempt to do this whenever I get a chance!!

I was wondering what you thought of the learning aspect of Wednesday. It is a different type of learning for many of you!! It was definitely a lesson in reading and following instructions and was primarily self-directed (very little teacher assistance). Did you like this type of learning? If you did, what did you like about it? If you didn’t, what did you dislike about it? Did anyone find the use of technology to be a problem? I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

Here are a couple of videos for you to enjoy. Shanna mentioned the following video in her comment to me. I thought I would share it with you. Thanks for the recommendation Shanna. I hope this is the right one . . . there were quite a few of them! The second one reminds me of one of my summer jobs . . . I worked at a dairy farm. There was one cow that was a bit ‘weird’ to say the least. Enjoy the videos.

 

Hello Grade 6′s!

Well, it looks like you found my blog. Hopefully all the clicks it took you to get here weren’t too difficult. This site is for you to look at, read, and comment at any time. My goal is to create an environment for us to discuss a variety of topics outside the classroom setting. This is not strictly an academic site where we have to talk about school stuff. I will post many different topics on my blog, many of them non-school related. I will, however, use this as a means of communication to relay school information to you and your parents. Please show your parents this blog, bookmark it on your computer, and check it our regularly. I will be informing your parents of this blog and the Moodle site during our Student-Teacher-Parent conferences on Friday.

As part of your assignment today, I wanted you to experience the beginnings of my Moodle page that contains our Science class and links to this blog. I would love to get some feedback from you. As mentioned, feel free to comment about whatever is on your mind. I am interested in what you are thinking.

I am leaving you a little video that hopefully you will enjoy. I am a huge fan of Animation. I have two young daughters who love to watch animated videos. I really like the short videos that come before the movies and some of the others that are produced. One of my favourite characters is the Polar Bear. He has a lot of tough luck in his life but I love his dedication. You can learn a good lesson from this video. . . never give up!!  Hope you have a great day (I am in meetings today) and I will see you all tomorrow.

Looks Like you found it!

Well, if I get any comments that is good news. That means that someone has found me!! This blog is primarily a communication tool for my students and their parents to contact me and for easy reading enjoyment. I will try to keep topics light-hearted and enjoyable.

Here is a quick video. When I am not being an educator, one of the things I enjoy is weight training. This video takes weight training to a new level. One other thing I like to do is laugh!! Hope you get a laugh out of this.

It Begins.

Wanted to start off by welcoming everyone to my blog.  I hope you will read it frequently and comment.  This blog will be my tool to keep you up to date on ‘what’s going on’.  I hope you find it an informative and useful tool.

Please remember, it is a work in progress!!  Bear with me.