Ski Day Success!!!

What a day!  It seemed like today's ski might have been in jeopardy, even just a few days ago, but Dave cut some new areas out, and groomed for us, and we had an amazing experience!  The walk to Westboro Beach was a short 10 min jaunt, and once there, we played some flag belt games, with lots of running and diving in the soft snow.  This got us really warmed up for the lessons.  We got our gear sorted, and then had Jenny and Patrick, from Fresh Air Experience, run us through a series of drills, and activities, aimed at getting us all more comfortable on skiis.

The class was incredible overall.  The level of skill was really even across the board, with a couple who fell more often than others, but with everyone looking like they improved over the course of the trip.  After about 40 min of games on our skiis in the training field, we headed off on a trek down the trail.  Everyone did a great job of making it work for them.  The sky was clear blue, the temperature was perfect, and, as you can see, the students were grinning from ear to ear.  Talk about a magical day!  Check out the photos below!

Bibliography Samples for Lit Logs

It was pointed out that I asked for bibliographical information in the Lit log entry, but we hadn't talked about it in class yet.  We talked about it today, and tomorrow we will be searching and recording some of it from books in class, to get the idea straight.  There are some examples for books below.  Ultimately I am looking for more than just the title of the book, so we are going with a standard research format.  I hope this helps with any lit log worries.

SAMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRIES

A bibliographical entry is made up of three parts.  Typically it includes the Author, the title, and the city:publishing company & year of first publication.  For periodicals, internet sites, and 

BOOKS:
One Author:
Hoving, Thomas. Tutankhamun. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.

More than One Author :
Cooper, Robert K. and Leslie L. Cooper. Low-Fat Living. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1996.

No Author Given:
The Amazing Universe. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1991. 

Skiing is a Go!!!

Thanks Groomer Dave for cutting fresh trails for us.  We are ready to go tomorrow.  Bring your skiis to the front lobby, and dress for the weather!!!

X Country Trip Tuesday and Student Leds

Just a reminder, and a heads up regarding our trip this Tuesday.  For those who don't recall, we had a trip to cross country ski that had to be cancelled due to a freezing rain bus cancellation (it was a board level cancellation that kind of took it out of our hands).  Luckily we had a rain date on the form we sent home, which allows us to go this Tuesday, February 28th, for our planned xcountry ski.  Now, though I realise that the trials deep in the Gatineaus are still being travelled, the SJAM is not at its best after the past week or two of warm and rain.  This being said, Dave assures us that he might be able to groom some untouched areas to prepare a space for us.  We will be making the skiing decision later on Monday. after we talk with Dave, and the people who were giving us the lessons.  

Our idea is to make use of the date no matter what.  If no skiing can be done, we are going to use the opportunity to do a trek down to, and along, the same stretch of area.  We will be flexible, and possibly try to encorporate some other activities into the trip, but since we have forms to allow us to get out for a walk, and spend some time along the trail, we are planning to go, even if we can't make the skiing work. 

This would be the best case situation, but we will make the best of it.  Please let me know if you can make it to volunteer on Tuesday.  It will be happening, in one form, or another.  I will send more information tomorrow when we make our final decisions.

In the event of a cancelled ski portion of the trip, we will retain the funds that were collected for the skiiing, and book an alternate trip, minus the $5,50 that we collected from each student.

STUDENT LEDS

This is the time of year that we traditionally invite families in to see what has been happening in Room 211.  I have included a link below to the Student Led Conference Schedule.  Please take a look, at it, and sign up wherever you might be able to make it in.  There are before, during, and after school time slots.  If none of these work for you, please let me know and we can try to make other arrangements.  

Room 211 Student Led Schedule

Black history month guest speaker

Reverend Anthony Bailey, from the Parkdale united church, visited us today to talk about teams of unity, tolerance and intolerance, the power of restorative justice, and the importance of community. He also spoke about black history here in Canada, and how important it is to uncover the truth about African-American history, and a African history around the world and here in Canada. It was an amazing presentation, and the students hung on his every word. I am sure we will talk about it for days to come. The students likely would relate to you the story about the woman who visited Gandhi to ask him toget her son to stop eating sugar. That was just one of many memorable stories shared with us today.

Sad News

If your child comes home with satyr watery eyes today, it might be because of some sad news from school.  During the last block of the day, we found that the fish who had developed a fungus on it, had passed away. As you can see from the note in the photo below, some of the students were a bit emotional about this. It's a caring bunch, but they seemed understand the circle of life :-)

On a brighter note, tomorrow we skate at the lewd! Skates helmets gloves and some energy send them to school with all those things tomorrow :-)

Happy New Year!!!

On our first day of class for 2017 we are going to do some reflective writing in our journals.  You know that we are going to look at how the break went, and write about what we did with all of our time.  One thing we might want to look at is how well we met the homework expectations that were set out on the last day of classes in 2016.  Here is our list from December 23...

We will be getting started this year with a fraction talk in Math, and hopefully we will follow up with some Kahoot.  Here is the link for the students who need help getting started during our in class quizz session.

https://kahoot.it/#/