Tuesday 27 November 2012

Tech Innovator's Day 2012/2013

Hello tech friends!

Here are the links for my presentation on Edmodo:

You can view the presentation here.

Parent Edmodo permission form.

Edmodo code of conduct form.

If you have trouble opening the links, please email me & I will send the files directly to you.

Please feel free to contact me at evita.massaro@tcdsb.org or follow me on Twitter @EvitaMassaro for any help with Edmodo- I would be more than happy to help!

Thank you for visiting & enjoy Edmodo!!

Saturday 24 November 2012

Biomes, Scatter plots, Biographies & a Dove commercial!

Hello students & parents!

Thank you again for taking the time to attend interviews and a big thank you to my wonderful students for presenting your academic portfolios!


REMINDERS:

- Our first Cookies & Books book talk will take place on Monday! Students are really excited to share a recent favourite read with the rest of their peers! I will bring in the cookies and students are expected to bring in a recent favourite book and be prepared to share the book title, author, genre and a few points about the book and why they loved it!

Science biomes quiz will take place on Monday during computer lab on Edmodo.  Students are encouraged to review their notes on the different biomes and watch the biomes video on Edmodo.

- Health assignment on Edmodo is due Monday! Parents, please check out Edmodo with your child as there are many assignments and discussions frequently being posted!

- Pizza orders for December & January are due on Monday.

- Final mystery narrative with book cover is due next Monday December 3rd! Students may type or neatly write their final published draft.

- Science biodiversity unit test will take place next Friday December 7th! Students are encouraged to thoroughly review their Science notes and watch again the videos on kingdoms, vertebrates, invertebrates and biomes- all posted on Edmodo and the blog.  Students should also review the  Study Tips blog post!


WEEKLY UPDATE:

- In Math, we have completed the Data Management chapter! Students wrote their final unit test on Friday and results are coming soon, but I am happy to report that many students gave me a thumbs up as they handed in their tests :)


Math Lunch Workshop- we learn & have fun!

 Students also continue to work on the 4 steps to successful problem solving!  Students wrote a pre-assessment this week to see how well they understand and have improved their 4 steps to problem solving:

 
 
- In Health, students are exploring what healthy living means.  The students recently completed making a prediction about healthy living, surveying the class on two healthy living questions related to one another, creating a table to record the data from the surveys, creating a scatter plot graph and describing the trend and whether their prediction was correct or not:
 

 
 
 
- In Language, we are reading biographies and working on the comprehension strategy 'asking questions'!  We began our whole class lesson with a story about Andy Warhol (ask your child about who he is!) and as a class, we worked on 'asking questions':
 


 
 
During Daily 5, students could choose from the following activities this week:
 
 
Read to Self/Others- choose a biography and work on 'asking questions':
 




Listen to Reading- visit Tumble Books and listen to a biography or another story:
 


Word Work- work on creating words of famous people:
 




Work on Writing- work on the writing process steps for pen pal letter and/or mystery narrative:
 

 
 
- In Media, most of what we study is on Edmodo. We are currently studying persuasive advertising and mixed media messages.  Students viewed the Dove commercial and discussed with their peers the message behind the commercial- I was really impressed with the responses! Please watch the Dove commercial on Edmodo and read some of the feedback from the students:
 
 
 
"I think this commercial is sending a positive message because its showing the people in advertisements don't have perfect skin or eyes or hair and telling us that we should accept ourselves for what we really look like. I also think it shows us a negative view of what advertising has become today in our society that they have to use computer generated pictures of women instead of using real pictures of real woman. It makes me feel upset because the people who tried making this girl who is naturally beautiful into this fake person who they think is better looking. "
 
"There is nothing I would change in this commercial because I think girls deserve to know that being as 'pretty' as the models in the commercial will never happen."
 
"I personally think that the commercial is telling us that people on the covers and commercials are not perfect and that some products do not actually do what they say."

"I think the message of the commercial is beauty is in the inside because you could look pretty on the outside but on inside you could be unhappy and sad, dont try to be someone else because you re awesome just the way you are and don t change who you are."

"Why do people care when people look good or not why do they take the picture then change it on the coumputer?"

"I think this commercial is positive because it is showing people the true secret to the people on magazines so now maybe some people feel more confident because of the commercial. I was a little bit shocked and surprised to see process towards making the people look better in the magazine."

"i was surprised by the part when they were editing her face on the computer thingy. i thought that they only put make-up on the person and then make the commerical i never thought they actually edit her face on the computer thingy!"

"The target audience is for girls because girls like make up and they like to look pretty and they also like to rock the style."

"The message of this commercial is to buy this product and that the lesson is that even though you are not beautiful you can be beautiful in your own way."







- In Social Studies, we continue to explore Canada's trading partners and students are beginning a research report on a trading country.  Congratulations on the great quiz marks students!!
 
 
- In Science, students presented their Biome Power Points and I was SO IMPRESSED with their amazing work and presentation skills!  Enjoy a sample of the students' presentations:
 








 





 










 
 
 
Below are the students' academic portfolios, which is a collection of their strengths, areas of need and favourites for the term. Loved that Edmodo was a personal favourite for so many students:
 
 
 








 
 
Finally, we wish Eleseo a safe and amazing trip!! We will miss you!  Congratulations to our student of the week, JAYDEM and to all Friday raffle winners!
 
 
Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful week!
 
Mrs Massaro