March 31

What’s the Author’s Message, Anyway?

 

Hello Readers!

Recently we’ve been learning about how readers…

1) Identify what the author’s message/moral is

2) Think about whether or not they agree with what the author is saying

We are at the end of our Social Issues unit, but this lesson applies to all fiction that we read! Throughout a book, it’s important to be active thinkers and allow our brains to ask questions, make predictions, put ourselves in our characters’ shoes…and much, much more! But, the question is, what to do at the end of the book? It’s easy to say whether we liked the book or not. But what about the reasons why the author wrote the book?  Occasionally, author’s come right out and tell us on their websites or in the author’s note that you can sometimes find at the end of a book. But often, readers are left to figure out the message for themselves.

And nobody says it’s easy, either! There’s also no right or wrong answer. As long as you JUSTIFY or EXPLAIN why you thought that way, then that’s all that matters!

We read Your Move by Eve Bunting and used that as an example before we tried it in our Book Club groups. You can see in the picture giant Post-it notes that we used to record our thinking.

So, readers…give it a try! The next fiction book you read, try to figure out what the author’s message is and whether or not you agree!

Happy reading,

Miss B.

 

Category: Reading Workshop | 1 Comment on What’s the Author’s Message, Anyway?
March 30

Evaluating Internet Information

  The internet is such a vast resource that it is easy to understand how challening it can be to navigate through it! This is especially true if you don’t know what you’re looking at!

Today, we learned about some of the ways you can evaluate whether an internet website is valid, trustworthy or credible.

The first thing we talked about was the domain suffix. That is the part of a web address that comes at the END. For example, everyone has heard of .com or .edu

We learned that .com websites… anyone can create those and they are commercial sites with the information on the site trying to sell you something…an idea, a product, etc.  Therefore, we should be extra careful when navigating sites with the .com suffix because they may not be giving us ALL the information or we are only getting PART of the picture.

.edu means the website comes from an educational source such as a school, but not all schools choose to use .edu in their website address. NOT just anyone can get .edu as a suffix because you have to go through a very rigorous process to be approved for this. Information from these kinds of websites are generally good to use.

Click here to read more about what the different endings of addresses mean!

More tips to help you know if a website is credible:

1. Who wrote it? There should be somewhere on the site information about who was the author or who sponsored the website. What kind of credentials does this person have. Are they an expert on the topic or is this their opinion?

2.  Up to date? Is the website well-maintained so that it contains current information? If it is up to date, it should say at the bottom of the screen when it was last updated.

3.  Links–if there are many hyperlinks broken or when you click on them, they lead you to other sites that seem unrelated to the original site, this could indicate you are visiting an unreliable website.

4. URL–what does the ending or suffix of the website tell you about  who is sponsoring the site? Where is the site from?

5.  Compare–It is so important to look at other websites and compare information. If you are not sure about some information you are reading about on a website, research that a little more or Google it…see what you find out.  How does it compare with what you read?

Take a look at each of the websites linked below and evaluate them for yourself. Is it trustworthy? Why or why not?

1.  http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html

2.  http://www.thedogisland.com/

3. http://www.bigredhair.com/robots/index.html

4. http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Category: Blogging Reminders and Tips, Teacher Talk | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 30

V.I.P Trip

Several weeks ago the grade 6 classes (2 of us) at our school went on a VIP trip. No, it doesn’t stand for very important person. It stands values, influences, peers.It is for grade 6 and it is for learning about drugs, peer pressure, and laws.We went to Thames Valley District School Board for a bunch of  presentations.

The first one was from the k9( short form for canine) unit. They came with a German Shepard named Axe.Next came a woman from the hospital.She talked to us about staying safe around drugs. Then she showed us a video of a taxi driver.He started to dose off. When he fell asleep,the taxi crashed.He wasn’t wearing a seat-belt,so he went flying backwards.  He luckily survived,but he had very bad injuries. Then a woman from the London Detention Center came to talk to us.She showed us pictures and talked to us about the jail where she worked. Then came my favourite part,and a lot of other peoples’ favourite,too.A man named Leroy came in to talk to us about racism.He told us a story when 911 happened, there was a Muslim woman who was called a terrorist just because of her religion.Then he showed us a video of a little boy  who was being bullied(I added it at the bottom). In the end, Leroy taught us not to judge somebody because of their religion or skin colour. I think my class had fun,and we are going to get a VIP shirt!

 

 

Category: 2011-2012 Posts | 2 Comments on V.I.P Trip
March 30

Euro Update

Kamil here and here’s the euro cup update! In my other posts you guy have been leaving me comments. Buy the way, thank you.  So now every month I will be writing an euro update!  One of the question I got was who qualified for the 2012 euro cup! Well I do know and will tell you what European countries qualified. Here are the official standings.

Group A

Teams P Pts
0 Poland Poland 0 0
0 Greece Greece 0 0
0 Russia Russia 0 0
0 Czech Republic Czech Republic 0 0

Group B

Teams P Pts
0 Netherlands Netherlands 0 0
0 Denmark Denmark 0 0
0 Germany Germany 0 0
0 Portugal Portugal 0 0

Group C

Teams P Pts
0 Spain Spain 0 0
0 Italy Italy 0 0
0 Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland 0 0
0 Croatia Croatia 0 0

Group D

Teams P Pts
0 Ukraine Ukraine 0 0
0 Sweden Sweden 0 0
0 France France 0 0
0 England England 0 0

Here are the offical UEFA EURO standings. Well that`s all ladies and gentlemen! If you have any more  queatians for me please leave em in the comment box below.

What team are you cheering for?

Category: 2011-2012 Posts | 2 Comments on Euro Update
March 30

Earth Hour: Let’s Help Make a Difference!

This Saturday March 31 at 8:30pm is the annual Earth Hour event that will take place around the globe. Over the past few years, I’ve always promoted it with my students, but for some reason this year…it’s crept up on me, so I apologize for the late blog notice!

We are currently learning about energy in our Science unit, and have just moved into the next phase of our unit, learning about energy conservation. Earth Hour is the perfect way to join in the movement to help make the earth a better place to live.

Take a look at the video below which informs you about this year’s Earth Hour event. Set your watches, write yourself a note…whatever it takes to remember to turn those lights off for one hour.

A little bit of effort can go a looooonnng way!

Miss B.

Category: Teacher Talk | 4 Comments on Earth Hour: Let’s Help Make a Difference!
March 29

Coins

Hey, Matt here, Out of many here is 1 of my hobbies. Coin Colecting so I will explain, coin collecting is like collecting stamps, but with coins I have a whole load of Silver Dollars exactly like this one

and some coloured quaters like this

Like this

and like this,

And a whole bunch of olympic quarters,

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Category: 2011-2012 Posts | 3 Comments on Coins
March 29

Airsoft

Like paintball, airsoft is a sport where you run around in an area (AO). to tell if its not a real gun there will be and orange tip on the gun to indicate that its not a real gun  the point of the game is to shoot your enemy with little plastic bb pellets loaded in

magazines/clips that are put into your plastic or metal bb gun. you are put into

teams depending on what type of game your playing like elimination, capture the flag, and presindent. But usually there is one objective, to hit your enemy and elimate them untill the next round.

Now, to buy the guns you can go to sites like “halifax airsoft” or “Canada airsoft” it depends on what you by but the price range is usually 100-600 dollars for one gun. It is a great and fun thing to play so give it a try and see how you like it.

What do you prefer: Airsoft or Paintball?

Category: 2011-2012 Posts | 1 Comment on Airsoft
March 29

My Rabbits

Hello, my name is Matt, I did not mention this on my 7 Random Facts, but I have a rabbit. His name is Samson.  He is white with black splocthes all over. I taught him how to do tricks such as:

1. Shake a paw

2. Come when called

3. Potty trained

I loved it when I got Samson potty trained, now all I need to do is teach him how to flush!

Do you have a pet? If so, have you ever taught it to do a trick?  Tell me what it is and I will make a post with the winning tricks!

Category: 2011-2012 Posts | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 24

Summer Olympics 2012

As some of you might know coming up this summer is the 2012 Summer Olympics! The Olympics will be held in London, England from July 27th to August 12th. The torch relay will be starting in Greece and will go around the world, a total of around 8000 people will carry the torch.

It seems that every time I turn on the Olympics on TV, beach volleyball is always on. Does this ever happen to you? Some of the other sports taking place are basketball, swimming, archery, football, gymnastics and many,many more. There are a total of 26 sports going on in  the  Olympics.

There are two mascots whose names are Wendlock and Mandeville. They are two drops of steel from Steelworks in Bolton.

Some of the best athletes that have participated in the Summer Olympics are Micheal Phelps who is a swimmer from the U.S, Usain Bolt who is a runner from Jamaica and many, many more. Below is a video of Usain’s world record 9.58 seconds on 100 meter race!

Canada is pretty good in the Summer Olympics , but they particapate much better in the Winter Olympics because they have the right weather to practice in.

Canada has won a total of 260 medals since 1990 and I hope  they win more this year!

Thanks for reading!

Nicholas and Kevin

 

Category: 2011-2012 Posts | 2 Comments on Summer Olympics 2012