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Writer's picturehmcgowan

Learning Goals For January






Math: Shape and Space: Location and Movement

  • Grade 6 and Grade 7 students will be working on using coordinate grids to describe locations of points and shapes

  • Translations, Transformations, Reflections, Rotations on a grid

Ways to support Math at home:

  • Have your student work on Math Prodigy 3x's a week at home if you have internet access. I can see live updates of their work, and I set individualized tasks

  • This unit connects to GPS points on a grid. Most students forget that you always read the X axis first, then the Y. This is very important. X is the axis “on the ground” and “Y” goes to the sky. In GPS terms, we read latitude first (North or South)

  • For Grade 7’s this unit is an intro into negative numbers. Subtracting negative numbers is the same as “subtracting a debt” meaning you gain money. We talk about owing a friend $5.00 for a snack, and then the friend takes-away your debt, meaning you now have $5.00 more.

  • The Bank of Zero is a way we describe subtracting integers. The bank always lends you “nothing” so they always lend you a positive and a negative integer chip (ie. ( +5)-( -2) the bank lends you +2, -2 or “zero” to show this equation with pictures.

Language Arts (LA)

  • Students will begin a unit on media and storyboarding. This unit will be combined with skills in Applied Design, Skills and Technology (ADST).

Reading:

  • Understanding how non-fiction text features and graphics convey meaning and influence what the reader choses to focus on. Learning to read graphic novels for understanding.

Writing:

  • Learning how to summarize and to pick key details to highlight for a particular audience. Flat and Round character development. Gaining fluency using graphic organizers to plan ideas: character background story, 9 frame story board

Oral Language:

  • Students will learn how animators and storyboard artists pitch their ideas. Small group public speaking to convince.


Ways to support LA at home:

  • Read a graphic novel together- stopping to focus on how meaning is conveyed beyond text. How is tension conveyed, sounds emphasized? Try to read the scenes out dramatically like a play.

  • Online Typing Club: I can see live updates of how fast and accurate your student is typing. Please have your student log into my website with Typing Club 2x a week- as we will be typing up our Character Design Background story sheets.

  • Talk about your favourite TV characters. What is that character’s story- what makes you care about them? Discuss changes characters go through in a particular movie you might both like.


Social Studies

  • Religions, Beliefs and Cultures (How did religions, beliefs, and cultural practices influence people and societies?

  • Students will explore how beliefs reveal different perspectives of early societies (such as Greece), and what significant beliefs origin stories represent (including the origin stories from Indigenous communities across the globe).

Ways to support Social Studies at home:

  • Talk about your family's beliefs and values, and the connections you may have with your belief system to your own cultural heritage. This can also include basic values about society, and does not have to be connected to a specific religion.

Science

  • Unit will begin in February. Science experiments, using "If.... then" statements. Learning how to use the scientific method, track data, label diagrams, and describe observations.


Ways to support Science at home:

  • Try small science experiments that begin with a question and a prediction. Often “I wonder if…” statements help students begin to find an idea to research.

  • Search online for at home-experiments, or try this website HERE for 100 at home experiments using common household products.

  • Connect to Science links posted on my website.

French

  • Communities in where French is spoken, and Francophone cultural festivals and celebrations

  • Winter themed vocabulary to prepare for Carnival Quebec mini research project in January

Ways to support French at home:

  • Have your student share a French vocabulary term they have learned

  • Practice Duolingo online at home 2x a week. I can see a live update of their progress and have set assignments for every student.

  • Online maps of where French is spoken in the world HERE

Career Education

  • Job Ready Skills: Building a Fake Resume to learn formatting and editing skills:

  • Animation Character Resume

  • Students will learn to log into MyBlueprint- a School District supported online portfolio, and will create a personalized portfolio home page to share their learning in January.

  • Students will build a sample resume for their animation character in ADST

Ways to support Career Education at home:

  • During the month of January, students will share their personalized link to their school district My Blueprint Portfolio. Watch for a note in student planners to check out their link!

  • Talk about interests and how those interests might lead to career domains. At the Grade 6/7 level we focus more on domains (Health Care) versus specific jobs (Nurse/Doctor.

  • Talk to your child about your job, and the responsibilities you have, linking skills to character traits


Applied Design, Skills, and Technology (ADST)

  • Media Arts: digital and non-digital media, understanding how images, sounds, and text communicates information, settings, ideas, and story structure

  • Designing 3D characters with armature, puppetry skills and use of oil-based clay as a building medium

Ways to support ADST at home:

  • Talk to your student about their character. How would their character act in a stressful situation (such as being trapped in an elevator, or something that was difficult.) Yes the character might use a superpower, but how would they react if they couldn’t use their power?

  • Talk about familiar animation characters, what do they have in common?

  • Read a graphic novel together, focusing on how meaning is conveyed through images.

Physical and Health Education (P.E)

  • Students will be refining skills in Target games and Fitness Skills, including completing the “Beep Test” a multi-stage aerobic fitness test, that gets students to build endurance skills based on their own goals. Student growth of fitness is tracked and self-assessed.

Health Education:

  • Describe and assess strategies for managing problems related to mental well-being and substance use (includes vaping)

Ways to support P.E. at home:

  • Increasing student flexibility and strength: basic stretching, warm up activities, such as supported sit-ups, and supported push-ups. Wall push-ups are a great support for students.

  • Increasing accuracy with throwing and catching objects, and balance (hopping on one foot, standing on one leg)

  • Post the number for the Kids’s Help Phone in an easy to access place like the fridge

Fine Arts (taught and assessed by Ms. B,)


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