Assignment #26 - Where Children Eat and Sleep

Hey R8A,

  The year is winding down and I can hardly believe it. We will only have a few blog assignments left and today's relates to Geography. As we spoke about on Monday in class, people around the world live in strikingly different conditions. Your living conditions, however, do not always correlate with happiness. Sometimes, people living in what appear to be the most difficult conditions, are, in fact, the happiest.

  I want you to reflect on the following question as you view the slideshows for this assignment: What does every human being need in order to survive? What does every human being need in order to thrive (be happy and successful)?

  Check out What the World Eats either as a slideshow or on a blog. The slideshow has slightly more information, both the amount of money spent and the favourite foods of each family are included with the slideshow.

  Look at Where Children Sleep, again, either as a slideshow or on a blog. This time,
I strongly recommend the slideshow, as it contains way more information about the child and his or her interests. However, if you want to compare the bedrooms all at once, the blog post allows you to do that. For a little challenge, check out the blog post first and try to guess where each of these children might live before reading the information included in the slideshow.

  Think about what the photos and short descriptions tell us about the quality of life for these families and children. Do certain foods or rooms guarantee or predict how happy people will be?

  Now, for your assignment: create a new post, link back to this one and write a reflection. Describe the ideal home life you would like to create in your fictional country. Think about one family and one child within that family. Think about the crops that would grow in your country and what kind of industries are there. Write about the family's food consumption, national dishes and favourites. Write about one child in that family, give him or her a name and describe him or her in a way similar to the Where Children Sleep slideshow. Describe his or her interests, passions and dreams. The information you include in this post will give you and your readers a good idea about the quality of life in your country.

  Your post should include at least two clearly written paragraphs, as well as at least two photos to accentuate your points.

  I'd love it if you were really creative with this and perhaps wrote from the point of view of one of your fictional citizens (a diary entry, a letter, a blog post!). Be creative!

  Also, if you want, tie this in to our picture book unit. What kinds of books might your family enjoy?

  Enjoy and I look forward to reading your posts.

  When you have written your post, please leave a comment on this post to let me know you are done. Thanks!

Assignment #25: My Childhood Top Ten

Hello R8A,

  Your newest assignment has a lot of purposes:
1. Practicing your fantastic Writers' Workshop skills.
2. Reflecting on your childhood. Always a fun exercise!
3. Preparing you for our upcoming unit in English (I'll leave you to do a little guessing on this one!)
4. Demonstrating your amazing blogging skills.

  For this assignment, you are going to create a Top Ten list of your favourite childhood things. In your list you must include at least FOUR childrens' books (that you enjoyed under the age of 10) and TWO toys/games you liked to play as a little one. You can choose what you write about for the others.

1. Start a new post titled "Assignment #25: _____'s Childhood Top Ten"
2. Write a list of your top ten childhood items/memories (include at least four books and their authors and at least two toys/games).
      -number each item
      -write the title in bold
3. Write one paragraph about each item, what it was, why you love(d) it and if it is still special to you.
4. Add a relevant photo to each item on the list. Make sure you place it in the post with that item.
5. Link to websites about each of the books you chose (amazon, chapters, or another site).
6. Proofread carefully and publish your post.

Marking criteria
-Creativity
-Use of Writers Workshop tools: vivid images, muscular verbs, verb tense
-Clarity
-Images
-Structure of blog post
-Handed in on time
-Detail in descriptions
-Links to favourite childhood books


I want to give you time to work on this and be creative, but I'll be sharing my Childhood Top Ten with you as well!

Assignment #24: Canadian Political Parties

Hello R8A,

  All Canadians over the age of 18 have a big responsiblity on Monday, May 2nd. We are heading out to the polls to select our next government. You aren't old enough to head to the polls yet, but it is still important for you to learn what is going on and do some critical thinking.

  Your newest task is to either:
A: create a campaign poster for one of the candidates in next week's election
or
B: decide who you would be voting for if you were 18 or older and either present three compelling reasons orally or in writing

  Read this article. When you have read the text, click on some of the hyperlinks to learn more about the political parties and candidates.

  Then make a choice of which task (A or B listed above) you would like to complete.


  More information and marking criteria:

Select either task A or B

Task A:
Learn about the political parties of Canada and make a poster for one of the candidates who is running for Prime Minister. Make sure to include at least two important statements that will tell Canadians why they should vote for your candidate (these must be based on facts and in your own words).


Bonus: The five political parties discussed in today’s article use colours in their advertisements to help Canadians identify their messages. Use the chart below to make sure you are using the correct colour for your candidate!
Conservatives – Stephen Harper (Blue)
Liberals – Michael Ignatieff (Red)
NDP – Jack Layton (Orange)
Bloc Quebecois – Gilles Duceppe (Purple)
Green Party – Elizabeth May (Green)

Marking criteria for Task A
-accuracy of information
-at least two statements to support your candidate

-use of your own words

-use of political party's colour

-creativity

-poster is attention grabbing

Task B: Prepare a short piece that you can either post on your blog or share aloud with the class answering the following questions: If you could vote in the May 2nd election, which party and candidate would you vote for? Why do you think they would do the best job? Use at least three pieces of factual information to support your opinion.

Marking criteria for Task B

-accuracy of information

-ability to support decision with three valid points

-creativity

-clarity of writing/oral presentation

-argument is compelling (convincing to others)

Check out your "Stats"

Hello grade 8 bloggers,

   Recently, google and blogger have announced that there will be changes made to blogger to make it even easier and more interactive for users (both writers and readers of blogs). Last week we checked out the new views available on blogger. All you have to do is type /view at the end of your blog url, and you have the opportunity to view your blog in five new ways. It's pretty fun to play with. As I played with this, I realized that I want to include more pictures with my blog posts, as some of the views depend on those. This is one of the reasons I love things like this, they show me what I need to continue to work on.

   Also, when I log in to blogger, I have an older user interface than you do. This is because I started my blogger account before recent changes were made. Zak had this issue as well. If you want to be able to use blogger's newest interface, you simply need to change one of your settings. Go to the settings tab, then select "basics", three quarters of the way down the page, you'll have the option to select your post editor, select the most recent one. Tah-dah!

   Finally, I encourage you to check out something I discovered on blogger this weekend. When you are in your editing area of your blog, you will notice tabs like "posting", "comments", "settings" and "design", all of which you are familiar with. There are two other tabs, ignore "monetise" because it adds annoying ads and pop-ups to your blog, but check out "stats". In "Stats", there are several options of how to look at the visitors to your blog. You can see how many people visited each page, based on day, month or all time. You can see where in the world blog visitors have come from. You can see how people found your blog. It's really, really neat.

  Take some time to check these things out once you're all caught up on your assignments.

Assignment #23: Canada and China

Hello R8A Geographers,

Starting tomorrow, we will have two new students in our class. Ziting (Sherry) and Ya-wen (Teresa). They are coming on an exchange from China and are here to learn about Canadian culture and to develop their English language skills. We are very excited to have them joining our class and look forward to warmly welcoming them tomorrow.

I don't know how much you know about China, and based on our Pop Quiz yesterday, we can all learn some more about Canada, so your assignment today will have you comparing the two countries.

Please visit the CIA World Factbook (I have a copy of a book with this information as well). Look up each of Canada and China. You'll see a list of tabs, select "People". Read through the facts and figures about the people of Canada and then read through the facts and figures about the people of China. You can read other categories as well and look at the photos if you wish.

Once you have done some reading, create a new post on your blog comparing and contrasting three pieces of information. For each one, you should list the information and then write one sentence: "say something". In your reflective sentence, write about what this means/why this was of interest to you/a question you have.

You can also add to your post, for bonus marks, by reading other information about these two countries and writing about what is similar and what is different.

Good luck and make sure to leave a comment on this post when you are done and ready for me to mark your work!

DigLitCirc Discussion #6 - the FINAL one - begins!

Hello Ottawa and Oshawa readers,

  You are expected to be done reading your novel by the first week back at school after March Break.

   Friday, March 25th is the last date for posting answers to the questions from section 6. My students will be posting those questions by the end of the day today and I will link to them here.

Jatinder is hosting the discussion for We All Fall Down.
Aaisha and Amrita are hosting the Branded discussion.
Tara is hosting the discussion for Shaken.
Mateen will be hosting the discussion for Wounded.
Thanks to Claire "Nancy Drew", I know that Walid will be hosting the discussion for Black and White. Wave's final discussion will be hosted by Zak.
Sara is hosting the final discussion for Sketches.

Assignment #22 - Faces of the World

Above - "average" faces of women around the world

Hello R8A bloggers,

It's time for your first official Geography blog assignment to begin!

You have already watched the two amazing National Geographic videos about "The Seven Billion". Now, I want you to start working with these ideas.

In the video about the Most Typical Human, National Geographic created the face of the current most typical human, but also mentioned that that face will be changing in your lifetime.

For this assignment, I want you to do some research and analysis about this idea of the changing human face. You are going to make one post to answer the questions below. There will be 5 parts to your post (A, B, C, D and E).

1. Post: Part A: First of all, I want you to look up the word "globalization". Once you've found a good definition, create a new post, link back to the definition(s) you found and then write a definition of globalization IN YOUR OWN WORDS, one that can be understood by your peers.

2. Next, check out "The Face of Tomorrow", an amazing art and geography project that addresses identity and globalization. In big cities around the world, migrants from many different countries gather and the average faces of those cities and countries tell a story. Visit the map page on this site and look at the average faces in different cities. You can click on different locations to see the average male and female faces, or go to the drop down menus at the bottom and compare average faces in up to four locations. Spend some time here playing around.

3. Post: Part B: Add to your post a description of how one would go about making these average faces (link back to any sources you used for information). In real life, how do facial identities change over generations?

4. Post: Part C: What did you notice while playing around with "The Face of Tomorrow"? Add to your post three points (written in full sentences) that you found interesting. (What does "the face of tomorrow" mean? Why do the differences in our faces give us a sense of identity? What surprised you? What did you expect?...)

5. Visit Face Research and play around with the dozens of faces there. You can select as many as you wish, and create an average of their faces. Play around until you create what you believe to be the "face of tomorrow". Once you've found it, save the image (right click and select "Save as", give it an appropriate title and save to your account).

6. Post: Part D: Add to your post the picture you created and write three reasons (in full sentences) why you think this average face best represents "the face of tomorrow". Make sure one of your sentences uses your new knowledge about the term "globalization". I want to see that new vocabulary word in this portion of your post.

Above - a face that I created on Face Research by combining three different women of different ethnic origins.

7. Post: Part E: Think about your own face and the faces of your family members and friends. Do you have a face that represents your nationality, your family and yourself? Write at least two reflective sentences thinking about your own identity that is shown to the world by your face.

8. Final step: leave a comment on this blog post to tell me when you're finished.

BONUS: On the Face Research website, you can even start a free account and upload photos of your face and average it with other faces. I haven't tried this yet, but if you do, please let me know!

The Great Geography Kick-Off!

Hello friends,

The History Fair marks the end (sob, sob) of our History program this year. That means, starting this week, we will begin with Geography!

This weekend, I discovered an amazing new series on National Geographic's website - 7 Billion!

To start off your Geography thinking, please watch this video. If you have headphones, you can listen to the audio, it is just music. If you have no headphones, please turn your volume off.

When you are done watching that video, check out: Are You Typical?

Assignment #21: History Fair Reflection

Hello my little historians,

You all did a remarkable job on Friday's History Fair, and as I looked down from the stage on all the magnificence below, I was a proud teacher.

I know that you all feel good about what you did, and we haven't really had a chance to discuss how the Fair went.

So...it's time for a 4321! You know you love it!

Please start a new post on your own blog, link back to this assignment and answer, in full sentences, the following questions (make sure to post the questions, too). As the title of your post write "History Fair Reflection" and in the beginning of your post, make sure to tell your readers the title of your project.

4 - The four most interesting things that you learned about your topic in your researching.

3 - Three things that you felt proud of on the day of the Fair.

2 - Two specific researching or presentation techniques that were helpful to make your project so wonderful.

1 - One suggestion to make the History Fair even better in the future.

DigLitCirc Section 5 Hosts

Hello R8A,

Please visit Ms. Crosbie's blog to find your hosts for discussion #5. All the hosts are from her class, except for the host for Branded. Shahad from R8A will be hosting that discussion. Discussion #5 questions are now up and ready for your contributions. You have until the Monday following March Break to answer. Remember, the faster you get involved, the more interesting, juicy and deep the discussion will be!

DigLitCirc Summary Expectations

Hello all,

Two weeks after you have hosted a question and all your group members from Oshawa and Ottawa have answered, the host must post a synthesis on his or her blog.

You must write a summary post on your own blog...

-read all the comments made by your group members, notice any interesting trends, over-arching themes and on-going questions

-create a graphic organizer on paper to summarize their thoughts (this is your rough draft)

-write a paragraph:

• intro: what your book is, what your question was, what the group members answered overall (big idea), three pieces of support written in a concise way
• support #1: the most powerful piece of support to prove what your group members though/you decided the consensus was
• support #2: another piece of support to prove your big idea
• support #3: another very powerful piece of support
• conclusion: summarize what you want the reader to understand about the big idea, leave them with something to think about (a connection, a question...)

-carefully edit your paragraph for clarity, spelling, punctuation and grammar
-post the paragraph on your blog in a new post
-link to all your group members in this post and thank them for their contributions

DigLitCirc Discussion #4

Hello Oshawa and Ottawa friends,

Ms. Crosbie and I finally got to meet in person and we rocked the IDEAS conference, teaching many teachers from across Eastern Ontario about the challenges and huge successes of blogging. Several teachers who attended our workshops have started their own blogs now and we'll connect with their classes soon.

For now, we're still in the the Lit Circle mode. Ottawa students will be hosting the discussions for section #4 of your novels.

Please visit the following blogs and join in on the discussions as soon as you're done reading. The sooner you get involved in the discussion, the better, juicier and more interesting it will be!

Black and White - Claire
Branded - Jeffrey
We All Fall Down - Zuhair
Wounded - Mateen
Shaken - Tyler
Sketches - Haneen and Hannah
Wave - Iksha

I look forward to reading even more of you fantastic thoughts. Keep up the terrific work, darlings!

You're About to be Educational Superstars!

Hello octopuses,

Be good for Ms. Wark today, as I am in Kingston, presenting about your awesome work.

If you would like to watch the slideshow I'll be sharing, you can take a few minutes and check it out!

Digital Footprint and Blogging - IDEAS conference 2011

View more presentations from sepllck

DigLitCirc Discussion #4 hosts should be posting their questions today and commenting to let me know they're up.

Have a great Winter Fun Day tomorrow, good luck this weekend getting your boards and speeches all ready for Monday and have a fabulous weekend!

See you Monday,
Miss P

DigLitCirc Section #3 Discussion begins!

Hello my friends,

I hope you are enjoying your long weekend!

A couple of reminders:
#1. DigLitCirc Discussion #2 ends today
#2. DigLitCirc Discussion #3 begins today.

To see your hosts, check out Ms. Crosbie's blog.

Any questions, leave me a comment!

History Fair Expectations

Please take some time to check out the slideshow below. There is lots of information about expectations for the school History Fair.

History fair slideshow 2011 pdf

View more presentations from sepllck.

DigLitCirc Section 2 Hosts

Hello all,

Discussions for section 1 of the novels went beautifully. Thank you all for your wonderful contributions. Please make sure you are keeping up with all the due dates and contact me right away if you are falling behind for any reason. There's not a lot of time to catch up, as we need everyone on the same page (literally!).

R8A is very happy to be hosting the DigLitCirc discussions this week. All should be done commenting on the section one discussion questions and reading section 2 of their novels. Get ready for the second section discussions!

The hosts are:

Black and White - Noah
Sketches - Melissa
We All Fall Down - Will
Wave - UPDATE - Connor is hosting
Shaken - Tara
Wounded - Reshad
Branded - Qavi

They will be posting their fantastic questions on their blogs by the end of the day Friday so that their group members can start discussing the topics they suggest.

Remember, hosts, here are your critera:
-welcome all your group members by name (hyperlink to their blogs)
-give info: book title, author, section read (chapter numbers)
-decide on the question you want to ask and consult with your teacher to make sure it is a great one (you can talk to Ms. Wark about this or email Miss Pollock)
-post your thought-provoking question
-put a comment on your own post, answering your question
-make sure to respond to each of your group members at least once (thank them for their contributions, seek clarification, agree/disagree respectfully, add more information...)

Group members, here are your criteria:
-read your assigned section
-add to your character web and vocab list (in the Readers' Response section of your binder)
-visit the Host's blog to find out your digital discussion question
-prepare your response carefully - 100-500 words EDITED and PROOFREAD!
-post your response to the comment section of the Host's blog post
-read the other postings and respond at least twice

All members of R8A:
-check out the questions on your teacher's blog page (the page tab at the top of this blog: DigLitCirc Reader's Response)
-follow instructions from there - Response A is due next Wednesday (see due dates on the right hand side of Miss P's blog)

Find Your Hosts for DigLitCirc Section 1

Ms. Crosbie has posted about our first section of Digital Lit Circles discussions. Please check her blog to see which student (the Host) will be posting a question for you to discuss.

Her students will be posting questions by Friday and you will have up until next Friday to respond. In order to get the most interesting, engaging discussion going, make sure to return to the Host's blog often and read all comments and add your own.

In class on Thursday (tomorrow) we will go over your expectations for this in more detail.


Update: Discussions are off to a rip roaring start. If you have made your 100-500 word answer and two (or more) responses in the host's comments, you can also check out the other discussions going on. If you have already read some of Eric Walters other books, I recommend that you head over to the other blogs and see what those groups are talking about.

The Sketches group is being hosted on Andrianna's blog and has raised a lot of wonderful points, their discussion is well underway and deserves a read.

Assignment #20 - Posting your SOLE videos

Good morning friends,

Assignment #20 is a quick and easy one. In fact, you have a class expert on this one, Melissa figured out how to do this and helped me out!

1. First, go to my account on photobucket.

2. Next, find your SOLE group's video (or videos).

3. When you run your mouse over the thumbnail (small) image of your video, a small menu will pop up.

4. Click on the "HTML" code window. This will automatically copy the code (which will copy the video to your blog) to your clipboard.

5. Come back to your blog and open a New Post.

6. Go into the Edit HTML tab on your New Post and paste down the code (right click and select "Paste").

7. Go back to the "Compose" tab on your New Post and write three things (in full sentences!) you want your viewers to notice about your video, create a title and post.

8. Now, comment on this post and let me know that Assignment #20 is done.

9. Tah-dah! Another assignment done and ready for your Oshawa buddy to watch and comment on! Congratulations.

I'm Reading a Book

In preparation for our upcoming Lit Circles, I want to share my new favourite song with you, "I'm Reading a Book":

SOLE: Facebook Privacy

Mateen, Hannah and Connor presented about Facebook safety today in a two part presentation. Charlotte was in this group, too, but was not feeling well, so you'll only see her in their "trailer" at the beginning.

SOLE: Plagarism

Will, Haneen, Amrita, Tyler Iksha and Jumanh (our biggest SOLE!) presented about Plagarism today. Their video is split into two parts.

Part 1


Part 2

SOLE Presentation: Digital Footprint

Tara, Jatinderpal and Soap (Zak) presented about Digital Footprints. Check out their video below.

Leave a comment below to tell us how Digital Footprints impact you. Think about the Digital Footprint you are creating with your blog.

SOLE Presentation: Cyberbullying

Melissa, Reshad, Aaisha and Amy presented a fantastic, multimedia project about Cyberbullying. Enjoy!

SOLE Presentation: Kiva, Free Rice and the Girl Effect

Zuhair, Shahad, Qavi and Claire are our Free Rice, Kiva and Girl Effect experts. Watch the videos and see which one of the organizations you would most like to donate money to. You can even visit Free Rice and learn and donate at the same time.

Part 1

Part 2

SOLE Presentation; Teenagers and Sleep

Jeffrey, Sara, Noah and Walid presented today about Teenagers and Sleep. Check out their awesome slideshow:

Teens and sleep sara's group

View more presentations from sepllck.

and their presentation, they were brave and started us off - with a bang!

Assignment #19 - If I Had $100

Hello friends,

This assignment is inspired by this post on Ms. Crosbie's blog and the work her students have done in the new year.

This will be due Tuesday, January 31st, 2011.

A lot of the text in this post is borrowed directly from Ms. Crosbie:

Now that the holidays are over and we're back to school, I thought it would be a good idea to take a little time to think about other people. As many of you know, there are millions and millions of people in the world who are not nearly as fortunate as we are here in Canada. There are thousands of children who didn't receive a holiday present, thousands of parents who couldn't afford to provide their families with delicious turkey dinners, and millions of people who didn't get to spend their mornings sleeping in in a warm, cushy bed. For these people, life is a lot more difficult, and I think it's important to remember them, especially at this time of year.

We've all heard the song "If I had 1,000,000 Dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies, and you can search for it on youtube at home or watch it right here. It's a really fun and funny (and Canadian) song!

Barenaked Ladies - If I had a million dollars from ddeubel on Vimeo.

In this song, the Barenaked Ladies talk about all the different things they'd do with a million dollars. They could buy a house and furniture to put in it. They would by a fur coat, an exotic pet, a green dress, and a monkey. They'd even take a limousine to get to the store. In our society, a million dollars can go a really long way.


On the other hand, in some countries, it doesn't take a million dollars to make a difference. In some countries, even one hundred dollars can go a really long way.

Step 1: For this assignment, you will be researching the following organizations:
Oxfam, Plan, Salvation Army and World Vision. You can also look up other organizations such as CHEO, Children's Wish Foundation, Help Lesotho, One Laptop per Child, Happy Factory, Kiva and others that interest you.

Step Two: You will also learn about Ethical Gifts. What are they? How does Ethical Gift giving work? What ethical gift options are available from each organization?

You will need to fill out your Ethical Gift Tracking form that you will receive in class. You must record the number of gift options available at each organization, as well as the least and most expensive items. Once you've done this, you will use the remaining space to record the potential gifts that you're interested in, their cost, and their purpose. This form must be completed and handed in toMiss Pollock on January 30th.

Step Three: Once you've done your research and learned all about these organizations and the gifts they offer, you will have to make a decision. You've been given $100 to spend on ethical gifts. You must decide which organization you will purchase your gifts from, and what gifts you will purchase.

Step 4: You will then create a new blog post under the heading "Assignment #9: If I had $100." In this blog post, you will :

a) Identify which organization(s) you've chosen for your purchase (don't forget to explain why you chose that specific organization)
b) Which gifts you will purchase (don't forget to explain the purpose of these gifts and why you chose them)
c) How you will distribute your funds (i.e. will you spend $100 buying a whole whack of mosquito nets? Or, will you spend $20 on mosquito nets, $50 on a goat, and $30 on medical supplies?)

Step 5: After you've published your post, don't forget to come back to THIS post and leave a comment to let me know you've finished! I can't wait to see what some of you choose to do with your money!

Note: You may spend your money at more than one organization.

Also, take a look at some of Ms. Crosbie's students blogs to see what they wrote for assignment #9, their version of this task.

Good luck and have fun giving imaginary ethical gifts!

The History Slideshow from class

As per your requests, below you can watch our History slideshow!

Enjoy!

Grade 8 history slideshow ppt

View more presentations from sepllck.

Assignment #18 - SOLEs Continued

Hello friends,



Happy new year and welcome back to school!



To start off our new year, I would like you to look back at Assignment #4, the SOLEs. As your group of three or four, you need to work together to polish up this assignment and figure out a way to present your information in an interactive way to your classmates.

First, make sure that you have sufficient information that is thorough and specific. Refer back to the expectations in Assignment #4 for clarification. You will probably need to do some more research at this point. Remember that this is an assignment for several students and the work should reflect that. It should not be a short passage written by one person. You may need to make up some good, juicy questions and divide to answer them.

Once your writing is complete, work together as a group to come up with the best, most interesting way to present your information to your classmates. You can create a slideshow, a video, a Slam Poem, a Readers' Theatre presentation, an art gallery exhibit, a skit, a childrens' story, a poster, a game show, or a combination of those ideas. Maybe you have an even better idea of your own. All group members must take part in preparing your presentation and sharing it with the class.

Your presentation should be about five minutes long and you should introduce your topic, describe why it is relevant to your classmates and give them some ideas of how to use this information in their own lives.

You will have several classes to work on this (both in and out of the lab), but make sure to use your time effectively.

At the end of the presentations, you will have the opportunity to evaluate your own work, as well as the work of your peers.

Be creative, have fun and share your knowledge!