1. Today the grade 8’s wrapped up a study of the Middle Ages with a Medieval Day. More details to come… but the day included archery, making stained glass, swords and a hearty stew for lunch.
2. Last week, all three classes spent the day at UBC visiting the Beaty Biodiversity Museum and the Museum of Anthropolgy… here are the first reviews from the trip….
“There were platypus’ there (at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum). The presentation was called What is biodiversity? We learned about some kind on underwater cone snail and how they ate their prey. It was kind of cool, they reach with their tails into the sand and bring clams up. They then scrap at the shell until it breaks open and drill a little tiny hole into the shell and then they spit acid into the shell, then they suck up the clam. We also learned about another snail and it has little barbed harpoons in a sac and whenever something swims by it, it shoots a harpoon into the fish, kills it with poison and then can eat the fish whole,” Jane explained.
“There were so many different specimens, over 600,000. I could just spend a day there looking at everything. What stood out was that they could find a old species that no one knew what it was and they first thought it was a shrimp, but then they realized it was the nose of a seahorse type creature. It was a really fun trip,” said Mark.
3. 3rd Habit Presentation
We have been continuing to work on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens and have been focusing on Putting First Things First. Students prepared presentations to show what they know about the 3rd Habit. We will be uploading some of the presentations next week. Projects were very well done and varied from power points, to videos and skits, to programs on Scratch to poster boards.
4. Free the Children presentation about availability of drinking water happened on Thursday morning and a few MACC students had the opportunity to participate in a workshop for the day. A hearty and engaged discussion ensued following the presentation, and much discussion was had about charities.
“The workshop did a couple questions to get to know each other. We did a really good activity that showed us how many people water bourne illnesses, how people don’t get enough water and how many people get more than enough. Andrew (from Free the Children) gave us a card with information about who we were and where we lived, then he read out different scenarios and we got to move closer or further away from water,” said Marcus. “Then after lunch, we brainstormed way to bring awareness to water issues. We spent time planning what we would do with the ideas. The idea I worked on was a cook off. It wasn’t an awareness activity, but just a fundraiser.”
5. Choir Sing Out at Kway Middle
“It was fun to hear all the other choirs. They even had an elementary choir. One of the choirs sang this parody of Noel, which we all laughed at. Most of the choirs weren’t as big as ours, but they still sang pretty loud. The boys sang The Hockey Song, then Mrs.Gallelo admitted she’s never seen the Polar Express, so the girls sang Hot Chocolate. We all sang North Pole Rock and Roll.” – Evan L
6. Life Links field trip
Several of our grade 8’s are in Life Links this Exploration term. With Mr. Meagher and Ms. Trieu they ventured up Burnaby Mountain in the snow and spent the morning geocaching.
7. Portfolios
The grade 6/7’s are working on portfolios to show Evidence of Learning for Term 1. Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody are trying new ways to share student learning and student portfolios will be coming home with report cards next Friday. Our hope is that the portfolios will provide a snap shot of students’ reflection on their numeracy and literacy skills, social and emotional learning and creative thinking from the term. Students receive feedback from us throughout the term using a variety of methods including rubrics, BC Writing Performance Standards, written feedback and comments and will be including some specific examples in their portfolios.
8. TED talks
As a teaser for the New Year, we have started to watch some TED talks. Students brainstormed what features TED talks include and have started to develop a criteria. In the New Year, we will be hosting a Yellow Team TEDx type speech festival. Instead of doing traditional Public Speaking this year, student will be developing their own TED talk on a person worth knowing or an idea worth sharing. More details will be given to students in the New Year.
9. Math winding up before the break
Both Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody are wrapping up units in Math and will be starting new units in the New Year. Students are working to complete assigned work and tests before the break.
10. Battle of the Books
The Annual Battle of the Books was announced this week. It is open to all students in grade 6-8. Students form teams of 3 and let Ms. Trieu know before December 20th. If students are interest, but don’t have a team of three they can talk with Ms. Abbot, Ms. Moody or Ms. Trieu and we can help form a team. Then you read the books on the list…Hint: you can divide up the books so that each person reads 2 or you can all read all 6 books. The idea is to know the books very well so it helps to have an ‘expert’ on each book. Or, all members of the team can read all the books. We will have elimination rounds here at Hillcrest Middle School, where teams will need to answer questions about the books. These will take place after Christmas Holidays. The top teams from Hillcrest Middle will compete against the other schools after Spring Break.
Battle of the Books Reading List
1.Flipped Wendelin Van Draanen
2.A Wrinkle in Time Madeleine L’Engle
3.Home of the Brave Katherine Applegate
4.Shipwreck Gordon Korman
5.The False Prince Jennifer Nielsen
6.The Uglies Scott Westerfeld