Welcome to December!  The students are excited and tired and we are very aware of this fact.  We will be having some festive activities over the next couple of weeks, but we will also be maintaining our normal schedule up to the break.

1. We have watched a couple of documentaries about the Cracking the Mayan Code.  It was fascinating because the person who cracked the hieroglyphs was only 15 years old and know is a world renowned expert.  Through the movies we have looked at some of the theories about the Mayan Calendar.  Students have had the opportunity to look at modern artifacts and make speculations if they were found in the future.  They have also looked at modern and ancient monuments in the world and made some speculations about their design, role and importance.
2. For the first time this year, students had the chance to go through Ms. Moody’s Fitness Circuit.  We were really impressed with the effort and engagement of the students.  The students spend 1 minute at each of the 10 stations, which rotate between core, arm, leg, and cardio exercises.
3. Grade 7’s have been continue to work on 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens (Covey).  Students have been working on drafting personal mission statements over the past several weeks.  We are considering them working drafts and will re-visit them throughout the year.
4. “En français, nous avons appris le vocabulaire de Noël.” -student.  We had a vocabulary quiz this week and will be writing picture books next week.
5. Several students attended a workshop at Evergreen Cultural Centre on Coquitlam Waterscapes and Kinetic Sculpture.  “Some of it was visual art… they had a lot of different ideas represented in the art work, everything moved.  The exhibits were reflections of lakes in BC and we made from paper.  The other artist had an exhibit called 1000 Boats and it was all paper boats made by high school students.  We made water kinetics, moving sculptures to do with water, we had to be moving and have a meaningful word and symbol.  It was really fun, it was awesome.” -Grade 7 student
6. The final literature circle responses were submitted this week.  Feedback on the responses will be posted to edmodo using theBC Ministry of Education Writing Performance Standards.
7. Students have completed a self evaluation report card and it will be included with the report card (coming home Friday, December 14th).  The students assessed their skills on some organizational and behavioural skills.  In addition, students were asked to reflect on the knowledge and skills they have learned this term.  We have asked them to think about the connections to the themes this year, conflict and oppression, through the geography projects, the novel studies and the examination of how artifacts are interpreted and mis-interpreted.
8. Extra-curriculars! So many activities going on around the school right now… at lunch there have been intramurals offered in the gym – today Quidditch; dance dance revolution happens at lunch (usually once a week)…. Auditions for the Spring Drama Production has been completed and roles have been assigned …. Basketball and Wrestling teams are starting.
9.  We have survived the first round of seasonal flus and colds.  If your son or daughter hasn’t brought in a box of tissue, please consider sending one in to class.
10. Science Fair projects are now well underway.  Students have submitted their feasibility studies, their references and they are now working on writing the background information for their abstracts.  Please review the timeline for projects as some experiments may need to run over the Winter Holidays.
11. Bonus Reminder for next week:  Tuesday and Wednesday we will be designing and building with ‘gingerbread’.  On Tuesday, students will be designing the blueprints and on Wednesday, students will be building.  Students are to bring all supplies including gingerbread or graham crackers, decorations/candy, icing, tray or platform.

This week seemed exceptionally busy.  We had a couple of community outings and a lot of learning.

1. On Friday, the Yellow Team walked to Charles Best to see 3 one act plays.  Mr. Case’s classes and clubs presented That Achaean Crowd is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in rhyming couplets; All in Disguise is a comic farce in the tradition of Comedia Del Arte which is a fast paced physical comedic style;  Fifteen Minute Hamlet, which really needs no explanation. We were very impressed with the presentations and were thrilled to see former Hillcrest students in the productions.

2. Wednesday evening Ms. Abbot and Ms. Sullivan presented a workshop on the book “Smart but Scattered” by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare.  We were thrilled with the number of people that attended and are looking forward to an ongoing conversation about this topic.

3. Students have had the opportunity to participate in several new lunch time activities.  As the weather has changed, several activities are being offered in specific classrooms and in the gym.  What activities does your son or daughter do at lunch?

4. Our literature circles continue and students completed their second written response.  All student received feedback on edmodo using the writing performance standards.  Please log on with your son or daughter to see their writing.  Students will have another response due next week.

5. Geography projects are marked and students have received their rubrics (or will be on Monday).

6. Our schedule needed to be adjusted and now grade 6/7’s have PE on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Thursday mornings.  Please help your son or daughter remember this change and make sure they have their gym strip at school on these days.

7. We are continuing our exploration of ancient times and interpretations of artifacts.  Last week, students investigated images from “Motel of Mysteries” and speculated about the artifacts.  Students then had the opportunity to look at modern artifacts and speculate about the circumstance they were in.  Students are now working on presentations comparing two similar monuments from different geographic locations.

8. Science fair prep continues and students are working on putting together a working reference list.  Please review the science outline and expectations for the reference list.  Some students are still completing and revising their feasibility study.  Ms Moody and Ms Abbot are continuing to conference with students about their topics and helping students to focus their investigations.

9. Ms McKay and Mr Buhler are continuing to work with our classes.  They have been teaching math, PE and Socials/Language Arts this week.

10. On Friday afternoon the grade 6/7 classes went down to Planet Ice.  Almost all of our students ventured onto the ice and it was great to see everyone out together.  Some were just learning and spent some time clinging to the edges and other are accomplished skaters who were able to give some pointers and tips. Thank you to all our parent drivers – you make these opportunities possible!

This is one of the shortest weeks of the year.  Thursday is our professional development day and Friday is a school closure day.

1. Our school recognized Remembrance Day this morning with a touching assembly.  So many MACC students participated and shared their skills with our school and community.  We want to recognize the musical talents and skills of Roger and Tren, for their piping and trumpet solo; the advanced band and choirs for their presentations and time given to preparation and practice; the many student readers including Winfield, who spoke with confidence and expression; the tech crew who helped with the sound, video and lighting to create an honoring and respectful environment; Maggie, Tara and the many candle lighters who helped focus our remembrance.

2. Students in Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody’s classes are continuing to work on their written responses for our literature circles.  We are spending more time working through the writing process, so there will be less written responses this term and a greater focus on drafting and editing writing.  Response questions are and will be posted on edmodo in the Literature Circle 2012-13 group.

3. Science Fair timelines were reviewed this week.  Students are currently working on clarifying their topics and completing a Project Feasibility Review.  Timelines will be put on the calendar and will be uploaded to edmodo.  We have encouraged students to focus on innovation and experiments.  We will be working with them next week on refinining questions and beginning background research.

4. Congratulations to all our volleyball players!  The volleyball season has wrapped up and all our teams participated in tournaments.  The next sports seasons will be starting soon.  Listen to announcements for basketball start up and intramurals beginning.

5. So the students all have the day off…. but what are the teachers doing on Pro-D?  Ms. Moody is enroute to Portland for the ALME (Association of Middle Level Educators) Conference.  She will post next week about the highlights of the conference.  She is looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate and learn with middle level teachers from across North America.  Ms. Abbot is participating in a collaboration session with Ms. McKay, Mr. Buhler and other teachers from Coquitlam middle schools on project based learning.  Our school is going to be developing future plans for our school goal on social responsibility and beginning the next steps.  We are all looking forward to the synergy that comes from working and learning with other people passionate about education.

6. Congratulations to Ted! He won the Write a Review and Win a free book draw for October!  Read a book and write a review in November to try and win a free book!  Check out our school library website for more resources and information.

Please remember that Monday is a stat holiday for Remembrance Day. Some information about Remembrance Day in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Belcarra Park Cruise.  We looking forward to seeing everyone back on Tuesday.

This week flew by, so here are some of the highlights:

1. Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody introduced our new literature circle books.  We are continuing to explore the theme of conflict and oppression.  The books were selected because of their examples of conflict with self and conflict with others.  Many of the books are set in history and are reflecting the experience of children in conflict.  There are more than 10 titles to choose from.
2. Students explored modern history through some education raps. Students designed time lines to explore major events between 1900-1995.  We will be re-visiting some of the history of some of the major conflicts over the next week – specifically looking at the World Wars.
3. Trick or Treat!  Wednesday was a very exciting day with costumes and pumpkins.  See our previous post about Pumpkin Math` and some of our costumes.  Students also had the opportunity to participate in the 1st school dance of the year at lunch on Wednesday.
4. There has been a Food Drive at Hillcrest to support Share in the Tri-Cities.  Our classes set an ambitious goal of 200 items of food.  We came very close to our goal and collected 171 items!  We can top up our donations early next week, so let’s see if we can meet our goal.
5. On Friday students had the chance to teach their classmates how to play their geography games from their recent projects.  There were several amazing and innovative games developed.
6. Student are continuing to work on their Science Fair project topics.  Ms. Moody continued the work with the grade 6/7’s this afternoon.  Coquitlam MACC will be holding a district science fair on March 1st 2013.  Students will be receiving more information about the science fair over the next week.
7. Next week many of our students will be participating in the Remembrance Day Assembly on Wednesday morning.  Students are participating in the bands and choirs, as candle lighters and as a piper.
8. Next week (Wednesday – Saturday) Ms Moody is attending the AMLE/NMSA (Middle Level Educators) Conference in Portland.  We look forward to hearing about the what she learns.
9. Next week is a short week – school is in session Monday to Wednesday.  Thursday is a professional development day and Friday is a school closure day.
10. The first Explorations term will end next week.  Students are working on completing there assignments and projects for there explorations courses.

Have an excellent weekend and remember to set back your clocks on Saturday evening.

We packed a lot into a four day week!

1. The Vancouver Writers Festival was amazing!  We attended the session Steampunk to Punksville with Susin Neilsen and Arthur Slade.  There will be a student post about the presentation posted next week. But we were thrilled with the presentation, that we got our books autographed and that both authors tweeted us back!
2. Some of our grade 8’s attended the Vancouver Writers Festival on Thursday and saw two different presentations.  They attended Words and Images and Flights of Fantasy.
3. We have been reading our school wide read since September and are approaching the final chapters.  We have been reading “Every Soul A Star” by Wendy Mass.  We have made labyrinths on the table tops and walked them with our fingers.  We talked about the most recent exo-planet discoveries.  We have a contest ongoing until MONDAY for students to make a poster, poem, song or ?? about the novel.  Whatever you are submitting is due on Monday.  Next week, check out our post about Unusals Day.  We are looking forward to a portable planetarium visit, walking a labyrinth, exploring SETI, a Star Party, skyping with Wendy Mass, working in the Art House, gold panning, and building a sun dial.
4. Ms. Abbot, Ms. Moody, and Ms. Sullivan met with the other MACC teachers,  administrators and Mrs. Pearce on Monday afternoon to work on finalizing the Vision Statement and Guiding Principles for MACC.  We have been working on formalizing the program after piloting the program.
5. Ms. Sullivan is continuing to work through executive function skills with the grade 8’s as they work on their Points of Pride project.
6. Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody’s classes are finishing up their geography projects. We are looking forward to seeing the finished products this week.  Students was been looking at the environmental and geographic features of a country and are looking at how those feature impact human settlement.
7. Several MACC students attended We Day on Thursday as well.  We haven’t heard about their experience yet, but are hoping they might share in a post about the experience.
8. Thank you for participating in the Parent – Teacher – Student Conferences on Thursday evening.  We always find these meetings to be valuable and informative.  We appreciate the time to chat with parents and students about the transition into the school or the new school year.
9. On Friday, teachers participated in a Province Wide Professional Development Day.   Ms. Sullivan attended a conference with Dr. Stuart Shanker.  Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody are attending conferences in November, so spent the day collaborating with teachers from the other two MACC sites.  They synergy of working with other teachers is a wonderful opportunity and some the the seeds of our discussions will hopefully bear fruit later this year.
10. There will be a very timely and informative presentations on Monday by Jesse Miller (social media consultant).  MACC has participated in his presentations for the past two years and find the information he presents and discuss have a direct impact on how students use social media throughout the year.  We would encourage parents to attend the evening presentation in our multi-purpose room (7-8:30pm).  Students will be attending the presentation on Monday morning and we will be encouraging this conversation to be ongoing throughout the year.

Welcome to the first autumn feeling weekend of the year.  While it has been a short week, it has certainly been a busy week.

1. Hillcrest Celebrated Our First BIG Spirit Day today.  Our team area was glowing yellow with kids in hats, bandanas, shades, shoes, shirts and pants all in our team colour.  After working on our team cheer for the past two weeks, students rocked our team verison of We Are Young.  Here’s a sneak peek at part of the cheer We Are Yellow

2. Today was an authentic Highlander Day with fresh scotch mist throughout the afternoon.  Students started in the gym to meet our school mascot Harry and then ventured through a Highland Fling, Skiing Down the Countryside, Giant Volleyball, a Haggis Pass, a Caber Toss and a FitnessCircuit with Harry.  The afternoon was topped with the call of the bagpipes to move between stations.

2. Interim Reports will be coming home on Friday October 12th for students in grade 8.  Students in grade 6/7 have received their IEPs this month and the IEP is the form of interim reporting that we will be using.  The IEP includes detailed information about your son or daughter’s goals.  If you have specific concerns, please feel free to call the school and book a parent teacher conference.  If we have any concerns about your son or daughter’s first weeks of school we will be contacting individual parents to set up meetings.

3. The grade 8’s are working through a unit of cells and completed a Cheek Cell Lab. “So we took a toothpick and scraped the inside of our cheeks. And then we took the cheek cells and looked at them under a microscope using dry mounts, wet mounts, water and iodine. We also had a test about plant and animal cells.”  Grade 6/7’s are working through an introduction to science and will be beginning to think about a science fair project (inquiry project on a science topic).  Grade 7/8’s will have the opportunity to present the school / district at the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair.  All MACC locations will be hosting a Science Fair on March 1st 2013 at Winslow gym.

4. The grade 8’s are currently in Art and Dramus.  In Dramus, students are making podcasts on Audacity. In Art, students are working on Symbolic Portraits using objects and images to represent each student. The grade 6/7’s are currently in Home Ec and Tech Ed.

5. Grade 8’s have been working on a Points of Prideproject.  “It’s a group of 12 different activities and one big project at the end that gets you to look at yourself and how you function.”

6. Ms.Moody and Ms. Abbot had student teachers observing in class for the week and they will be joining us again next week.  Ms. MacKay and Mr Buhler are from SFU and have just started the SFU Teacher Program this semester.  They will be returning in November to participate in the classes and team activities and will be team teaching with Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody.  We are looking forward to working with these two as they begin their teaching careers and are looking forward to their contributions to our classes.

7.  We also have Health Science students from SFU volunteering in our school this Fall.  The students working with us are hoping to look at some topics relating to stress management, wellness and possibly executive functions.  They are most likely going to present workshops to the classes about these topics and other healthy living topics. We are also looking forward to their contributions to the class and have appreciated having the extra adult volunteers in class over the past several weeks.

8. Grade 6/7’s are continuing their mini projects on world geography and have started their first projects looking at how different environmental and geographical features effect human settlement in different countries.  Students has a wide breadth of choices in the countries and features they can choose for this project.  They have had two double blocks of time in the library this week, with access to computers and all the resources in the Library (including Ms. Trieu our librarian).

9. Students now have their passwords to log into their school district email and if waiver forms have been returned they have access to their edmodo accounts.  Ms. Moody and Ms. Abbot will be emailing out parent access codes over the coming week.

10. Today grade 6/7 students participated in a Guiness Book Science Lab.  Students completed two separate experiments in the gym with almost all the grade 6/7 classes in the school.  Check out the Government of Canada Science and Technology Page for more details and for video introductions to the two science experiments students participated in today.

Have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

Sorry for not posting last week, I was a little under the weather.  And thank you to all parents and students that came out to the open house; it was great to meet you.

1. This year at the Open House we put up a graffiti wall and encourage students, parents, guardians from Yellow Team to write their hopes for the coming year.  Thank you for the feedback and comments.

2. We almost had enough drivers to get the whole Yellow Team to the Zone Bowling.  We bowled 2 games of 10 pin and learned it is a lot harder than it looks.  Thankfully they were willing to put up bumpers for some of us.

3. Last Friday we had a Pro-D Day and re-visited our school goal and had the time to collaborate with other teachers in the school.  Our school goal is going to be switching from a Math goal to a focused goal on social responsibility.  Stayed tuned for more information coming soon.  We also had the amazing opportunity to Skype with Wendy Mass, the author of “Every Soul A Star” (the novel we are reading for this years school wide read).

4. We are currently reading “Every Soul A Star” for our school wide read. We’ve been enjoying the book as a read aloud and doing a little work with the characters.  Today in math students had the option to look at the ratios and geometry of labyrinths.  The labyrinth is one of the “unusuals” in the novel.  Ask your son or daughter about the “unusuals”.

5. Using various virtues and character traits, the grade 8’s worked on developing our team name.  The tentative name is E.P.I.C. and what those letters stand for, our cheer and our team logo will be unveiled within the next two weeks.

6. Several students participated in the Scott Creek Triathlon this week. It was an excellent event and it was great to see so many participating from MACC.  Congratulations to all who participated.  Overall standings will be released shortly.

7. The school is a very busy place right now.  Volleyball, swimming and cross country are all up and running.  And the Spirit Squad, Me to We Club and the Environment Club are all started for the year.  Students need to pay close attention to the announcements and must remember when their clubs meetings and practices are scheduled.  The Environment Club is meeting on Monday at lunch.

8. Each September schools participate in the Terry Fox Run and honor the legacy of the run Terry did to raise money for cancer research. We encouraged students to think about ways they could raise some money to donate. Ms. Moody’s class tried to bring in $1 per person and exceeded their goal.  Ms. Abbot’s class had lemonade and ice tea stands in their neighbourhoods, returned bottles and donated allowances.  Thank you for your ongoing support of this local charity.

9. We have attempted to schedule as many of our field trips for the year as we could and will be emailing the list home with the tentative dates and approximate costs.  We are attending the Writers Festival this month and will be ice skating in November.

10. On Fridays, we try to give the students the opportunity to apply math skills through math projects. Today students had the choice to work on the labyrinth challenge or to attempt to design a 8-letter password.  They were required to use math to explain why the password was a strong password and what the probability would be for someone to hack it.  Some very interesting and inventive passwords were developed.  There are over 30 trillion options for 8-letter passwords.

Have a great weekend.

10. Thank you for joining us for the MACC BBQ this afternoon.  Almost 160 hot dogs and veggie dogs were consumed. We appreciated the opportunity to meet you and to catch up again. 

9. Students are bringing home a permission form for the Writers Festival today (grade 6/7 and optional for grade 8).  The grade 6/7’s were lucky to get tickets to a session called “From Steampunk to Punksville” with authors Arthur Slade and Susin Nielsen.  Ms. Moody and Ms. Abbot are excited to hear Susin speak again, as she did a workshop with our classes two years ago.  We have a limited number of tickets available for parent drivers, so we will give to the first parent drivers that return the permission forms.

8. Everyone started French this week!  Mlle Sullivan has started off with a quick assessment and the classes are well into action.  I learned two new songs in French today, just by overhearing the class. 

7. Bowling!  Yellow Team is bowling next Tuesday.  If you have volunteered to be a driver we will need you.  We are looking forward to the students having a chance to get to know kids from other classes on our team. 

6. All students have met our new Librarian, Ms. Trieu and got their first orientation to the library.  NEW this year… Library Monitors!  Students will have the opportunity to help out with some of the fun activities planned in the library and get some fun perks.  Please encourage your son or daughter to speak with Ms. Trieu if this might be a good way for them to be involved in the school.

5. Sports are starting off… Mr. Betts is holding the first cross country practice next week and Mr. Geddes held the first meeting for volleyball.  It is not to late to join. 

4. Grade 6/7’s are starting the year with some North American geography.  Students have been working on a map this week including landforms, political boundaries and cities.  It will be important for them to know the major mountain ranges, countries and capital cities.  There may be a quiz popping up on the horizon.

3. Open House is next Thursday from 6-7pm.  Starting in the gym and then with time to meet teachers.  Please come and meet the Yellow Team, Explorations teachers and Band/Choir Teachers.

2. Book Fair is coming this week.  There are wish lists available for our class’ library, if you are willing and able books are always very much appreciated.

1.  We started the year with some math assessments.  We are getting the plans together for each student and will be starting within the week.  In the meantime, grade 6’s have been working on resources by Trevor Calkin’s “Mastering the Basics.” For more about this program please click here.

The first week of 2012-13 has been a great success.  We are excited to be back and have many exciting plans for the coming year.

Each week, we will try to post 10 Things to Talk About from the week.  We were inspired by a post on The Wejr Board and think it’s a great way of communicating with families and for giving some prompts for things you can ask your son or daughter about school.

1. This week students brought home a permission form for Bowling at The Zone.  We are going on Tuesday September 18th in the afternoon.  It will be a team building activity for the Yellow Team.  We are still looking for drivers, so if you are able to get your drivers abstract and forms submitted it would make this trip a lot easier.  If we don’t have enough drivers, some students will be traveling by public transit.  You can find the link for the forms here.

2. This year Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody are doing an experiment with the physical set up of our classrooms.  We have been looking at self-regulation research and talking with other educators who have been experimenting with alternatives to desks.  This year, students will be working at tables and will either have a drawer or a bin at the side of the room to store some of their supplies.  We have noticed already that there is much more room in the classroom without desks.  We will post more information as the year progresses about how it works and more about why the research says it might be beneficial.

3. Students have had a short orientation to the class website, this blog and Edmodo.  Students have been encouraged to show their parents the class website and this blog.  We will give them more information and log-in’s for Edmodo once we have more of the waiver forms returned.

4. On Friday, we had our first assembly.  Miss Tambellini reviewed some of the school expectations.  Some of the highlights: if students arrive at school before 8:20am and would like to wait in the building they must wait in the art room; the first bell rings at 8:20am and students are expected in class by 8:35am; when the weather is not wet, student will be encouraged (and often) expected to be outside during nutrition break and lunch break.

5. At the assembly, students also heard about several opportunities to be involved in the school community.  Fall athletics will include Swim Club (with Mrs. McMillian), a Triathlon (hosted by Scott Creek – see Ms. Trieu for registration), Cross Country (with Mr. Betts), and Volleyball.  Clubs being offered will include: Environmental – Earth Club which is being started by MACC students from their sustainability projects last year; Model UN Club (coming in term 2); Me to We Club (with Ms. Ngo); Yearbook Club (with Ms Chan & Mrs. McMillian); Odyssey of the Mind (Ms. Abbot is coordinating); and the possibility of a Robotics Club.  Information about sign ups and meeting times will be on the daily announcements.

6. Band and Choir will begin this week.  Beginning Band Rental Night is on Wednesday evening and there will be an important meeting at nutrition break on Monday for all Beginning Band students.  Advanced Band, Girls Choir and Boys Choir will also start this week.  Advanced Band meets Mondays & Wednesdays 7:45-8:30am. Boys Choir meets Tuesdays 7:45-8:30am. Girls Choir meets Thursdays 7:45-8:30am.

7.Miss Tambellini and Mr. Gilligan are holding auditions for morning announcement readers.  Students will need to meet during nutrition break on Monday.

8. This week students have had PE everyday with all the students in Yellow Team.  The students are getting to know the other students on the team through four-square, soccer, shooting hoops, playing Manhunt and hanging out on the playground.  During the coming week, students will be starting Math, French, Health and Career Ed (HCE) and PE.  Students will be required to have their PE strip at school.

9. Please double check with your son or daughter to make sure that they have given you copies of all the current forms.  There was: a student information verification form; an emergency release information form; pg. 13 from the planner; a permission from for photos and walks in Mundy Park; Student Activity Fees $35; MACC Information Form can be filled out online here; Edmodo & MACC Expectation Form.

10. During Team Time on Friday, we participated in an activity called “Nobody Nose”.  The challenge was to build a “nose” off a students nose using only newspaper and tape.  The nose could only be supported by the body. The goal was to see which group could make the longest nose (measured from the nose to the place where it touched the ground).