1. All three MACC classes are working on an Olympic Project that requires students to complete a City Study, a Sport Study and an Athlete Study.  The projects have been sorted by multiple intelligence and students have selected the projects that they are most interested in or will best show their learning.  The first two assignments are already submitted and the third is February 7th (for grade 6/7’s) and January 31st (for grade 8’s).

2. In addition to the projects, students will be completing Olympic Inquiry Project.  Ms. Abbot, Ms. Moody and Mr. Utting are participating in a learning team with Dr. Leyton Schnellert about using inquiry in the classroom.  We started this unit with an image set and had the students describe what they saw in the pictures, then what they wonder about and then what deep questions they have.  We will be taking the questions they generated, as well as questions that have been generated from their projects and allowing them to explore a question and then show their thinking and learning.   We will be showcasing their work at a celebration of learning with a MACC class from Kway on February 19th.

3. All 3 classes are also talking about Healthy Relationships in HCE.  The grade 6/7’s are using “The Essential Guide to Talking with Gifted Teens” by Jean Sunde Peterson. We’ve been talking about our relationships with friends and parents.  Grade 8’s have been focusing on Healthy Relationships and Healthy Decisions.

4. Grade 6/7’s have been doing geometry in Math.  Grade 7’s have just finished a unit and will be starting a unit of circle geometry and area of shapes on Tuesday.  Ms. Abbot has been using “Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics” and students have been doing hands-on exploration of polygons focusing on triangles.  Ask your student about why the interior angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees.

5. We’ve been looking at alternative presentation methods and decided instead of participating in the District Public Speaking Festival we would host our own HARRY Talks.  Inspired by TED Talks but with a MACC criteria, students are identifying a theme they are passionate about and looking at inter-disciplinary connections.

6. The school is focusing on Habit 4 “Think Win-Win”.  We’ve had discussions about the difference between Win-Lose, Lose-Win, Lose-Lose and Win-Win attitudes.

7. Grade 7’s have been completing the FSAs over the past two weeks.  Grade 7’s have completed a short writing sample, a long write sample, online reading comprehension questions, a short written response comparing two passages and a two part numeracy assessment.

8. Wacky Wednesday was this week!  And it was Twin Day….

9. Icy and cold! Students have been on the mountain enjoying the Ski and Snowboard Club.

10. The grade 6/7’s are Art and Dramus Explorations right now… updates coming next week about projects.

 

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

Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody were both off for extended periods throughout the month.  We seemed to tag off and as Ms. Abbot came back, Ms. Moody headed off.  We are both back and catching up with the blog.

1. Yellow Team had the opportunity for 30 students from the team to participate in an Anime workshop and a Clay workshop.  “We learned how to draw manga characters and we made anime buttons.  It was awesome!” said the students.  “We looked at a bunch of abstract clay statues.  There was a 3 creatures that look Egyptian, these were the best.  We went to the studio and made a bowl out of clay, they went through all the steps with us and we painted them with glaze.  They fired them and we will get them back later, ” said Marcus.

2. Remembrance Day this year focused on Paschendale.  “It was fun to sing for the first time with Girls Choir at the Remembrance Day Assembly.  We sang In Flanders Fields and Hymn to Freedom,” said Natalie.  “The assembly was quite good,” said Liam, “we sang Take Me Back to Dear Old Canada and Hymn to Freedom. We practiced a lot and it turned out well.”

3. After learning about our family histories through drawing family trees (when we read Between Heaven and Earth) and interviews with family members (one of the tasks for the literature circle on the Seven Series), we broadened the scope and looked at timelines.  We drew timelines and hightlight key events from various civilizations and cultures. “Once the projects were done, they all had similar information but all of them are done in different ways,” said Natalie.

4. This month, we (grade 6/7/8) also finished the Literature Circle on the Seven Series.  Students wrote two written responses to whichever novel(s) they read and completed a task related to the theme of the novel.  Some students interviewed family members about what it was like from them to be a teenager, created maps of the characters’ journey, wrote an essays on the relevance of cliche in the novel and whether meaning changes over time, designed gang prevention brouchures, designed a symbol that would be significant to family, created a suitcase of memories for a grandparent, compare character from the novel to a quote from The Tell-Tale Heart, build models of World War II planes,studied the geological profile of Iceland and researched the International Bridgades in Spain during World War II.  Some students also selected challenge topics and wrote either an additional chapter to the series about the adventures a hypothetical granddaughter may have had or wrote an epilogue for the series when all the grandsons reunite and share stories.

5.Ms. Abbot introduced us to the concept of circuits.  We did electricity safety activities with Ms. Rogan (in for Ms. Moody) and Ms. Abbot taught us about parallel and series circuits.  We tried many many variations and burned out several mini light bulbs.  We had the opportunity to try a lab.  We got one of five options and then prepped the supplies and tried the lab.  Some worked, some didn’t.  We tried lemon batteries, but couldn’t get enough current to light the LED bulb.  We only had 3 lemons. Mr. Utting let us measure the conductivity of the lemon juice and we compared it to water.  Other groups did static experiments and one group built their own light bulb. Another group tried to build an electroscope.  We presented to the rest of the class and tried to explain our results and we shared our models.

6. We have continued to work on the Seven Habits for Highly Effective Teens.  This term we have focused on stratgies to put “first things first.”  We have talked about how to prioritize what is important to complete first, and how to identify things that may be time wasters that we might use to procrastinate.  Right now, the grade 6/7’s are working on projects to show what we know about the 3rd Habit.

7. Grade 6/7’s Explorations classes are currently Home Ec and Art.  Students have been cooking french toast and sugar cookies, made fruit platters and open face canapes.  We also hand sewed stuffed animals.  In Art, we have been working on clay projects and doing a daily doodle.  Grade 8’s are currently in Life Links, Dramus and Tech Ed.  We are making a medicine cabinet in Tech Ed and we have finished the frame.  This year, we made boats in Sketch-Up.  In Life Links, we learned about how social we are and about how we cope with stress.  We learned everyones names in the class.  In Dramus, we have been learning to play guitar, doing improv and we learned how to do a fight scene.

8. All the grade 8’s in our school have been doing a project called the Feudal Games.  This is a game where you take on the role of a medieval character such as a serf, a free holder or a monarch.  We play our role in daily life, this means writing cheques to the monarch, working and collecting pay and trying to survive through diseases and war.

9. With Mr. Utting in French, we have been working on conjugating verbs. We reviewed and learned to conjugate “er”, “re”, avoir and etre.  Ted explained that “er” verbs are conjugated by (using aimer as an example): Je aime, Tu aimes, Il/Elle aime, Nous aimons, Vous aimez, Ils/Elles aiment.  We were assigned a city in France and we needed look around the city for signs and words (on Google Earth).  We translated the words and then drew something that represents the city we were assigned.  We also wrote a short description of why the city is famous.

10. Mr. Utting x 2!!  So, one chilly day, our class (MACC 8), went out into the park of Mundy, to visit the lake of Mundy – and since we needed to, we brought a couple of Mr. Uttings. Pretty much, all we did was surveying the water in and around Mundy Lake for its conductivity and pH levels with Mr. Utting – the teacher and his brother, Mr. Utting – the scientist of hydrology. I’m pretty sure that most of us were nearly frozen after a few minutes – I stuck my hands into the water after measuring the flow of the waters to get the ping-pong ball out. At the end of our little walk around the lake, we all celebrated in a glorious chocolate rain of one square per person. Many a laugh was had during, and we then headed back to the school after our warm walk in the park. – Liam D

 

The second half of October was busy, busy, busy!  Here are some highlights from the last two weeks.

1. Literacy Day!  This week Eric Walters visited our school.  As we celebrated reading “Between Heaven and Earth,” students did Art, Drumming, listened to book talks about adventure novels, watched presentations on biodiversity and learned about wilderness survival.  We are some of our highlights:

“Eric Walters was great. He got the whole schools’ attention while he was talking.  He would get everyone involved and made everyone laugh, including the teachers.”- Vanessa

“Biodiversity in ecosystems are all very important because it creates a balance of all living things in the ecosystem.  Over many years, our impact on the world became much greater as we began going industrial.  We dump our waster in the waters and forests, we cut down trees and we use resources, which other living entities need to survive.  Our race has thrived and has yet to reach its peak, but at what cost? On Oct 19th, we had a few visitors – Eric Walters (an author who is very active in local and African communities), Chris Miller (Coquitlam Public Librarian for Teens & Young Adults), and Jaya (a woman who studied ecology).  Jaya was invited into our school and was asked to do a presentation regarding biodiversity.  It was slow to start, but as I listened further  I began to understand how important every single species is to each ecosystem’s structure.” – Liam

“Eric Walters is actually very funny.  When he was at our school this week, he talked for for two hours and I didn’t get bored! Listening to Eric’s life experiences was actually very interesting…. He used to be a teacher.  He sometimes brings animals into class, he even brought a tiger to one class. After he was a teacher, he went on many adventures to write his books.  He walked across the Sahara desert, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and has interacted with tigers just to make his novels more realistic. Eric Walters surprised me with his personality and life.  He was completely different from what I thought we was from reading his books.”  – Kevin

“Stations  were organized for the students and a group from Youth Impact helped with the obstacle course. The course was … fun!  Setting up tents for the first time ever was a definite challenge.  And taking it down was even more challenging.” -Eunice

“After Nut Break, all of Yellow Team went on a walk through Mundy Park. This was the PE portion of our day, kind of like DJs hike to Kilimanjaro, of course not really, but Mundy Park was the closest we could get.  When we got back, we watched a video on biodiversity.  I didn’t find it extremely exciting, but I could understand how it related to DJ’s climb and the scenery he saw on the hike and how we need to protect it.” – Maddie

2. Ooey, gooey, eyeballs… grade 8’s dissected sheep eyes – perfect for Halloween week. More coming soon about the dissection….

 

3. Many costumed-students roamed the hall this week….

4. Our grade 8’s a getting ready for the feudal games. Each student received the role that they were ‘randomly’ born into this week. We have a king and queen, a cardinal, some merchants and nobles, and of course lots of serfs.  Stay tuned for more news about our Feudal Games.

5. Explorations first term finished and second term has started.  Grade 6/7’s moved from Tech Ed to Home Ec, and from Home Ec to Art.  Grade 8’s moved on from Life Links, Art and Dramus to Tech Ed, Dramus and Life Links.  Report cards will be coming home shortly and we’ll posted some pictures of some of the completed projects next week.

6. Literature Circle books & assignments are well under way.  Due dates are approaching soon.  Log in to Edmodo.com to read your students’ feedback and to take a look at what we are doing.

7. We started our Random Acts of Kindness a little early this year.  All three classes participated in the sugary sweet Random Acts of Halloween-y Treats.  Very efficient teams of students decorated cookies, packaged and delivered Halloween cookies to local businesses in Como Lake Village and to the Staff at Parkland Elementary.

8. Today we had a Remembrance Day book talk with Chris Miller.  He talked about fiction and non-fiction books that relate to the World Wars and other conflicts.  Some of the titles he discussed: Shot at Dawn, The War to End all Wars, Canada at War, The Sniper, Shadow of the Mountain, Burning for Revenge, Fly Boy, Bomb, Ultimate Deathmatch, A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest… Ever to Live, I am the Great Horse, Wounded, Behind Enemy Lines, Fire in the Sky and many more.  Mr. Miller also told us that there are many resources in the public library about World War 2 aircraft, if we are working on that task for our literature circles.

9. Mr. Meagher took 25 students to Evergreen Cultural Centre for an Anime & Manga workshop.  Thank you very much to all the parent drivers who volunteered to drive for this trip.  Students from all of the Yellow Team classes attended.

10. Every once in awhile, Ms. Moody and Ms. Abbot like to give the students a reading morning with hot chocolate.  And today was just such a day.  Students brought something to read, a blanket or a pillow (if they wanted) and a mug.

Today is Zombie Day.  The Spirit Squad organized a Zombie Walk for lunch time and the students came dressed and ready.

1. Both grade 6/7 and 8’s have finished Eric Walter’s “Between Heaven and Earth.”  The grade 8’s analysed a quotation from the novel and reflected on its meaning and their connections to the quote.  The grade 6/7’s imagined themselves interviewers from a magazine and came up with some deep questions to ask the main characters.  They switched questions and wrote an interview as either Doris, Sarha, DJ, Elijah or the Finns.  We are very excited for Literacy Day coming up on October 29th – when Eric Walters will be at Hillcrest and we will be doing activities related to the story all day.

2. We are continuing with the Seven Series and are reading the other 6 books this month.  Everyone was assigned two written responses and one task to complete.  Due dates are different for grade 6/7’s and grade 8’s but everyone has the assignment sheet and it is posted on Edmodo.

3. Today everyone wrote the Caribou Contest.  The Caribou Contest is a math contest offered by Brock University.  It does not count for marks but do provide challenging math activities and puzzles that are fun (with a little competition).  Click here for more information about the contest.

4. Term #1 Science is wrapping up for grade 6/7’s with a study package and assessment this week.  We finished with two interactive lessons last week.  The first simulating a water molecule traveling through the water cycle and the second was simulating a deer population and exploring the carrying capacity.  We graphed the population for “10 years” and hypothesized about the limiting factors that affected our population.  Students will be bringing the science assessment and their notebooks home next week, please take a look and ask them to explain about what they have learned.

 5. “What I have done in French so far… there is a student from Charles Best that comes every Thursday in block F for the kids that have had a French background. So there are 4 of us who, instead of doing curriculum French, do a more advanced French that is more tailored towards our ability. In the French 8 class we have been studying things like numbers up to 30 and basic verb conjugation/translation.” – Connor

6. Our class (Mr. Utting’s) took a field trip to SFU to learn about light and lasers. In the morning, we split up into our exploration groups, and roamed the campus and filled out a crossword/scavenger hunt with facts about the campus. We had to travel all over the campus looking at signs and asking staff to find out the answers to fill into the crossword. When it was time for lunch we all met up in a cafeteria with a Tim Horton’s where all of the groups collaborated for lunch. We then moved our way towards a lab where we participated in a lab about lasers. We learned how to separate the colours from white light and used diffracting goggles to find out which gas was in a pipe. – Liam

7. When our class got the Terry Fox donation forms, Mr.Utting promised us a pizza party if we reached 500$ in donations and with the help of a few students who took the extra effort and went door to door in their neighbourhood we managed to reach 500$ in a few days. Since we reached the goal of 500$ so quickly we proposed if we raised 1000$ in donations, our class could have a day off school to do whatever we wanted while still being on school grounds. We played capture the flag, played games and had time outside. – Liam

8. In Social Studies, our class (Mr. Utting’s) is in the progress of doing a timeline about the history of ancient Rome. Pictures to come in a future post.

9. Ms. Abbot has 4 students from Charles Best in class on Thursday afternoons.  They have been helping students organize binders, organize lockers, outline written responses and get started on writing tasks and peer editing.  “They help and they are funny.  They ask lots of questions of us.  They are interested.  And they do really help.” – 6/7 student

10. IEPs are starting to come home. The IEPs are educational plans the outline the types of differentiation that happens in the MACC classes.   If you have questions, please don’t hestitate to call us.

Please check out our previous post about our Identity Day (that was hosted during the school Open House).

1. Splish splash… we had a great first team field trip to Chimo Pool.  We had fantastic weather for our walk to the pool and had lots of diving, swimming, splashing and getting to know each other.

2. Our team name and cheer have been decided!  This year we are the Mighty Yellow Cyber Suns.  Our team has decided to borrow a Aussie Rugby Cheer from the Hawthrone Hawks and finesse it for this year.  Mr. Meagher led the practice and the team was ready to team and chant at the Highlander Games.

We’re a happy team at Hillcrest
We’re the [Mighty] Cyber Suns.
We love our team, and we try our best
working together with a grin (at Hillcrest).
Come what may, you’ll find us striving
Team work is the thing that talks,
One for all and all for one
Is the way we play at Hillcrest.
We are the [Mighty] Cyber Suns.

3. Our explorations classes continue through …… the Home Arts class has made several yummy dishes.

4. This week we reflected on Terry Fox and watched a video of interview clips of Terry.  We thought about who we would be running for this year.  Our school run was on Friday and we started with an introduction from Mr. Rietchel and a speech from Mr. Lageston.  We ran approximately 3km through Mundy Park.  When we got back to school, parents were ready with oranges.

5. Our team has been fundraising for the Terry Fox Foundation and we have big goals for the classes and team.  The grade 8’s participated in a grade 8 BBQ fundraiser and the Yellow team held a Used Book Sale.  Grand totals with be announced next week.

6. In Math 6, students have finished the basic skills review and are working on Patterns and Equations.  Students are working with input and output tables and have started to write expressions with variables.  Some extra practice and more information can be found here, here, here and here.

7. We have continued to read “Between Heaven and Earth” by Eric Walters.  We have been focusing on the connections we can make with the characters, the story, and with other stories, experiences, or novels.  We have been reviewing paragraph structure in grade 6/7 and we have been working on multi-paragraph essays in grade 8.  The grade 8’s have also reviewed parts of speech and are using their understanding of parts of speech to revise and edit their paragraphs.

8, 9 & 10. Highlander Games!  We all participated in the Highlander
Games on Friday. We met in the gym and sang our cheer, then headed outside for the stations. We began with the team skiing, then moved on to the beachball volleyball. From there we went to the Cardio Circuit. After that, caber toss (with a 10-foot PVC pipe), and the Haggis Pass (with a sock and rice). Then the Highland Fling (Dance Dance Revolution). All in all, it was a fun day.