Miss M's Learning Space

For our inquiry unit plan, we chose to cover grade 6, strand A: Communities in Canada, Past and Present by asking the question:  What does it mean to be Canadian?  To say the least; it's a daunting question.  Summary Our inquiry cycle will be delivered in a loop; we will start with a similar assessment task to the one we finish with. Our assessment tasks require students to answer complex questions about Canadian identity. By the end of the unit, students will be expected to synthesise everything they’ve learned in the unit to answer similar questions to the ones from the beginning of the unit. Each lesson will be addressing a topic that is asked in the final assessment.  Each lesson addresses one of the following aspects of Canadian identity:  immigration,  physical geography,  canadian identity through art,  multiculturalism,  legalities of immigration,  perspectives of immigration,  inclusivity in education,  canadian cuisine,  development and the envi

https://goo.gl/QDX8bO  It’s important to include primary sources in lessons for several reasons. Foremost (in my opinion) is that primary documents have no ‘filter’ or ‘bias’ - the information is straight from the source and didn’t have to pass through a third party before getting to you (like textbooks). And, they are clear about the perspective they represent. For example, a textbook represents only the perspective of the people who wrote it (so they included what they felt was the relevant parts of history) whereas if you examine different people from the time period through primary documents you’re going to get their perspective and know that’s what you got, and likely get a very different story. In addition, by including primary documents, students learn what it takes to gather information from scratch. The information, or timeline for example, isn’t perfectly organized already for them - they have to become the historical ‘detective’ and figure out the information they need

http://goo.gl/ookMfI What is genius hour ? Genius hour is a time that students can use to investigate a question they are curious about. It has to be a question that Google can't answer though! It's almost like a personal inquiry project. For my genius hour project  that I completed during the fall, I chose to explore lactose-free cooking. Specifically, I wanted to see if it's possible to make lactose-free mac n'cheese that is just as good as the real stuff. Why you might ask? Well, unfortunately, I am severely lactose-intolerant. It causes me intense, chronic back and gestational pain, so I've had to cut it out completely. :( I've tried to make dairy-free pizza before and, although it didn't taste the same, it was still delicious! My goal for this question was to see if I could combine a series of dairy-free mac n'cheese recipes in order to make the  ultimate  version. Check out how successful I was here !

The exploration of print making presents a wonderful opportunity to learn about texture. In our class we created prints of various stencil sets in order to create balance and texture in a piece. My final product.  Our 'critique'.  I focused on the element of texture and the principle of balance. As a class, we chose to explore the element of texture in a literal sense by rubbing crayon on paper that was on top of various textures. This created a wonderful bridge between tangible textures and artistic texture. In addition, we were trying to create some sort of balance in our work. Mine was asymmetrical balance since it’s less on one half of the paper - it looks almost like something expanding towards the right. Sample of materials used. We used printer paper, crayons, and stencils to start and eventually moved to multiple textured surfaces around the room. This activity would be most suitable for grades 4-6 since it doesn’t require a high degree of fine motor s

Scientific literacy isn’t necessarily having the skills necessary to be a professional scientist, but rather a way of understanding (in general terms) scientific processes, including questioning, in order to make informed decisions about matters that have a scientific element. Especially when this understanding impacts decisions made at the ballot box. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/aipdIO  A scientifically literate society would benefit the field of science itself by having more recruits, greater support for scientific research and more realistic public expectations of science. However, realistic decision making and support depends on society knowing what scientists do and valuing what they do. At a personal level, people who are scientifically literate are better equipped to evaluate and respond appropriately to scientific and pseudoscientific arguments used by advertisers, commercial organizations and politicians, and better equipped to make important decisions that affect t

We were asked in class to create a lesson plan exploring the cross-curricular opportunities in social studies. So, my group decided to create a lesson about residential schools taught through drama and role playing . The general concept of this lesson is to take on a role and then reenact in accordance with your role in response to a certain situation. In each group of four students there are two Martians and two Earthlings. The Martians are representative of euro-Canadians and the Earthlings represent FNMI people (the profiles and situations are at the end of the lesson plan document).