#HClassBlog - "That's what friendship is all about, making kids cry!" - February 5

Classroom Quote of the week: “That’s what friendship is all about, making kids cry!” Nathan, jokingly, said to Travis after beating him in a game of UNO.
• • •
Introduction ~
Hello, my name is Deacon, and I will be writing this week's delightful blog! My favorite subjects are Math and Gym. I certainly adore playing ice hockey outside of school. I like practicing, but I especially love hockey games. My favourite part of hockey is scoring a goal, because the whole crowd goes wild! Enough talking about me, now Let’s go below to the rose.

•.• •
The Rose ~
Last week's rose would be the new music discoveries we are making in class. Each week, five students from the class secretly select songs from a decade. So far, we have covered the 40s, 50s and last week was the 60s. At the end of the week, after listening to them many times, we vote to see if each song is a “Bop” or a “Flop”. The top two move on to our main playlist and any song with a greater than 70% bop ratio also stays. From the 60s were I’m A Believer from The Monkees and Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles. Then, the secret pickers reveal themselves. My song was Hound Dog by Elvis Presley from the 50s. It was voted a Bop!

 • • •

The Thorn ~
The thorn for last week would be that many people were sick. At least four people a day, including me. That’s why this blog is a bit delayed. Hopefully, this week will be better.

• • •

The Bud ~
For the past couple of weeks we have been doing an experiment during the first 20 minutes of class.

During the first week, we “mixed and mingled”, socializing with each other. There were conversation topics posted on the board, but we could talk about anything.

In week two, we began each day in the gym with 20 minutes of physical activity. The goal was to raise our resting heart rate - so we ran, stretched, exercised and played simple games.

Last week, we meditated and peaceful, calming, chill music was played. We were welcome to read or just close our eyes and be mindful and vibe.

Following those 20 minutes, we had a 40 minute lesson and activity (usually French), then we completed a survey to assess our level of focus on a scale of 1 (none) to 10 (very focused). Soon, we will review the data and see what they tell us about how we should start our instructional day.”

• • •

Phys Ed ~ 

For those who are basketball lovers, we have returned to shooting some hoops in gym class. We took a vote and decided to play full court games. As a result, half the players wait on stage while the other half plays. We set a timer to keep things fair and divided into two groups - those who want to play competitively and those who want to play for fun.

Basketball warm-ups in gym class

• • •

Literacy ~

As a continuation of our #OneWord challenge, we created Snow Globes in Google Draw and wrote mini-essays about the single word we picked to guide our year. I picked “Perseverance” and my slide example is below.

Science  ~ 

In Science we had a culminating project and invited parents and other classes to our classroom ecosystems museum. There were interactive slideshows, Shoebox Dioramas, Plasticine Models, Aquariums, Poster Boards and even a podcast you could listen to. Our visitors were tremendously impressed. Unfortunately, I was sick. Fortunately, my partners were not and they presented on my behalf. Pictures are available below.

Next blog post will be from Isaiah.

Thanks for reading…

#HClass22

*All student pictures have been posted with permission