Churchill High School – Flexible Learning

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Winter camp is fast approaching. We will be heading out of the city March 9th, returning March 11th.

This may be a once in a high school lifetime experience for your children, and one that Dave and I really don’t want them to miss. Winter camp is a fantastic excursion both for the outdoor experience they will gain as well as the community building that is lends itself to. Every year that we have organized a camp such as this, we have returned back to the school refreshed, a much stronger team, and ready to see the year through to the end with a new focus.

As we are inviting all middle school students from Churchill, once the forms have been sent home with your children, they will be able to attend on a first-come-first-serve basis.

With thanks for your on-going support,

Tanis

Dear Parents,
  
   Hello all! Here’s a quick rundown of what’s going on in the land of Flex…
Extra-Curricular Stuff:

   January is a fairly slow month in terms of extra-curriculars. However, basketball is going full force now. The schedule for every school team should be on our school website within a week.
   Winter Camp is a go for March 9-11 and Tanis and I are planning a meeting about this soon. The cost will likely be around $100.00.
Academics:

   It’s come to our attention that many students are simply not doing homework this year since nothing specific has been assigned. However, there is much your children should be working on at home.

Math:
   Both the 7 and 8 classes are learning fractions right now. We’ve had our first test today, and many students failed. Every student has a fractions booklet to work on and can get extra work if they so desire. I’ve repeatedly told them I am available for extra help but not one student has seen me. Only one has attempted to even make an appointment.
   The 8s also have a January exam in Math on Wednesday the 28th. We’ll be covering everything from the beginning of the year until now, so they should already be starting to review conversions, area, volume, 3-D shapes, measurements, and fractions/decimals/percents.

Project Fair:
   Instead of Science Fair, we are doing “Project” Fair this year. Students who still want to create a Science Project can still choose to do this, while others have the option of working on a research project of their choice. The students should have all the information they need in their binders, and it is due March 4th.
   The middle years team is working on a rubric for this project. We’ll post it on the website when it’s finished.
   This is a huge project, and we expect the very best work from our students on this. There is always work that can be done at home on this.

Science:
  
Studying the circulatory system including the lungs, heart, veins, arteries,
capillaries, etc.

Quiz – Monday, January 26th
Students will need to be able to label a diagram of the heart as well as know the
definitions they have taken as notes in class.

  
English:

   Grade Eight English

Human Rights Novel Study
This is an inquiry-based, student-led novel study in which the students have
chosen a novel from the Human Rights curriculum, are reading this as a group or
individually, and then are creating a novel study in a manner in which they are
interested in exploring the text.

The students are required to include a written component, with a high level of
attention focused on paragraph formation, spelling and grammar.

The Timeline is as follows:
January 19th – Novel Read
January 19th – Proposal due end of class (to include student-created rubric)
January 24th – Rough Draft Due
January 29th – Final Copy handed in.

Grade Seven English

The students are currently finishing writing their short stories.

Timeline:
Monday – continuation of peer editing.
Tuesday – Final copy printed
Wednesday – Finalizing of illustrations
Thursday – One last critical look over
Friday 23rd – Binding the Story and handing it in.

 
Social Studies:
   This is the one subject that no one should have any homework in. However, astonishingly, there are a couple of people who have not completed their Rome projects, which are 100 percent of Term 2. Those students know who they are and I refuse to chase them down for work they should have handed in weeks ago.

Flex Time:
   For our students not in French, we have a human-rights research assignment called “Ethical Shopping.” Students have chosen two companies to research and rate in terms of how ethical their business practices are.
   We plan to use our new-ish web/blogging site for this assignment. Students will post their work as entries on our class site. There is already a link there called “Ethical Shopping” where all our students’ work will be. This is an exciting project, since their work will be posted publicly and can be viewed by potentially millions of people (i.e. anyone on the world wide web that’s interested).

   That’s about it for now. If you have any questions, feel free to contact either Tanis or I.

Have a great week!

Dave and Tanis

(dlaw@wsd1.org)
(twestdal@wsd1.org)

Check out this video from the band Radiohead. It makes you think about how lucky we are, where we get our products, and what it means to be a global citizen.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we’re going to try to build it by Christmas!

If you haven’t heard already, we are in the process of building the Roman Forum (from ancient Rome) in our classroom. So far we have our foundation (large sheets of cardboard – old Science Fair backboards actually – covered in paper mache and painted), and the blue prints of our homes.

Each student has been assigned a Roman profession and is responsible for building their dwelling (apartment, town house, or villa, depending on their social status). They need to provide 2-D and 3-D plans for their homes before they build them (in 1:30 scale). This part of the project accounts for part of this term’s Math mark.

Students are also responsible for maintaining a booklet in their Social Studies binders. So far they should be done their title page, table of contents, and their “Who Am I” assignment. Parents: feel free to check up on this; many are not caught up. All of this accounts for marks for Social Studies.

This is our first large-scale integrated project this year (we are hoping to do two more, each one with more and more student-control and freedom. So far the majority of students are doing very well. If you have any questions, please feel free to email myself or Tanis. (dlaw@wsd1.org)

Thanks,

Dave

On behalf of the peaceLEARNERS, we would just like to once again thank all those who helped us with our SOLD OUT rock concert/fundraiser at the Park Theatre last Tuesday. We raised nearly $1 700 from ticket sales alone and are well on our way to our first goal of $8 500 to build a school in Sri Lanka. We have many more fundraisers and events in the works, so we’ll keep everyone posted! See the peaceLEARNERS website for more info…

http://www.peacelearners.webs.com/

Flex Update: Dec 1st, 2008

Dear Parents and Students of Flex,
   Tanis and I are finally ready to launch our blogging site. The students will begin working with it this week. This site will function as the Churchill Grade 7 and 8 Flexible Learning website. The emphasis on blogging (chronological logs of lessons, activities, and thoughts published on our website) will hopefully allow students, parents, and teachers greater interaction, communication, and ownership of what is on the site itself. Enjoy!
-Dave and Tanis