Intro to Paragraph Group Writing Workshop!

Today, we worked on our paragraph writing skills! The students worked in groups of 3-4, on 5 different tasks. Each group received an envelope which had all of the instructions for each task. The students were able to work at their own pace in their group and worked excellently, as they were on task for the whole double period!

Here is an outline of each task:

Task 1: Graffiti web to brainstorm ideas for what a paragraph is/has:

Task 2: Learning about the paragraph structure & colour coding:

Task 3: Paragraph organization

Task 4: Creating a personal paragraph and edit/revise checklist to refer to once writing:

Task 5: Write a Paragraph using information learned throughout the workshop!

** some students examples to follow SOON! **

Words Their Way

Once a cycle, we work on a program called Words Their Way (WTW). WTW is a word study program that focuses on phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Throughout this program, students will gain understanding of why English words are spelled as they are, obtain new vocabulary and extend what they have learned about some words to think about other words that fit in the same categories. 

With wonderful support from Mrs. Patzer and Mrs. Danyluk, we work on a new set of words each week, sometimes in whole group lessons and sometimes in small groups. Students sort their word list into particular categories, they record them in their WTW duotangs, we think about what words we know and what words we are not familiar with, we discuss in partners about the meaning of some of the words, and we have an exit slip of some kind, that involves students thinking about additional vocabulary words for each category. 

Some students have done WTW in the past, and were very excited to begin the program this year. The students are enjoying Words Their Way very much so far!

Students follow the key: 

* = words they know (can explain/define and can use in their own writing)

? = words they are not yet familiar with

?* = words they initially did not know, but learned in their partner groups

! = a new word they have added to that category

This was one of our exit slips where every student had to write a new word under the category to extend the lesson and expand our students vocabulary. 

Time Flies!

Its hard to believe it's already mid-October, or like we like to call it here at VW this year: Socktober!

Socktober is an idea from one of my favourite Youtubers, Kid President. For the whole month of October, we will be collecting socks to be distributed amongst Winnipegers who are homeless through Siloam Mission. So far we have an amazing wall filled with socks of different colours and sizes, but we need your help! Bring in a pair of socks to support Socktober!

We will be beginning T.U.S.C. (Totally Unbelievable Speakers Club) soon!! The students will prepare mini presentations on chosen topics for specific categories!

Check out some students learning and having fun at the same time:

We are learning about how we learn in our Mind Up! Unit! We gathered data from online quizzes on our learning styles, multiple intelligences, right brain vs left brain and our personality colours. We organized our data like this:

Finally,  the Walkathon was a huge success!! Thank you to all supporters! 

Here are the middle schoolers being middle schoolers: 

First Two Weeks of School

It's hard to believe we've only been back to school for two weeks! We have all gotten to know one another very quickly through icebreaker games like two truths and a lie, a get-to-know-you musical chairs like game and through class discussions.
 
Here are a few quotes about getting back into the swing of things from our Grade 8s:

"It was fun to meet all of the new teachers"
"It was cool to see how the teachers rearranged the classrooms"
"It was fun to see all of our friends again"
"It was interesting to see what classes we would be put into"
"It was exciting to have something productive to do with your time"
"We were excited to become friends with new kids in the school"
"It was exciting to see all the new opportunities like extra curricular activities"
"As new students, we felt scared and nervous at first, but we got used to the school right away and felt satisfied by the end of the day"
"We were excited to come back to school to see who would be in our class"

Academic Highlights:

In our class, we are doing the Daily 3: Read to Self, Work on Writing and Word Work. We have had many opportunities for read to self, where the students independently read a book of their choice.

We have worked on goal setting. In our writing notebooks, the students wrote about their goals for reading, writing and extra curricular activities.

The students have created a title page for our E.L.A section in their binder, including their strengths and goals for the year. Title pages are a great starting point for creating visuals.

Here are some examples of student title pages:

We are working on writing a paragraph about personal strengths and weaknesses as a student, to shine light on taking responsibility for your own learning.
 
Strong Beginnings:

Strong Beginnings was a success. The students worked very hard to show me their reading and writing skills! Thank you for participating!

Welcome to Room 21!

Here is the 'new and improved' room 21: 

In this room, there will be a lot of learning, laughter & middle schoolers! This room will be shared with Mr. Kassum who will be teaching Grade 8 Science!

There are many different learning areas in our room: horseshoe table arrangement for student collaboration, a round table for small group/1-1 conferences, and a reading area with comfortable DIY milk crate mini seats!

There is research to support that the classroom environment can increase levels of engagement, foster active learning and build a classroom community.

During my classroom set up, my goal was to create a "Learning Studio"


(http://www.hermanmiller.com/research/solution-essays/rethinking-the-classroom.html) 


The only thing missing from the classroom so far is the most important part!!! STUDENTS!

T Minus 4 Days till the First Day of School!

Can't wait to meet all of you!

-Ms. Valcourt

Welcome to our class blog!

Here, we will showcase what 7 M, 8 V, and 8 W are up to in English Language Arts with Ms. Valcourt.

We will update our blog monthly, including information and pictures about academics, classroom news/highlights, and school/classroom events!

Stay tuned!!