Monday, 27 May

We had many donations for the gift basket today.  
Please see the comments at the foot of the Tuesday 14 May's blog post to see where folks are noting what they're donating so that we have a nice mixture of gifts.

4 students earned bike-to-school week raffle-draw tickets for riding to school.  Way to go Gus, Noah, Avery and Kiah.  
If you'd like to have a chance to win a bike, you've got to ride.


Ouch: a few of the grade 6s began their day with vaccinations.  The rest of us began with a short French quiz: I hope neither was too painful.  In French, I am noticing improvement already.  Although I'm trying to do lots of oral work, I am also trying to give attention to spelling, my Achilles heel when I was a student.  After the quiz, we got started on the second lesson associated with the food theme.  I shared with the class some of my experiences when I lived in Northern Quebec and came across French words whose meaning I knew, but whose pronunciation at first stumped me (ex. huile - oil, pneu - tire).  Being immersed in another culture is a wonderfully challenging way to experience inquiry every second of the day.  Here are our notes:

 Afterwords, the class went to band.

After recess we read for ten minutes and then the 6s left for math while the 7s received the counseling team from Elphinstone.  The 7s not only heard from adult, school staff, but also from three grade 8s who are former RCCES students.  There was good information exchanged and I was most impressed by the positive and professional tone of the students' comments.  Our students were given a folder to take home (some were dismissed before they picked up their folders so they'll get them tomorrow).  In that folder was a piece of paper that needs to be signed and returned.  Please do that ASAP so we can get them back to Elphi.

After lunch we read for a short while and then listened to inquiry presentations by Simon and Bowen, Emily and Kiah, and Gus.  It is interesting to see the growth in the students work as they get more and more experienced at both inquiry learning and sharing.  Gone is the nervousness of only a few months ago.  The learning also appears to be much deeper and more detailed this time.  We ended the day with a game of backwards indoor soccer.

Inquiry sharing: India and Rome

Inquiry sharing: India and Greece

Audience participation: teaching the
 class Indian dance steps 

I don't know if we invented this game,
but I'd like to play it again, now that
we have the kinks worked out.