Language – Page 5 – Mrs. Black's Class Blog

Reading Comprehension as Community Service!

Margaret BlackNovember 4, 2013March 30, 2014Leave a comment

This project fulfills curriculum expectations in reading and science, while helping a local wildlife sanctuary!

This week, students brainstormed reading comprehension questions and discussion/debate topics that touch on the "big ideas" in a series of educational articles, authored by staff and volunteers at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary.

We started the project by reading an article, that was projected on the Smart Board, about a Raven that was successfully rehabilitated and released, through a cooperative effort between Aspen Valley (Rosseau) and Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary (Minden). Then we worked together to brainstorm questions to accompany the article.

Ray-Raven-screenshot http://www.cottagecountrynow.ca/opinion-story/4163625-ray-the-raven-s-full-recovery/

A student writes a reading comprehension question on chart paper:

Another student jots down a question about the article:

Here are the questions the class developed about "Ray the Raven's full recovery":

After our shared reading comprehension activity, it was time for students to break into small groups and work with other articles:

Students have discovered that it takes as much skill and effort to formulate good questions as it does to answer them. Even so, they are enjoying the opportunity to take on the role of educators. A retired school teacher who conducts school tours at the sanctuary and I will be compiling the class' ideas. Then, finished study guides for twelve newspaper articles will be uploaded to the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary website, as free resources for teachers to use with their students.

These are the results of our brainstorming sessions. The first picture shows the class' reading comprehension questions and discussion/debate topics about articles having to do with wildlife rehabilitation. The second picture shows their notes re: articles about permanent residents.

The finished products are now available for free download on the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary website!

http://aspenvalley.ca/aspen/resources/teachers-corner/

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Sanctuary: Media Literacy/Outreach Work Now Online

Margaret BlackSeptember 22, 2013October 2, 2013Leave a comment

This is an update on a couple of Media Literacy/outreach projects.

The "Help Me Stay Wild" teacher resources that my 2012-13 Grade 5/6 class helped to create for Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary are now online. There are five of them. You will find them on this page:

http://www.blackdeer.ca/AV-teacher-corner/

This year's Grade 4/5 class provided feedback on an early draft of an Aspen Valley resource page for kids. That page is also online now:

http://www.blackdeer.ca/AV-kid-zone/

The work of last year's class and this year's class for Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary are being recognized on this page:

http://www.blackdeer.ca/AV-honour-roll/

(We have collected enough acorns, pine cones and maple keys to supply both Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary and Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary with food for their overwintering animals!)

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Sanctuary/Math Project, Pt. 1 6

Margaret BlackSeptember 15, 2013October 15, 20136 Comments

Our special math project, which is also an outreach project in support of Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary is now underway. (Sept. 23rd NOTE: We have collected so many items that we will now be sharing with Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, as well!)

We have sent home notes to parents, explaining what we are doing (click on any picture to enlarge it):

Everyone in our class received a paper bag, for collecting items,
with a note attached to it.

We have started a Community Service bulletin board in our classroom:

The entire school has been invited to help us collect acorns, pine cones and maple keys, to feed to baby squirrels, porcupines and fawns that will overwintering at local wildlife sanctuaries:

Students in our class counting out invitations for other classes

Teams of students from our class have started touring the school, making presentations explaining what wildlife rehabilitation centres do and why it is important to feed orphaned animals the types of food they will see after they are released back into the wild:

Students rehearsing for classroom presentations

The collection of natural foods for orphaned baby animals has begun:

And, in a truly remarkable twist of fate... The week we began collecting food for orphaned baby animals, the family of one of my students rescued a four-week old squirrel they found on their driveway, alone, cold and dehydrated. They did a great job with emergency care, and then I drove the little guy to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, where I happened to be going for a meeting. "Squirrelly" will be one of those babies who needs to overwinter at a wildlife sanctuary, eating the kinds of foods we are collecting! Next Spring, he will be released back into the wild close to where he was found.

"Squirrelly" receiving a feeding of Pedialyte (2 ml), via eye-dropper

Full tummy = sleepy baby

Next step: During the first week of October, we will be spending two or three math classes sorting, counting, calculating fractions and equivalent fractions, estimating percentages, graphing and estimating how long our food stash will last, when fed to baby squirrels.

Then I will drive all the great, natural food we collected to Woodlands Sanctuary and Aspen Valley Sanctuary, where it will teach baby animals, like Squirrelly, what foods to eat and provide them with sustenance all winter long!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Centre: School Resource Brainstorm 1

Margaret BlackMay 31, 2013September 15, 20131 Comment

Mrs. Black has offered to help a local wildlife rehabilitation center and sanctuary, by developing some school resources for them. The activities in the school resource packages would fulfill curriculum expectations and character education objectives, while engaging students in supporting the work of the centre through fund-raising, collection of goods, animal sponsorship, writing, media literacy, math and the arts.

Mrs. Black created a two-page resource, based on a "Help me stay wild" info-graphic about Black Bears produced by the rehabilitation centre. Click on the image or link below to see her sample resource:

http://www.blackdeer.ca/AVWS-TeacherResourceSample.pdf

Last week, Mrs. Black showed the class the sample resource. Students really liked the idea and asked if they could help with the development of resources for other species, as a media literacy project. They also asked if they could try out the narrative writing prompt in the sample resource about Black Bears.

The Grade 5 students completed the narrative writing task this week, while their Grade 6 counterparts were writing the EQAO test. Students thoroughly enjoyed learning about the habits and food preferences of Black Bears, and then writing a story about a visit to a dump, from a bear's perspective. In the process, they learned about what their families and neighbours might be doing to inadvertently attract bears to their neighbourhood.

Friday morning, we had a media literacy session in which students:

watched a video about the work of the rehabilitation centre: http://environmentfilms.org/EF/ASPEN_VALLEY.html
reviewed the sample resource
listened to three of the "bear narratives" written by the Grade 5 students, and identified the lesson or moral in each story
discussed what other forms of writing can be used as a teaching tool
broke into small groups and rotated through six stations, brainstorming fund raising ideas and curriculum-based project ideas, for five other animal species for which the rehab. centre has produced "Help me stay wild" info-graphics

Here is how today's media literacy session looked:

NOTE: We have sent the wildlife centre links to the sample resource and this blog post. We are now (May 31st) waiting to see if the centre would like us to further develop our ideas for their website. July 31st: Mrs. Black went to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary for a meeting with the General Manager and the retired teacher who conducts school visits at the sanctuary. They loved the work the class did and asked Mrs. Black to go ahead and develop four more project sheets, using the ideas the class provided. 🙂 September 14th: The Board of Directors at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary viewed and approved first drafts of five educational resources. Next step: They will go through final edits and field testing, and then be uploaded to the Aspen Valley website.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Grade 5 “Write to Give” Outreach Project! 1

Margaret BlackMarch 28, 2013March 29, 20131 Comment

Rama Central's Grade 2/3 teacher, Miss Wigle, invited students in our class to illustrate a story that her class wrote in collaboration with classes in two other schools. We decided to make this a Grade 5 outreach opportunity.

The publishing project Write to Give is an initiative of World Teacher Aid, a Canadian charitable organization. The story we illustrated will be published in book form, and sold to help bring education to students living in rural Kenya.

Below, you will see our book illustrations. There is also a picture of a tortoise adoption certificate. Miss Wigle was kind enough to adopt a Galapagos Tortoise from World Wildlife Fund, to thank our class for helping with the book. That means this outreach project benefits both children in Africa AND Tortoises in South America! (Click on any picture to enlarge it.)

For more information please visit these websites:

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Learning About and Helping Local Reptiles 2

Margaret BlackMarch 22, 2013March 23, 20132 Comments

Today, two staff members from Scales Nature Park, in Orillia, brought a variety of live turtles and snakes to Rama Central. Their all-day visit to the school was funded by Environment Canada; the goal was to help students to better appreciate the variety of amazing reptiles that live in our area.

Scales Nature Park owner Jeff Hathaway and his assistant started off the day with a presentation in the gym. Then, throughout the day, each class had its own scheduled time to return to the gym so students could ask questions and handle live snakes. Students seemed to really enjoy and appreciate today's hands-on learning opportunity.

To facilitate follow-up, Jeff has loaned our school a wonderful resource kit containing lessons for all grades, fact sheets about snakes and turtles, a reptile identification card game, a turtle shell, some snake skins and some turtle eggs.

A few months ago, our class offered to write persuasive letters in support of the Georgian Bay Turtle Hospital, which will soon be opening on the Scales Nature Park property. This morning, our class met with Jeff Hathaway, who is sponsoring the hospital, to find out what the he needs most and what companies might be most likely to donate goods. In between the morning assembly and our opportunity to return to the gym to handle snakes, students began work on their letters. This is our very interesting and productive day, in pictures (click on any image to enlarge it; use the back button on your browser to return to this page):

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Alliston & District Humane Society Visit! 6

Margaret BlackMarch 6, 2013March 7, 20136 Comments

This morning, two volunteers from the Alliston & District Humane Society (ADHS) made a two-hour round trip drive to Rama Central, to pick up the brochures our class designed to help ADHS educate children about animal welfare. The brochures, which were completed as a Media Literacy project, were featured in two previous BLOG posts:
Using Media Skills to Educate Others, Part 2
Using Media Skills to Educate Others, Part 1

During today's visit, students engaged in a lively discussion about shelter animals, rescued pets and animal care with Audrey and Jim. Our visitors thanked us for all our help with "Princess the dog" and with their educational project. Audrey and Jim also brought the class donuts, for which students were very grateful.

We want to thank Audrey and Jim for visiting our class, and the Alliston & District Humane Society for providing us with an opportunity to complete a school assignment with a real world purpose!

Here are some pictures of pamphlet/flyer authors with Jim and Audrey:

Pamphlet topic: How You Can Help the Humane Society

Pamphlet topic: How Kids Helped Princess

Pamphlet topic: Proper Animal Care

Pamphlet topic: Pet Over-population

Pamphlet topic: Kids and Aggressive Dogs

Flyer topic: Fun Animal Facts!

Next step: Audrey and Jim will show our brochures to members of the ADHS Board of Directors. Then, the best of what we created will be desktop published and used to help educate children who visit the shelter.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Using Media Skills to Educate Others, Part 2 2

Margaret BlackMarch 3, 2013March 5, 20132 Comments

Over the past month, students worked in pairs to plan, research and create informative flyers and brochures. These brochures fulfilled curriculum requirements in media literacy, and fulfilled a real purpose. The Alliston & District Humane Society will be desktop publishing the best of what our class produced and using these materials to educate young people about animal welfare.

A previous BLOG post shows students researching and planning their brochures: Using Media Skills to Educate Others, Part 1.

Here are the finished products. Click on any photo to enlarge it:

Students found "working for a client" to be highly motivating. The quality of most of their work is exemplary. At the end of the process, the finished brochures were circulated around the class and students had an opportunity to contribute ideas about each brochure's strengths and deficits. These ideas were written on post-it notes and affixed to the brochures. Two representatives from the Alliston & District Humane Society will be coming to our class on Wednesday, March 8, 2013 to pick up the brochures and thank students for their hard work.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Using Writing Skills to Help Save a Park 3

Margaret BlackJanuary 30, 2013March 23, 20133 Comments

Students have been working hard on their persuasive letters to MPP Jim Wilson, urging the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to reconsider closing Springwater Provincial Park. This day use park near Barrie is currently scheduled to close on March 31st, because of declining visitorship. Our persuasive letter project fulfills curriculum requirements in writing, plus objectives in character education and citizenship.

A curriculum Learning Goal that applies to this project is posted on our classroom wall:

Students also have a sheet of more detailed Learning Goals and Success Criteria to guide their persuasive letter writing. The same criteria can be applied to next month's persuasive letters in support of the new turtle hospital. Click on the image below to enlarge it:

Click here to see the rubric we are using to assess our persuasive letters.

These are students writing their letters in support of Springwater Provincial Park:

Here are some of the students in our class with their finished letters:

In the meantime, the group of adult volunteers working to save the park ("The Friends of Springwater Provincial Park") have now raised enough money to register for Federal non-profit status. They are hoping this designation will enable them to form a partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, with the goals of keeping the park open and making it more profitable.

You just never know where a kid's idea might take you! On Wednesday, January 23rd, The Friends of Springwater Provincial Park invited me to sit on their board, as their Education Outreach Coordinator. I told them I would be honored to assist in this way. Thank you to my two Grade 5 students who suggested that our class do what we can to help save Springwater Provincial Park!

More to come as events unfold...

MARCH 23, 2013: Today we received a response to our letters! (Click on the images to enlarge them.)

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Using Media Skills to Educate Others, Part 1 5

Margaret BlackJanuary 23, 2013March 3, 20135 Comments

Students are working in pairs to plan, research and create informative flyers and brochures. These media projects will fulfill curriculum requirements in media literacy, and also assist the Alliston & District Humane Society in creating a new educational program for young people. The ADHS intends to desktop publish the best of what our class produces and use these materials as the basis for bi-weekly classes, to be held during animal shelter open house events.

A curriculum Learning Goal for this project is posted in our classroom:

Students started the project by examining commercially-produced brochures:

The class identified effective/ineffective design features in the commercially-produced brochures:

Students were then given a sheet of Learning Goals and Success Criteria for the brochure/flyer project. This sheet included a range of topic choices provided by the Alliston & District Humane Society. Click on the image to enlarge it:

After choosing a partner and topic, the next job was to choose an appropriate format (flyer, four-panel or six-panel brochure), break the topic into sub-topics and make a list of information that needed to be researched:

Then, students started to research their topics, using the school's computers:

In Part 2 of this BLOG post, we will show you some of the students' finished brochures/flyers.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@mail1.scdsb.on.caor to add a comment to this page.