What We Learned Today...March 6th

The Plans and French Successfully Completing a Trade

This morning we spent the first half hour of our morning signing up for an account on Edmodo.  Edmodo is a safe online learning platform that allows students to connect and collaborate with other students in our classroom.  On this website students are able to pose questions, participate in online class discussions, access and submit homework and monitor  all upcoming events and due dates using our class calendar.  I've heard about this website from other educators and thought our class could give it a try as well.  It seems to have a lot of upside and I feel that it's worth trying out for the next couple of months.

From 9:00 to 9:30 the students worked on their French Music Critique Podcast's.  Most groups are on the last leg of this assignment and it looks like everyone will be done before I have to return the Macbooks.  Phew!  In Grade 8 Math we continued our Fraction unit by learning how to Multiply Proper Fractions.  Students were also assigned an assignment from Pg. 213-214.  (Full assignment will be posted tomorrow)

After Lunch we had a bonus French class and students continued to work on their Music Critique Podcast assignments.  At 1:15 Mr. McCulloch came by to teach Career Guidance and the students continued to work on their Dream Clouds and spent some time working on the Real Game online.

In Social Studies we continued our Colonization Simulation Unit with our Stage Two event, The Fur Trade.  For this simulation the Europeans set up their bases in the hallway and were given a select amount of items to trade to the First Nations Tribes while the First Nations had to play games of Rock, Paper, Scissors in order to acquire furs.  Once the First Nations Tribes had Fur to trade (Buffalo, Otter and Beaver)  they were then able to visit both the French and British and negotiate trades for items such as Guns, Dogs and other cool nick-knacks.  At the end of the lesson we looked at how many animals were killed for their furs during the course of the hour.  Shockingly our class, more specifically 16 students, "killed" 158 animals for the fur trade.  We discussed how this large number helped to represent the incredibly large number of animals that were killed for furs during the actual Fur Trade.

Here's some pictures from our Fur Trade:

Desperately trying to win a fur.

The British had their hands full!

Our chief fur trader, Brian.

Posing while negotiating with the British.

Trying to win another fur...Better Luck Next Time!

The French taking a second to pose with their goods.

Due Dates & Homework:

Religion:
The entire package (Service hours included) will now be due on Friday, March 22nd.

Math:
Grade 8: (This will be due on Tomorrow, March 7th)
Pg. 208-209
a) 4, 5, 7, 8
b)4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13
c) 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15

Overdue Assignments:

1) Lenten Booklet Plan
2) Grade 8 Handout - 6.1
3) Name Blog Self Reflection

Reminders:
- We are downhill skiing tomorrow, March 7th at Mission Ridge.
- Friday, March 8th is Teacher Convention and there will be no school for students. .