Japanese Tsunami reflections



Lily and Brooklynn Grade 6

In 2011 a powerful earthquake took place off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Japan. This eathquake triggered a powerful Tsunami with ripples still felt today.
During several humanities classes staggered over several weeks our class has been looking at the effect of this powerful Tsunami and its connections to BC coast. Through reading, sifting through CBC online and various BC's newspaper coverage of the aftermath of the tsunami, our classes is discovering how events that happen thousands of kilometres away impact us daily. In this posts are some of their art, reflections and creative writing based on this tragic event.

What you should know if you plan to hatch chicken eggs at home.

1) What materials do I need if I want to hatch chickens?

2) Where should I get the eggs from? Can i just buy eggs at the grocery store or take them out of my fridge and try to hatch them? Why or why not?

3)  How long does it take to hatch chickens, at which temperature should I keep the eggs?

4) What should I do as the chicken hatch, can I help the chicks crack their shell?

5)  What should I do after the chicks have hatched, where should I keep the6?

6)  Is it worth raising your own chickens? Why?

Hatching chicken eggs in the classroom.

Over the past 3 weeks in our multi age classroom, we have been hatching chicks from eggs donated by several members of our community. This project has been excting and uplifting for students in this class as well as other classes.

Chicks hatching and fluffing
in the brooder box.

Students have learned about the anatomy of a chicken egg, how long it takes to for an egg to hatch and what are the best conditions to have a successful batch of chicks. As well, learning to use MS Publisher, students have created informational pamphlets on how to hatch ckicks successfully.

Digital storytelling reflection.

It has been a few weeks working on our storytelling project. We have met self-employed residents of the Slocan Valley. These people all have connections to W.E. Graham. Our interviewees either have a child that is attending or has attended the school, or they interact on a regular basis every year with students that pursue their education at W.E. Graham Community school.
To my students, I will ask you to look back at the past few weeks and the storytelling project. I would like you to share some reflections on several points.

1. What are the various things that you have learned during this project? They can be about a certain aspect of the project (technology, learning to put a movie together. learning to interview a person) or you could have learned something interesting about a person.
2.  What was the most challenging part of this project?
3. What was the most fun part of the project (apart from Fomi's treats)?
4. Would you do again a similar project if you had an opportunity? Why?

White Pine Dojo Trip.

Last week we visited the White Pine Dojo in slocan. This is a place where aikido is taught to various residents of the Slocan Valley. Here are reflections on the students experience during this trip.
Students, I would like you to share what you know about the White Pine Dojo and about its owners Roland and Marcia Werner.

What do you know about aikido and what do you know about Roland and Marcia and their passion about their business and lifestyle?

Mulvey's interview: narrating

On Wednesday November 9th we visited the Mulveys at their home andmusic school. We took some great footage and pictures and had a very lovely time spent with Ron and Sarah Mulvey. For the editing part of all this work, I would like the class to take a different approach. Rather than simply editing the footage and interview, I would like you, the students, to reflect on what Ron and Sarah answered to our question during the formal interview. Below you will find the question we used during the interview. Please do answer all the questions as best as you can. We will use your answers to narrate the movie rather than just post the entire interview.

Ron and Sarah Mulveys' interview questions.

1.     What kind of business are you running?

2.     How did your music school get started?

3.     How long have you been running your business and how long have you personally played music?

4.     How many students do you have each year and what instruments do you teach?

5.     What is your method of teaching, can you describe it to us?

6.     Where do your students come from?

7.     You are also a painter. What do you like painting?

8.     Do you also teach painting and drawing and if so to who?

9.     Do you sell your paintings?

10.                         Would you describe your business as a success story? And Why?

Post interview digital story making step one.

On Friday we interviewed Perry Weir, the baker at Weirdoughs bakery. Today, in class, the students are learning to tell a story through movies. The first step is to figure out what message we want to share with audiences. The students were taught a mini lesson on storyboarding and are working with a digital storyboarding template.

 The storyboard is a great tool for sequencing a story. It is a graphic organizer that will help the students pre-visualize the movie. This planning tool includes all the texts, narration (voice over), music, as well as pictures and footage that will be used to tell the story.