Movember Monday . . . on a Wednesday!!

It's official . . .  GWMS students and staff are AMAZING!!!

We had an inservice this week on Monday so our regularly scheduled Movember Monday was moved to Wednesday.  This way we could have it at the same time as our CARE Assembly.  It was a success.

Movember Winnipeg came out to our assembly and made a small presentation to the school.  They even made a donation to our school to show support for what we are doing.  They held a competition to see which teacher had the best 'stache.' The winner was Mr. Bodnar.  Way to go!!

They also gave George Waters Middle School a certificate for all the hard  work we have done to support Movember over the years.

Today's Movember efforts raised $70, giving us a total of $123 for this month.  This is a great way to show support and recognition for Men's Health.

Thanks again to everyone, staff and students, for all your support and your continued support.  Having lost someone in my life to cancer at a young age I can see the importance of doing everything possible to make sure that I am around for my kids as they grow up. Tell your Dad, tell your Uncle, tell anyone who will listen that they need to go and get a check up.

Love Is Louder

Today the Canadian Red Cross came to our school to kick off bullying awareness.

They played a great video for us by Jasmine Richards - "You have the power." Very moving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgTDAvO2jbk&safe=active

Kids wore pink today to show they are ready to stand up to bullies and to not sit back and be a bystandard.

The students also signed a pledge to take a stand against bullying.  This is proudly hanging in our school for everyone to see and to remind us what we promised to do.

Movember at GWMS

What is Movember?

"During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in Canada and around the world. With their “Mo’s”, these men raise vital funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer and male mental health initiatives."  - Movember.com

Movember Mondays

Every monday during the month of November the staff and students will raise funds to help support Cancer Care Manitoba.  When students donate a minimum of 25¢ they will receive a sticker showing they support Movember Mondays. Students will also have the opportunity to purchase moustaches for either 50¢ or $1.

We are also centring our November GymBlast theme around moustaches.  We have done this in the past and it has gone over very well.

100% Engaged

Today was a great Destination Imagination day. I couldn't believe the excitement of my class when they started their challenge.

If you haven't experienced the site and sound of a class fully engaged and excited about what they are doing ... Let me try to explain:

There were smiles on everyone's face.
People were looking at the person talking in their group.
No one was yelling.
Everyone was sitting on the front if their chairs. No one was sitting back relaxing.
Ideas were flying out of everyone's mouth.
Kids that are NOT friends but are in the same group were working as if they were BFF's.
You had 2 completely astonished teachers standing there with their jaws wide open. Not really sure what to do.
You had kids WANTING to go first and then being upset when they didn't get to.
It was noisy but the right kind of noise.


To someone just coming in the class it may have looked a bit crazy and loud but .... That was what it looked like.


It was amazing.


Thank you 706 for giving me this experience.

My Life in 4 Slides

What is most important to you? Can you sum it up in only 4 slides? Can you do it with only 4 pictures?

Your task is to create a presentation in Keynote or PowerPoint that titled, "My Life in 4 Slides."
Everyone will do their own presentation. You must share the time that you have.

The 4 slides that you use to tell the story can only have 1 picture on them.  It must fill the screen and be clear (not blurry). You can use your own pictures (it would be great if you did).  If you are using a picture off the Internet I need the URL for it.  As well, if the faces of the people in the image from the Internet are not important to your life then don't have them on the screen.  Focus on a different part.

On each picture you need to have a word or a small saying that goes with what you are about to talk about. (see my example)

You will then have to tell a small story about why this picture is all about you.

Your total presentation should be no more than 1 minute long.

**You can use photoshop to edit your image: writing on it, blurring portions, changing colour etc."


Here is my example:

Communication Skills

During Shiver we are working on our presentation skills (see previous post). For this lesson we are working with the research that says:

Less than 10% of what is communicated during a presentation is done with our words. This means that the rest is through our body language, eye contact and intonation.

We are starting off with basic 'charades' and each if the performances are emotions or scenes that deal with emotions.

Destination Imagination

Looking through the window of a Destination Imagination (DI) class still amazes me. To see so many kids working on a very open ended question and all of them producing something completely different is a fantastic sight.

It is also great to see how they can all work with in a time restriction. They are given sets amounts of time to complete each part and they always produce.

** This year GWMS is hosting the Provincial DI Competition. **

Serioulsy . . . who is reading this?

Hello GWMS student population.

Who is reading this? Seriously! Who?

If you are one of the first 3 people to come and tell me that,

"Yoda is the greatest Jedi of all time!!"

I will reward you with a Slurpee Coupon.

Of course watch, for more contests to make sure you are following along.

DJ Yoda: beantownboogiedown.com

What is VEST?

October 9th - A Day in Review

*** Please send back the GMAIL forms.  I would like to get that all set up at the beginning of next week.**

Math - We made nets with reference to cardboard boxes

French - worked on our French Rap

Double Language Arts - Read the Hobbit and then did some work sheets

Physed - Reading time first then  . .  .  we didn't do much

Double Social Studies - Early Peoples Tableau - Got the outline and looked over it

VEST - watched everyones videos and commented on them (see blog post).

Congratulations to the Tier 1 boys and girls Vball teams.  They fought hard this past weekend at the Golden Gate tournament.

Congratulation to the Tier 2 girls Vball team who fought hard at the Sargent Park tournament on Saturday.  They ended up in the 5/6 standing out of 8 teams.

Peer Assessment

This is a picture of my screen.  You can see that the class is watching each other's music videos and they are commenting on them.  They are making good comments as well as comments to tell the person how they can improve.

We are using Edmodo.  This is a great digital classroom tool.

There are a lot of great comments being made and next class, everyone will have a chance to 'fix up' their videos.  They will then hand in the BEST VIDEO they can make.

You have to love technology.

Music Video

The grade 8's are currently working on a music video in VEST.

They had to choose a song and then go through the songs lyrics and find or create images that were a visual interpretation of those lyrics.

Some used Photoshop, Animationish, Photobooth, a flip camera (for video), the digital camera, their iPod camera, cell phone camera ... What ever they needed to get the job done.

The videos will be handed in on Edmodo. From there the class will comment about 1 good thing about the video and then 1 or 2 ways for the group to improve the video. At this point everyone will get another class to fix up their video before finally handing ink me the best possible video they could make.

It is great to see the creativity that some of these students have.

What Type Of Learner Are You?

Tier 1 girls volleyball Tournament

Tonight was out first tournament of the season. Before today we have only played one game.

We .... Didn't win any sets tonight but there are some good highlights:

We had a few 5 serves in a row. Typically we lost the 5 th serve but it was great to see the other ones go in. There was a lot of good serving overall.

We had a few good blocks.

Some tipped balls.

And some girls showed their leadership skills. This made me very proud.

We have some work to do as a team. We need to learn where to go on the court. I know once we get that, then the rest of the things we practice will fall into place.

If you see these girls in the hallway then give them a high five. They deserve it. The went out and played hard. They have put a lot of practice time in and deserve that high five.

Thank you as well to all the patents who came out to cheer on the team (or even their own daughter). Thank you to Mom H for the pizza. I think some of the girls ..... And the coach ... Needed it.

This is the beginning of what I hope and I foresee being a good season.

Thanks

Today In Review - October 5th

Hello everyone.

Just a few notes before I start:

Please visit my bonnicigwms.blogspot.ca Blog and follow me with your email address (link is on the right of the blog).

50 years ago James Bond hit the big screens for the first time.  Yeah!!

Volleyball

Tier 1 boys tournament at Lincoln

Tier 1 girls tournament at Sturgeon

Tier 2 girls at Sargent Parl (just saturday)

Day in Review:

VEST - finished and handed in our music video

Math - We corrected our front, top and side view 3D objects.

Science - we worked on our Cell'O'Rama projects

French - We talked about our Halloween costume thing????

Language ARts - Read the Hobbit (Chapter #3)

Options (double)

Band - played out of blue books and then went to the computer lab

Active living - computer lab (making posters about self body exercises) - played paint ball second class

Art - Comic Strips  - 

Language Arts - printed out good copy of our paragraphs

October 4th- 819's Day in Review

**Every day I send an email home to the parents of the kids in my homeroom. I don't tell them what is for homework, I tell them what the kids did in every class.  This hopefully fosters good conversation instead of the typical, "So . . what did you do today at school?"  ..  ."Oh . . . Nothing.  It was boring."

Daily review:

Double Science - we worked on our cell project

Math - we drew cubes - top, front and side views

Social Studies - wrote notes on the early peoples

VEST - worked on music videos - tomorrow they are due 20 minuets into class

French - Played Simon Says in french

Options:

Band: Played from blue book

Art: worked on our comic

Active Living: Played Paint Ball (this is a version of dodgeball - dont worry parents)

Physed - Played long base

Presentation Skills

In shiver this year we are working on our presentation skills. Presentations to: the class, talking with friends, talking to parents and in general when they are out is society. Currently we are working on having good eye contact and a confident voice.

There are 3 forbidden words: um, ah, and like (when used at the beginning of a sentence or two join two non comparison words). **see if you can eliminate these words when you speak. One trick is to breathe in before you start to talk. Try it!**

So far so good.

Next is to look at our body language when we present. I know that I will enjoy working on fixing my inability to stand still while the kids are working on themselves.

@BonniciGWMS on Twitter

Follow me on Twitter  @bonnicigwms as I comment on the day to day activities that are happening here at GMWS.  I also post some interesting educational links and even some fun videos.

Follow Me!

Trying out new App

I am trying out my new Blogger App.
It seems to be working well.

Welcome To My Life @GWMS

Welcome to my Blog.  I haven't worked with a Blog for a few years now.  I use to have one for my grade 7 and 8 VEST classes as well as my Robotics class.  I did enjoy using them but I have been using a variety of other means to communicate with my class and the world.

I hope to use this more and more and I hope that you join me for this interesting journey.