Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Kurzweil, SmartBoards & IPads - A Great day of Learning & Sharing

Randerson staff had a great day of professional development, learning the ins and outs of Kurzweil.  We would like to thank Set BC's Maureen Lafleche who led us in an informative, hands-on, practical workshop that allowed us to gain experience, tools and ideas that we can use in the classroom tomorrow.

Along with Kurzweil we worked on iPad apps that engage students in the daily 5, increase accessibility to all students and improve math skills  . Other staff looked at apps for music, French and other curriculum areas.

Friday, November 8, 2013

New Books to Check Out

One of my favourite new books is called The Road to Afghanistan by Linda Granfield and Brian Deines.  This picture book tells the story of a soldier's experience in Afghanistan from the beauty of the landscape to the destruction of war. The soldier reflects on experiences in Afghanistan and connects those experiences to those of a great-grandfather in WWI and grandfather in WWII.  This well written book is a great way to bring the heavy topic of war to a younger audience.

New books to check out!
The Series 7 is a great new series that has captured the imaginations and intrigue of our Gr. 6/7 students.
  •  7 stories by 7 wonderful Canadian authors on 7 different adventures about 7 cousins
What has added to our connection with this series is that both John Wilson and Eric Walters have visited our school.  Their tales of how the stories came to be was great. That along with Eric's
dynamic discussion on his journey to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro was enough to have the books flying off the shelf.  I and the 13 students that were at book club all highly recommend this series.

The Mother - Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick has been very popular among the Gr. 4-6 girls. New to our library is the rest of the series, Much Ado about Anne, Dear Pen Pal and Pies & Prejudice to name a few.

For our younger audience we have added a new set of Fancy Nancy stories by Jane O'Connor and four stories from the Mouse series by Lauren Thompson and Buket Erdogan.  For our young and older non-fiction readers we have the Crabtree Contact series which include Snake Bite, Air War, Alien Abduction, Bigfoot and Manga.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Gr. 6 & 7 Book Club The Seven Series

It was a full house for our book club today as we discussed The Series 7 by 7 great Canadian authors. Normally we have one book to discuss but with author John Wilson visiting us last May and author Eric Walters visiting us last month we opted for The Series 7.  Your ticket in the door was to have read one of the seven books.  Not surprisingly many of the students had read at least two from the series and some had read more. 


All seven books were enjoyed by at least one of our book clubbers. We discussed the series as a whole and each book individually.  We looked at connections and differences between the books and the authors' writing styles.  We discussed how each authors' style brought out different aspects of the seven cousins.

Here's reviews by two students:
                                                               Review on 7 series
I read Close to The Heel and Between Haven and Earth!  It was very well thought of, of how there were 7 different authors and they all connect in some way.  I liked Close to the Heel more because it was funny and got interesting really quick!  I highly recommend the whole series and I definitely want to read them all!
 Jacob Grade 7

                                                          Review on Devil's Pass
It is an awesome engaging book with intense scenes.  I would highly recommend this to a friend. I would say this book is for kids with a grade level and maturity of about 5-7.  This is the boss book
and you have to read it if you enjoy funny stories with some combat scenes. Read more reviews for more information. 
Branden (B Dog) Gr. 7
 
 
I was really proud of the depth of discussion our Gr. 6/7 students demonstrated. Their character knowledge, connections and inferences were excellent.

Thank you to our Gr. 6/7 students who took part in book club.  It was a dream discussion.