Bikes Are HERE!!!

Big THANKS to Brennan Caverhill for lending us these fantastic Self-Regulation bikes. They just arrived at Holy Spirit and we are excited to set them up after the March Break.

 

Annual Kiva Fair

Kiva provides microloans for people in need. You can research a large variety topics, countries, global issues and more. Students researched the global issues that spoke to them a launched a mini campaign to try to get other classes informed and asking for $1 donations.

Staff & Students Completing STEAM Challenges to Encourage Self Reflection

 Students (grade 2/3 & 6) built Rube Goldberg machines and self reflected on their Learning Skills.












Teachers completing their STEAM challenge during an in-service on the TLLP STEAM & Learning Skills project. We had teachers from Kindergarten all the way up to grade 8 going to to their classes and trying their own STEAM challenges and see how this shaped how their students thought about the Learning Skills.

Finally a picture of our teachers buying resources for our STEAM/ Maker lab at Holy Spirit. Exciting things to come.

When your students learn about Source Code

I've created some very kind hearted (not so evil) genius hackers!

Great little birthday surprise!

Augmented Christmas

Quiver is a fantastic resource that allows students to draw pictures and watch them turn into Augmented Reality. Use the app to scan your picture and once drawn, scan it and turn it into a 3D moving image (similar to a Pokemon Go character).

Christmas Cards

This Christmas Charity Inquiry has by far been one of my all time favourite inquiries. I asked students to think of a way to raise funds for a charity of at need. The only limitations were we had no money and we had to get the whole school involved. 

After a lot of brainstorming and pitching ideas students decided we could have a Christmas Card Contest for each grade and feature the winners on cards that would then be sold back to the school.

Students divided into groups based on their talents. Some focused on writing to students and making posters/school announcements and a letter that would go home to inform everyone of the contest. Others wrote to parents convincing the to buy. And the third group researched, phoned/emailed businesses that printed cards for donations and prices. 

I want to thank Toronto Printing House with being so supportive and patient with our students as they learned how to write clear emails, perfected speaking on the phone and a million other real life skills. From start to finish the students in my class created this initiative and saw it through. Spending countless hours of recess, after school sales and more. The students were able to take the lead and worked through more math, language and Social Studies than I ever could have imagined.

By the end, they were able to raise funds that went to helping students in the Hospital over Christmas. The funds went directly to supporting Sick Kids.   

Christmas Baking (Art isn't just on paper)

I can bring creativity into almost any lesson you throw at me, but for some reason I have always struggled with teaching rich art lessons. I have some incredible artists in my life and circle of friends, but I just never feel I can do justice in my art lessons. 

I feel a large responsibility in making art meaningful for my students. Tt is not lost on me that one day I will encounter a student that has a great artistic ability in them, but that it be require encouraging. So many students have such great raw talent, but never see an application/purpose for their talents. If even one of my students leaves my class feeling empowered to make a career with their talents then I've done my job. We want to introduce students to as many diverse opportunities as we can, but we need to do the same in art. Hopefully, our Christmas baking/decorating lesson showed students a new way to apply their skills or even revealed a talent they didn't know they had.

Prodigy Championship Head to Head Battle

Our TCDSB Prodigy Tournament is finally over. We had our final match live head to head in class. Both contestants battled hard, but we finally have our winner. 

Self Taught Speed Calculator

After working on our STEAM activities our class realized they needed a speed calculator to track and translate the speed of an object

Class Inquiry Project

As a culminating Task students were asked to use all the skills they gathered this year and create a meaningful and relevant project. These projects addressed students own learning and interests. They worked on and built this blog as a means of showing the world their fantastic project.

http://mrbutlersinquiries.blogspot.ca/