Don’t forget the Wizard of Oz performances will be taking place this week.
Wednesday, May 21
Matinee performance 12:30pm
Evening performance 6:30pm
Thursday, May 22
Evening performance 6:30pm
Hope to see you there! Enjoy the show!
IRA Conference 2014
Hello everyone! I am in New Orleans at the International Reading Conference. Today I’m learning a lot about meaningfully integrating technology into teaching and learning. There has also been a lot of information on inquiry as well.
A couple of quotes from the day:
“Collaboration leads to friendly controversy” Amber White
“What brings meaning to reading? How can technology enrich that meaning both online and off?” Larissa Pahamov
Fun new tech tools I want to try:
Kaizena (Google drive add on)
Got caught in a rainstorm on the way back from dinner. Very funny!
May is Deaf Awareness Month!
May is Deaf Awareness Month! To kick off the month, Sean Forbes visited our school on April 30th and May 1st. On April 30th Sean gave a presentation to BCSD in the library. He talked about growing up deaf in a family of musicians. Being a musician was the only dream he ever had and so, even though he was told he couldn’t because he was deaf, he worked hard to fulfill his dream. He inspired all of us to never give up on our dreams and not let anything, including being deaf or hard of hearing, get in our way.
On Thursday he and his band performed for our whole school. It was loud and lots of fun!
BCSD has many other great things planned for the month. Stay tuned!
For more information about Sean click here.
What a week!
It was a busy week in the library. We had our Scholastic Book Fair all week. I hope you had a chance to visit and find a great new read. Thank you to all the parent and staff volunteers who helped make it a success.
We also had student led conferences on Wednesday and Thursday. Many students came to the library to show their families our school iPads. They shared imovies, ebooks, Haiku Deck poems and more!
Happy Easter and Happy reading!
Hope everyone is having a great long weekend. Just thinking about my favourite read alouds from last week.
The first one was If not for the cat by Jack Pretlusky. The clever book of haiku poetry provided many classes with riddles to solve and syllables to clap.
Next was another hilarious book from Jan Thomas, The Easter Bunny’s Assistant. Skunk’s “exciting” antics made everyone giggle- a lot!
See everyone on Tuesday when the book fair opens in the library!
Journey wins Caldecott Honor!
During literacy week we all read the book Journey by Aaron Becker. It is an stunningly beautiful wordless picture book that celebrates the imagination. This week it was announced that Journey had been awarded the prestigious Caldecott Honor. Congratulations, Mr. Becker!
Watch the video below to learn how the book was made:
Reading Opens Doors!
Last week we celebrated Literacy in a big way at South Slope/BCSD.
It all started with our Celebration of
Learning assembly on Monday, Jan. 21st. First, we recognized all the staff and students who completed 100 nights of reading in our reading club.
Next, we were treated to three special Readers’ Theatre performances. BCSD students performed Red Dragon, Red Dragon based on Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Leadership students performed a very funny p
lay called, Claynocchio. And finally, South Slope staff was very cool in their shades while they performed, Pete the Cat and his Magic Sunglasses.
On Tuesday everyone was invited to dress up as their favourite character from a book. Can you guess who these staff and students are?
All week the school participated in Drop Everything and Read times every day.
On Wednesday, we had special guest readers for every classroom from the Burnaby School district and the community.
Every classroom all read the book, Journey by Aaron Becker. Journey is a wordless picture book that invites readers to use their imagination and embark on incredible adventures. Many classes have displayed their responses in the hallways.
Our theme this week was Reading Opens Doors. What doors has reading opened for you? Do you have a favourite book that changed you or took you on an incredible adventure? I’d love to read your responses here or come and talk to me in the library.
Red Cedar and YRCA titles released!
This year the students in Grades 4-7 have some great titles to choose from for the Red Cedar and YRCA (Young Readers’ Choice Awards).
Nominees for the YRCA Junior Division grades 4-6:
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Nominess for the YRCA Intermediate Division grades 7-9:
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Red Cedar Non Fiction and Fiction Nominees:
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For more information about Red Cedar click here and for more information about YRCA click here.
The Great Canadian Picture Book of the Year!
This week Divisions 6, 7 and 8 will be choosing their winner for the Great Canadian Picture Book of the year. First, the students read some award winning books during our library times and were encouraged to check out award winning books. Next, we created criteria for deciding what makes a great picture book. Then, we read all five nominees for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award for 2013. Now the students will vote for their favourite.Stay tuned to find out which book won!
Here are the nominees:
Michael Wade was here, not Mr.Clean!
On November 15th, author Michael Wade was here. He began by telling us that, allthough he might look like Mr. Clean, he is definitely not. Mr. Wade told us many funny stories, reminded us of the power of every day words and managed to embarrass a couple of teachers, too. One of his stories involved some very strong toilet paper that two students tried to break, but could not.
He reminded us of some of the things that good writers do. For example, he read us a story he is working on now and asked for feedback about how to make it better. He also showed us a sample of his writing and talked about the importance of rewriting. He does seven complete rewrites of each of his stories. In the end, his message was that anyone can be a writer.
Thanks for a very inspiring visit, Mr. Wade!
