Our teacher created a scenario about secondary and elementary schools banning cell phones from schools.  Here are some of the pros.  Most kids in elementary school are under the agreed hand held device age.  Teachers will still have phones but they are more responsible.  Teachers won’t have to tell their students to get off their phones.

Here are some of the cons.  There could be an important change of plans and parents don’t know the school’s number.  Students could research a lot faster if they had their phones.

by The phantome blade and black circle

 

Recently, Divisions 17 and 18 read a newspaper article and wrote reflections on what cell phones are doing to people around the world.  We would like everyone, whether they have read the article or not, to read about what we think cellphones are doing to us and what we may be able to do about it.  Hopefully this will help people to realize the cons of technology today in hopes that we will be able to fix this problem.

These are some of the pros and cons of cellphones that we found:

Without cellphones, kids can focus on school without the distraction of their alluring notification beep and the guiltiness of not answering phone calls, emails, texts or game news.

If we discontinued cell phones as a whole, we believe there would be huge protests, fights and arguments from every cell phone user that would have just had 7 years of their life taken away from them.  And yes, the average cell phone user will have spent 7 years of their life on their phone!  Now imagine how much of a hard core phone user’s life would be spent on a cell phone!

Also, many people have learned the hard way what happens when you look at your phone screen for too long.  It affects your eyes, your brain, your social life AND your IQ!

by Catzrule and Spirit Heart

This year in gym we did a lot of games, old and new ones like sideline basketball or a new one, delivery ball.  some of them are kids choice and some of them are not kids favourites but things that crack people (make them happy) is usually tournaments.

Gym can also happen out of school too, like the times when we went to bowling, it was part of P.E.

Some people have different perspectives like one person might like it and other people don’t, but I think gym is very helpful for keeping kids active!

by I’m _Pickle_Rick!

Our classes of Division 17 and 18 are reading a book together called Paper Things.  It’s an emotional read, full of eventful experiences where you will feel Ari’s emotions and feelings with the main character and many of us have already gotten hooked so that we’re all looking forward to “read aloud”.

ABOUT THE BOOK

If Ari’s life wasn’t hard enough after her parents died, it definitely was when she and her brother Gage became “floor surfers”, which is how Gage’s friend politely calls what is basically homelessness.  As she becomes more and more thankful for things she used to take for granted, Ari realizes how much harder these problems are, once she’s actually experiencing them.

by Arty-choke

Hi, I’m from Charles Dickens and I am talking about my class daily read aloud.  We usually do read aloud after Math and before we go to Lunch.  our current read aloud book is called Paper Things, written by Jennifer Richard Jacobson.

The book is based on a twelve year old girl named Arianna and her brother Gage.  Arianna’s dad died in Afghanistan and her mother died of sickness so she and her brother Gage were taken care of by Janna but when Gage turns 19 he leaves Jenna and takes Arianna with him.

by mistacheeseman

 

We’ve learned many things this term. Among them is Media Literacy.  This means being able to read media effectively and critically.  Here are some of the activities we’ve done so far.

Jody and Tami put out all kinds of newspapers and magazines and we explored them and reported what we had noticed. We noticed things like colours, pictures, ads, articles, opinions, captions, life hacks, reviews and much more.  Then we looked for themes and different forms.  We coded our observations into categories.  We decided upon: money matters, food and dining, shortcuts, apparel, family, reviews, technology, print, events, real world problems, home, transportation, entertainment, job opportunities and health.

We looked for articles and ads.  We each chose one ad or article and thought about who wrote it, who it was written for (author and audience).  We shared those and thought about who was affected by them.

We did a brainstorm about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  We looked at Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.  When we discussed that, we saw that the Charter could cover more things but that it did a good job protecting most things.

Freedom of Speech includes speaking, thinking, agreeing, disagreeing, opinions, clothing, beliefs, art, language, feelings, but not hate speech or violence.

Freedom of the Press and other media of communication includes the right for people to share information that they discovered including newspapers, TV, online, internet news, social media, radio and community meetings.

Last week we did a drawing about Freedom of Speech that would tell the viewer what we meant without any writing, only a few words.  This was about the importance of Free Speech in a Democracy.

A democracy is typically where there is a leader but the leader can’t decide everything.  If the leader says something the people have to agree on it. They show that they agree or don’t agree by voting.  We elect people to make speeches and to debate.  In a democracy you also have the right to protest.

Some of the ways we thought Freedom of Speech was important in a democracy were: opposition to government decisions, our court system, protesting in front of City Hall, public debates or discussions, using your own language even if it’s not English or French.

 

We discussed and wrote a reflection on the impact of smart phone use on brains.

We made a T-chart about pros and cons of banning smart phones from school. We used the pros and cons sheet to write persuasively. Writing persuasively means trying to convince your audience of your point of view.  Writing persuasively might include giving reasons for your opinions, using strong words, using good facts, knowing who your audience is and starting with a hook.

Overall, this has been one of the best subjects that we’ve worked on because it’s interesting and we’ve worked a lot on it this term.

by snapshot10101, Day Dreamer, Flying Pinguin, chiefblobfish,  Pug_Life, Lizard Man, Awesomeness, hockey101, yourbrozeke, sleepingsquirrel64, Snort.

For those of you who were hoping to share the article with your family on technology and society, you can find it here.

Simon and Courtney are our student teachers for our classroom Divisions 17 and 18 and we have a high percent that they are staying in our classroom for the whole year.

Simon:

Simon has curly hair and Simon knows two languages, French and Korean.  He was born in Vancouver, Canada and he helps us when we need help.  Simon likes to play ping pong, drums, bass guitar, piano and he likes to cook and listen to music.  He also has one younger brother.  Also his favourite food is sushi.

Courtney:

Courtney has blonde hair, she likes to bake, dance, read to us and she took swimming lessons when she was younger.  Courtney has no siblings and she lives with her family.  She was born in Vancouver, Canada.  Her favourite food is sushi and she likes to help people.

We think Simon and Courtney are very good teachers!

by Awesomeness, Flying pinguin and SC30

Hi Families,

It’s that time of year again! Hopefully your child brought home the notice about our Open House next Tuesday.

Here you can find more information about the Open House!

Dear Families of Division 17 and 18,

We would love to welcome you to a celebration of the learning we have done this term in our class. 

Our students will share their incredible progress with you in our traditional Open House format.

Date:      Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Time:      2 PM – 6PM

There is no need to make an appointment, please just come to help us share!

Sincerely,

Jody, Tami, Sara

We look forward to seeing you next week!