Humanities

This Week in Humanities...

February 2021 Wrap Up

In LA, we dove into Black History Month by researching a musician who has made many contributions to modern music. Students researched what their musician's life was like and the accomplishments they had. Students that created an comic where they interviewed their musician on Pixton, an online comic generator. We explored what different graphic novels look like and the elements and jobs to create a graphic novel.

In Social, we started our unit on Ancient Greece. Students explored how Athens was central to Greek culture. They also completed Module 2 and 3 of CTRL F, a media literacy program that encourages students to think critically about different sources and news articles.

January 2021 Wrap Up

In LA, we explored various genres of books. We focused in on biography and what the characteristics of biography were. In Literacy groups, students continued to read in their small groups and have discussions based on the text they are reading together.

In Social Studies, we finished up local and provincial government. We also dove into the different political parties in Alberta. Students worked in groups to create a political party presentation that informed their classmates about who their party was and the types of policies they implemented.

Language Arts - Weeks of October 19 and 26

This week we continued to explore Fairy Tales and students analyzed the story on its literary elements. We also took a look at sentence structure and punctuation in writing.

Social Studies - Weeks of October 19 and 26

Students were introduced to the system of voting. Students explored how voting has evolved from early Confederation to present day.

We have also been looking at news articles and understanding the structure of an article. This week's article was centered on voting.

Language Arts - Week of October 13

We continued looking at the short story, Grandpa Chatterji. We focused on plot, conflict, theme, and characters.

Now that students have a better understanding of elements of a short story, they are asked to independently breakdown a short story.

Social Studies - Week of October 13

After taking a look at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, students were given an activity to explore what each section of the Charter means to them. Students will be recording a video of themselves explaining each section of the Charter.

We also started exploring Current Events. Students looked at the structure of a news article. We took a look at one article from Newsela, relating to online learning and screen time. Students will be analyzing and summarizing the news article based on the guide to the right.

News-Article-Inverted-Triangle

Language Arts - Week of October 5

We are currently looking at Short Stories and the elements of one. We read the story Grandpa Chatterji as a class on Tuesday. On Thursday, we started to break down the story into its elements. As a class we brainstormed the personality traits, appearance and importance of a character in the story. Over the weekend, students will be expected to do a character analysis of each character introduced in the story.

Grandpa-Chatterji.pdf

Social Studies - Week of October 5

This week, we started diving deeper into democracy. So far we have explored what democracy is and the types of government that exist around the world. Our first lesson this week explored the pillars of democracy. Students took notes on these pillars and discussed the importance of each. We took a look at the differences between rights and responsibilities as an Introduction into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Students took a look at the different sections of the Canadian Charter to understand which rights citizens have.

Language Arts Resources

Calgary Public Library - Children's Resources

Students can access eBooks through the Calgary Public Library. I highly recommend the eReading Room for Kids (by Overdrive), as there is a wide selection of books for students to borrow. All you would need is a library card and the pin to access these resources. If you need a library card, you can get one for free online.

Epic Books

Epic is an online book system that gives students access to a variety of reading resources. Students can access Epic through the Internet on a lap top or downloading the app onto your phone or tablet. The class code is posted in their Google Classroom. Once students have entered the class code, students can click on their name and begin reading.

Student Access: www.getepic.com/students

Epic-Parent-Letter.pdf

Read-Theory_parent_flyer.pdf

Read Theory

Read Theory is a literacy website that allows students to practice their reading comprehension skills. The students read articles and respond with questions and written responses to reflect on the text. Students are expected to complete a minimum of 2 quizzes per week. All students have their own username and password to access the site.

Social Studies Resources

Newsela

Newsela is an online kids news platform that can be used with students in Elementary to High School. Articles range from a variety of topics from Science and Math to World News. Each article can be adjusted to accommodate a student's reading level. We will be using this tool for Current Events in Social Studies. Students have their own accounts to access.