Minor Details - February 24

February 24 - 28, 2020

This was certainly an exciting week!

Thank you to Kaitlyn and Reese for taking leadership to collaborate on writing blog posts this week

Dealing with Rejection

As we enter the exciting phase of building our aquaponics system for Gator Gardens, it is increasingly important that we are able to have courageous conversations with each other when we disagree. It can be challenging to deal with the disappointment that comes with not having your idea chosen. It is also incredibly important that we are all able to work collaboratively even when we have differences of opinion.

We listened to a short video by renowned therapist Marisa Peer on how to deal with rejection. Her video, "5 Techniques to Help you Deal with Rejection", is a helpful resource to support all of us when we are faced with rejection. It also gives us some perspective on the attitudes of other people.

February 28

Gator Gardens Investor Pitch

Today marked the biggest challenge we've had so far in our business - securing the $1000 investment needed to buy equipment to move forward with our aquaponics business.

Juliette, Hudson, Rylee and Dane accepted the challenge to represent all of us in a presentation to potential investors. The team worked together outside of class time this week to revise our pitch presentation. New financial information, new aquaponics descriptions, a timeline, images of our proposed aquaponics system frame and links to our new website and print advertisement were all added to the slide deck.

Mr. Roy Smith, Mrs. Jill Russell and Mr. Halliday asked tough questions that the team answered with confidence. They had very positive feedback about how well-prepared we were.

After some tense moments as they deliberated outside the classroom, they unanimously agreed to invest $1000 in Gator Gardens!

We're really proud of the pitch team and how well they represented our business. Thank you!

This marks the end of the planning stage and the beginning of the implementation stage of our business. We know we have a lot to learn and that we have many challenges ahead of us. But we are excited to get started!

To watch the pitch team in action, click here to see the first 18-minute pitch and here to see the comments of the investors.

First Draft of Aquaponics Frame Design

Thank you to Hailey who took initiative to teach herself how to use an app called SketchUp to create a possible design for our aquaponics frame (see image right). We are continuing to work on scale drawings and have not yet decided on the final design.

February 27

Resumes

We have started the process of writing our resumes. This will be a project that we will continue to work on over the next few weeks.

Advertising Collaboration

We were so impressed to see the print advertisement designs that Mr. Medhurst's class created for Gator Gardens!

It was really difficult to choose an ad because so many groups had great ideas. In the end, we asked Josh, Zach, Max and Elliott to do a mash-up of their ideas and collaborate on the final design (see image to the right). The boys gave up their breaks to work on this version so we could feature the ad in our presentation on Friday. They are still working on a "landscape" version of the ad for us. This will be the ad that we put into the newspaper to generate interest in our produce.

Courtesy of Max, our new slogan is:

"Better for You. Better for the Planet"

February 26

gatorgardens.ca

We are incredibly excited to share our business website!

A huge thank you to Hailey and Juliette for all their work on creating the website and for their tech skills in linking our website to the gatorgardens.ca domain.

Please check the blog section of gatorgardens.ca regularly to read updates and see photos of our progress.

February 25

myBlueprint Portfolios

written by Kaitlyn & Reese

Our class learned how to use myBlueprint. Today, we started adding things onto our individual portfolios. It is a real privilege for our class!!! We are so excited that we get to use it!!

We will be using our portfolios to keep a digital record of our business venture. We can put our business plans, logos, pitch presentation video and everything related to what we've learned in creating our business into our portfolios.

Leadership Improvement 3-Step Plan

written by Kaitlyn & Reese

Today, our class talked about our 3-step plans to becoming a leader. We talked about what barriers were holding us back from stepping up to being a leader (see image below right). Everyone in our class made their own 3-step plan to being a leader by June and then we added our plans to our myBlueprint portfolios. Ms. Minor is going to try to make sure that we are all fulfilling our 3-step plans. You can see the questions that we answered in our plans (see image below left).

Using Arrays to Model Multiplying Fractions

Grade 8's are working on understanding what multiplying fractions means and how to recognize problems that require us to multiply fractions. It's not enough to know the algorithm to multiply fractions! We compared this to having a tool in our toolbox that we really didn't know how to use.

We are using arrays to model what a "part of a part" means when we talk about multiplying fractions. In the image to the right, the light blue represents 3/5. The dark blue shading represents 1/6 of the 3/5 of the whole.

February 24

Sir Arthur Currie - Leadership

Today we spent some time researching the life and career of Sir Arthur Currie. Our reflection question was to consider the way(s) his life could inspire us to take more risks to be leaders.

Our class discussion lead to some powerful insights about leadership and the ways we can all take more responsibility and leadership in our class.

The challenge for all of us is to take the risk to be a leader by making small steps like:

asking questions in class
taking responsibility for maintaining a clean and safe classroom
helping others

Plant Action Research Project

According to a study published in January 2020 from researchers at the University of Hyogo in Awaji, apan, having a plant on your desk can reduce stress and anxiety. You can read about the study here.

We are inspired by the results of the research and have our own small action research project. Four students in our class have asked to be part of the study. Each of them will have a plant on their desk all day. It will be really interesting to see if we experience the same effects as the 63 people in the Japanese study.

Grade 6 Advertising Collaboration

We are so excited to see the progress the grade 6's are making on their print ads for Gator Gardens (see actual grade 6 planning notes opposite). Mr. Medhurst has spent time with the grade 6's reviewing great print ads and discussing the importance of minimalism in communicating information in a small format.

We are looking forward to having the grade 6's present their ad proposals on Wednesday or Thursday this week.

Gratitude Board is Ready!

We have already started adding thank you notes to the gratitude board. Teachers, parents and students are all encouraged to share appreciations in the form of thank you notes when they see something for which they would like to thank students in our class.

Students are encouraged to express their gratitude to parents, teachers and other adults as well as to their peers.

Scale Drawings

We are completing scale drawings of our desks (see Madelyn's work opposite).

Our next step is to start making scale drawings for the aquaponics frame.

There is a new Scale Drawing Assignment in the Google Classroom with measurement details for the aquaponics frame.

Grade 8 - Multiplying & Dividing Fractions

Having access to Edwin.app on the chromebooks is an incredible resource. We have been using the online lessons to introduce ideas, review and practice. Grade 8's are using the Edwin.app lessons to develop an understanding of multiplying and dividing fractions before we discuss problems and deepen our understanding in small tutorial groups. The image opposite is an example of a problem in Edwin.app that we are learning to solve.

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