Mr Ibbitson & Mrs Cockburn Update March 31

Hello 8-3 and 8-4.

It was so great to see many of your faces this afternoon. We have definitely missed all of your shenanigans. 

On average, you can expect to have 10 hours of work each week. This will be a combination of your core subjects (Math, Science, ELA, and Social Studies).  

The following platforms will be used as mediums to support your learning: 

•  BrightSpace by D2L as a sort of virtual homeroom (refer to the tutorial narrated by Mrs. MacNicol: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17019J4d9-cD4yoUGDXryUZsjYFEiAsBR/view) 

Try logging on this afternoon so that we can troubleshoot any problems that arise 

• Google Classroom/Drive/Docs/Meet (refer to parental consent letter sent to your parents via Messenger today as well as via the link on the post from this morning) 

• This Blog: As always, the blog is a useful tool for us to send out quick messages so make sure you keep checking this regularly. 

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As for what this week is going to look like, we suspect that a lot of the first few days are going to be just reconnecting and sorting out various technology issues.  

This is going to be a learning experience for all of us in more ways than one, so we do appreciate your patience. 

Google Meet Up Today - 1-3 pm

Hello 8-3 and 8-4

Mr Ibbitson and I will be available from 1-3pm today on Google Hangout as a little bit of a stress test to see how well it works with real live students.  We would love to see your faces so feel free to pop on and join us any time during the two hour window with any questions or concerns you may have or just to have some social interaction with your teachers and classmates.  This is our first attempt at doing this so hopefully everything works OK.

We hope to see you!

Check your CBE Email for a link closer to 1:00.  Mr. Ibbitson is busy right now trying to organize everyone's school email addresses into a mailing list. Your parents have been sent a letter via School Messenger from Mr. Rakowski and I have attached a link to the letter from Mr. Ibbitson and I below.

Google Meet Consent Letter

Note: pajamas are completely acceptable attire!

Welcome Back 8-3 and 8-4!

Welcome back everyone. We miss all your smiling faces & are excited to begin TMC ‘at a distance’!  😊 

Please email your homeroom teacher back at dribbitson@cbe.ab.ca for 8-4 or rlcockburn@cbe.ab.ca for 8-3 by 8:00 am tomorrow, Tuesday March 31 with an answer to the following questions and make sure to check the blog: for information each day. 

1. 1. How are you doing?  

1. a. How is your family doing?  

2. b. Is there anything that you or your family need assistance with? 

2. 2. What type of device(s) do you have access to? (computer, laptop, iPad/tablet or smart phone) 

3. 3. Do you have to share these device(s) with anyone else in your family or is it for your use only?  

4. 4. Do you have access to the internet? (wifi or data) 

5. 5. Do you have access to a printer? 

6. 6. Do you have access to a scanner, phone camera or an alternative way to upload a picture of work?  

7. 7. Do you think you will have up to 2 hours of concentrated technology time a day? 

1. a. Do you see any problems with being able to access technology during the ‘normal’ school day? 

Cheers:
Mr. Ibbitson & Ms. Cockburn

Happy Spring Break

Enjoy your break! Take this time to refresh, relax and try something you've been wanting to do! Play board games, read a book or find a new hobby! We will be back in touch after the break to discuss next steps but in the meantime enjoy yourselves!

Eyeball Dissection Video

Hello,

I was really hoping that Mr. Badr, Ms. MacNicol and I would get a chance to dissect an eyeball for your viewing pleasure but alas, you will have to settle for this great video put out by The Exploratorium. Katie does a great job explaining the parts of the eye that you have all learned about and I actually learned how to correctly pronounce Tapetum! Although, the act of not wearing gloves during the dissection baffles me a little.

Please enjoy the video at your leisure. Note, it is not as endearing as seeing Mr. I working in his pajama pants with a sweet little cherub in his arm.


Dissection Video


Also, as per Mr. Ibbitson's instructions, if you have any outstanding work that you are wanting to submit into the lovely shared folders, please fire me off an email to rlcockburn@cbe.ab.ca to let me know it is there.

We really do miss you already. You know what is worse than a loud, chaotic classroom? An empty one. You guys really do bring this place to life and bring joy to our workday! I hope to see you all soon.

Working from Home

Well, it's official, I'm working from home.  I'm really glad I got a chance to see everyone who came and go their stuff yesterday, and I'm pretty crushed that I won't get a chance to see anyone coming today or tomorrow.  Love you all, and I'll see you on the other side of this, whenever that is.

I'm going to go through and check everyone's google drive folders for their essays today.  I'll mark it as missing in powerschool if I can't find it.  If I do mark it as missing, could you fire me a quick email when it is there just so I can cut down on the frequency of checking the folders?  Going forward, make sure you are using the magical folder though.  It's the only way I have a hope of keeping things organized through all this.  If you just share the file with me it quickly gets lost in a blizzard of shared files going back half a decade.

You also might have noticed I snuck Chapter 6 of the textbook up into the important links on the side.  If you are feeling so inspired you might want to give it a quick pre-read since that's where we are going in the Social Studies curriculum next.

Something to think on.

Saw this article yesterday and I figured I would share it out.  It's about Issac Newton and how he was stuck working from home in 1665 due to an outbreak of the Black Death.  While his university classes were canceled, he ended up developing his theories of Optics and Gravity.  Just goes to show what can be accomplished when we just have time to sit, and think. 

Use this time to do something you are passionate about.  Start a new book series, take up drawing of painting, or interpretive dance in your basement.  Dust off the guitar you got for Christmas when you were 8 and try to learn how to play by watching YouTube tutorials.

Remember to take care of yourselves too.  Try to still go to bed at a normal time, wake up at a normal time, eat dinner with your families with the TV turned off.  Go for a walk in the coulee, play street hockey with your siblings, don't just stay in your room and watch Netflix.  You guys are a smart, creative, bunch.  You got this.

Quick update for the Hums Essay

Couple quick things.

1) Here is a copy of the task sheet for the essay.  Likewise, if you left your MLA handbook at school here is a PDF copy of that.

2) In an effort to maintain some semblance of normalcy I'm going to try and keep somewhat 'regular' hours.  As such, if you email me during regular school hours before about 3:30 I'll make sure I get back to you before the end of the day.  After that though I'm going to try and unplug as much as possible, so I will likely not respond until the following day.

March 16 Update - Message from Ms C & Mr I

Hello 8-3 and 8-4’s.

Since Spring Break does not officially start until Thursday at 12:30, here are a few of our expectations for you this week.

Science

1)    The Science Unit Test – At this point, we are thinking we will have the test on Thursday morning and it will take place online. I will update you as soon as we have decided which platform makes the most sense. UPDATE: This test has been postponed until further notice.

 2)    Vision Impairment Tasks & Presentations – These will continue as planned. The slides should already be shared with me. Please make sure you fill in the Speaker Notes with everything that you had prepared for the presentation. Additionally, you must include a personal reflection to this assignment addressing the following questions:

·      What was your most valuable contribution to this project?

·      What valuable contributions did each of your group members make?

·      What was a highlight in your learning for this task?

·      What part of this task could you have improved upon?

Please submit this reflection in your shared folder no later than Thursday morning.

3) Eyeball Dissection - I will post a video this week of the eyeball dissection. I would love for you to have the opportunity to do this yourselves but that will all depend if/when school resumes. 

Math

You should have the Division of Mixed Numbers work sheet at home. Please continue to work on that. The worksheet is posted below if you need to access it. I have also included a link to a video tutorial if you need a reminder on how to divide mixed numbers. 

Dividing Mixed Numbers Worksheet

Video Tutorial

Ms C Mixed Number Video

Humanities

1) Your position paper is still due on Wednesday.  Make sure it is in your shared folder.  If you are at home and have questions you can email me and I'll try to answer as best I can.

2) Keep an eye on the blog.  We're going to be moving on from the Renaissance and starting to study the Age of Exploration.  I'll make sure that everyone has access to a digital copy of the textbook, and I'm in the process of putting together some reading assignments and questions to answer.  You will be able to submit them via the google drive folder.

3) Now would be a wonderful opportunity to get caught up on your reading log... just saying.

Stay Heatlhy!

Mrs Cockburn & Mr Ibbitson

We live in interesting times...

So I'm sure you've all probably heard on the news by now that classes are cancelled for an unspecified length of time.  Beyond the obvious, I'm not sure what exactly this means.  I do know that we teachers are going to be in tomorrow but other than that...  I dunno.

It is probably safe to assume that we'll figure out some sort of online learning over the next few days before spring break officially starts.  Maybe I'll set up a Minecraft server and we can build Tenochtitlan or something.

Hopefully, I'll be able to provide more clarity tomorrow.  Until then, check the blog, and make sure that your folks don't have emails from school messenger going into junk mail.

Also subscribing to TMC's twitter feed might not be the worst idea.

March 14th Hum's Update

So... Interesting week.  As of last night at least it sounds like schools will still be open on Monday, that said, I understand that some of you are probably electing to remain home.  Also, if you are at all sick, please do stay home.  Let's keep each other safe.

With that in mind, if you are staying home I'll mention a few things.

1) Your position paper is still due on Wednesday.  Make sure it is in your shared folder.  If you are at home and have questions you can email me and I'll try to answer as best I can.

2) Keep an eye on the blog.  We're going to be moving on from the Renaissance and starting to study the Age of Exploration.  I'll make sure that everyone has access to a digital copy of the textbook, and I'm in the process of putting together some reading assignments and questions to answer.  You will be able to submit them via the google drive folder.

3) Now would be a wonderful opportunity to get caught up on your reading log... just saying.

If you are coming to school:

1) If you are sick, stay home.  Even if it's the sniffles.

2) I know it's hard, but really really try to avoid close contact with each other while at school.  I mean the halls are going to be crowded, that's inevitable, but really try to avoid the wrestling matches out by the lockers.

3) Don't share food or drinks.

4)Your friendly medieval plague doctor reminds you:

Even though technically the plague doctor getup didn't show up until during the Renaissance.

Light and Optics Unit Test

Reminder that the Unit Test for Light and Optics is Monday, March 16. We will have a review period on Friday.

Unit Summary Link


The Edquest link on the right is a great resource to review.

Concepts we covered

• Theory of Light
• ray diagrams 
• luminous vs non-luminous objects, shadows
• transparent, translucent, opaque (transmit light, reflect light or absorb light)
• Law of Reflection
• Concave and Convex lenses and mirrors
• Divergence and convergence of light, focal points
• Refraction
• Artificial Light and Natural Light Sources
• Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Optical Phenomena ** You should be an expert on 1
• Properties of waves (amplitude, frequency, wavelength etc)
• Human Eye - parts, function, similarity to camera
• How we see
• Vision problems and correction (Myopia, Hyperopia)
• Optical Illusions
• Animal eyes (Nocturnal, Compound, Bird)
• Digital images

Links for the webquest

Sorry I'm not in today.  As I'm sure many of you noticed, I seem to have developed something of a sinus cold over the course of the day.  The chances of it being anything serious are next to zero... We don't get out to many large gatherings with a 4 month old in tow, but out of an abundance of caution I called in a sub.  At any rate, here are the links to the webquest.  If you finish this, then work on your Position Papers.  If you finish your position paper, work on your Animal Farm letter.  If you finish your Animal Farm letter then there is a 'backup' worksheet that should mostly be review.  You'll need to grab the textbooks from Ms. Lockyers room though.  Just remember to ask nicely.

Birth of the Renaissance

The Mona Lisa

The Last Supper

David

Vision Impairment Task

Vision Impairment Task

Animal Farm Letter task sheet

Here

SMATH Update - March 6th

Human Eye & Animal Eye Tasks


8-3 & 8-4!

My apologies for not updating the blog recently. For those of you that have not yet handed in your Human Eye Task or Animal Eye Task, I have attached a link to the task above. If you are unsure of whether or not this applies to you, please check powerschool or see my whiteboard!

Coming up....

Science Unit Test on Light and Optics - Monday, March 16

Eyeball Dissection Tuesday, March 17

Math Quiz - Division of Fractions (Modeling and Solving) - Date Tbd but before spring break.

Have a great weekend.

Research Paper Task Sheet

Here