Healthy Living

We had a great time talking about underage drinking and the effects of alcohol and the brain. They had many great responses and were challenged to create a 300-500 word essay about the consequences of underage drinking.

They were also challenged to create a healthy meal with their family. Many students had amazing chicken recipes and smoothies.  They had many great choices as meals and were excited to share their mentor's message of his favorite fruits!

The main meal that was shared amongst most students was a type of black bean, chicken, and avacado (some students left out the avacado) enchilada. This sounded delicious and many students tend to make it with their families. So, not only was it a great way to eat and stay healthy, but it created a space to have some shared family time.

Friendship

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship - everyone needs one. But how do we make a friendship work? I must say, I am very fortunate to have a great class this year! A class who rises up to all the challenges we place upon them and who accept everyone for their differences. Because of that, talking Friendship in February was easy for us! 

Being in grade 6 and 7, friendships can sometimes be difficult to navigate. On an ongoing basis we are always working on healthy friendships and especially healthy "girl" friendships. Most of our students have been in the same class together since Junior Kindergarten. That's 1,710 days on average spent together so far! Wow, that is a lot of days. So, at this age we start to see some "frustrations" emerge. This month we focussed on branching out of our comfort zone and making deeper connections with another student whom you wouldn't typically spend as much time with. 

Our classes took the lead for Pink Shirt Day, wearing their Pink Shirts proudly and making a Pink Shirt Promise. We talked a lot about cyber bullying and healthy online relationships and how those relationships affect our everyday life. Each student made a Pink Shirt Promise of their own, dedicated to making the world a more tolerant place. In order to educate our school community, as a class we decided to make Anti-Bullying Infographics to share with the school. They included information on who to reach out to if you need help, and what you can do to help a friend in need. 

February was another fast and busy month for us in 6A and 7A, and we are very much looking forward to our upcoming March Break and jumping into Leadership with both feet upon our return! 

Friendship

Friendship was a tough one for our class! The challenge was to introduce yourself to different strangers and make some new friends. Being in middle school, our students are set and stubborn with making friends, but took on the challenge anyways. It was great seeing our students interact with students of different grade levels and bonding with people they never talked to or knew anything about before the challenge.

I was not able to snap pictures of this challenge, but almost all our students rose to the challenge in making new friends. Looking forward to seeing our next challenge and what Lex has up for us.

Perseverance

For our monthly challenge, we were to find a time where we faced great difficulty and describe how we persevered through that time. This was easier said than done. Many of my students had to think a while for a time where they faced great difficulty, not knowing that their daily lives (to most people) would be facing great difficulties.

Once thought of all of my 6th graders found a time and were able to think about how they over came that difficult time.

It was great hearing about Lex opening up and telling about he lost his eye sight and it really gave a different perspective on our lives. No matter how difficult we think we have it, someone else is persevering through their difficult time.

Community 2016 #LexGillte

For November and December we were challenged to find ways to help out a community. As a class we brainstormed what different types of communities we have and picked two to help. For November we chose our soldiers. At McNair we have an annual candy for soldier drive, and last year we brought in 60lbs of candy for the soldiers. This year, with our community goal in mind, we brought in almost 140lbs of candy for our soldiers over seas.

For December, we wanted to help out needy families in our community. We rallied together to fill 6 food barrels totaling more than 1,200 items of food. We had done a food drive in previous years and only managed to fill one barrel, Lex really inspired us to step up and help those in need!!

JDH in our Community!

Community in Grade 6 & 7 

Where oh where did November go? I still cannot believe it is over and we are rushing closer and closer to Christmas Break! 

November brought many exciting things to our Grade 6 and 7 classes, including our first live chat with our mentor Kieran Block! 

Community is a big part of our classroom all year round, so coming up with ideas of how we can help our school and local community seemed like easy work for our kids! 

As part of Canada's 150th Birthday Celebration RBC has launched a campaign called #Make150Count. People tweet at RBC with this hashtags for ideas of how they could make $150 count in their community. Both classes came up with pitches for RBC and tweeted them out in early November. While we did not hear back from RBC it really got the students heads in the game for what's to come. We had so many lovely ideas from giving to the food bank, to buy and splitting wood for someone in need of heat this winter, to donating warm clothing to those who cannot afford it. 

During November we also celebrated the Week of Kindness where we celebrated all of the staff members in our fantastic school. Each student made a thank you card for a staff member and hand delivered it with a hug. It is easy to forget how important the people we see every day are to us! 

This past Monday we had our first live chat with Kieran! The kids were so excited to hear more about his life and to share information about us. We cannot wait to share more of what we are doing with Kieran as the year carries on. Including the essays and letter the grade 7's are writing about why Classroom Champions is such a valuable program! 

Finally, as we move into December the grade 6 and 7's are busy planning what we are going to do for our community before our break. We have plans to bake 150 cookies to hand deliver to the Long Term Care home just before Christmas! The grade 6's are also working hard every day at learning Silent Night on the Ukulele as well as the words to the song in both English and Arabic as a way to welcome our new classmates and their family members to our school community! Look forward to that video before Christmas - if I can keep my emotions in check long enough to video tape it!

 

Fair Play Lex

This month we were challenged to create skits that demonstrate fair play. Acting out a skit in front of their peers was a challenge in itself, but they did quite well. From playing sports and making sure everyone agrees to allowing students to complete their work, my students were fully engaged with this challenge. Even my reluctant boys chose to demonstrate fair play in the classroom, big step for them.

Fair Play Video 6
Fair Play Video 5
Fair Play Video 4
Fair Play Video 3
Fair Play Video 2
Fair Play Video 1