Mr Allan's Classroom Blog

We were fortunate enough to have Moccasin Trek come in yesterday to teach us about various aspects of First Nations culture from around North America. There were stations on Coast Salish Storytelling, Pow Wow Dancing, and other forms of storytelling.

We were fortunate to have Mrs Webber  (who is our ELL resource teacher) to come in and work with our students on Google Read & Write. It is an amazing tool that all of our students have access to through their GEDU accounts. Some if its features include: Speech to Text Personal Dictionary Word Predictor Fact Finder Screen Reading Capabilities Translator Highlighting Capabilities Vocabulary Builder Simplify Webpages Students can access Google Read & Write from their GEDU accounts by clicking on the following icon in their taskbar: Here are some helpful Google Read & Write links: Google Read & Write Quick Reference Guide Helpful Videos Tech Support Questions Training Portal

The winning gingerbread house design is The Creamy Palace  designed by Patrick and Tyson! Our class will be building a gingerbread house for an event hosted by the Uptown Chefs in Kamloops. All the gingerbread houses will be displayed from December 1st to December 24th at the Coast Hotel in Kamloops. Each person who goes and to view the houses and votes for their favourites will get a complimentary hot chocolate and cookie from ROMEOs Kitchen + Spirits, located at the Coast Hotel. The Uptown Chefs will also be donating $10 to the Food Bank for each house entered to help toward holiday gifts for those who are less fortunate. There are 5 categories of houses: toddlers, elementary, high school, individual, and professional - so if you're in town doing some Christmas shopping stop by and check it out to support a great cause (and to vote for our house!). You can find some more information on the contest here .

The students were offered a choice on which novel they would like to read for our upcoming novel study, and based on their input the choice was Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen. You can read about the story below. Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself. Remember that. At fifteen, Cole Matthews has been fighting and stealing for years. The punishment for smashing Peter Driscal's skull into the sidewalk — his most recent crime — is harsh. This time, Cole will have to choose between prison and Circle Justice. He will live either behind bars or in isolation for one year. Cole chooses Circle Justice. But in the first days of his banishment to a remote Alaskan island, he is mauled by a mysterious white bear and nearly dies. Will the attack of the spirit bear destroy Cole's life or save his soul?

We had our Remembrance Day assembly on Friday, and our class created a video using a green screen about why they wear a poppy on Remembrance Day. Check out the video by clicking here :