graceb | Grace’s Blog

Work Under a Blue Sky

In the last month or so of school, it’s time for Blue Sky. It’s not really about anything to do with the actual sky, except for the fact that with this project, anyone could could reach for it. Blue Sky, essentially, is a time that workers at Apple get to peruse their own interests while…

Colonizing in a Tempest

To wrap up Grade 8 Humanities, this last unit focused on learning about Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and the colonization of New France. It seemed unusual that these two topics would go together, but I sooned realized that many of the themes in The Tempest relate to the early history of Canada. Like always, the…

tPol-End of Year Review of My Work

This blog post is for my TPOL – transitional presentation of learning. We have finally reached the end of grade 8, and the driving question I have to answer in my presentation is “Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?” Thinking about this question, I know I am…

Age and Unit of Exploration

The age of exploration means the unit of exploration. Next in our humanities classes was this unit surrounding The New World: Age of Exploration. This title refers to the time period in Renaissance Europe where many new voyages were taking place. Explorers were boarding great ships and setting sail for places they thought were uninhabited….

The Launch Cycle: Sports Edition

Look, Listen, and Learn We began a short unit in our Maker class just two weeks ago. It was about the Launch Cycle, a method of project working that follows seven steps. The first one is to look listen, and learn, so the class began by watching a video about the cycle itself. It explained…

Light: A Reflection, Not a Refraction

Ok so there are a million quotes floating around about light, darkness, and all that other philosophy stuff. They’re more metaphorical though, and the next unit in science class was not about an Confucius theory….

The Renaissance: Researching and Remebering

Our humanities classes have moved through time, finally reaching one of my favourite topics; The Renaissance. From the best artists and brilliant minds to the ever growing businesses, this unit promised to be interesting. Beginning right after the past unit, my class jumped right into economics and ended with a visual project. Throughout the whole…

Destination Imagination-Provincials

One might notice the similarities between the title of this post and another one I wrote just a month ago. One would be correct. Destination Imagination (just DI for the purpose of saving our voices) is a large competition where challenges are presented to teams, and the students in those teams work on creating solutions…

Medieval Myths and Makings

The Middle Ages, a time period from 500 to 1000 AD, was a rather gloomy time in history. In the unit we’ve been working for quite a while (Stitch in Time; Feudalism to Nation States), the lessons went through time with the driving question “How did the Crusades stimulate cultural, social, and political change for…

Destination Imagination-Regionals

Oh, DI. That group project that lasts for months on end. That difficult challenge we had to solve. If you are wondering what DI is (and wondering why it sounds like die), in a sentence it is; a big organization that holds tournaments for kids where different challenges are presented and students must solve them…