We Have Moved!

I am VERY excited to start a new year at Sagonaska Demonstration school!

In order for my new students to get the full blogging experience, we are starting a new class blog.

mrdidonatosclass.blogspot.ca

Check regularly for updates or better yet, subscribe by entering your email at the bottom of the page where it says "Follow Us By Email".

Don't worry! All of these posts will be here for you whenever you need them!

Promote Your Passion

I started with picking my passion. I didn't think it was going to be that hard to pick one of my passions but it was! I picked Football. (Why you might ask?) I picked it because I play football.

What has been your favourite part about LTTA so far?

My favourite part about Leaning Through The Arts is using the green screen. I can add videos and pictures in the background when using the green screen.

What has been your least favourite part about LTTA so far?

My least favourite part about LTTA is making a poem. writing a poem is hard to put together. I don't like writing poems.

What would you change if you were to participate in this project again?

I would change my passion to dirt bikes. Dirtbiking is fun and hard to learn. I was 5 years old when I started riding a dirtbike.
I would like to add props like fake mud, rain and a screaming crowd to cheer for their favourite dirt biker. 

I think it was a good learning process for Art and to learn how to use a green screen the right way. I also learned how to use iMovie on the Mac. I learned where to put the picture I wanted on the greenscreen and where to put the video and how to edit video with iMovie. It was hard sometimes to use iMovie but it turned out to be great because I put a lot of work into it.

Creating Self Advocacy Pamphlets

To say that there is a lot going on in a student's life in grade eight would be an understatement. There are the challenges of being a teenager, harnessing the feelings of being the biggest fish in the pond, and of course the transition to high school - just to name a few. I want to be sure that my students have a smooth transition to high school so I have asked them to create a pamphlet to describe their strengths and needs as learners.The pamphlets the students created surprised me!  It wasn't how good they looked that surprised me, I knew they would create greatness, it was the students' mindfulness of how they learn that I found to be most amazing! My students all live with a learning disability and they are challenged by their LD day in and day out as students. I am a big proponent of mindfulness in the classroom. We are all very open and inclusive in the classroom.  The fact that every student in my room is full of grit and resiliency has made them so successful in working to overcome their LDs.

Here is an explanation of the activity we did written by the students for the LD@School website.

"We started by going over York Region’s Understanding Learning Disabilities - How Processing Affects Learning chart, WE call it “The Waterfall Chart” [http://ldatschool.ca/classroom/executive- function/york-waterfall-chart/].  We went through the waterfall chart with our teacher and jotted down our strengths and needs into an app called Popplet [http://popplet.com/].  Some of you may have already seen Denver’s Popplet presentation [https://twitter.com/Mr_DzzzClass?lang=en]!"


After finishing the activity, I found this assignment to be extremely empowering for students. They are better at explaining exactly what they need in order to overcome their LD, which makes them better self-advocates. I am excited to learn about these students' successes in high school.

Below is a sample of what the students have created. You can see why I am so proud!

Denver's Epilogue for "The Giver"

After reading Lois Lowry's The Giver the grade eights were left with a lot of questions. If you have read the book you will likely share the students' bewilderment at Lowry's ending. Students were asked to write a new epilogue for The Giver.
     After moving through the writing process, students were asked to reflect on their own work in hopes that the process of reflection will help them become better learners.

Here is Denver's epilogue from beginning to end.

The Popplet

The First Draft

Formative Feedback with the Teacher through Google Docs

The Final Draft