Audio Book - Listening to Reading

Here are a couple of free and pay for use site to download audio books for Listening to Reading for Daily 5 for use on your mp3/iPod players.

Free:

Guelph Public Library
http://www.library.guelph.on.ca/
There are many digital and ebooks are availabe for new and older titles.   All you need is your library card.   The lending period is 7-14 days for the file to be active. 

This site is limited in new titles, but have tons of classics. 
http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/
This website also includes the digital text for you to follow along.

Pay for Use:

http://www.audiobooks.com/
This is a membership based website for 25/month.

http://www.audible.com/
This is also a membership based website for 15/month.

If you have your own favourite free or pay for use sites, please let me know, and it will be added to this site.

All About Me Goes Home

Thank you for the amazing work.  Please hear me when I said that I was using this work for diagnostic assessment (what do you know now, what do I need to teach you later).  Please take the feedback you received to push yourself to the next level.

If you have any questions or concerns, please come and talk to me about it.  I will respectfully listen to you and respond with further justification of your assessment or change as needed.  We are all learning together.

Technology in Class

We live in a digital age, and many of you have digital texts on your hand held devices/laptops.   Some of you also prefer to type over hand writing.   You are encouraged to bring technology to class to be used as part of your Daily 5 and Writers Workshop (more about that in the coming weeks) experiences.

To help keep us focus, you will now be asked to put your digital devices (laptops, iPads, iPods, MP3 players etc.) on the back counter during class when they are not needed to help focus your attention.  For example, you will be asked to put your technology away on the back shelf of the room when you are asked to gather in our Gather Spot/Place.

Thanks everyone for keeping a positive learning environment.

Daily 5

Here is a copy of the slide show from class about Daily 5

The order that we will be introducing the concepts are as follows

1. Read to Self
2. Read to Someone
3. Working with Words
4. Work on Writing
5. Listen to Reading

Anchor charts for each area will be created by you and the final 5 charts will be a combination of agreed concepts between all 8 classes.

You are responsible for bring 2-3 English texts to class, at your reading level, to enjoy as part of your Daily 5 time.  

Positive Learning Environment

This is the wordle for our positive learning environment created by all eight classes.  You should be very proud of your creation and I look forward seeing this positive community full of respect, honesty, responsibility, fun and kindness throughout the year.  

All About Me Update

**** Update!  We are down to a few missing assignment.  My goal now is to return all your work at the next class I see you in the cycle (so, Tuesday is Day 1).  Heads up now, there is no "mark" on it.  If you followed the success criteria, you can be confident that you did what was asked of you.  There is a rubric included on the feed back sheet.  I used the rubric to help guide my diagnostic ( learning what you know so I can teach later) assessment.  For example, in writing, we will be working on punctuation, use of capitals, and trying to remember that faire is a French verb, and fair is the English word meaning carnival or equal.

I have finished marking all the All About Me projects that I have, including digital.  Only 27 missing (and most of those are dead links or wrong email address).  Once I have a plan for those missing projects, I will get your work back to you as soon as possible.

Amazing work everyone!

Project Update!

What a gift it was to read many All About Me projects this weekend. So many of you are involved at home helping with family members, household chores (many of you have chickens!), and at school with Kindies, Office, and Pizza Helpers. There are many extracurricular activities happening with the arts and sports. It was interesting to hear some of your charities too, like Operation Smile, Shoebox, and Humane Society.

You're more concerned if I've marked it, I know :)

I have marked all hard copies that I have received. I have organized all the links and emailed copies, and my goal is to work on those this week.

I am missing 45 pieces of students' work, excluding 8C (looking forward to your work tomorrow!).

If I have your class tomorrow, I will let people know which work is missing. If I don't see your class tomorrow, my goal is to visit your class during your lunch break to share.

Anything received after 9pm this evening will not be considered tonight (must stop marking at sometime!)

Looking forward to a great week everyone.  Remember to bring in independent reading materials for class. 

Locked Blog!

Hello Everyone,

Somehow, Blogger, the hosting company of mrsbarbier.blogspot.ca has decided that my blog is "spam."  I have filled out the appropriate forms to fix this problem.  I apologize for any headaches this causes.  It should be unlocked in less than two business day.  Please feel confident when you click through to the website that it is okay!  Hopefully this will be solved soon.

All best as you finish up your All About Me projects.

Independent Reading Material

Your are asked to bring independent reading materials to class from now on.  This can be any print text.  Novel, non fiction, comic book, or magazine.  You will be responsible for ensuring that you have reading material in class.  Our school library will be opening soon.  Please let me know if you need help finding reading materials.

Happy Reading!

United Breaks Guitar

We have been talking about our pre reading and during reading comprehension strategies to ensure we understand the text (book, chapter, non fiction, movie, video).  If you missed any classes this week, or simply want a review, you are encouraged to look at the links below.

This is the presentation in class about Pre Reading Strategies.

We enjoyed an article about Dave Carroll's experience called Busted Guitar Blues Sweet Youtube Revenge

After reading, we watched the Youtube video United Breaks Guitar

At our next class, we discussed our During Reading Strategies

Some of our classes had a chance to look at graphic organizers for main ideas.

Be Prepared This Week

Reminder that you have time during your classes this cycle and some next week to work on your All About Me assignment.  If you need materials (technology or art), please bring it with you so you can use your class time wisely.

All about Me is due September 14th.  Any digital media is asked to be emailed to mjones4@ugcloud.ca.  When our cloud sharing folders are established, we will start sharing documents that way. 

On the Cloud!

I have been granted access to the UGCloud!

For students wishing to share work with me on the cloud, or need to email me work, the UGCloud is the appropriate destination for this type of email communication.  mbariber@ugcloud.ca

Parents/guardians are asked to contact me at mary-kathryn.barbier@ugdsb.on.ca

All About Me Assignment

The All About Me assignment is a different way to tell me about yourself. You need to use the five character education traits of respect, fairness, honesty, responsibility and compassion to describe who you are and what type of citizen you are. You are also asked to make a goal for the year about what character education trait you want to work on.

This assignment also allows you to express yourself with the expressive language art that you enjoy the most. Writing assignments of poetry, short story, essay, journal style etc., have been asked to be kept to two pages. Oral presentation that are recorded have been asked to be kept to under 2 minutes. Also, any media created (posters, Prezis, comic strips) have been asked to keep to the 2 page or 2 minute guideline as well. Whatever expressive language art you choose for this assignment, your completed assignment will be used towards that language area (writing, oral or media).

So, be yourself, think about all the amazing things you do at home, school, your local community and even globally to tell me about you!

Follow this link for the Prezi slide show from class.

Follow this link for the PDF of the Success Criteria.

Assignment is due Friday, September 14 for all classes except 8C which is due Monday, September 17.

Into the Impossible

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. 
Arthur C. Clark

An amazing first day Grade 7s and Grade 8s.  Excited to step into the impossible with you. 

Contact Info

I am excited to join the John McCrae staff.  I have had the pleasure of being a supply teacher, Primary Planning teacher, Grade 6 and Grade 3 teacher with the Upper Grand District School Board over the last four years.  Yes, this will be my first time teaching Grade 7 and 8 English.  I am thrilled to work in a team teaching environment.  I am supported right here at John McCrae as well as other Grade 7 and 8 English teachers across the board.

I am available by email at mary-kathryn.barbier@ugdsb.on.ca or by voicemail at 519-824-0028 x 425.

I look forward to working with each and everyone one of you (there are over 200 of you) and your families to ensure a successful year. 

Welcome Back.

I would like to welcome you and your family back to another successful year at John McCrae.  Grade Seven and Eight is an exciting time, and we are going to have an amazing year in the English Program.

My goal is to have all our assignments, success criteria, rubrics, PDFs, links and anything else class related available in one spot, this blog.  You can access materials when and where you need them.  It will be a bit slow at the beginning as our goal as we begin our time together is to get to know one another and discover who we are as learners and teachers (I expect to learn much from you!) together.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact me.