Hill Junior School: Weekly Parent Information

We would like to express our appreciation to the student-athletes, staff and families for your support and resilience as we have been navigating the challenges related to the COVID-19 outbreak.  In order to ensure the health and safety for all members of the Hill community, we continue to follow the advice from the provincial government. This past Tuesday, it was announced that all publicly funded schools in Ontario will remain closed for the remainder of the school year. The Hill Academy has, therefore, made the difficult decision that we must also close our doors until the end of this academic year. 

Although our campus doors will remained closed, our remote learning plan will continue as scheduled. Teachers and coaches will be available in their remote learning environments and will continue to provide on-going instruction, support and feedback until June 12th and students are expected to continue to log in and receive instruction until that time. We never imagined that we would be ending this school year far apart, and we know that they want, more than anything, to be together. We are finding ways to celebrate their achievements and connectedness in the days ahead. 

Literacy/Social Science

The grade 5/6s considered a new viewpoint of the Hunger Games novel and compared the overall idea of the novel to real world events and the novel 1984 by George Orwell. We discussed the government in the Hunger Games and compared it to our government. A Zoom meeting this week reviewed topics such as attendance, missing assignments, class etiquette and the concept of totalitarianism. In partners, students are using couplet poems to create a rap or song on a Hunger Games topic of their choosing. This should be interesting!

In the grade 7/8 class, most students completed a one-on-one meeting to go over and ask questions about their final edits on their essays due this Tuesday, May 26th. Students are encouraged to use the rubric and checklist to make sure they are moving along with our pace and including each day's task within their work. There are some great essays and topics coming together. In a full class Zoom meeting we reviewed topics such as attendance, class etiquette, using the essay rubric to their advantage and an essay checklist. We supplemented essay work this week with social science; having a look at natural phenomena and physical geography land forms.

Math/ Science For this upcoming week the grade 5/6s will be having class via Zoom on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and check-ins on Tuesday & Thursday. The grade 7/8s will be having class via Zoom on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday and check-ins on Wednesday & Thursday. Our Zoom classes will resemble a regular class where we will be doing most of our learning and our check in days will be full of homework checks and questions.  Grade 5/6s This past week, the class worked on developing their approach to solve algebraic equations. When approaching questions where one needs to find the value of an unknown quantity (variable), it is important to think of the equation as a balanced scale. We used this idea of a balanced scale in order to help us rearrange the equation as whatever we did on the left side of the scale we would have to do on the other side in order to keep the balance. Next week, we will be moving on to our next unit Measurement and will be introduced to our last project of the year that will encompass our last three units in of the year (Patterning & Algebra, Measurement, & Space). In Science, next week we will learn more about satellites and what is involved in their orbits.  Grade 7/8s

This past week, we learned two new ways to solve algebraic expressions (Inspection & Systemic Trial or Trial/Error). We primarily focused on the technique of Inspection as it is the most direct and efficient approach. Inspection involves rearranging and simplifying the equation in order to find the value of the variable. This process requires the students to double check their work by checking to see if the left side of the equation equals the right side. Next week, the class will have a Live Zoom Quiz on all that has been covered in our Patterning & Algebra unit this upcoming Tuesday. On Wednesday the class will be introduced to their final unit of Measurement. In Science, we learned about the Grand River Watershed and how it is the largest watershed in Ontario as it is 6,800 square kilometres. We highlighted the importance of the health of the watershed and the surrounding environment depends on what is happening up stream, as all things that happen upstream affects whats downstream. Next week, we will focus on how municipalities clean and process their water. 

French Grade 5/6s

Another great week with the grade 5/6 French class. As the year is winding down, I asked the students what they are curious about. The students then took the time to select topics of interest and explore that topic. Moving forward, for a year-end project, the students will explore their topics and present them to the class. I am very excited to see what they come up with, and I am excited to work together with them to explore their curiosities.

Grade 7/8s

Another great week with the 7/8 French class. The students continued to work on their culminating tasks where they each have a country that they are exploring. We met as a group, and we met individually. Moving forward, we are focussing on our PowerPoints and building our French scripts. Keep up the great work!

Physical Education and Health We had another great week where we continued to explore different movement skills and patterns, as well as complete our second round of "At Home Testing". Like we mentioned before it is always important to have a measure of your progress; whether you are improving, staying the same, or getting worse. This allows myself as well as each individual student-athlete to review what we've been doing and make adjustments in order to see a greater long term improvement. Hopefully, with the completion of the testing activity students were able to see growth in their athletic development. This week we will be completing our fourth Movement Video assignment. This assignment is used to assess how students are performing the squat, lunge, lift, push and pull patterns.  Last Thursday we had small group training sessions for the first time and the feedback was great. With our current situation the groups of four allowed for more individualized programming, more student interactions, and for less distractions. We will continue using these types of sessions as a tool in the following weeks. 

Important Dates: Friday, June 12th, 2020- Final day of instruction in the Junior School Thursday, June 18th, 2020- Athletic Gala 6:00- 8:00pm (via Youtube Live)  Have a great week!  Sincerely,  Courtney McCracken, Jake Cook, Drazen Glisic, Luc Magnan, Tory Merrill