This past week was filled to overflowing with events. I'm going to comment on three.
Media Lesson - Cake Decorating with Grade 1-2s
On May 26, the Grade 1-2s trooped up to the staff room (where some had never before ventured) to decorate real cakes as part of their media unit studying cakes. It was hectic but enjoyable and impressive.
I have to thank the adults who lent a hand: Kris Luk, Kerri Commisso, and Lydia A. It wouldn't have been possible without their assistance. Many of the students remembered to bring their plans and some actually referred to their plans while decorating. Change was permitted and several students were overcome with the choices of colours and types of sprinkles. Their final creations ran the gamut from a messy pile of sugary blobs to some really incredible, detailed, artistic cakes.
Intermediate Division Reading & Media - Red Maple Marketing Event
Also on May 26, the Agnes Macphail PS Red Maple Marketing team met in the school library to listen to author Philippa Dowding give a virtual guest talk. Following Philippa's engaging presentation, the teams from Agnes Macphail PS, Macklin PS, and David Lewis PS jumped on a different Zoom link to compete in the xxxth Red Maple Marketing Campaign. We were so fortunate to have three volunteer judges from Manifest Com - Jack, Rachel and Paige agreed to listen to the ten-minute promotional campaigns (increased from the previous limit of five minutes because we only had four teams). Credit should also go to Jennifer Houston-Douglas and Samantha MacInnis-Villalon for helping their student teams prepare for the event and coordinating all the required permissions at the school-level.
Big congratulations to the second team from David Lewis PS that marketed Eric Walters' book, The King of Jam Sandwiches, for winning the competition.
It was very different holding the event online. Benefits included a more efficient use of time - the event, which usually takes an entire day, only took two-and-a-quarter hours. Costs were reduced as we didn't have to travel to a central location. The use of technology went smoother than usual, although we still had issues. The disadvantages included a lack of "buzz" in the air that used to accompany the gathering. The students didn't get a chance to interact with their peers from other schools. This may be a result of the pandemic, but I also found that it was harder for students to sit and listen. Because cameras were off during the author visit for recording purposes, and because only the presenting team had their cameras on during their presentations, I noticed that students felt free and were inclined to wander around or get distracted by other things. The other unfortunate part of holding this event virtually was that we were unable to take any photos of the proceedings. I only have this shot of the mock Instagram pages my school team created for their focus book, From the Roots Up: Surviving the City Volume 2. The other books marketed were Firefly, and Tremendous Things.
Junior Division Reading & Oral - Quiz Bowl Competition
On May 27, three teams from Percy Williams Jr PS, Macklin PS and Agnes Macphail PS met online for a friendly competition related to the 2022 Silver Birch and Yellow Cedar nominees. This was a much trickier event to coordinate and there were a few snags. One other school had to drop out. We planned to use Google Meet but turned to Zoom at the last minute because we were having troubles; Zoom gave us a new set of troubles because it doesn't track whose hand raises first like Google Meet, and it was inconsistent between screens. Every school had two computers running - one for the competitors to use and one for the teacher coordinators to broadcast from and use for reading questions and monitoring responses. Some of the computers at the different sites wouldn't allow audio. At my school, one of the students accidentally unplugged the laptop that we were using halfway through the fiction competition (the one laptop that happens to completely shut down when not continually attached to a power cord) so they had to share the one I was using to broadcast. We were going profoundly overtime and had to only ask five questions instead of the usual ten. One of the books didn't have questions composed for it and we had no time to quickly write any replacements. We were twenty minutes late for our author visit with Leslie Gentile. The ice cream truck cancelled their appearance due to the weather.
Despite all these challenges, the students really seemed to enjoy themselves. Competitors were nervous and excited to enter the "booth" to answer questions. However, they were delighted with themselves when they were able to answer correctly. Take a look at the tweet below to see the results.
Big congratulations to Percy Williams Jr PS, who won both the fiction (Silver Birch) and non-fiction (Yellow Cedar) contests. Again, big thanks must go to Salma Nakhuda and Jennifer Houston-Douglas for organizing the teams, writing the questions (helped by Kim Davidson), and being wonderful teacher-librarians. Appreciation also extends to Jennifer Brown for helping us arrange our author visits.The excitement in the Library! @PercyWilliamsPS Ss brought home the Silver Birch Fiction and Yellow Cedar award in the @ForestofReading QuizBowl Competition! The screaming could be heard down the hallway! @TDSBLibrary Thank you @MzMollyTL @jhouston212 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Iox80tQSnN
— Salma Nakhuda (@nakhuda5_tdsb) May 27, 2022
The quiz bowl idea! You and those who make these things happen with you, are incredible. Our intermediates are obsessed with the cake show on Netflix - they would love this!
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