The early part of the engineering unit focused on what makes structures strong and stable. Our first lesson was learning about the force that is always acting on the world – gravity. The students were given a similar number of marshmallows and toothpicks and their challenge, within the time limit, was to build the tallest structure that can hold a…
One of our science units is very interactive and is split into two main focuses: principles of light and sound. Among other activities and experiments, students created their own pinhole camera, wore diffraction glasses to see the spectrum of colour in white light, and explored lasers and mirrors, a broken straw, and a disappearing penny. For sound, we demonstrated how…
Our current science unit is investigating Force and how simple machines are used to make Work easier. There is a lot of formula use in this unit, something that some students are being challenged by. This lab was looking at the use of inclined planes and how the use of them makes the force required less, but, due to the…
Over the past two weeks students from Grade 7/8 class have been part of two large events. We are blessed to have coaches from the KCS community but I still get to be part of the day and it always great to see the students interacting outside of a classroom setting. On November 15, KCS entered two teams into a…
Last Friday KCS hosted the annual Grandparent’s and Grandfriend’s day. It was a wonderful time of meeting new people and seeing the support and love of different generations to the young people at KCS. I enjoy talking to the grandparents as they come in. From year to year you get to know them a bit and it makes the shared…
With less than three weeks to go the 7/8 is working hard to get their parts of the GOTV campaign finished. Attached is the partial list of the to-do by Friday. The goal is to get out in the neighbourhoods next week.
Last week we visited Kingston City Hall to launch our Get Out the Vote (GOTV) project. In conjunction with the upcoming federal election on October 21 and our current history unit leading up to Confederation, the 7/8 class is going to run a GOTV campaign in the adjoining school neighbourhood. We met with Mr. Oosterhof, current municipal councilour for District…
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is growing in schools across the province. SEL is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. SEL is the key to all other development. This is why we started the school…