Weekly Update:
Another busy week across grades 5-8 here at Art smith Aviation Academy. I have been constantly impressed by our students maturity and focus during lessons. 


Grade 5:
Language Arts:
We started the week as per normal with the spelling quiz and reading period. On Tuesday unit 1 our Literacy continued with the group applying their knowledge of the mystery elements to the audio story 'Captain Bones'. ( I highly recommend looking up 'Marshall Cavendish, Story Teller' on YouTube for some great short stories to listen to! Students then applied this to a written piece and individually identified the elements of the genre and general narrative structure features. As a special treat for hard work the group were also introduced to the mystery TV series,' Eerie Indiana'   

In communication skills this week we began to explore NOUNS and VERBS, using our earlier categorizing skills we looked at a story extract and picked them both out of the text. This was then extended to include adjectives and how they help improve our sentences. Next week we will put this in to practice.

Arts:
Grade 5 have produced some great stuff in the last two weeks using simply LINE. this week we completed out paper piece, exploring HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL and DIAGONAL. Moving on, with introduced to idea of CONTINUOUS line and I challenged the group not to remove the pencil from the paper for an entire lesson- producing some amazing results!

Literacy:
In the afternoons we have been working on a large project involving PIRATES! The group so far have looked at an extract from treasure island and our making the pirate maps that will form the basis of all our work.

Grade 6:

Language Arts:
Grade 6 began the week with spelling words and we actually spent some time reading Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH on request by the class due to missing Friday. In literacy we continued looking at mass medias impact on self esteem and body image. We examined magazines, searched for imagery we felt carried negative messages revolving around the key word, 'Beauty', after this the group decided on lists of words that could be used to describe a person and who they really are other than simple labels of beauty as decided in magazines and other advertisements. 

Our communication skills lesson this week revolved around development and use of nouns, verbs and adjectives.

Arts:
Continuing the 'Op-Art' theme grade 5 looked at including both curved line and colour in to our illusions. ( Work will be on here soon!)

Literacy:
The class focus in these afternoons lessons is stories, narrative structure and key elements. At present our focus is story starts. 


Grade 7:

Language Arts:
As with the grade 6 group the grade 7 class requested we use our reading period to start 'Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl' 
During our two literacy lesson this week we discussed the key question 'Why is it sometime difficult to stand up against powerful people?' this took in group reading of an article about Helmuth Hubener, a young man growing up in the Nazi regime. This led to a written piece in which each student took the evidence they had been presented with and composed a fictional future scenario involving two of the key characters. 
Grade 7 also covered paragraph construction and extending an answer with facts. 

Art:
Examining the work of Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist, preparing for a large scale acrylic painting and card based sculpture. 

Literacy:
The grade 7 class continues to work on the 'Lost Valley' project. 


Grade 8:
Language Arts:To complete our discussion around the topic of GLOBALIZATION and its effects, the class watched a short video about child labour and and excellent documentary called 'The darker side of chocolate'. Any of use out there with a sweet tooth should sit down and watch this eye-opening insight in to some of the companies we all know. 
In Thursdays communication skill lesson we turned our attention to 'The Lord of the Flies' knowing that we were not going to have Friday.  We read chapters 1 and 2 as a class.

Arts:
As with the grade 7

Literacy: 
As with the grade 7