McCordic

Monthly

Number 3 March, 2018

Produced by staff of Wm. J. McCordic School; Edited by Deborah; Printed by Cathy

Learning is fun and empowering! By Nicole Room 209 has been quite busy since the new year! Our main academic focus is com-municating with the use of the IPAD.

Inside this issue of McCordic Monthly

Theatre Direct Makes our Hearts Fly...2-3

Students Learning how to Communicate and to Unlock their Potential...4

Rehearsals, Props, Performance...5

Love and Friendship make the World a Better Place...6-7

Upcoming Events...6

Room 208: Building Skills and Helping the Environment...8

Room 110: Math Newsletter...9-12

McCordic Word Cloud Project...13-14

Did you know?...15

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 2

(continued on page 2) Students choose what they would like for break-fast and what their preferred item is after they complete their work (see images on page 1). They are all becoming more proficient at asking appropriately by touching the correct picture. We are especially proud of Max because he used to go in the teacher’s desk frequently and grab the tablet without asking. It was becoming a problem because it was all he wanted to do. Now he knows to grab the specific IPAD that we use for communicating and he hands it to the teacher. After the teacher brings up Max’s preferred item screen, he picks the tablet picture and he is now able to use the tablet for 5-10 minutes. He has learnt the cause and effect relationship of com-municating with an IPAD to get his favourite item. We hope all our students will continue to learn that this can work for many other items as well. We had many things to celebrate these past two months and we cele-brated them through the arts. We made tie dye clothing for our tie dye dance in January and they turned out SUPER RAD!! Our star dancers were Jaiden and Betha! We had a performance by a group of

talented artists called Theatre Direct. They pe-formed a piece called Flying Hearts. We enjoyed a Valentine’s day concert which had perfor-mances by several McCordic classes including ours who performed to the song 100 Percent Love (this is one of our student’s favourite song). While the students passed our Love Bear around the circle, a student loved practicing her dance moves. We celebrated Black History, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day and the Olympics through stories, videos, baking and visual art projects. A student always enjoys our baking and shop-ping days by verbalizing what we are doing. We are also especially proud of our class’ behaviour when we go to the grocery store. They are learn-ing how to act appropriately, help with carrying bags and packing groceries.

Continued from page 1...Learning is fun...

By Douglas

The McCordic school community was

'warmed up' in February by Theatre

Direct's production of Hearts Fly; a

musical play and social story incorpo-

rating dance, music and movement.

The students were very engaged with

this rich sensory journey, brilliantly

presented by this small but talented

team of actors and musicians.

Theatre Direct makes our Hearts Fly

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 3

Continued from page 2...Theatre Direct makes...

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 4

By Joanna In Room 109, some students are working on Phase 1 of Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) to request items.

In Phase 1 of PECS, students make a request by giving a picture symbol to staff in exchange for a preferred item. One staff member is the communication partner who presents the pre-ferred object and another is a physical prompter who assists the student when needed. When the student initiates interest in the presented object, by reaching for it or looking at it, the physical prompter redirects them to reach instead for the picture and give it to the communication partner. The communication partner gives the student the desired object to complete the exchange. As students get comfortable with this exchange, the staff gradually decreases prompting till students can make the exchange independently. PECS is working well for many of the students, but it requires some fine motor skills to pick up and pass the pictures. Students with fine motor

challenges in Room 109 use eye gaze technolo-gy to select objects and interact with others. In our class we use a laptop with a eye gaze track-ing bar. The student interacts with various pages and looks at pictures on the screen to select vid-eos, greet teachers and choose toys.

A student uses eye gaze to select which part of the “Happy and You know it” video she would like to see.

Above, A student uses PECS to request food item. The student gives the card to the staff and receives the item in the picture.

Some commonly used PECS pictures

The Picture Exchange Communication System, or

PECS for short, uses pictures of objects or activities

that are highly motivating to the student. The student

communicating with PECS approaches another per-

son and gives them a picture of a desired item in ex-

change for that item.

By Deborah

Our class planned a piece to perform for the Valen-

tine’s Day Concert. We chose “My Valentine” by

Paul McCartney, a song with three simple elements:

Rain, Sun, Valentine in the first verse. The song was

simplified by choosing one verse and

repeating it in a loop.

The song was introduced to the students at circle.

The target verse was paired with graphics of rain, the

sun and a Valentine in a video.

Next, the students made props for the concert. They

made large sized rain clouds, suns and Valentine

hearts. Each type of prop had a different texture to

distinguish them as different elements.

Students rehearsed their roles several times before the

performance. The object was to pick up the three

props sequentially

as they walked

across the ‘stage.’

To begin, the first

student picked up

the rain cloud and

walked it across

the stage. They

set the rain cloud

down and then

picked up the sun.

They retraced

their steps, across

the stage, holding

the sun. The stu-

dent set down the

sun and picked up

the Valentine.

The last step

was to walk it

over to a chair

and sit down

holding the Val-

entine. The

whole three step

sequence repeat-

ed with the other

students. The

best thing of all

was that at the

performance, the

students walked

the props across

the room in time

with the text of

the song. Wow!

Amazing job!

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 5

Rehearsals, Props, Performance: 214 Entertains at the Valentine’s Day Concert

My Valentine

by Paul McCartney

What if it rained,

We didn’t care,

She said that some day soon

the sun was going to shine,

And, she’d be there, that love

of mine, My Valentine.

Above, A student takes the raincloud across

the stage to the table. He sets it down.

Below, A student takes the sun and walks it

across the stage and sets it down.

Above, A student gets the Valentine and walks

it across the stage.

Below, Everyone has finished their

routines and the performance is finished.

Number 2, December, 2017 Page 6

By Laura and Michael 104 & 107 had a blast coming up with a plan for the Valentine's Day performance! To prepare ourselves for the event, we as a group chose a few art ac-tivities and some inspiring books to read. We created shiny boxes with pink and red hearts and danced to Cupid .......... then, we put together a poem that went like this:

For every friend, and buddy and chum, a special day in February is a time to shine

bright, a time to wear red, a time for saying, “We are friends” with Valentines. For every girl, boy,

pal, companion, mate, helper and classmate, a special day in February Is a time to

shine bright, a time to wear red, a time for saying,

"We are Friends”

Upcoming

Events

March 22—Kindness and Caring Assembly

March 23—Monthly Dance

March 30—Good Friday (Holiday)

April 2—Easter Monday (Holiday)

April—date TBD—Beach Day

April 27—Monthly Dance

May 21—Victoria Day (Holiday)

May—date TBD—Crazy Hat Day

May 25—Monthly Dance

June—date TBD—Fun Fair

June 8—PA Day (no school)

June 28—Last day of school Continued on page 7

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 7

Continued from page 3...

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 8

By Matthew

Students in Room 208 have been working on a

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and

Mathematics) project this past semester by using

recyclable materials to make every day use objects.

For the project we made musical instruments such

as shakers using discarded drink bottles and re-

purposed paper to decorate the instruments. We also

worked on placing recyclable materials in the recy-

cling bin. Here are some pictures:

Far Left, A student glues

repurposed newspaper

onto the shakers

Left, A student places the

dried pasta into the bottle

Far Above, A student

practises recycling by

placing a container into

the green bin

Above, A student places

a container into the green

bin.

Right, A shaker decorat-

ed with old newspaper

Above, Left, A student places the rice into the bottle for the shaker

Number 2, December, 2017 Page 9

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 10

Number 3, March 2018 Page 11

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 12

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 13

McCordic Word Cloud Project By Deborah

A couple of years ago, Mat-

thew and I went to a work-

shop about making technolo-

gy more seamless in your

school. We walked away

with three initiatives from the

workshop, two of which we

implemented almost immedi-

ately once we returned to

school: using AW for teacher

communication and re-

activating our Twitter ac-

count.

The third one, required a little

more contemplation. The ex-

ample discussed at the work-

shop was about Ionview Pub-

lic School. Ionview surveyed their student popula-

tion by asking them to choose descriptive words to

describe their school experience. The words were fed

into a Word Cloud app to get the graphic mural, seen

to the right. The word cloud app sized the words

based on student responses. In other words, the larg-

est words like ’caring’ in the mural to the right, indi-

cate that many students chose that word. So, we

brought this concept back to our school, mulled it

over, talked about it, thought about it, tweaked it...

and two years later...we’re almost there.

With our student population, initiating a survey is no

simple matter. As our students are nonverbal and

have significant developmental delays, modifications

and accommodations were in order. Also, most of

our students are not literate. Many of them use a pic-

ture symbol method called PECS which uses either

pictures of objects or simplified line drawings. We

decided to replace the words with these picture sym-

bols. Our challenge was how to find out what reso-

nates with our students and how to communicate it in

a way that is authentic to them.

Every class at McCordic was given a survey and in-

structions to determine three things that their students

like at school.

In Room 214, we picked three methods to discover

our students’ preferences.

Far Above, the

Word Cloud mu-

ral at Ionview

Public School

Above, a simpli-

fied version of

what the

McCordic School

mural will look

like with picture

symbols.

Right, One of the

methods used to

survey our stu-

dents’ prefer-

ences. Continued on page 14

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 14

1. Collage:

Using prior knowledge gained through observation of

student preferences, staff created a list of our stu-

dents’ favourite activities and objects. These activi-

ties and objects were made into Boardmaker picture

symbols. Using these pictures, students chose their

favourite activities and items to make a collage. (see

collages on page 13)

2. Choosing favourite activities and objects on the

IWB

Students indicated the activities and items they like

by putting a circle around the pictures on the IWB.

3. Selecting and watching videos of favourite activi-

ties and items on the IWB

Students selected their favourite activity or item and a

video pops up of the activity or item.

Based on student engagement using the three methods

of surveying, staff ranked three student preferences.

Their first choice received three points, their second

choice received two points and their last choice re-

ceived one point.

The data was inputted into a spreadsheet with data

from the rest of the school.

We’re really looking forward to seeing the results in

the front hall bulletin board.

Continued from page 12...McCordic Word Cloud

Left, students circle favourite objects on the IWB.

Above, students watch videos of favourite objects.

Did you know?

McCordic goes back in time

Number 3, March, 2018 Page 15

By Tony Many books have been written and many stories have been told which convey the inhumane treatment of Black people who were enslaved. Countless movies and television series have been made which depict the time of slavery. The celebration of Black History reminds us of not only the hardships and suffering that the lives of enslaved people endured and those who fought against it, but also the victories. The inception of Black History Month set us on a journey into the past, giving us insight into the toils of being enslaved and the fight for freedom. It gives us a sense of the time when human be-ings were sold like items and beaten into sub-mission by their masters. When we delve into this topic, it teaches us about those who made an impact on our history. It’s a binding force of the past, breaking down barriers and stigma. We learn about the achievements of such indi-viduals as Lincoln Alexander, Jean Augustine, Michealle Jean and many others. As part of our heritage, it gives Ontarians the opportunity to re-flect on the struggle and contributions of Black leaders. It is a history of suffering, challenges and triumph. Many slaves escaped into Canada via the Un-derground Railway with the help of Harriet Tub-man. She was known amongst the slaves as “Moses.” Harriet Tubman was a slave herself, yet she escaped and gained her freedom. After her freedom, she began to help others to escape by becoming a ‘conductor’ on the Underground Railway. She aided many to escape to Canada to new life and to freedom, with hopes of more prosperous times. A Toronto born archaeologist and historian, Ka-rolyn Smardz Frost wrote about the plight of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn. The Blackburns were escaped slaves, like many other slaves who made their way to Canada. They settled in Toronto in 1814. They built their house on what

is now the ground of Sackville Street Public School. They were the first in Toronto to start a taxi company, which they named “The City.” The cab was drawn by one horse and carried four passengers together with the driver. The cab company became very successful and motivated others to follow in their footsteps. Thornton and his wife Lucie were involved in oth-er ventures as well. On February 26, 1890 Thornton passed away at the age of 76 and was buried in the historic Necropolis Cemetery near Riverdale Farm. There stands a magnificent monument which his wife erected with the in-scription “Blessed are the Dead who Died in the Lord.” Five years later Lucie died and was buried along side her husband. Like the Blackburns, other slaves chose to make

a new life in Canada. Some settled in the Niaga-

ra Region, Windsor and a number of rural areas

in Ontario. Other important Black settlements

include Afri-

cville near Hal-

ifax in Nova

Scotia, in addi-

tion to settle-

ments in Que-

bec and Van-

couver Island.

The scars of

slavery still

serve as a re-

minder through

the many cele-

brations of

Black History

and the cele-

bration of suc-

cess of those

who will carry

on the fight for

a better world.