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Ontario-A Place to Grow

2/24/2017

Watch the following video that’s been put out by the Ontario Government to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. As an ad, I found this a powerful and uplifting message; the message that all are welcome to grow, here in Ontario. For your blog this week, can you write a letter to someone who is coming to Ontario, or Oakville and explain to them why Ontario is such a special province, why it matters so much to you. Be sure to explain specific things that you enjoy doing here in Ontario, and how Ontario has helped you grow into the person you are. This is our chance to celebrate our amazing province and to share our love of it with the world! I can’t wait to see what you write. I can start with an example:

Dear friends,
It’s so great that you’ve chosen Ontario as your place to grow and live. Ontario is a special province with many amazing opportunities. I love Ontario for the lake, for Toronto, Burlington, and Oakville. It’s been so nice to be able to have and raise my daughters here, where they are free to become who they want to be. My family loves the parks in our city and the provincial parks to camp. Ontario is a land of great diversity and you’re going to love it here! Welcome to Ontario.
Cameron Steltman

Thank you Stuart McLean, for sharing your gift of storytelling!

2/16/2017

http://www.speakers.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/McLean_Stuart-760x427.jpg

I absolutely loved reading your posts this past week, the thought and care you put into developing your characters was incredible. The stories that you told were engaging and powerful. I would like us to continue this idea this week. This past week, we lost Stuart McLean, a wonderful Canadian, and storyteller.
For your homework this week, I’d like you to take the character you’ve written and record a story of something that happens to your character. Part of the joy of Stuart McLean’s stories were that he wrote about things that have happened to a lot of us, they were relatable. They were usually humorous and they were told in a great way. This is our chance to honour this amazing Canadian, with our own stories.
Record yourself on twisted wave reading a story that you’ve wrote. Save that story to your Google Drive and post the link in the comments.
I will work through the details on how to do this tomorrow when we look at the homework.
If you’re looking for inspiration from the man himself, this is a link to a great episode.

Building Characters through their Characteristics!

2/9/2017

As we have been reading our novels over the past few weeks, we have spent some time looking at characters and character and I hope that you’re starting to notice that each character has his/her own story, background, things they like and don’t, and their own personality. These characters are written that way by the author.
Today it’s your turn, you get to develop a character that you will use in this a few future blog posts. For your post this week write:
Create your own character that you will use in a story one day. For this character, they must have:

a name
a favourite food
3 personality traits (e.g. funny or humble)
a flaw (something that can create conflict)
how would they react in a difficult situation (e.g. they didn’t do their homework)

Write down all of these things in your post below. When you’ve done that, write a paragraph from their perspective as they start their first day of grade 6. I’m so excited to see the characters that you create!

Love Has NO Labels!

2/2/2017

Love is all around us! As kind people in our global community, we always want to look for the best in people. We know the phrase, “you can’t judge a book by its cover”. This video is a cool visualization of that concept. In today’s society, we see all kinds of people, no one is exactly the same, and we don’t need to judge people based on appearances but rather, we need to support and get to know people for who they are!
With all that is happening in the world, we need to think about what our core values are and what we want to stand up for. We need to think about who we are as people and what we’ll do to help those who have less than us. The world is going to be inherited by you, so the sooner you start thinking about how you can make a difference, the better! Luckily to help you become the people you want to be, you have a vast support network of people who truly care about you and your well being. You never know what form love will take, where it will come from, or who will come into your life in a positive way, so it’s vital they we stay open to meeting new people and making sure that we aren’t judging based on appearance. This video brought tears to my eyes and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. For your comment this week, answer the following questions:

Why do you think it was important that we saw the people behind the x-ray before seeing who they were?

Love is such a neat emotion in that it can take so many forms. List 3 people who you really appreciate in your day to day life, who you know truly care about you, who aren’t your parents.

Ontario-A Place to Grow

Thank you Stuart McLean, for sharing your gift of storytelling!

Building Characters through their Characteristics!

﻿Love Has NO Labels!

Mr. Steltman's Class

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Love Has NO Labels!