Our google accounts (GSuite for Education) run best when operated through Google Chrome. When students log in to Chrome, they will have access to all saved passwords, extensions and tools used in the classroom.

We have a classroom Virtual Learning Environment provided by the Ministry. It is a platform called Brightspace and is operated by Desire to Learn. This platform has many great virtual learning tools embedded, with the added bonus that it does not require a lot of bandwidth, can be operated on any tool that can connect to internet (laptop, tablet, phone) and is private. Desire to Learn never collects teacher or student information. The data is owned by the Ministry. I have placed full units for Math, Language, Science and Social Studies vetted by the Ministry and there is a carousel of Ontario Curriculum online learning activities for each grade level on my site. I am hopeful that we can utilize this fantastic resource as we transition ourselves into learning from home.

To get to the VLE you can follow these steps:
● Go to the John Mahood Website at https://jma.wrdsb.ca/
● Go to the left hand side panel tab and click on the “My Way” Portal
● Click on the Virtual Learning tab in the top middle of the page
● Log in with your child’s school username (first four digits of student’s last name, first initial,
last 4 digits of student number) and password (9 digit number starting with 340)

You can enable your child’s Google Email address on this site, in order to see when I have returned any work or feedback to your child. This is a way of merging these two platforms (Google and Desire to Learn). The VLE is the hub, but you can still access work done or assigned through classroom.

Google Classroom Many assignments have been posted through Google Classroom. I am working on providing feedback for assignments already completed. I believe in Mastery Learning, which means that an assignment returned with no grade, is an assignment that contains feedback to be used to improve the work before handing it back in. Please have your child open the document, read and respond to the feedback by changing the work or commenting with a clarifying question, leave my comments in the document and re-submit the assignment with a private comment explaining what was done differently in this draft of the work.

Google Drive It is important that students create any documents within their Grade year folder. For example, the student double clicks inside their Drive on “Daniel Gr. 4”. From inside this folder, the student clicks on “New” in the top left corner of the screen. From here, a drop-down menu will allow the student to choose the type of document they want to create, such as doc., slide, drawing, etc. This grade folder is shared with me, allowing me to view and provide feedback on student work. We do most of our writing in Google Drive. Students should log in with their school username (first 3 letters of last name, first initial, last 4 digits of password) and password (9 digit student id number). They can access anything they have created outside of google classroom here.

We also use many sites to practice our skills…

Knowledgehook Math Site Students log in with the class code and personal username and password. It should be the same password as their student id number or just the last 4 digits of their student number.

MPower Math Site Students have a unique username and password that was generated by mPower. This site does not collect any personal information. You can log in as a parent and see your child’s progress and receive updates through the site.

EVERFI This site has Math, Science, Health and Wellness program focusing on STEAM philosophies.

Typing Program Students log in through the Google link and use their Google username and password to connect to their school account.

WRDSB Virtual Library. By logging in with your child’s school username and password, you have access to a multitude of online materials, such as audio books, books to read on your own through Overdrive, PebbleGo, Tumblebooks etc., and many movies and videos to stream through Learn 360, and CBC Curio.

Epic! This site provides students with hours of educational reading and videos to learn from. There are audio and read-by-yourself formats for all reading levels. This site is offering free online access until the end of the school year.

Go Noodle This site gives lots of great motion and mindfulness activity breaks. You can create a parent account for free. You can connect directly to the app through a SMART TV.

Many students in the class are struggling with their fine motor development. It is very important that we give lots of practise with holding a pencil or writing tools using a correct tri-pod grasp, with just enough force to make definitive marks that are not too light or too dark, and are correctly positioned within the lines. This means that tall letters touch the top and bottom line, short letters remain within the mid-line range to the bottom line and long letters go from mid-line to the mid-line area of the line below. Upper case and lower case letters and inversions should be corrected. Printed letters start from the top and move their way down or down and around. Only upper case letters sometimes start at the bottom line and go up. Our tactile and visual motor development is linked to our cognitive development and abilities. No matter where a child is at in terms of their cognitive development, we continue to work on it, as there is always a next step, no matter what the skill is we are working on. Once your child has mastered printing, feel free to move on to cursive writing 🙂