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Bite Size UA
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Grades 3 and 4 have been hard at work germinating and planting the UA vegetable garden. With the greatly appreciated assistance of Tracey Oh, a Grade 4 mom, students planted everything from tomatoes and beans, to radishes and carrots! Kindergarten buddies were a great help in weeding and preparing the garden for planting.
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Mrs. Churton's Grade 1 class has been learning all about SPIDERS! They began by watching a video about the life of a spider, followed by spider hunting in the park. You would be amazed how many spider webs, nests and actual spiders they found. Playtime became much more interesting too when spider habitats were found and examined. Students learned about the anatomy of a spider, its habitats, life cycle, and varying ways that spiders catch their food.
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2015/2016: Issue 4
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June Issue
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It's hard to believe we are in the last month of school already. This Year of Community has been a big year for Urban Academy. At the end of May, New Westminster City Council unanimously approved our re-zoning application for the Braid Street property. We are extremely excited about this, and your Board of Directors will continue to work with Wesgroup on the next stages of making our new school development a reality.
The run up to the end of the school year has been packed with an array of events marking the culmination of our students' hard work. The Spring Plays and Artastic! were both great successes. The Senior School Drama club recently took part in a play festival at St. George's and did very well among their peers.
All of our students from Grades 2-12 went to camp at the beginning of June. Camp experiences are always an engaging way for students to partake in learning outside the classroom walls. For our senior students, it also allows them the opportunity to display their leadership skills.
On Friday, June 10th Junior School fathers will be treated to a Father's Day breakfast with their child at Robson. Later that day all students will converge on Queen's Park for Sports Day. Mr. Kitts has put together another fun, active day for our students to enjoy before being provided a pizza lunch!
Once again, June brings with it graduation. We will celebrate graduation and year end at the senior school with a dinner at our Uptown campus on the evening of Thursday, June 16th. We wish Valeria Nandayapa Barrera the best in her post-secondary life, and are proud of her accomplishments.
Thank you for a wonderful year. We have come together in this Year of Community to keep the dream of our new school alive. We have a bright future to look forward to together. Enjoy the rest of June as we look forward to the finale of another successful year!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Cheryle Beaumont
Head of School
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Senior School Math Attack
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 Students in mathematics 6 have been classifying and measuring angles this term. They have learned to sort and classify triangles, quadrilaterals and polygons as well. To consolidate their understanding of new geometry vocabulary and skills, they were challenged to recreate a portion of Kandinsky's Composition VIII through pencil sketching and acrylic painting. Finally, they compared and critiqued the level of similarity of their own work to the original painting using geometry terms and angle measurements. Outside of math learning, students gained exposure to art and music movements of the 20th Century: abstraction art and atonality in music.
 Grades 8 and 9 have been learning about surface area of prisms, cylinders, and composite figures. Each student designed a composite figure out of cardboard prisms, cylinders and cones. They next measured all dimensions necessary to determine the surface area of their "tin man." All calculations were clearly communicated in writing. Finally, students were provided with the area of aluminum foil determined from their calculations to cover the surface of their tin man and confirm whether their work was accurate. The best learning is still to come: students will next revisit this work to determine where any mistakes may have been made and how to account for this error.
Ms. Herman
Senior Math Teacher
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| Student Diversity & Leadership Conference |
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 In April a group of senior students attended the first
Student Diversity and Leadership Conference - Unity through Individuality at St. Michael's University School (SMUS) in Victoria. The conference was planned and led by a group of SMUS students.
The two day conference consisted of keynote speeches, panel discussions, and workshops. Students learned about human rights law, ability awareness, communication and social entrepreneurship. They were exposed to and discussed what effective leadership means, and had the opportunity to practice effective communication. Urban Academy students were able to network with peers from other ISABC schools and share learning experiences, while strengthening leadership skills and personal development.
 Inspired by speeches from Green Party leader Elizabeth May, among others, our senior students are determined to make leadership and global awareness a priority in the coming year. Since returning from the conference, attendees have shared their learning with their fellow UA'ers through a series of presentations at assembly.
In the 2016/17 school year, keep a close eye on how our leaders of the future continue to grow in their involvement in the wider global community.
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Technology Timeline
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 Want to see how technology has changed over time? Well, step into Ms. Cochrane's Grade 2 classroom and you will see the students' ancient civilization technology timeline. In social studies, Grade 2C students are learning about different ancient civilizations, what technologies these civilizations created and how we still use these technologies today.
 In pairs, the students are using the iPads to research an invention of their choice ranging from ice-skates, the elevator, the recliner chair, Minecraft, and many more. Students are creating PowerPoint presentations to share their findings with the class. Through lots of discussions and invention blueprints, the students will step into the shoes of an inventor and use their creativity to turn the invention they chose into something completely new and innovative.
Underwater elevators, rocket-powered ice skates and many more creative inventions are in the works! One thing is for sure - this unit has inspired the Grade 2C students to expand their imagination in more ways than one.
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| Lumière. Caméra. Action! |
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 Over the past couple of months the 9/10's have been combining media arts lessons with French as they learn about filming and editing, while integrating the French language into their work. The students worked together on all aspects of the production from writing, rehearsing, planning, choreographing, acting, filming and editing to put together an original version of Un Garcon Populaire from the Aim: Jeunesse en Action French language series. Students added new scenes and characters to the original script to make it their own. The story is a sequel to the stories Veux-tu Danser? and Qui Arrive ce Soir?, which most members of this group performed last year for a live audience.
 Taking art-infusion to the
next level, a few students participated in choreographing part of a dance for a flash mob scene that was written into the script. From there, Jess Dance came in to lend some expertise and work with the class on fine tuning their routine. During these sessions students developed their understanding of timing and technique while being introduce to popular French music.
 Students learned to film using the digital SLR cameras purchased at the beginning of the year thanks to Annual Appeal funds. Once filming wrapped a small group was assigned to edit the work into a finished film that includes English subtitles. Those students not assigned to editing participated in the same process by filming, editing and adding subtitles to the Grades 5 and 6 French plays (Louis la Grenouille and Chat Angora) which were performed by students at the end of April. All three finished films were presented at Uptown for viewing during a recent assembly.
Ms. Spencer
Visual Arts & French Specialist
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| Meet your Board of Directors |
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Urban Academy is fortunate to have an enthusiastic Board of Directors, who contribute countless hours to ensure the school upholds its commitment to excellence. This dedicated group is made up of parents and family members of Urban Academy students. You may have seen them at school events, in the playground at home time or they may be a fellow class parent. Over the coming year we will profile all of our passionate Board members so you can get to know them better.
Laura Bradley, Vice Chair
 Laura has watched the changes at Urban Academy as her child progressed from our Junior Kindergarten to the current Grade 6 class and has been a passionate advocate for the school. She is a six year member of the Board, four of which she has been in the role of Board Vice Chair as well as Chair of the Nominations Committee whose main role is to encourage and support the health of the Board through succession of its members. Additionally, Laura has a homestay student in Grade 11 at Urban Academy.
Ben Marsolais, Member at Large
 As a Project Manager at a construction company Ben saw the possibility of his expertise being valued by Urban Academy through the work currently being undertaken by the Board. Ben also sits on the Finance Committee where decisions are made that support the long term health and success of the school and ensure we move forward in a responsible manner that is beneficial for our students and families. His children are in Kindergarten and Grade 4, and Ben hopes to continue his participation in the school and on the Board for years to come.
Abi Shu, Secretary
 Abi and her family have been members of the school community since the 2012 school year and currently have children in Grades 1 and 4. In 2014 Abi saw the exciting path of expansion on which the school was embarking and wanted to support those efforts directly. That was the year she joined the Board and stepped into the role of Secretary. Additionally she provides her expertise on the Nominations Committee and has been an integral part of organizing our recent open houses and community consultations.
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