Here we are at the end of January! It is hard to believe that our school year is flying by so fast! Mother Nature sure has been good to us so far this winter 🙂

On Friday, our wonderful Home and School will host a Soup Day here at Gulf Shore. Soup will be provided free of charge to any student who wishes to have some. This was a very successful event last year and we look forward to tasting all that yummy soup again on Friday 🙂

Let’s take a look at the learning that will take place in our classes this week….

Dictée-In our study of different groups of homophones, this week we will finish the “a/as/à” group and will start two new groups “on/ont” and “son/sont.” We will look at these two groups together, as students often confuse not only these homophones groups, but also the verbs “être-sont” and “avoir-ont.” As always, nightly review of these concepts at home is strongly encouraged 🙂

French-As we continue through our novel study “Noémie-Le secret de Mme Lumbago,” this week, we will spend some time discussing the characters Noémie and Mme Lumbago. Authors aim to give us detailed images of their characters and each one’s personality through their stories and Mr. Tibo did a wonderful of doing so in this novel. We will also continue to respond to our reading in our “Carnet de lecture” and in small group discussions with our peers. On Monday, we will also begin a new read aloud novel at snack time by Gilles Tibo entitled “Choupette et Maman Lili.”

In our poetry unit, we are now nearing the revising and editing stage. We will discuss the importance of making sure our poems are grammatically correct and will review the tools available to us in the classroom such as our dictionary, our guide d’écrivain and our Bescherelle and how we can use them to edit our work. We will then begin to prepare for our final poetry project; our poet’s café. Here, students will have the opportunity to publish their poems, practice reading them aloud, and then present them to the class during our café. We hope that this activity will take place near the end of next week or early the following week.

Math-We have now started our fifth foundational outcome N5-two-digit by two-digit multiplication (ex. 34 x 56). Students should continue to practice both their multiplication facts and this new concept at home each evening in addition to our practice in class. There are several different strategies presented as to how to solve these problems. Take the time to ask your child which strategy works best for them and have fun multiplying and practicing together 🙂

Social Studies-This week we will continue to discuss municipal governments and their role in our communities. We have also started our final project for this unit; building a fictitious community. In Art with Mme Cassie, students will build their city or town and in Social Studies class we will work to prepare a brochure promoting each city and all it has to offer.

Science- As we continue to prepare for the Science Fair, students should now have their topic selected. I will meet with each team this week to approve their topic, as we begin to discuss how to properly form a hypothesis for our experiment and how to create a list of materials needed to conduct it.

Grade 7 Science
This week we will have our final evaluation for the solubility portion of our unit on solutions and mixtures and we will begin to take a look at the final outcomes for this unit on WHIMIS safety symbols. Science Fair topics are also due into me by Friday, January 29th.

Grade 8 Science
This week we will finish up our study of reflection and refraction and will prepare for our final assessment of this unit.

Have a wonderful week!

Mme MacNevin

It’s hard to believe that we are already halfway through the month of January! Winter is certainly in full force! Just a reminder to parents to make sure everyone has lots of warm weather clothing and maybe an extra pair of mitts or socks in case the first set gets damp while building all those snow forts 🙂

Parents are also reminded to check out our latest newsletter on the school’s web page for a list of upcoming events and dates.

Let’s take a look at what’s happening in our classroom this week….

Dictée-This week, as we continue through our study on homophones, we will finish up the “est/es/et/ai” group and we will begin to look at the “a/as/à” group. Nightly practice will be assigned each evening in addition to our work together in class.

French-We are now almost a third of the way through our novel “Noémie-Le secret de Mme Lumbago.” We are having lots of great small and whole group discussions around this book and I enjoy reading about everyone’s thoughts, predictions, and opinions in their letter entries in their “Carnet de lecture.” This week we will continue working on both our novel study and our poetry unit. As we continue as poets, we will look at free verse poetry, as well as review other forms of poetry we have studied in prior grades. Students will also continue to incorporate figurative language into their poems. All of our work on poetry will be showcased during our poets’ café which I will tell everyone more about next week 🙂

Math-The word “algebra” may have scared them at first, but everyone has caught on very fast to our unit on solving and writing equations and this week we will have our first formal evaluation on these concepts. Additionally, later on in the week, we will start our next foundational learning N5-Multipling two-digit by two-digit numbers. This can be a very tricky concept for many students and practice is encouraged at home. Take the time to ask your son or daughter about how we go about starting to solve these problems, as some of their strategies used differ from the basis algorithm that we as adults grew up practicing 🙂

Social Studies-This week in our unit on communities we will continue to discuss what services are essential and non-essential in a city or town. We will also start to look at the structure of how municipal government works and the role it plays in helping communities run smoothly.

Science- Our class is abuzz with lots of great ideas for this year’s fair. We will spend some more time this week discussing what makes a good topic and we will start to form our topics into scientific questions. Students have also received their scientific journals or log books. This document should be used as a place to record any work that they complete for their science project and all entries should be dated and written in pen.

Grade 7 Science

This week, we will finish up discovering how mixtures and solutions can be separated using various techniques and will begin to prepare for our second formal assessment for our unit on solutions and mixtures. We will also start to explore ideas for the Science Fair, as we review the scientific method and discuss what makes a good scientific question.

Grade 8 Science
This week we will go deeper into our study of how light is reflected and refracted, as we explore how mirrors and lenses work.

Have a fantastic week!

Mme MacNevin

What a wonderful first week back we had together! It sounds like everyone had a lot of fun during the break and we are now well back into the swing of things here at Gulf Shore 🙂

Let’s take a look at what’s happening in our classroom over the next few days….

Dictée-For our dictée this week we will begin our study of homophones-words that sound the same, but that are spelled differently in French. There are a lot of homophones in the French language, so we will pick away at exploring a few each week over the next few months. We will start with the group “est/et/es/ai.” Students should spend some time at home reviewing these concepts and practicing using these words in their writing, in addition to our work together at school.

French-In French class this week, we continue our novel study “Noémie-Le secret de Mme Lumbago.” Everyone is enjoying the book so far and this week we will continue to predict, infer, analyze, critique, and discuss Mr. Tibo’s work, as we read through this novel together. Students are reminded to stay on top of their reading response journals and to continue to read at home each evening out loud, in order to further develop their pronunciation and fluency. We are also working hard to write meaningful poetry, and this week we will continue to explore how poets use figurative language to enhance their work and will attempt to add some of this language into our own poems. Lots of great haiku poems have already been created, and this week we will continue to write more, and will also start to explore other poetry forms together.

Math-On Friday, we started our 4th foundational learning in math on writing and solving equations. This is our first look at algebra and we will spend lots of time this week reading, writing, and continuing to solve equations together. Please refer to last week’s post for some activities you may do at home to help your child practice these concepts. Here is a great website with lots of quick and simple games that may help to make practice at home fun: http://www.math-play.com/equation-games.html

Social Studies-As we work through our unit on communities, we will continue to look at different products and services in our community, discussing which ones are essential and non-essential.

Science- The Grade 5 class will participate in the Science Fair this year. The fair will take place in March and a detailed timeline and project description will be sent home in the coming weeks. However, finding an idea can often be the hardest part of the project for many students and thus, this week we will spend some time discussing and researching what makes a good question for an experiment.

Grade 7 Science
This week, we will finish up our study of solubility and we will begin to explore how mixtures and solutions can be separated using various techniques. We will also begin to discuss what makes a good idea for our Science Fair projects.

Grade 8 Science
This week we will continue to explore how light is reflected and refracted.

Have a marvelous week!

Mme MacNevin

Welcome back and welcome 2016! I hope everyone had the happiest of holidays and is well rested and prepared to start the New Year off on the right foot. I know that I am definitely looking forward to getting back into our regular routines 🙂

Let’s take a look at what’s happening in our classroom during this first week back to school…

Dictée-For our dictée this week, we will pick up our study of singular and plural nouns that we started before the break. Nightly practice will be assigned on these concepts for work at home.

French-During our reader’s workshop this week we will return to letter writing and reflecting on our reading. We will also start our first class novel of the school year “Noémie-Le secret de Mme Lumbago.” This novel, written by popular children’s author Gilles Tibo, is the first in a series of 20+ books about the character Noémie; a young lady with a very spunky and creative personality. Before we start the novel, we will spend some time discussing Mr. Tibo and his work and we will then start with our predictions for the novel. It is always a highlight to share this novel as a class each year and please take some time to ask your son/daughter about the interesting characters in this book in the coming weeks.

During our writing blocks this week, we will begin our formal study of poetry. Before the break, we looked at some poems together and we will continue to do so in the next few days. We will then start to look at the structure of a haiku poem and will start to write some together.

Math-This week with in math we will finish up our objective on adding and subtracting decimal numbers and estimating and will start our next foundational learning RR2-Solving equations. This will be the students’ first look at algebra. Knowing how to create equations will also help your child to solve story problems.

In this unit, your child will:

• Interpret a problem and select the best strategy.
• Express a problem as an equation.
• Create and solve equations using all four operations.

Here’s a game you can play with your child to help solve for an unknown.
Guess How Many I’m Hiding!
Place some objects such as coins or counters on a table top.
Keep some hidden. Tell your child what the total is. Then, have your child guess how many you have hidden and write an equation, e.g., 17 + c = 34, where c represents the hidden quantity. After playing a few rounds, ask your child to hide some of the objects while you guess the unknown quantity.

We will also continue to review the foundational learnings we’ve previously studied this year including; changing fractions to decimals, changing decimals to fractions, comparing and ordering fractions and estimating using all four operations. Continued practice on these concepts and on the multiplication and division tables is encouraged at home each evening.

Social Studies-This week we will get back into our study of communities. We will explore different types of communities and the different products and services that are available in them.

Grade 7 Science

This week, as we return to our study of solutions and mixtures, we will begin to look at solubility.

Grade 8 Science

As we work through our unit on light optics, this week we will look at how light is reflected and refracted.

Have a fantastic first week of 2016!

Mme MacNevin