I hope that everyone had a relaxing March Break and that the Easter Bunny found you all 🙂 I’m sure I will hear all about all the wonderful and exciting adventures that took place while we were away and I hope that everyone is ready to get back to routine, as we finish out the last few months of our school year together.

Here’s what is happening in our classroom this coming week…

Dictée- Before the break we studied verbs in the present tense and over the next few weeks we will begin our study of verbs in the past tense (le passé composé). This is a new verb tense in Grade 5 and it can be a bit tricky, so I would encourage everyone to take the time to complete their practice activities each night, in addition to our work together in class.

French-During our reading blocks this week we will start into some literacy centers. Students will work in groups to practice many reading techniques and strategies including; inferring, fluency and expression, comprehension, predicting, analyzing, and critiquing. Most students have set their reading goals in one of these areas and these centers will be a great way to start to work towards meeting them. We will also return to our guided reading groups and we will start a new read aloud novel at snack time entitled “Croque-cailloux.”

In writing this week, we will finish up publishing our persuasive letters that we started before the break and we will begin to look at our next genre in writing; narrative stories. We will spend some time this week and next reading different stories and discussing and discovering their parts. As we are studying the passé composé verb tense, we will also look at its place and importance in fictional stories.

Math-In math class, we will finish up our outcome on patterns and start our unit on statistics (data analysis) and graphing.
In this unit, your child will:
• Learn the difference between first-hand and second-hand data
• Ask questions and decide whether the answer requires first-hand or second-hand data
• Find examples of second-hand data in print and electronic media
• Solve problems by constructing and interpreting double bar graphs
Data analysis and graphing concepts can be practiced at home as well as at school. Here is a suggestion for an activities you can do at home:
• Watch for examples of tables and double bar graphs in newspapers, magazines, or on the World Wide Web. Ask your child what information the tables or graphs convey.

We will also continue to review our “flashback” concepts, as we prepare for our second foundational quiz which will take place in the coming weeks.

Social Studies-Just before the break, we began our new unit in Social Studies called “Les grands personages.” This unit will introduce us to Canadian explorers, heros, and other important people in the history of our country. We will spend some time over the next few classes discussing what makes a “grand personage” and we will begin to review some case studies of famous Canadians who have made large contributions to our society.

Grade 7 Science
In class this week, we will begin to explore how heat is transferred through different materials by conduction, convection, and radiation. We will work in groups to experiment and discover the differences between each of the different ways heat can move through object.

Grade 8 Science
This week we will continue to work on our body systems projects, as we prepare to present them to the class next cycle.

Have a marvelous week!

Mme MacNevin