Wow! The last week of January already! It is certainly hard to believe that next week will mark the halfway point of the school year. Time is flying by!

Let’s have a look at the learning taking place during our time together these next few days….

French-Today students will finish up their “grand débat des livres” and we will decide which book club book deserves the top prize. We will then shift our focus into our first anthology unit of the year entitled “L’art de l’image.” To kick off this unit, we will be reading and listening to interviews with various types of artists as we discover what counts in this text form.

Science-In the lab, students will complete projects showing the different layers of soil and their purpose. Next up is energy as we discuss the different forms of energy around us.

Grade 9 Science-We will continue our study of fluids this week; taking a look at compressed and uncompressed fluids and the difference between them, before shifting into the section part of Chapter 8 on waves and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Grade 7 Science- This week students will complete their research on a Canadian animal; exploring its’ habitat, niche, adaptations and taxonomy and present their findings to their peers.

Grade 5-9 Core French-In both Grades 5-6 and Grades 7-9 we work on learning new vocabulary related to explaining where to find lost objects including prepositions like “dans” “sur” and “sous”.

Have a marvelous Monday and an excellent week!

Mme MacNevin

Happy Monday! Mother Nature has certainly been kind to us thus far this winter. Fingers crossed that the great weather continues.

There will be a Home and School Meeting on Wednesday, January 20th. All are welcome. COVID protocols will be in place.

Now let’s take a look at what will be happening during our classes together this week…

French-Late last week students finished reading their book club novels. As a final project, students will work to create an advertisement to promote their book to the other groups in the class. We will then have “Le grand débat des livres”-“The big book debate” where students will present arguments as to why their novel deserves the award for best book club novel. All our hard work around the verbs être and avoir and those expressions and verb tenses that use them will also move forward.

Science-In the lab, we will wrap up our discussions around rocks and minerals and move on to exploring the different types of soil and their important to our various agriculture industries.

Grade 9 Science-Students will prepare this week for an open book evaluation on Chapter 7, as they consolidate their understanding of transformations of matter and energy. We will then move into Chapter 8, exploring different types of fluids and how they move.

Grade 7 Science- This week students will continue working on their understanding of ecology through their research on a Canadian animal; exploring its’ habitat, niche, adaptations and taxonomy.

Grade 5-9 Core French-In Grades 5-6 we will finish reading the story “Voici mon école” as we explore what life is like in schools around the world. In Grades 7-9 our discussions on how to find something we’ve lost and the vocabulary needed to read and write lost and found ads will continue.

Have a fantastic week!

Mme MacNevin

Today we “mined” chocolate chip cookies to see what kinds of “minerals” we could find. There was lots of learning and fun! Here are a few snapshots of our afternoon….

I hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend in the fresh air, and is ready for another full week of learning 🙂

Here is a snapshot into our classes this week….

French-Everyone is well into their book club novels and lots of awesome discussions are taking place, as students put their reading strategies to good use. Our mini lessons this week will focus on character development, message, theme, and how to properly use examples from the text to support our ideas and opinions.

Our verb work this week will introduce us to those verbs we call “DRMRSVANDERTRAMP” that are conjugated using the verb “être” in the past tense. If time permits, we will also start exploring the differences between le passé composé and l’imparfait.

Science-This week we will wrap up our study of the rock cycle; reviewing the types of rocks and starting our discussions about minerals and how we go about extracting minerals from rocks. Students will go “mining” for minerals in some very interesting and edible rocks 🙂

Grade 9 Science-This week we will finish up our look at chemical and physical changes in matter and begin to explore energy and how it is both transferred and transformed. We will also be introduced to the joule, the international unit used to measure energy.

Grade 7 Science- Our study of the living world continues this week as we explore ecological niche and adaptations. To demonstrate their understanding of these concepts, students will each choose a Canadian animal. They will spend a few classes this week and next researching their specific animal, and will eventually teach their peers about its name, species, habitat and niche.

Grade 5-9 Core French-In Grades 5-6 during our time together we will continue reading the story “Voici mon école” as we explore what life is like in schools around the world. In Grades 7-9 our discussions on how to find something we’ve lost will continue as we explore lost and found ads and the vocabulary needs to read and write them.

Have a marvelous Monday and a great week ahead!

Mme MacNevin

Today in the lab we used taffy to experiment with the rock cycle. Students worked in teams to create the three types of rock using their candies.

Take a look at our fun!

Welcome back! I hope that everyone had a restful and relaxing break! I’m looking forward to 2021 and hoping it brings a much better year than the last one 😉

Today we will jump right back into learning and I’m sure lots of stories will be shared about all the adventures that happened over the break.

Here is a look at what will be happening during our classes as we kick off our first full week of 2021…..

French-Today during our reader’s workshop, we will begin book clubs. Students have been placed into groups and today they will spend some time “tasting” and choosing the book they’d like to read and discuss together over the next few weeks. We will also establish the criteria for what happens during our book club reading and discussion periods.

Our oral language warm-up this week will begin together with a pair and share about our holiday break and then continue later on this week practicing expressions that use the verb “avoir” and also those where two verbs are used together. Proper verb conjugation is a goal for many of my students, so we will spend lots of time focusing on some activities in the coming weeks to help give them some strategies to improve their spoken language.

Science-Tomorrow in the lab we will begin our unit on rocks and minerals. This week we will explore the three types of rocks and the rock cycle through an interactive lab involving starburst candies. It is usually a big hit! Stay tuned for some pictures 🙂

Grade 9 Science-During our classes this week we will return to our textbook to explore chemical and physical changes in matter. Much of this chapter is a review from Grade 8, but with our added knowledge of how atoms combine from our studies before the break, students will look at these concepts through a different lens than they did last year.

Grade 7 Science-Before the break, we began our unit on biodiversity. This week students will review the concepts we discussed in December including species and taxonomy, before beginning to look at population, habitat and niche later on in the week.

Grade 5-9 Core French-We will officially return to our units on giving and receiving directions. This week in Grades 5-6 we will read the story “Voici mon école” and explore what life is like in schools around the world. In Grades 7-9 we will be discussing how to find something we’ve lost as we explore lost and found ads and the vocabulary needs to read and write them.

Happy New Year! All the best for a great week and a wonderful year ahead!

Mme MacNevin