I hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend! Fall is definitely in the air and the days are getting shorter, but it is still nice to soak up the last few days of what is officially the summer season 🙂

I know the news of cases in our Island schools over the weekend was hard to digest, but as we have before, we will get through this together and many measures have been put into place to ensure your child’s safety.

Just a couple of quick housekeeping notes for my homeroom class…

1. There are still a few students who have yet to pay their $25.00 student fee. If you could kindly get that in as soon as possible, it would be greatly appreciated.

2. Due to COVID restrictions, our annual “Meet the Staff Night” will not take place this year. However, stay tuned to the website and my blog for some “virtual” versions over the next few weeks. Here is a look at what we will be exploring during this first full week of school…

French-This week we will continue our “Bootcamp” and diagnostic testing, as we prepare to set our learning goals for the coming months.
As we continue to promote our improvement as speakers, each French period we will engage in oral language activities that will work to develop and improve our French speaking skills; fixing common errors and becoming more at ease in our second language.

One of the first activities we will work on is a presentation containing only pictures. Students will create a slideshow using Google Slides and present it to the class later on this week. Their presentation must contain no long text: only images and single words. They will present or film themselves explaining their projects without cue cards, using their slides as their talking points to present on their family, friends, the weather, their likes and dislikes, school and their community.

Science-Now that everyone is all set to go with their etext and Google Classroom, we will dive deeper into our first unit entitled “L’univers matériel.” This week, we will wrap up our review of lab safety, states and changes of matter, and the properties of solutions and mixtures that we studied last year. We will also begin to look at the how matter is organized, define atoms, and begin to explore how they combine to form molecules.

Grade 9 FI Science- This week we will wrap up our review of the chemistry concepts we studied last year and in Grade 7, and officially begin looking at the Grade 9 outcomes related to “L’univers matériel”. Students will explore the particle theory in detail, define the three states of matter and explain the behavior of particles when matter changes state. Each student will assume the role of a particle changing from one state of matter to another and tell their story in written paragraph, a comic strip, or by creating a short video or scene.

Grade 7 Science- During our Science classes together this first cycle, we will spend time continuing to get acquainted with the lay of the land in the Science Lab; exploring new vocabulary, the scientific method, as well as our “etext”, before beginning to discuss the three states of matter. There will be a short check in evaluation on rules and vocabulary related to the lab on Wednesday, September 15th. Students have been provided review sheets to help them to prepare both in class and on Google Classroom.

Grade 9 Science- We will continue exploring the nature of science together-looking at the scientific method and exploring the vocabulary needed to talk like a scientist.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Have a marvelous week!!!

Mme MacNevin