As hard as it is to believe, but this week we will change the calendar to December and begin one of the busiest months of the year here at Gulf Shore.

It was so lovely seeing so many of you last week at conferences and getting to share in your child’s progress thus far. If you have not yet returned the report card envelope, please do so as soon as possible, so that it can be reused for next term’s report.

To help kick off the month of December, Friday will be Red & Green Day. Students are invited to wear these colours and to bring in a small donation if possible which will go to help our Christmas families this year.

Now let’s take a peek into the learning that will be taking place during our first five-day week in a while…..

Grade 7 Science-Today, students will present their climate change projects and share their learning of how climate change is impacting different ecosystems across the country. We will then begin our review of all those concepts covered throughout the last few months, as we prepare for our ecosystems test on Thursday. Students should refer to Google Classroom for a study guide and some games to help them to practice these concepts. Once our test is completed, we will move into our second unit of the year and shift our focus to solutions and mixtures, beginning with a discussion that will help us to define matter and its three states.

Grade 7 Core French-As we continue our look at pastimes, this week we will dive deeper into clubs and teams and the vocabulary associated with them, as we work towards creating a poster advertising a club that might interest us here at school.

Grade 7 Immersion Science- We are quickly nearing the end of our first biology unit on ecosystems. This week we will further explore food chains and food webs, discuss evolution and how organisms change over time and finally, we will wrap up our chapter 3 with a look at adaptations.

Grade 8 Immersion Science-Today, students will present their contraception information sheets to their peers. We will then look at the final section of chapter 4 on sexual transmitted infections before beginning our review in preparation for our chapter 4 test on Thursday, November 30.

Grade 9 Science-During our classes together these next couple of days our focus will be on experiments showcasing chemical and physical changes in matter. Later in the week, we will explore how to count atoms in chemical formulas and start discussions around ions.

Grade 8 STEM-As we enter into our last few classes together before we make the change to our next exploratory module, students will spend their classes this week continuing to combine their knowledge of coding and the engineering design process as they work to create their own video games and controllers.

Have a fantastic week!

Mme MacNevin

We are in for another busy week as this week marks our first set of reports and learning conferences for the 2023-2024 school year.
On Wednesday, November 22, report cards will be sent home with your child. Please take some time to go over their report with them. This is an excellent opportunity for your child to share their successes from the past term and set goals for the next one. You may keep the report card, but please kindly sign the envelope to confirm that you have read the report and return the envelope to school as soon as possible so that we can recycle it for the second term.

If you haven’t already done so, please make sure you sign up for a time for our parent-teacher conferences. Please refer to the instructions send out by Mrs. Conohan in her weekly update and please don’t hesitate to let myself or the office know if you have any questions or concerns. Students are welcome to attend their conference with you. There will be no classes for students on Friday, November 24th to allow teachers to hold these conferences.

Let’s now take a look into what will be happening during our classes together this week….

Grade 7 Science-Over the next few days students will finish up their research and create their presentations on climate change, which they will present to the class late this week or early next.

Grade 7 Core French-As we keep rolling on with our unit on pastimes, students will continue to express their interests in French. This week we will begin to look at clubs and teams and the vocabulary associated with them.

Grade 7 Immersion Science-Moving through our unit on ecosystems, over the next few days students will learn about populations, habitats and niche.

Grade 8 Immersion Science-During our unit on human reproduction, our focus this week will be on pregnancy and the stages of human life. We will then move into contraception later in the week, where students will begin preparing an informational text on a given method of contraception, discussing how it is used and its efficacy.

Grade 9 Science-Today will be spend reviewing those concepts studied in the first section of our chemistry unit in preparation for the assessment tomorrow. We will then shift our learning into why atoms combine to form molecules as we start to discuss chemical reactions in greater detail.

Grade 8 STEM-We will test our magic 8 balls this week and then move along into our next project with the Microbit; a video game. Students will combine their Microbit skills with another coding site, Scratch to create an interactive design.

Have a marvelous Monday and a wonderful week ! I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday and Friday during our conferences.

Mme MacNevin

This will be a very short week here at Gulf Shore. Students did not have classes yesterday due to the Remembrance Day observance. On Thursday and Friday, November 16 and 17, teachers and support staff will be attending their annual conventions, so there will be no school on these days. Classes will resume on Monday, November 20th.

If you haven’t already done so, please make sure you sign up for a time for our parent-teacher conferences. Please refer to the instructions send out by Mrs. Conohan in her weekly update and please don’t hesitate to let myself or the office know if you have any questions or concerns.

Now here is a look into how we will be making our two-day week count….

Grade 7 Science-Students are working hard on their climate change projects. We will continue our research over these next two days as we prepare for next week when we will get our projects for presenting.

Grade 7 Core French-We continue to explore pastimes. This week students will have more opportunities to express their interests orally through games like “La phrase mystère.

Grade 7 Immersion Science-As we continue to work through our unit on ecology, this week we will explore taxonomy and learn about how species are organized. We will also practice using a taxonomy key through an interactive experiment with Jelly Belly jellybeans.

Grade 8 Immersion Science-Today and tomorrow students will review and then write their quiz on the human reproductive system. Everyone is reminded how important studying is in the process of learning biology, so students should be spending some time at home this evening reviewing these terms and diagrams as well in addition to our review in class in preparation for tomorrow’s assessment.

Grade 9 Science-Our focus this week will be looking at the trends of the periodic table, as we explore why it is called the “periodic” table. We will also begin preparations for our first major assessment of the chemistry section which will take place next week.

Grade 8 STEM-During our class this afternoon, students will wrap up their magic 8 ball Microbit projects and begin to brainstorm ideas for their next design, creating their own video game. As it is Technology Tuesday, we will also spend time practicing our typing skills in Typing Club.

I hope all my students have a great week and enjoy their extra long weekend!

Mme MacNevin

As we enter into the first full week of the month of November and Remembrance Week, we will take some time this week to reflect on the sacrifices our country’s veterans have made for our freedom.

On Friday, November 10th, we will hold our annual Act of Remembrance ceremony here at Gulf Shore.

To mark Remembrance Day, there will be no classes on Monday, November 13th.

Now here is a snapshot into what else will be happening during our week together…

Grade 7 Science-Our climate change project will begin to really take shape over these next few days, as students research the impact climate change can have on ecosystems. We will also brainstorm ways to mitigate these changes and explore other human impacts on nature.

Grade 7 Core French-Over the next few classes, students will participate in several listening and reading comprehension activities to test their knowledge of the new vocabulary we’ve been learning these last few months throughout our unit on pastimes. Students will also finish creating their pastime stories using Storyjumper, and will practice their oral pronunciation by narrating and publishing them.

Grade 7 Immersion Science-Today, with an in-class assignment, students will finish up our chemistry module. Tomorrow, we will begin our biology unit, starting with a quick survey of what we already know, before beginning discussions around species and how we identify plants and animals using their scientific names.

Grade 8 Immersion Science-During today’s class students will write their chapter 3 test on how substances move through the cell. We will then move into the second section of our biology unit on human reproduction. This will start with learning the names and functions of the parts of both the male and female reproductive systems.

Grade 9 Science-As we move deeper into our chemistry section, topics we will be exploring this week including atomic mass, atomic structure and how to create diagrams showing the subatomic particles of the first 20 elements on the periodic table.

Grade 8 STEM-Our study of coding and Microbits continues. We will look further how these microprocessors work and how we can program them. Our daily warm-ups will also continue to challenge students to think outside the box.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!

Mme MacNevin