Sunday 26 November 2017

Week 13: Nov 27-Dec 1

Wow, time is flying by! I can't believe it is almost Advent! We have our next iWalk Day on Wed, Nov 29. Students are encouraged to walk or wheel to school, or Drive to 5. We will have staff at our Drive to 5 locations, Arc-en-Ciel School and the small parking lot at Marcel Lalonde park, just behind the school. Park and walk with your child, or park and let them walk the last 5 minutes to school independently along the path through the park.

The  St. Clare Me to We Club is encouraging our students to “Pay it Forward” to students at another school as our Christmas project. Our Lady of Mount Carmel School is holding a Christmas Store for their students.  This enables students to purchase gifts for their family members.  All funds raised will be used to support the students at this school enabling them to go on field trips and to purchase school supplies and to provide food and clothing for families who need assistance.  A portion of the funds collected by the Christmas store will also be given to charity or another school in our board that requires support from the community.
We are looking for gently used:
-jewelry- books- toys- christmas ornaments- and anything else you feel would be appropriate as a gift for the students to purchase
We need the donations sent to our school by December 15.
Thank you for your support! Merry Christmas!

Monday 20 November 2017

Weeks 11 & 12: Nov 13-24



Sorry for not blogging last week, I was away at a wedding in Cambridge, which was lovely!

Last week, we moved our Faith Buddy Day to Wednesday, as both Mrs. Fitzpatrick and I were away on Monday, when the rest of the school did it. The theme was Peace, and we made a lovely painted peace symbol with our buddies. We also watched a short video and song. It was quite a peaceful block, and fit in nicely with Remembrance Day.

We also did a STEM challenge on Friday, called "Float Your Boat". The students were divided into teams of 3, and each team was given a bag of items with which to build a boat that could hold as many pennies as possible safely. Here was the challenge:
And here were the boats:


The winning boat held 85 pennies before tipping, sinking and / or spilling the "crates"!

Congratulations to the students who attended WE Day! It was an inspiring and fun day for all!

Upcoming Events:
-tomorrow we will have the opportunity to participate in some Inuit Games as part of a workshop in the afternoon. 
-Friday is a PD day

Here's what we've been up to:
Math - we completed our patterning unit and have started geometry. The focus for this unit will be on acute, obtuse and right angles, as well as identifying quadrilaterals from their properties. Here is a handy chart for reference:

Language Arts: as part of an Evaluating Media unit, students are designing and promoting their own cereal brand. They have designed a cereal box, and are now promoting it using whatever media platform they wish - filming a commercial, making a comic strip on Pixton, making a Slides presentation, making a WeVideo, etc. Lots of great creative ideas!

Phys Ed - we finished our volleyball fundamentals unit and are now moving into lacrosse skills. In Health, we will be wrapping up our Healthy Food choices and starting to talk about tobacco use soon.

Religion - Peace and Remembrance Day were the topics of recent conversations. We will be looking ahead to Advent soon.

Science - we have been conducting experiments designed to demonstrate the properties of light. So far, we have learned that light travels in a straight line, and that it reflects best off of smooth, shiny objects. Some colours are better reflectors than others. We have more experiments to conduct before moving on to sound.



Sunday 5 November 2017

Week 10: Nov 6-10

Thank you to all of the parents and grandparents who came out to our Bible Blessing Ceremony on Friday afternoon. It was great to see so many of you! The children were so excited to receive their very own bibles, and wanted to read them as soon as we got back to class! A big THANK YOU to school council as well, for purchasing the bibles, and to Mrs. Desjardins for inscribing them for each student. They were much appreciated.

Tomorrow is Picture Retake Day - please send a note on paper or through the blog if you would like retakes done of your child's picture. Thank you.

Thursday is Parent-Teacher interview evening. Information was sent home with the Progress Report about interviews. Just go to https://clare.youcanbook.me/, click on the name of the teacher you want to book with, choose a time, and fill in your name. Once you click "Confirm", the interview is booked, and appears on my calendar. If  you would prefer a telephone interview, or would rather meet at a different time, please send me a note through the blog.

Friday at 10:30 a.m. we will be observing Remembrance Day with a liturgy. Parents are welcome to attend.

Here's what we've been up to:

Math: we have almost completed our Patterning unit, and will have a short test this week, likely Wednesday, on pattern rules (Start at 10, add 3 each time), determining a specific term in a pattern (what would the 50th term be?) in both number and geometric patterns. We have done many examples of each in class. Our next unit is Geometry.

Language Arts: we will start a read aloud this week for Evaluating, a funny book named "Nibble, Nibble, Jenny Archer. The students will really enjoy it! We will also have another session with Mrs. Campeau-Leblanc, the facilitator from the board who will help us to learn all of the ins and outs of Google Read and Write, on Tuesday.

Science - we have almost completed our Pulleys and Gears unit, and will have a short test on the information on Thursday. We have already done a review sheet on pulleys, and another on gears, so students should be well-prepared. We started introducing our new unit, Light and Sound, briefly on Thursday.

Phys. Ed - we have been playing a modified version of mini-volleyball in the gym, and students are getting better at serving!

Drama - we read a funny little skit entitled "Which Shoes do you Choose?" on Thursday and Friday. Each child had a part in the Reader's Theatre play, and we will read it for our reading buddies next week.