Salut tout le monde,
It was great to see so many families yesterday at student led conferences, and I look forward to seeing quite a few more this evening.
It's been a bit of a shock to the system to come back full force, but the kids are doing well. Yesterday we had our presentation symposium, where students were broken into 4 groups by theme, and presented their findings for their Sciences Humaines project. I was thoroughly impressed with the presenters in my room, and heard great feedback from other teachers as well!
Today, Div 16 has their physics test, and Div 15 and 17 will have theirs tomorrow. I gave the students a list of important terms and concepts to review, and time to go over them in class, so I'm expecting great results! Next, we'll be looking briefly at hydraulic and pneumatic systems, then moving on to Earth Science, with a focus on water studies.
In English we are wrapping up our Social Justice unit with some reading (and possibly a guest speaker) on residential schools, and then again trying to focus on progress and goodness in the world by looking back to teachers who have had a positive effect on students' lives, and writing letters of appreciation. Next, we will be tackling short stories.
Coming up at school are: a cyber bullying assembly tomorrow, the Rite of Spring Band/Strings/Choir concert on April 6th, and on Friday the 8th (afternoon), the Kool FM dance that we won for our food bank donations before winter holidays.
We have also started planning the activities for the end of the year, and have organized a camping trip for all 3 FI grade 8 classes on Monday June 20 - Wednesday June 22. Please consider joining us for this trip - ideally we'd like to have around 6 parents join us, particularly fathers who can help supervise the boys' sites. More details to follow in the coming weeks!
Happy Thursday,
Mme O
jeudi 31 mars 2011
mardi 8 mars 2011
Social Justice powerpoint and Science presentation
Salut tout le monde,
As your kids may have shared with you, we have been talking a lot about the Holocaust in English class lately. Because this is such an incomprehensibly evil event in history, I've decided to wrap up our talks with bringing our focus to what heroic acts people did, and what we can do as individuals to avoid being bystanders in life. I've given the kids 2 assignments in English, hopefully leading us to this end, which are described on pages 16 and 17 of the following powerpoint. The acts of kindness will be a continuing assignment, whereas the paragraph will be due the first day after Spring Break (though I am encouraging the kids to finish before the end of this week). Also included is a poem on page 6, written by a bystander-come-victim of the Holocaust, which reminds us how important it is to speak up for others, and a link to a video highlighting certain rescuers on page 15.
As your kids may have shared with you, we have been talking a lot about the Holocaust in English class lately. Because this is such an incomprehensibly evil event in history, I've decided to wrap up our talks with bringing our focus to what heroic acts people did, and what we can do as individuals to avoid being bystanders in life. I've given the kids 2 assignments in English, hopefully leading us to this end, which are described on pages 16 and 17 of the following powerpoint. The acts of kindness will be a continuing assignment, whereas the paragraph will be due the first day after Spring Break (though I am encouraging the kids to finish before the end of this week). Also included is a poem on page 6, written by a bystander-come-victim of the Holocaust, which reminds us how important it is to speak up for others, and a link to a video highlighting certain rescuers on page 15.
mercredi 2 mars 2011
An update... enfin!
Hello folks!
Sorry it's been such a long time since my last message - time ran away from me with all of our school activities, and report card writing!
In English, we have just finished watching Life is Beautiful, and I encourage you to talk with your kids about the film; it is very intense subject matter. We have had some interesting class discussions about the political situation in Italy at the time leading up to WW2, how the lives of the characters were portrayed, what was realistic/unrealistic about the film, and the purpose of the fairytale quality of the film. We'll be taking these discussions further, exploring the roles of bystanders and rescuers, and looking at some primary sources of information about the Holocaust (vetted, of course, to be age appropriate). I have added a link to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website (the section made for students) to the blog, which has some good information on it. I haven't vetted the whole site, so please be warned that there may be graphic information hidden in the site. I thought, however, that it was better to provide a reliable resource for information, than not.
In science, after the fun of playing each others' board games on optics, we have moved on to the physics of matter. There will be a test on this material either in the last few days before Spring Break, or the first few days afterwards (probably the latter). I'll put the date on the calendar once it becomes clear how much time we need to take with the material before the students are ready for a formal assessment.
We've had lots of exciting extra-curricular activities lately, and, after a much calmer week this week, the trend will be continuing next week, when we will have a science presentation on Monday afternoon, and an Art Starts presentation on Thursday afternoon. Other classes are continuing as usual until the end of Friday.
Please note that report cards go home on the 11th of March, and student-led conferences are on Wednesday the 30th and Thursday the 31st of March - the first week back from Spring Break. In order to give everyone a chance to come in, please just need to sign up for a time in your child's homeroom class; you will be welcome to circulate through all 3 classrooms at that time.
A bientôt,
Mme O
Sorry it's been such a long time since my last message - time ran away from me with all of our school activities, and report card writing!
In English, we have just finished watching Life is Beautiful, and I encourage you to talk with your kids about the film; it is very intense subject matter. We have had some interesting class discussions about the political situation in Italy at the time leading up to WW2, how the lives of the characters were portrayed, what was realistic/unrealistic about the film, and the purpose of the fairytale quality of the film. We'll be taking these discussions further, exploring the roles of bystanders and rescuers, and looking at some primary sources of information about the Holocaust (vetted, of course, to be age appropriate). I have added a link to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website (the section made for students) to the blog, which has some good information on it. I haven't vetted the whole site, so please be warned that there may be graphic information hidden in the site. I thought, however, that it was better to provide a reliable resource for information, than not.
In science, after the fun of playing each others' board games on optics, we have moved on to the physics of matter. There will be a test on this material either in the last few days before Spring Break, or the first few days afterwards (probably the latter). I'll put the date on the calendar once it becomes clear how much time we need to take with the material before the students are ready for a formal assessment.
We've had lots of exciting extra-curricular activities lately, and, after a much calmer week this week, the trend will be continuing next week, when we will have a science presentation on Monday afternoon, and an Art Starts presentation on Thursday afternoon. Other classes are continuing as usual until the end of Friday.
Please note that report cards go home on the 11th of March, and student-led conferences are on Wednesday the 30th and Thursday the 31st of March - the first week back from Spring Break. In order to give everyone a chance to come in, please just need to sign up for a time in your child's homeroom class; you will be welcome to circulate through all 3 classrooms at that time.
A bientôt,
Mme O
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