Oh what fun it is to surprise...

My, oh my!
Do we know how to throw a special, super-secret-surprise winter party or what?
We put so much work into getting ready; it was so exciting to see it all come together!

Here we are decorating!
Pink and blue paper chains, pink and blue snowflakes, pink and blue tinsel and so many balloons!

Shhh! It's time to hide! Mme Champagne will be here any second!

SURPRISE! (See our *VERY LOUD* surprise in action. Click HERE)!

Mme Champagne loved her delicious chocolate and vanilla, pink and blue snowflake cake!
(Thank you Paityn and step-mom Michelle)!

PARTY TIME!

We ate yummy treats, passed out our Secret Santa gifts, drank hot chocolate in our Secret Santa gifted mugs and played a special Mme Champagne themed "Kahoot!" Best of all, we had a chance to celebrate with each other! A bittersweet celebration, but one that will be the talk of the Grade 6 Immersion hallway for years to come! :)
We had such a great morning... and now it's time for our well-deserved two-week rest!

And now, a little note from Mme Careen:
Merci to each and every one of you for making my job so incredibly incredible!
Your excitement and enthusiasm make me smile each and every day! :)
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!
Joyeux Noël, Joyeuses Fêtes and Bonne Heureuse Année à tous!

Our second baby visit and a paper chain challenge!

We've had a busy week!

On Tuesday, baby Arlo and Mme Sarah came for their second Roots of Empathy visit. We saw how baby Arlo responds to different levels of noise and how much he likes to kick during tummy time! We also sang the song Frère Jacques in a three-part rond! We are such talented singers!

Today in class, we had a paper chain challenge. Working in teams of 5, we had 8 minutes to make the longest paper chain possible. The winning team had 146 links in their chain! Wow! We'll also be able to use these chains for our holiday party (with the super secret theme) tomorrow. We are all very excited to decorate and celebrate together!

Reminders: Upcoming Party!

Hello families!
The final countdown to winter break is on!

We are looking forward to our special holiday party and have been busy making extra special surprises for the super secret surprise party theme!

* A reminder to all students to bring in their Secret Santa gifts by Friday morning.
The gift should be in a mug, with a total value of $6.

* Listed below is a list of all students who have signed up to bring a treat or drink to share.
There are 26 students in our class (plus Mme Careen and Mme Champagne, if you would like to include teachers as well)!
Please ensure all food items are free of: nuts, cinnamon, flax, gelatin and pork products.

Snacks: Bren, Allana, Sebastian, Sydney, Madison, Paityn, Emery.
Drinks: Matthew, Jay, Mme Careen.

Looking forward to a fun celebration!
Thank you so much for your continued support!

12 Days of Gator Giving!

Although this is a homeroom challenge, I want to remind and encourage all students to consider being a Great Gator Giver by bringing in items for our 12 Days of Giving in support of Christmas Cheer Board. Please see below for a list of items we are accepting! Every item collected will make a HUGE difference in the lives of Winnipeg families who need a little bit of holiday cheer this time of year. Thank you, thank you for your support! :)

Les 4 fantastiques!

In Français, we are continuing to work on our reading and writing.

Here we are working in our lit circle groups to answer questions
and write a resumé about an article we read in our library class.

We have also started to review how to conjugate the 4 irregular verbs (Avoir, Être, Aller, Faire) and will move on to "ER" verbs and a review of how to write a simple sentence later this week.

Have a great week everyone! :)

What a great evening of learning!

Hello 6F4 families!

It was great seeing so many of you at school this evening!
I hope you enjoyed learning what your Gators are up every day while they're at school!

Wishing you all a happy 3-day weekend! Weehoo!

Time for a bit of fun!

We've been hard at work getting all of our work in before the end of Term 1.
It was time for a brain break... Check out our moves HERE and HERE!

Today at lunch was also the last day for us (Grade 6s) to get 'MO'ving in our school's 'MO'vember DodgeBall Challenge. We were out in full force today - house colours, moustaches and all!

 Students from 6F4 and the Grade 6s from Homeroom 17 played one great game of DodgeBall!

Look at these Active Grade 6 Gators! Great 'MO'ving team!

Looking forward to seeing you!

Hello parents,

We have been hard at work this week finishing up our Term 1 work and getting ready for Student-Led Conferences tomorrow evening. We are excited to share what we've been up to in
Français, Mathé and Science!
No need to make an appointment; stop by whenever you can between 4:30-8:00
and stay for as long as you'd like!

Highlights of your Room 17 visit will include:
- observing our Tomatosphere tomato plants
- creating a dichotomous key (clé dichotomique)
- asking about our 'tableaux d'inspiration' and goals for our Grade 6 school year
- learning about how we make predictions while reading
- rolling 10-sided dice to create a 'Nombre du jour'
- solving mental math questions using different strategies

Looking forward to guiding you through an evening of learning and fun!

Sincerely,
Your 6F4 Gators

Meeting baby Arlo and our November picture!

Happy Monday!

We are back for a full week of learning this week! Youpi!

Our morning got off to a great start when our Roots of Empathy baby, baby Arlo, stopped by for his very first visit! Arlo is 5 months old and impressed us with his smiles and how well he can hold a toy!

Take a look at some of the photos from our visit!

 We are listening to Mme Bees and maman Sarah talk about baby Arlo.

We are asking and answering lots of questions about baby Arlo
and watching him during "Tummy Time."

Here we are with baby Arlo, maman Sarah and Mme Bees.

We'll call this our November class picture. (A little late, but better late than never)!

Oh, Tomatoes!

It's a special day!
Today is Day 15 of our Tomatosphere experiment! We're halfway there!

Our family of tomato plants sure look a lot different than they did 15 days ago. Many seeds from both  groups have germinated and the stems are getting taller every day! And, now that we have heat (Youpi!), I'm sure the rest of our seeds will start popping up in no time!

We have been busy making daily, written observations and taking pictures of our tomato plants, too! Starting next week we will begin learning about how else we can represent our data in different ways, and by the project's end we will be able to analyze and graph the numerical data collected and share our tomatoes' journeys through pictures and text.
Who knew planting tomato seeds would help us learn so much?!

Science Project Check-list

We have been working hard on our "extra-terrestres" project over the last couple of weeks and the due date is fast approaching. This project falls into the "Design Process" Essential Learning of the Science curriculum and will be the only assignment assessed in that category for the upcoming
Term 1 report.
We have reviewed the criteria of the project as a class and, in addition to already having a detailed breakdown of expectations in our project outline, the following checklist was posted in class today so that we could double check that we are on track for completing and submitting our best work.
Project presentations will begin in class Monday, November 16.
Looking forward to seeing what alien creatures might be joining us!

Liste de vérificiation:

* J'ai créé au moins 16 extra-terrestres.

* Les extra-terrestres sont représentées sur leur planète.

* Chaque groupe d'extra-terrestres est nommé.

* Chaque groupe a des exemples et un description.

* J'ai dessiné la clé dichotomique avec au moins 3 niveaux.

* Mon projet est colorié et les mots sont bien écrit en français.

* J'ai essayé de mon mieux; j'ai completé chaque tâche et utilisé de la créativité.

* Mon brouillon est complet et attaché à mon projet.

(Le clé est rempli, les descriptions et dessins des extra-terrestres sont inclus).

What Does Peace Feel Like?

Happy Monday everyone!
Today in Français we started writing free verse poems about how we know peace through our
5 senses.
As a class, we started by reading two books: "Regarde par-ci!" texte de France Adams and
"What Does Peace Feel Like" written by V. Radunsky.
We then brainstormed ideas about how we: See, Touch, Smell, Taste and Hear peace. We took our ideas and started writing them in sentence format, using the five sentence starters:
"Je vois...," "Je touche...," "Je sens...," "Je goûte...," "J'entends..."
Once we are done writing our rough drafts, we will edit with our peers and write our final copy.

What does peace feel like to you?

Weekend tomatoes, Part 2!

Happy Sunday everyone!
It's still chilly in here, but our tomatoes have been busy growing!

 Since yesterday's visit, Group A went from 15 to 20 germinated seeds!

Group B went from 20 to 22 germinated seeds!

Look closely... One of the plants now has 3 leaves!
I guess the tomatoes don't mind the cold so much after all.

Have a great afternoon!
Looking forward to seeing everyone (tomato plants AND students) tomorrow!

Weekend tomatoes!

It's not too often our blog gets updated on a Saturday, but our tomato seeds wanted to send out an update about how they're doing!
Our school is definitely a little bit cooler on the weekends (the thermometer beside the plants is showing 17*C!), but our tomato seeds are still germinating and growing!
Take a look at how they're doing!

 Here are the Group A Tomatoes!

 Here are the Group B Tomatoes!

 Look closely! A chilly 17*C! Let's hope it's a bit warmer in here tomorrow! Brrrr!

Racines de l'empathie

Today marked the beginning of our participation in the Roots of Empathy program.

Mme Bees, one of our school's fabulous guidance counsellors, will be teaching and guiding us through the program this year.

Today's theme was "Meeting the Baby." We talked about the 5 senses, played a TRUE/FALSE game and made predictions about what our baby - 4 month-old baby Arlo - will be able to do when we meet him in a couple of weeks. We also practiced singing the Welcome and GoodBye song and talked about neurons and how many synapses a baby will form in his/her first year of life! Pretty incredible stuff!

Here are a few pictures of our first visit together.

We can't wait to meet baby Arlo!

Happy Hallowe'en!

We had a great time this morning sharing our upcoming Hallowe'en plans, listening to Hallowe'en music (check out our new favourite song HERE) and playing "BALAI," a superfun Math game!

Happy Hallowe'en everyone!

Tomatosphere!

Got Tomatoes?
We do! Well, we will soon enough anyway!

This morning, our month-long Tomatosphere experiment got underway when we planted a total of 108 tomato seeds! We each planted 2 seeds belonging to 2 different groups of seeds (A and B) and will observe them daily to see: when the seeds germinate, how many seeds germinate and, in the end, which group will have the most germinated seeds.

With our Tomatosphere start-up, you will also notice that there is a new Tomatosphere link option in the side menu bar under the "6F4 Info" header. Here you will find all things tomato, including a description of the Tomatosphere program as well as daily observations in the form pictures, data charts and much more! Check back often to ensure you are the most up-to-date Tomatosphere-er on the block!

Getting ready for planting...

 Our Tomatosphere learning goals

Our Tomatosphere seeds - A and B

The mini-greenhouses where our peat pots will stay for the next 30 days.

Now, take a look at us in action!

(Even Mr. Lister came by and planted seeds, too!)

We're soaking our peat discs in water so they expand into little pots so that we can plant our seeds.

 

We had to soak our peat pots for WAY longer than the instructions said! We were very patient and did a great job planting once the pots were finally ready. Our thumbs all got a bit greener today!  :)

Cinémental!

We had a great time at Cinémental this morning watching the movie, "Belle et Sébastien."
Here are a few (very dark) pictures of us right before the show started.

Tomorrow in class we will chat a bit about the storyline and students will have the opportunity to write a critique of the movie by answering questions and drawing their favourite scene.

One quick reminder...

We are headed to Cinémental Tuesday, October 27 and hope to have 100% attendance!

If you have not yet done so, please bring permission form and $3 back to the school on Monday! 

If the permission form has gone missing, please click here: Information Cover Letter and here: Cinémental Permission Form to print what you need.

Thanks so much everyone! Have a great long weekend!

Tableaux d'inspiration

We finished presenting our goals in Français today and we all did a great job!
Our tableaux d'inspiration are now posted on the Français page, which can found under 6F4 Info on the righthand side of the blog homepage. Each of our inspiration boards will also be printed and posted in the classroom before finding their way into our binders so that we may be inspired to do our best each and every day of the school year!
Bravo les élèves! Du bon travail!

Dried beans and permission forms

Happy Wednesday everyone!

First of all, a quick reminder to please send back permission forms for our Cinémentale field trip as soon as possible! We are headed to the movie theatre next Tuesday (October 27) to see the film "Belle et Sébastian" and ALL forms need to be in before that time! Thanks!

Secondly, a reminder to all students who have not yet presented their 'Tableau d'inspiration' that you'll be presenting in class tomorrow! Make sure to have your good copy and your Inspiration Board ready to hand in! (And keep an eye on our blog - all of our projects will be uploaded here soon)!

And now, take a look at what we were up to in Science today!
Students each received a small handful of dried beans and created a dichotomous key (clé dichotomique) to sort the beans into groups with common characteristics. Students were able to classify the beans by colour, shape, size, texture, spots, stripes and much more! Great work 6F4!

Le Défi: Classification

On your mark, get set, classify... And then build!

Today in Science we worked in teams of 5 to classify a group of objects - but we only had 3 minutes to do it! Each group received a collection of items, including: 4 plastic straws, a paper clip, a paper plate, 3 pipe cleaners, post-it notes and a 20cm piece of string. We grouped items together based on like-characteristics and then shared and explained our subgroups to the class.

After the items were sorted, the next challenge began! Using the same group of materials, we were now tasked with building as many structures as possible, but each structure could only be built with the materials found within the subgroups we created in the first part of the challenge. (Had we known that before, we certainly could/would have organized our materials much differently)! We had one minute to discuss our ideas with our group (without touching the materials) and then only 3 minutes to build all of our structures! Yikes! The time flew by!

Many groups came up with a variety of creative masterpieces. There just may be a few designers and engineers in our midst! :)

A fun way to finish off a great week!
Have a great weekend!