We are a group of Grade 6 students here at École Golden Gate. Every day offers a new challenge as we make our way through our first year of Middle School together! Please take a look around our blog to see what we've been up to!

Thursday 28 January 2016

A few reminders for tomorrow and Monday.

January's almost over and things at school are picking up.
The list below will help keep us on track!

1. Keep those permission forms for Festival coming in!
They are due February 8th, but the sooner the better!
2. Our first Science lab report was due today!
Please hand it in ASAP if it slipped your mind in class this morning!
3. Interested in doing a Science Fair project this year? Don't forget to hand in your form!
4. Math problem-solving sheets due tomorrow! And don't forget to bring your pencil crayons to class!
5. POW is also due tomorrow!
6. Subjects for concours due Monday. Please also consider if you are taking the 'competitive' or 'non-competitive' route.
7. We are still working hard on our shared class speech. A few more resources about Golden Gate's history can now be found HERE, HERE and HERE.

There is a lot of great stuff coming up next week as well! The Great Kindness Challenge, I Love to Read month and the countdown to Festival begins! Hé Ho!

Have a great afternoon, everyone! :)

Un merci de Mme Barrett DeWiele!

Bonjour Classe et Mme Careen,

J'ai beaucoup aimé ma visite à Golden Gate hier. Grâce à vos questions bien préparées, 
j'étais capable de me souvenir des faits que j'avais presque oubliés!

J'adore votre blogspot. Merci de l'avoir partagé.

Bon succès!

CBD

Wednesday 27 January 2016

So many questions!

What an excellent opportunity we had to both meet and ask questions to Mme Barrett DeWiele today!
We learned so many things about our school's history and now have so many facts to use when writing our shared concours speech.

Now that we have finished our research, we still organize our ideas into common themes before starting to write our paragraphs. We certainly have a lot of work ahead of us, but the end result of having a well-planned and well-researched speech will certainly be worth the effort!


A reminder that we are also moving along with our own, individual concours speeches. Many students have already chosen their topics and there is a huge variety! Everything from Star Wars and the Beaches of Normandy to the Winter Olympics and the history of Starbucks! Our final topics are due tomorrow (for students who have not yet decided) and our rough drafts should be completed by the end of next week. The majority of our Français classes over the next month will be dedicated to the speech-writing process, so we will need to arrive prepared and ready to use our class time efficiently in order to stick with our timeline and write the best possible speech that we can!

Great work today, Gators! Et encore un GRAND merci à Mme Barrett DeWiele!
Can't wait for more learning tomorrow! :)

Tuesday 26 January 2016

Our third visit with baby Arlo!

We were all very excited to see baby Arlo again today!
Today's theme was about diapers.
Maman Sarah shared that she used cloth diapers with her first baby but wondered if doing so much extra laundry actually made them better for the environment... and so much extra laundry is a lot of work, too! She decided to use disposable diapers with baby Arlo and often uses the Huggies brand. Each day is different, but baby Arlo often uses 5-6 diapers a day.



Monday 25 January 2016

Upcoming Homework Alerts!

A few reminders of upcoming deadlines and items we are currently working on:

1. Please return your Festival de Voyageur permission form as soon as possible!
Do NOT send money! All payments are now made online.
2. Are you interested in Science Fair? If so, please see me! An introductory letter has already been sent home to all students interested, but it is not too late to join in on the Science fun!
3. Concours. We are busy researching and planning our class concours, but students should also be in the process of researching and planning their own concours. Topics are due by the end of the week! More information about concours will be posted under the FRANÇAIS page as it becomes available.
4. Mathé: We are currently reviewing and completing 2 challenging Math problems using the
"Guess and Check" strategy. Problems are due Thursday of this week.
5. POW! A big congrats to Matthew K who took on last week's POW challenge!
A new problem is now posted. Check it out HERE!

Have a great week!

Est-ce que je suis un multiple de...?

Today in Math we reviewed how to determine if a number is a multiple of a specific digit.
For example, we know that numbers are multiples of 5 if the last digit is 5 or 0. Or, that a number is a multiple of 2 if it is an even number (a number ending in 0,2,4,6,8).

The challenge today was learning the 'trick' for multiples of 3 and 9. How do we know if a number is a multiple of 3 or 9 without actually counting by 3 or 9 all the way up to that number?

Test out your ideas with this set of numbers:

330       612       1003       919       450        3012         1027

What numbers are multiples of 3? 9? Is it possible for numbers to be multiples of both?

Sunday 24 January 2016

La réponse de Mme Barrett DeWiele!

Bonjour, les élèves de la classe de Mme Careen (et certainement Mme Careen),
C’est avec grand plaisir que je partage quelques faits par rapport à l’historique de l’école Golden Gate.
  Saviez-vous que :
§  Au début, il y avait un bosquet de chênes où se trouve maintenant le bâtiment de l’école?
§  Lord Strathcona était le propriétaire orignal du terrain où se trouve maintenant le bâtiment de l’école?
§  Lord Strathcona avait beaucoup de pouvoir économique et politique et il a amassé beaucoup de terrain, sur un peu de ce terrain est où on voit l’école Golden Gate, construite en  1958?
§  Le nom de l’école Golden Gate vient des deux grandes portes en or qui protégeaient la propriété de Lord Strathcona?
§  Les portes d’or d'aujourd'hui (mais pas vraiment en or, en ciment et en laiton maintenant) ont été construites en 1967 devant l’école comme projet pour commémorer la centième fête du Canada?
§  Il y a deux capsules temporelles dans les deux étais des portes de Golden Gate – une capsule dans l’étai de l’ouest avec les souvenirs de 1959 et 1967 et 1984 combinés, et une capsule dans l’étai de l’est avec les souvenirs de la 50e anniversaire de Golden Gate de 2009?
§  La capsule temporelle dans l’étai de l’est était un don de Mme Ernst pour que les élèves de 2009 aient pu mettre les souvenirs là-dedans?
§  L’école Golden Gate était une école élémentaire en 1959-1960, une école présecondaire (7 à 9) de 1960-1995 et est devenu une école intermédiaire (6 à 8) en 1995?
§  Le programme d’immersion a commencé à Golden Gate en 1982?
Bon courage avec ce projet!  Si vous avez d’autres questions, n’hésitez pas à me les poser.
Mme Barrett DeWiele
Université de Saint-Boniface

Friday 22 January 2016

Our letter to Mme Barrett DeWiele

Bonjour Mme Barrett DeWiele,

Comment ça va? Est-ce que vous pourriez nous aider?

Nous, les élèves de 6F4, font de la recherche au sujet de l'histoire de l'école Golden Gate pour notre discours de concours d'art oratoire. Nous écrivons un discours ensemble, comme groupe, avant de commencer nos propres discours alors nous pouvons apprendre comment bien rechercher, planifier et écrire un texte à partager avec des autres.

Notre enseignante Mme Careen nous a dit que vous étiez la directrice ici il y a quelques années et pourriez par chance nous offrir de l'information au sujet de notre école. Nous avons collaboré pour créer une liste de faits que nous aimerions inclure. Une photo de notre tableau ainsi qu'un lien à notre Google Doc sont inclus avec ce courriel.

Est-ce que vous avez des informations qui pourraient nous aider? Vous pouvez envoyer un courriel à Mme Careen ou peut-être vous aimeriez nous rendre visite? Nous sommes disponibles chaque matin de la semaine prochaine avec l'exception du vendredi, car Mme Careen est partie ce matin-là.

Au plaisir de votre réponse,

Les élèves de 6F4 à l'école Golden Gate
(et notre enseignante Mme Careen aussi)

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Hé Ho!

We are very excited to be going on a field trip to the Festival du Voyageur this year!
Information letters and permission forms were sent home today!
(You can also find them HERE, HERE and HERE).
Please complete the form and submit payment by Monday, February 8.
We will be headed to Festival Tuesday, February 16, the day after Louis Riel Day.
As always, parent volunteers are very welcome to join us.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the school.
Merci!

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Calcul Mental and The History of GG!

Happy Tuesday, team!

This morning in Math we worked in groups to practice our Mental Math skills. Mme Careen wrote different Math questions on the board and we each solved the equation independently before explaining our strategy to our group members. It was great to see and hear how the same Math question can be solved so many different ways!

In Français we got off to a GREAT start with our whole class concours. After voting on our topic (we had a diverse list to choose from... everything form Oreos and Goldfish (the crackers) to Houdini and Star Wars) we started brainstorming everything that could be included in our speech. We shared our ideas by using a collaboration tool on the SmartBoard. We could type in ideas using our iPads and they would *magically* pop up on the SmartBoard screen like a post-it note! Cool!
Once all of our ideas were shared, we grouped the common ideas together to see what the content of our speech would be. Mme Careen wrote all of our ideas on the white board.
We have so many great ideas!

Our next step is to start researching all of the information we'd like to include so that we can accurately represent our school's history. A group of students will make a plan to talk to our administration to see what information they may be able to share with us. We are also hoping they'll be able to provide a contact at the Board Office who will be able to share with us as well. We also discussed that looking at the yearbooks in the school's library, interviewing past and present teachers, visiting our school's website and doing an Internet search would all be excellent ways to learn more about our school's beginnings. We are all quite excited to get started!

And, on that note, do you have any information about Golden Gate's history?
If so, please share it with us! :)

Monday 18 January 2016

Concours and POW!

Happy Monday everyone!

Today in Français, we started talking about "concours d'art oratoire." By this point in your child's French Immersion careers, you are likely familiar with what "concours" is and what it entails.
We will start off our concours experience this year by writing a short concours speech together as a class before starting the process individually. Writing a concours together as a class will allow us to review and model how to organize a speech, how to effectively transition from one idea to the next, how to hook our audience with an introduction and sum up our thoughts in a conclusion. We will also use this writing model as a way to learn "CHAPO" which is the editing system we use when correcting a written text.
Students are encouraged to start thinking about what topic they may want to present to the class and are challenged to choose a topic that is both interesting to them and to their prospective audience as well as age-appropriate (I believe that by Grade 6 we are beyond talking beyond an annoying sibling or a family pet, unless of course there is an incredible story to be shared within that topic).
Although we will be incorporating other mini-lessons from time to time, planning, writing, editing, re-writing, editing, re-writing, memorizing, practicing and presenting our concours speeches will be the main focus of our français classes for the next month and a half or so. Students will be assessed on their written text, their oral presentation of their text, how they are able to respond to questions about their speech as well as their interaction with the other students' presentations.
The concours-planning booklets were handed out in class today. A more detailed time-line of our concours journey will be posted once we, as a class, have created a plan. Stay tuned for more info! :)

Today in Science, we reviewed the steps of a scientific experiment in preparation for our first experiment which we will be completing this week. We worked with a partner to match the correct term with its definition. Also in Science (because we were missing Math due to Mass Band), Mme Careen reminded us to check out the new POW. This week's problem is about Minecraft.
What can be more Math-tastic than that?!
(For more information on POW, please click on the MATHÉMATIQUES page link
found on the righthand side of our blog).

Have a great week everyone!

Friday 15 January 2016

Homework alert - Français!

Dear parent(s),

In class this week, I have been reviewing the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the school year. I have written a goal reflection in my Français journal and am bringing it home this weekend to share it with you!
Please:
1) Look at the inspiration board I made.
2) Listen to me read my goal reflection en français. I know you might not understand, but it is important for me to practice reading aloud in French.
3) Allow me to explain to you what I have written. My reflection should include: what I have already accomplished (and how I accomplished it), what I still need to work on and a new school goal that I have set for myself for the remainder of the year.
4) Sign my journal once I have completed 1 and 2.

Thank you for your continued support of my Grade 6 goals!

Love,
Your 6F4 student :)

Thursday 14 January 2016

Homework alert!

Happy Thursday everyone!
A few quick homework reminders for tomorrow.

1) Calcul mental (Lesson 14) evaluation tomorrow.
2) All Math problem-solving sheets due tomorrow.
3) Please try to answer question #3 on the Science sheet "Planifier une recherche."
Est-ce que l'isolation peut réduire le taux par lequel un glaçon fond?
(Will insulation reduce the rate at which an ice cube melts?)
Students need to identify the variables of the experiment.
There will be 1 independant variable (controlled variable) and 1 dependant variable (the measured variable).
4) Students have a Mass Band rehearsal tomorrow morning, period 1. Please ensure to have your music and your instrument at school!

See you tomorrow! Stay warm! :)

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Math - Homework Alert!

A few things to review tonight for Mathé:
1) Complete Section A of our new Mental Math lesson: "Équilibre une soustraction." This is one of our trickiest strategies yet, so please take time to practice!
2) Our problem-solving sheet from December. We will be reviewing the questions in class tomorrow before handing them in. We can choose what question Mme Careen corrects this time, so we need to make sure that we are handing in our best work!
3) What a great time to get started on POW! See yesterday's post for more info!
(The link to POW can also be found on the MATHÉMATIQUES page or under the ÉGGMS header, both of which are on the right hand side of the blog home page.

Happy Math-ing! :)

Monday 11 January 2016

A New Math Challenge!

A new Math problem-solving challenge is here!
Visit the MATHÉMATIQUES page on our blog to learn more!

Grade Level Meeting and a Roots Lesson

Happy Monday everyone!
We sure had a busy morning!
After morning homeroom we all headed to the gym for our Grade 6 Grade Level Meeting.

Mme Buckwold, Mr. Lister and Ms. Banks all had a lot of information to share with us. For more information about what was discussed, click HERE.

After our Grade Level Meeting, Mme Bees came to our classroom to do our 3rd pre-visit lesson.
Today, we talked about diapers!
We talked about how a baby's temperament can make a diaper change pretty tricky sometimes. If baby is active, then changing a diaper can be hard because baby will be moving around quite a bit. If baby is sensitive, they might be fussy as soon as their diaper is wet, but they may also be fussy when getting a diaper change since the change table may not be comfortable or the wipes might be cold!

We also compared reusable cloth diapers to disposable diapers and worked in groups to write a list of pros and cons for each type. when writing our list we were encouraged to consider the "Three Cs": cost, comfort and convenience. Our groups also had to decide what type of diapers we would prefer to use and why.
Our next baby visit is coming up in a couple of weeks!
We can't wait to see how much baby Arlo has changed!

Thursday 7 January 2016

What about those tomatoes?




The tomato results are in!
Group A: Control Group
Group B: Space-treated Group

Stay tuned for more exciting tomato results as we begin graphing our data and 
writing our conclusions. Great work 6F4 scientists! :)

Time to review and reflect

Today in Français we started to review and reflect on the goals we set for ourselves back in September. Mme Careen started by sharing her goal reflection with us. We learned that she is doing well with two of her goals but has to review her action plan and keep working at the other two. We then reviewed our class goals and were happy to learn that we, as a class, are doing very well at meeting three of our four goals. The one that still needs (LOTS!) of work is speaking in French with our friends during class. We were sent home with the task of thinking up ways that we can improve on accomplishing this goal. What can we each do as individuals to help the class as a whole communicate with each other in French?
Tomorrow, when we are back together again, we will write a goal reflection as a class before being tasked with writing our personal goal reflection. Reviewing our goals will ensure continued success as we start off this great 2016 year!

Tuesday 5 January 2016

Please, if you can!

Hello everyone!
We will be using headphones/earbuds in Science class tomorrow morning.
Please bring yours to school (and to class)!

Many thanks! :)

Monday 4 January 2016

It's great to be back!

Happy 2016 everyone!
It's so great to be back and see all of our classroom friends again!

Before we got back to work learning a new mental Math strategy and continuing on with our graphing lessons, we took some time to share our holiday adventures with our classmates.
We sure had A LOT to talk about!

We also made time for a January class picture.

And, what would be a first day back, without a little dancing?! Yup. We checked that off our list, too. See us bust a move HERE!

What a fun morning! Looking forward to a great week of learning! :)