What we've been working on so far this week...

Science:

In Science, we continue to work on creating classification keys to sort different groups of objects. We're also learning that the same group of objects can be sorted many different ways and have had the chance to review and compare different classification keys. Creating a classification key is not always easy! Some objects just don't seem to fit in to the groups we would like to create!

Mathé:

In Math, we've been busy reading and writing numbers (with words and with digits). We've also reviewed how, in French, we use spaces to separate large numbers (rather than using commas) and how commas are used to indicate a decimal number.

Later this week we will start our Calcul Mental (Mental Math) lessons and also get our weekly problem-solving questions underway.

Français:

We are keeping up with our daily "LaLaLa" and have started practicing the last "La" which is "Lecture Avec Mme." Starting next week, we will be put into reading groups and will rotate through one of the three "LaLaLa"s on a daily basis. This means that, in a 5-day school week, we will have the opportunity to read individually, with a partner and with a teacher (Mme Careen). We will have the opportunity to read through a variety of texts on our own and, by meeting with Mme Careen once a week, she will have to opportunity to assess and measure our growth on a consistent basis.

We are also in the final editing stages of our Inspiration Boards. We have written and edited our rough drafts and are now working on writing our good copies. We have also started exploring the Pic Collage app and are starting to create the perfect visual support for our goals. We will each present our goals to the class starting Monday, October 22 and our Inspiration Boards will be uploaded here soon after! Stay tuned!

Questionnaires:

A big thank you to everyone who has completed and returned the student-parent questionnaire sent home last month! A few questionnaires are still missing in action... if you aren't sure whether or not your child has returned their form, please feel free to contact me via email.
(A copy of the questionnaire can also be accessed from the blog; click on the Monthly Newsletter page found on the righthand side of the blog homepage and look for the "Questionnaire" link).

Je suis reconnaissant(e) pour...

Happy Friday everyone!

Today in class we shared our plans for the upcoming long weekend and then got to work creating a very special Thanksgiving craft. We don't often get to cut & paste in Grade 6, so this was a special treat!

We started off by joining our "Français 6F4" group in Showbie and opening the document that Mme Careen loaded for us. We then, for our LaLaLa time, read the file containing instructions and pictures of how we would make our very own "Citrouille de reconnaissances." After that, it was up to us to get started!

We cut orange paper into strips and wrote 6-8 sentences of things we were thankful for (1 sentence per strip). Many of us used dictionaries (both paper copy and website versions) to double check our spelling and the proper 'accord' (féminin/masculin) to make sure our sentences were grammatically correct.
After all that writing, we taped our strips of paper together, added a stem and a leaf, and voilà! A citrouille de reconnaissance! It was so great to read all of the different things we are thankful for; from our pets and video games to our families and living in Canada. Our hope is that we all take time to reflect on what we are thankful for this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving! Joyeuse Action de Grâce à tous!

Science and Math

We were busy in Science and Math today!

In Science, we reviewed how to create a "clé dichotomique" - a type of chart (classification key) that allows us to sort a group of objects into subgroups with common characteristics. After creating a clé as a class, we worked in teams to sort a series of pictures. Each group had the same set of pictures to sort. Tomorrow we will compare our "clés" and see how many different versions we were able to create.

In Mathé, we completed a Calcul mental (Mental Math) assessment. The assessment was 50 questions and students had 20 minutes to complete as many questions as they could. The questions were comprised of all 4 operations ( +, -, x, / ) and were of varying levels of difficulty. Over the course of the school year, we will learn many different Mental Math strategies and then, towards the end of the year, students will have a chance to complete another (similar) assessment so that they can measure their growth. (Please note: This was a formative assessment (i.e. not for marks).)

LaLaLa

Today in Français we began "Lecture Avec Partenaire" - the second "La" of our "LaLaLa." Students chose a partner and read together for 10 minutes. They could chose how they wanted to read with their partner; either both reading the text together at the same time, or, taking turns reading aloud by alternating after every sentence, paragraph or page.

Here we are reading!

We have our iPads!

What an exciting day! We all got our iPads this morning! Youpi!

In class this morning we reviewed that iPads are another educational tool we can use to help us learn.
When we come into class, Mme Careen asked that we leave our iPads face down (with the "X" showing) until we are asked to turn them over and turn them on. This will make sure that we are focused on Mme Careen's instructions for our learning rather than on our iPad screens.

We took a couple of minutes to add our classroom blog to our home screen. For some of us, this was the first time we had seen our blog! We took time to navigate the blog as well. There are so many pictures on our blog! And even a calendar that will help us keep track of important dates!

We also went to the App store and added Pic Collage so we will be ready to start creating our inspiration boards once we are done writing out our goals. We are going to do so much learning with our iPads! Who knows what we'll be using them for next!

Reading, Writing, Shoe Sorting and our October Picture!

Happy October everyone!

We started our day with a classroom picture! Look at how great we look!

 (And how silly we look!)

This morning in Français we continued practicing the first "La" of our "LaLaLa." "LaLaLa" is a daily literacy activity that has students reading individually, with a partner and in a group with a teacher (Mme Careen). This will be done for 10 minutes at the beginning of our Français class. We have started with "Lecture Autonome" (reading individually) and will introduce the next "La" - Lecture Avec Partenaire (reading with a partner) - early next week.

In Français, we are also working on writing our personal goals for the year. We have been learning about the goal writing process for the last 2 weeks.
First, as a class, we brainstormed ideas of how we can be Gators that are: responsible, respectful and learners. From there, Mme Careen modelled how to write a goal for us. Next, we had a chance to write a goal as a class and then with a partner. We now have 4 classroom goals that we will work towards each day while we're at school.
Our next step was to read the goals of someone else. We made a connection with Terry Fox Day and our goal setting by reading an article about Terry's goals and how he made a plan to accomplish each one.
This morning Mme Careen read us her own goals and also showed us her inspiration board that she made using Pic Collage on her iPad. As a class, we will work together to create an inspiration board for our "Gators are..." goals and we'll also have the chance to find pictures and key words to create a representation of our very own goals.
There are many steps to this whole process, but the more practice we have, the better our final products will be!

 We are starting to write our own goals for the school year.

 We can write 4-5 goals. At least two need should be goals we'll work on at school.

Our goals should be something we'll accomplish this school year.
We'll check on our progress every couple of months.

And, now (quickly) onto Science.
We have started discussing how different 'things' in our every day lives can be organized. We have already had the chance to work in teams to organize different objects into groups and have discussed lots of examples of classification systems in class (postal codes, phone books, dictionaries, aisles at a supermarket, the academic classes in our school, etc.)
Today we thought we'd give classifying our shoes a try! We all started in one big group, and then by asking a specific question, we were able to divide our group into 2 groups, then 4 groups, then 8 groups, etc. We divided our shoes into groups of: laces/no laces, black/not-black, black laces/coloured laces, colour of soles, brand etc. Who knew shoes were such scientific things! Science really is everywhere! :)

 How would you sort our shoes?

 There are so many different ways to classify shoes!

Here is what we came up with as a class! Did you choose the same questions as we did?

A quick update!

Hello 6F4 families!

Please check the Monthly Newsletter page (see the side menu bar, under the "6F4 Info" heading) for a short update and links to our course outlines and student-parent questionnaire.

Also, I have ventured into the world of Google Calendars and *think* I have successfully embedded a Google Calendar onto the "Monthly Calendar" page (see side menu under "6F4 Info" heading). My hope is to post upcoming events and due dates as they arise so that students have a place to double check what they should be working on. I have started posting a few items already, so please click on over and have a look!

Have a great evening!