Thursday, September 5th

Good afternoon everyone!

We’ve only got one day left to go for this week and then the first week is officially over. Tomorrow, we are completing a few pre-assessments and then that will be it for our week!

A few quick reminders:

·     Tomorrow is a Day 3.

·     Tomorrow is our first Spirit Day – students should come dressed in their house colours!

·     For anyone who ordered Hot Lunch, payments are due on the 13^thof September (next Friday).

·     BBQ forms and payments should be returned by next Friday, September 13^th.

·     Terry Fox letters and pledge forms were sent home today. We are hoping to raise $5000 as a school by next Friday, September 13^th, which is the day of our Terry Fox run!

We began the day by completing our DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) reading surveys. While students worked on this, we also completed the first section of the DRA.

French – After this, we had French with Mme. Stella, which you can read about on her blog (https://stjudesfrench-stella.blogspot.com).

Gym – After recess and lunch, the students had gym with Mr. Orr, which you can read about on his blog (http://tysonorr.blogspot.com).

Then, we attended our 2^ndhouse game of the year! I am very happy to report that Zeta kept our lead!

At the end of the day, we continued our DRAs, and we will be finishing them up tomorrow.

Inquiry into Energy – Today, we started discussing our first unit of inquiry, which is energy. We started the discussion by examining the transdisciplinary theme (there are 6) Sharing the Planet. We discussed what we are responsible for covering. Then, we started talking about our actual unit, starting with the central idea. 

Our central idea is “Society is responsible for how energy is used to sustain life.” We discussed how that will be the focus for the unit and how all of our study will be linked to this. Then, we discussed our key concepts.

The key concepts for this unit are:

·     FormàWhat is it like?

·     ResponsibilityàWhat is our responsibility?

·     ChangeàHow is it changing?

We will use these questions to inquire into energy. Each of these concepts is also related to a line of inquiry (there are 3) that relate back to the central idea.

Our lines of inquiry are:

·     Characteristics of current and static electricity (Form)

·     Transformation of energy (Change)

·     The impact of energy production on society and the environment (Responsibility)

Lastly, we discussed the KWL chart. It will be displayed on my UOI board, and we will continually add questions to it throughout the entire unit.

Homework:

·     Bring devices for Monday

·     BBQ forms due next Friday

·     ‘K’ section of KWL chart and at least one question for ‘W’

As always, please feel free to email me with any questions.

Mr. Conte

And Away We Go!

Good afternoon everyone!

I can’t believe the summer is already over – it feels like just last week I was in Grade 5, and now here I am in Grade 6! I hope you all had a fantastic summer.

A few quick reminders:

·     Tomorrow is a Day 2 (students will need to bring their gym uniforms).

·     Friday is our first Spirit Day – students should come dressed in their house colours!

·     For anyone who ordered Hot Lunch, payments are due on the 13^thof September (next Friday).

·     BBQ forms and payments should be returned by next Friday, September 13^th.

·     Terry Fox letters and pledge forms were sent home today. We are hoping to raise $5000 as a school by next Friday, September 13^th, which is the day of our Terry Fox run!

Our day started by joining all of the Grade 6 students together in Mrs. Haag’s classroom to discuss what our expectations are for this year. We talked about the exhibition, which is the culminating project of the Primary Years Programme (PYP). We talked about having a fixed versus a growth mindset. A growth mindset means that when you fail, you see it as an opportunity to learn something new, and you believe you can improve. After this, we separated into our classes!

Music – Then, we had music with Mr. Oliver, which you can read about on his blog (https://mrolivermusicclass.blogspot.com).

French – Right after music, we had French with Mme. Stella, which you can read about on her blog (https://stjudesfrench-stella.blogspot.com).

After recess and lunch, we came back to class to deal with a few housekeeping matters. We talked about the house point system, classroom expectations, homework expectations, the learner profiles, and a couple of other logistical items to start off the year. Then, we took a tour of the school and reminded our returning students and informed our new students of practices and expectations at St. Jude’s. We wrote our agendas, and then it was time for recess again!

At the end of the day, we did a bit of language by discussing an action word poem. This is built by using a topic sentence (noun), verbs (describing the noun), and a closing statement (finish the sentence). Here is an example:

The Niagara River

The Niagara River (topic sentence)

rushes (verb)

splashes (verb)

tumbles (verb)

crashes (verb)

trips (verb)

and smashes on its way to Lake Ontario (closing sentence)

            - Patrick Lashmar

We will be reviewing this form tomorrow and writing action poems of our own.

At the very end of the day, we had our first house game of the year! I am not too proud to say Kappa won this one, but I am very proud to say that Zeta won the second round! Great job to everyone who participated.

And with that, the first day is already over. We will be continuing with more activities tomorrow.

Homework:

·     Brainstorm one big rule you think should apply to the class

·     Bring devices for Monday

·     Learner Profile posters due next Wednesday

·     BBQ forms due next Friday

As always, please feel free to email me with any questions.

Mr. Conte