1. Mr. Buhler (student teacher from SFU) is back with Div 18 and he is now teaching full time. He is teaching Math 7, Humanities and Science with Ms. Moody’s class, and PE. Ms. Moody is continuing to work with the grade 6/7’s on their Science Fair projects and with her class in French.
2. Div 17 & 18 are very fortunate to have a French Language Monitor helping once a week in our classes. Mamady will be working with Ms. Moody’s class on Mondays and Ms. Abbot’s class on Wednesdays. He is supporting the oral language component of the French curriculum. Students reviewed introducing themselves, their family and their interests and then had a chance to play pictionary en francais.
3. Half of the MACC 6/7 students signed up for a two session workshop on Physical Theatre at Evergreen Cultural Centre. Students learned some basic techniques and then went back this Friday to share skits and then revise their skits. Students will be writing a blog post about the workshops.
4. Last Friday, the grade 8’s presented a Medieval Feast. The grade 6/7’s had the chance to observe part of the feast. The students enjoyed seeing the grade 8’s dancing and acting in their roles. Some of the highlights were seeing some of the grade 8 MACC students piping, being jesters and puppeteers, and dancing.
5. Currently in PE students are split by gender. The girls have finished two weeks playing table tennis and the boys have finished two weeks of basketball. Next week, boys will begin table tennis and girls will begin basketball.
6. The Explorations term finished on Friday – students will be starting their new classes on Monday. Dramus will go to Art; Tech Ed will go to Dramus. Some Tech Ed projects are viewable here.
7. In HCE, grade 6’s have started a unit exploring overexcitabilities (based on research by Dabrowski). “Dabrowski’s work has become of great interest to educators concerned with the social and emotional development of gifted students. It has been my experience that helping gifted middle school students understand his concept of overexcitabilities gives them increased insight into their personality traits and reassures them that they are not alone in some of their feelings and reactions,” explains Cindy Strickland. A great list of resources is available here.
8. Last week, grade 6/7’s went to Vanier Park and the HR MacMillan Planetarium. Please see the two student blog posts about our day here and here.
9. Next week, remember that Wednesday is a Spirit Day. Students are encouraged to wear any sports jersey that they may have whether it is a local sports team they play on or professional sports team. If you don’t have a jersey, wear your favourite teams colours.
10. As we are still in the cold and flu season, we are encouraging students to wash their hands frequently and to sneeze or cough into their elbow and not their hands. If your son or daughter might need tissues because of a runny nose or Spring hayfever, please send a box of tissues to school with them.