What else is keeping us busy?

In addition to all of the extra work we are doing to prepare for Ms. Sandy's visit,
we are keeping up with many other concepts and projects, too!



In Math, we have started learning about percentages and watched the video, "If the World Were a Village" to start seeing how this concept truly applies to the world around us. This video, based on the book of the same name, shared many interesting facts about our world's population, including the percentage of people who have access to clean drinking water as well as those who do not consistently have enough food to eat.



In Français, we continue to work on designing our monsters! Once the rough sketch of our monster is complete, we will begin drafting out detailed, step-by-step instructions of how to draw our monster, being sure to use the proper verb tense as well as the correct vocabulary words when writing our "monster method." The anchor charts currently posted on one of our bulletin boards are helping us choose the best words to explain our thinking. They are also helping us correctly spell key vocabulary words and use the proper articles (le/la/un/une/des)
for each noun.
We are very excited about this project and we can't wait to share our writing with our classmates
and the students from Mme McKenzie's class!  👾

A visit from Ms. Toth!

One of our next steps in preparing for Ms. Sandy's visit is looking at the type of Math problems
we will be solving when creating our step-by-step problem-solving guide.
We were very fortunate to have Ms. Toth (our school division's Numeracy Coordinator) with us
this morning as we jumped in and got to work.

After finding our group (a randomized group of 3), we found our spots at the white boards and began working through the steps to solve a series of picture problems. Each card contained a variety a shapes, each of a different value. We had to solve for each shape so that the picture remained balanced
(both sides of the balance were of equal).

As we solved each question, we needed to explain our thinking to Ms. Toth and/or Mme Careen before moving on to the next question. Some questions were certainly easier to balance than others! The more we worked through the problems, the more we were able to come up with different strategies and negotiate the most effective way to solve for each shape.

Some groups were able to work through all 8 problems and then were tasked with 2 next steps:
1) Writing a basic algebraic equation to represent the problem.
2) Creating their own "balance" problem for another group (or teacher!) to solve.

We worked really hard this morning and our brains all got a little bit bigger from all the Math thinking we did!

We will revisit these same problems next week, this time looking at how to represent each step of our process with both an equation and a written sentence to explain our thinking. Ms. Toth will also be back to help guide us as we begin these next steps and we can't wait to work with her again! :)

Dear Ms. Sandy,

Our first task in getting ready to meet Ms. Sandy is replying to the letter she wrote to us.

We worked with Mme Champagne to learn all about the components of a friendly letter and brainstormed ideas of what we might share about ourselves when writing our responses.

After learning the main parts of a friendly letter, Mme Champagne shared her letter with us. We enjoyed learning about her cat and thought the comparison of her house to a box of chocolate milk was both funny and descriptive!

We then got to work on our own letters to Ms. Sandy. We had one class to write our rough drafts before peer-editing and writing our good copies in our ELA class with Ms. Miller.

Our letters will be delivered to Ms. Sandy for her to read before she meets us at the end of April. 

The first part of our first day together will be spent discussing our letters as a group and she'll be taking the time to talk to each one of us about something we wrote so she can get to know us better.

What a special way to kick off our week of learning together!

An EXCITING Announcement!

Happy Monday families!

Although most of our morning was spent saying "cheese!" in the gym, we did manage to squeeze in some time for a very important visit from Mme Buckwold, who stopped by to share some very exciting news!

Here is the text from the letter that Mme Careen sent home with us today:

April 10, 2017

Dear families,

I am very excited to announce that Room 208 (that’s us!) will be participating in an upcoming reading and writing residency here at Ness Middle School. The residency will take place Tuesday, April 25 – Friday, April 28, 2017. We will have the opportunity to work with Ms. Sandy Figueroa, a sought-after educator in the areas of reading and writing.

Ms. Sandy will be working with our class every morning in Mathématiques. Together, we will explore the elements of technical writing as they apply to our mathematical reasoning in problem solving. Our goal is to publish our writing on our classroom blog as well as create a problem-solving manual that will be shared both here in our school library as well as with Ms. Sandy’s students at her school in Tucson, Arizona.

As we work with Ms. Sandy, a group of teachers and administrators will also be observing our learning. The purpose of this residency is not only to enhance our (Room 208’s) learning, but also to support all students and teachers in becoming more effective readers and writers across all content areas.

Attached to this letter, you will find two copies of the Student Permission Request Letter. As explained in the letter itself, one copy is to be returned to me and the other is for you to keep. Please fill in the letter and return one copy to the school (me) as soon as possible. 

We are very fortunate to have this opportunity to work with Ms. Sandy! It will truly be an incredible week of learning for all involved!

Most sincerely,

Mme A. Careen

Participating in this upcoming residency will certainly be a lot of work, but will provide us with such an amazing opportunity to grow incredibly in our mathematical reasoning and our technical writing. In the coming weeks, in addition to working with Mme Careen, we will also have the chance to collaborate with Mme Champagne, Ms. Miller and Ms. Toth (one of our school division's numeracy coordinators) as we best prepare ourselves for Ms. Sandy's visit. We will be posting many updates of our "front-loading" (a fancy word for all of the learning we will be doing before Ms. Sandy's arrival) to our blog, so be sure to check back often!

What a great way to kick off our week!
We can't wait to get started! :)

An intro to technical writing

"Technical writing" sure sounds like something complicated, but we're starting to learn that it's a type of writing 

we both see and write with on a regular basis.

When reviewing our "balancing a subtraction" mental math strategy in class this morning, we started by writing out the steps to solve an example equation. We explained the steps of the process using short, specific sentences that include key Math vocabulary terms, such as:
Additionner (add), unité (ones), terme (term), nombres (numbers), soustraire (subtract).

Writing out the steps of a strategy as if we were explaining the process to someone else helps us deepen our own learning and truly internalize the strategy/concept being taught.

We will continue to learn about technical writing as we begin to incorporate more writing in Math.
(We will also see this genre "popping up" in Science and Français too, so be sure to stay tuned)!

Problem solving!

We haven't wasted any time jumping right into our work with problem solving!

We're working in randomized groups of 3 at the whiteboards to collaboratively solve different types of open-ended Math problems. The above picture shows us finding all the possible 6 digit numbers with a sum of 51.

We have also started collaborating in groups at the whiteboards for word problems. Mme Careen reads the problem with us before we take a copy of the question to our whiteboard working space. We have a chance to share our ideas and strategies while working through the problem with our group. Once we have found the answer, we need to make sure that each group member understands the steps taken to arrive at the solution before returning to our spots. We then have time to independently write out our solutions on our own question sheet (referring back to the whiteboards and conferring with our group members if need be) before handing in our work.

It's great to be back!

Welcome back, 208!
It was SO great to see everyone back at school this morning and hear all about your wonderful
Spring Break adventures!

I hope you all had a great week off and are ready to jump back in to learning!
We have a lot of exciting things coming up this month and I just can't wait to get started! :)