Signed Report Card Envelopes and Math Assessments

Hello Everyone,

I'm just trying to round up the remaining signed report card envelopes.  It's important these come back for a variety of reasons.

1. It let's us know that you've seen it!
2. We can save paper and envelopes for the term 2 report cards
3. There is a space for you to write a comment, and those are always appreciated.

Also, please ensure you send back the latest math assessment and sign it.

Finally, the social studies unit test will be coming home soon.  Those will need to be signed as well.

Thank you!

Brandie

Field Study Pictures

Hello Families!

Here are some field study pictures from our most recent trips.

Parent Teacher Conferences - Student-Leds

Hello 7A Families,

This e-mail is regarding our upcoming parent-teacher conferences.  For this round, the grade 7 team will be formatting the conferences as Student-Led.  For those of you who have not participated in student-led conferences before, this e-mail will provide some explanations.

• Student-led Conferences are intended to show you, the parent, exactly what your child can do, rather than us just talking about it.  When you enter the room, you will pick up a “road map” that has a list of the different stations you can visit with your child.  Each station will consist of a task or activity that your child will complete.  Some stations might show examples of completed work for you to look at together.  There will be placard on each station that has the student criteria on it, and discussion questions for you to ask your child.
• As these conferences are student-led, it is important that your child attend with you.
• You will have some time to chat with us, but if you need a lot of time (or privacy) it would be advised that you set up a meeting with us at an alternative time.  There will be 3 other families working through the stations at the same time as you, so it’s not the most conducive for a structured, private, teacher interview.
• If you do not have your child with you, we can find time to chat if that is what you want, but again, if it is a private matter, an alternative time is recommended.
• If your child is on an IPP we are happy to organize some time to meet with you privately.  It is still important that your child show you their work, but if you would like to talk specifically about the IPP or other learning concerns, please let me know and we can figure out a time for that.
• The way booking will work for this is that we will have 3 open bookings/half hour time slot.

That covers pretty much everything.  We’ve been having a great year so far and have a lot of work to share with you, so hopefully we will see as many of you as we can!

Please let me know if you have any questions,

Brandie

Online Social Studies Textbook

Hi Families,

We have very few social studies textbooks in the school, but there is an online website that has all of the chapters scanned onto it.  I thought it might be good to share with all of you!

This link is also outlined on the class website.

Chapter link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=Zm1jc2QuYWIuY2F8bXMtbGVlLXMtZ3JhZGUtNy1jbGFzc3Jvb218Z3g6NTM1M2M0ODdhOTc5NjMwYw

The test will be coming home after it's been marked later this week, for you to sign.

Brandie

Pi Day and Pink Shirt Day

Hello Families,

Pi Day
On Friday, March 13 we will be having our annual Pi Day celebration.  For those of you new to Langevin, we typically celebrate Pi Day on March 13 (3.14), but this year it falls on a Saturday.

On Friday, we will be each classroom will have a Pi based activity, and we will rotate through all the classes, just like we do for Science Olympics.  Then at the end of the day we all eat pie together!

If you would be able to bring in some pies, please let me know.  It would be greatly appreciated!

Pi Recitation Competition
In addition to the activites and pie on the Friday, we will be having a contest on the 12th (the Thursday) to see which student can recite the most digits in Pi. This is another great Langevin competition, and is a lot of fun!

Pink Shirt Day
This Wednesday (two days from now!) is Pink Shirt Day.  This is a day when students wear pink shirts as an awareness about bullying.  As a school we do not do a community-wide event, but many classes will do activities and engage in important conversations about bullying.  For more information please go to: https://www.pinkshirtday.ca/

Please let me know if you have any questions,
Brandie

Important Dates

Important Dates:

• Pink Shirt Day - Wednesday, February 26
• Black History Month Concert, Jack Singer Hall - Thursday, February 27
• Central Library visit with buddies - Friday, February 28

• Devonian Garden - Monday, March
• Parent-Teacher Conferences - March 5 and 6
• Pi Day - March 13
• Earth Science for Society Field Study - March 17
• St. Patrick's Island - March 19
• PD Day - March 20
• Spring Break - March 23 - 27
• Good Friday - April 10
• PD Day - April 13
• Great March West program at Fort Calgary - April 15
• Esker Foundation and BITE - April 21
• Camp Chief Hector - June 8 - 11th

Class Update

Hello Parents of 7A students,

I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently.  It has been very busy since we returned to school, with report cards, kid inventor day, science olympics, field studies, and our large scale indoor garden project.

Here is an update of what is happening in class:

Language Arts: We are working in LA on writer's workshops (adverbs, adjectives, colons, semi-colons, figurative language, and descriptive language are just some of the concepts we have been looking at).  We have also been working on reading comprehension through a program called Notice and Note.  The students have been kept very busy in LA and we are seeing a lot of progress.  We have also started a new read aloud called, "The Skeleton Tree."

Math: We have just completed our Transformations unit.  In this unit we learned about translations, reflections, and rotations. We just did the unit test on Friday.  Student's will be bringing home their tests to be signed by parents tonight.

Social Studies: We have been learning about the 7 years war, and how it influenced the Canadian Identity.  In terms of social studies skills, we have created timelines, talked about cause and effect, and examined the differing perspectives of the British, French, and First Nations people.  Students will be writing a unit test on this on Tuesday.

Science: We are working on a large project that is supported by Parent Council and that has been collaborated with a group called Nature's Ride from the U of C.  We wanted to look at global food security issues, as well as local issues like food deserts and food affordability.  The grade 7 students have been designing growing apparatus' that can provide nutritious food in an indoor urban setting.  We are in the middle of construction, and everything is really moving along.  Students have also researched what they will grow, the life cycle of those plants, and how they reproduce.  This research has effectively covered our Plants for Food and Fibre unit.  The design of our growing appartus' is part of our on-going CTF work.  This task is also connected to some of the field studies we have done, including Journey 2050, and our visit to the Alex Community Food Centre.

Once this project is complete, we will have the full indoor garden set up in room 211, and we will turn it into a teaching garden where we will have placards and information centres that describe how food insecurity is a social justice issue.

Options: Students started new options this month.  The grade 7's are going to do a play this year! Each of the options will take on one part of the play preparation.

Important Dates:
Please see the class website for upcoming important dates. There will be another blog post soon that outlines the rest of the field studies for the year.

Brandie