Week of December 12th

PYP 8 News

Week of December 12th, 2016

Dear Parents, It is the last week of school before our holiday break but there is still a lot of good learning and fun to be had! Here is a rundown of some of the special activities PYP 8 will be participating in this week: Monday- Math Competition at lunch Tuesday- Buddy Reading (PYP 8 will be reading to PYP 2 and PYP 3) Wednesday- Master Chef and St. Francis Idol (Periods 3-4) Thursday- Afternoon movie Friday- Pantomime The last day of school is on Friday and it will be a half day for students. Please check your child’s diary for information about the holiday reading log. Nothing prepares students to return back to school better than keeping up with their reading. Have a safe and happy holiday!

PYP8

Week of 12th December 2016

Homework

Language: Exhibition Catch-up (students can decide what they need to work on most)

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Portuguese: Will be given by Portuguese teachers.

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Maths: No HW

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Unit of Inquiry:  No HW

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Week of December 5th, 2016

PYP 8 News

Week of December 5th, 2016

Dear Parents, Thanks to all for participating in the Parent-Teacher conferences last week. We all felt they led to productive conversations about students´ learning. Please keep conversations open regarding Exhibition with your child and how they are progressing with their report targets.   Last week we were able to learn a lot about advertising from the professionals at the Thompson Advertising Agency. This week is another PYP 8 field trip. On Wednesday, all three classes will travel to 32a Bienal de Artes in our Exhibition groups to get inspired by art related to each group's issue. In class, our Unit focus will be debating. Students will look at opposing perspectives regarding an issue and try to figure out a way to convince the class to agree with their point of view.

PYP8

Week of December 5th 2016

Homework

Language: Summarizing an article (see G.C. for complete directions)

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Portuguese: Will be given by Portuguese teachers.

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Maths: MyImaths: Word Problems

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Unit of Inquiry:  Prepare for class debate

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Week of 28th of November

PYP 8 News

Week of 28th November, 2016

Dear Parents, Last week St. Francis said goodbye to our Mexican exchange students. The exchange students said they had a great time and we would like to thank everyone for making them feel at home. This week PYP 8 Beta and Sigma will be visiting the Thompson Advertising Agency on Tuesday, and PYP 8 Omega on Wednesday. Last week students began planning and creating their own advertisements, so this trip will be a great opportunity for students to extend their knowledge by seeing how professionals go about designing advertising campaigns. It should be fun! Please remember to book a meeting with your student´s homeroom teacher this week on "you can book me". Parent meetings are on Thursday, Dec 1st. We look forward to reflecting on another productive term.

PYP8

Week of 28th November 2016

Homework

Language: Exhibition Reading (See Google Classroom for complete directions)

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Portuguese: Will be given by Portuguese teachers.

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Maths: MyImaths: Number lines with negative numbers

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Unit of Inquiry:  Cancelled due to parents meetings

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PYP 8 News

Week of 21st November, 2016

Dear Parents, Last week St. Francis welcomed students from Mexico who will be visiting until this Friday. It is a great chance to share cultures and gain new perspectives from other parts of the world. Perfect for concepts we are exploring in Unit 3! This week we will continue looking into persuasion techniques, and how language and images can be used for positive change. Students will begin to investigate slogans and think about how they can be used to increase awareness of a global issue.

Week of 21st November 2016

Homework

Language: Exhibition Reading (See Google Classroom for complete directions)

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Portuguese: Will be given by Portuguese teachers.

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Maths: MyImaths: Area of 2d shapes or Volume of cuboids

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Unit of Inquiry:  Slogans (Directions will be given on Google Classroom)

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News Week of 7th November, 2016

PYP 8 News Dear Parents, Last week PYP 8 had a great time wrapping up Unit 2 by conducting their very own science experiments. Students were given the opportunity to apply their knowledge of the scientific method to learn about a natural phenomena they were interested in. This week we are beginning Unit 3 to investigate bias and perspective in different media types. We are also looking forward to another excellent assembly by PYP 8 Sigma. Hope to see you there! Julia experimenting with different weights. João and Raphael measuring distance.

PYP8

Week of 7th November 2016

Homework

Language: Find an online news article (see Google Classroom for good websites) related to your exhibition group. Read the article to become familiar with it. You will use this article again next week.

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Portuguese: Will be given by Portuguese teachers.

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Maths: MyImaths: Coordinates and graphing

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Unit of Inquiry:  Create a list of at least 10 ads you have seen that day. It can be from TV, the internet, print (newspapers / magazines / books / comics) or billboards on the street or in malls / stores.

Use the following sheet to record your ads.

Recording daily ad intake homework

Answer the following questions:

“Do you make your own choices about what products / services you buy? Who or what influences you? How do you make choices about what you want and what you buy?”

“How do ads influence your life? Do you think your life is better because we have ads? Justify your answer?”

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Homework: 31st October, 2016

PYP8

Week of 26th September 2016

Homework

Monday,

Language: Language homework, watch brainpop video about the scientific method and fill in the blanks

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Tuesday,

Portuguese: Will be handed out by Portuguese teachers

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Wednesday,

Maths: See MyImaths; work on circles and angles

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Thursday,

Unit of Inquiry:  Write observation notes about what they saw from other people's science experiments.

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Thanks from the PYP8 Team

Mr. Benzie, Mr. Peterson, Mr. Hurst, Mrs. Spalla, Mr. Oliveira and Ms. Bianco.

News: 31st October, 2016

PYP 8 News

Week of 31st October, 2016

Dear Parents, Halloween has been an impressive day here at St. Francis College - most students in PYP 8 dressed up in both scary and creative costumes. The effort that went into these costumes was evident. We all had the opportunity to ´trick or treat´ at Mrs. Hazels office in exchange for candy. This past week, an excellent assembly from PYP Beta highlighted the  work the entire grade did over the last few weeks about forces and Newton´s Law. This past week saw students learn about the scientific method as both a scientific process and an everyday tool for thinking, discovering and solving daily problems.

Our work in Class… This past week, as we explored the scientific method, we all created different types of paper airplanes and thought about how to create a hypothesis as an If.. Then.. statement. Students were able to create a hypothesis based on what they thought  their paper airplanes would do. Experiments were set up too prove these hypotheses. This week students are taking that knowledge and applying what they already know about the scientific method and creating their own experiments with a hypothesis and research to back it up. Our main focus this week in language is to write a science report that merges science, inquiry and language. In Maths we are working on angles, circles and shapes in general. This includes understanding how to read and write angles, the properties of a circle and the meaning of π!

Things to remember, coming up…. Wednesday 2nd November: All souls day - No School Thursday 3rd November: EYs and Primary parent coffee Friday 11th November - Remembrance day - Poppies on sale Monday 14th - Tuesday 15th: No School

Homework of week 24th of October, 2016

PYP8

Week of 24th of October 2016

Homework

Monday,

Language: Language homework, fill in the blanks about Newton's laws.

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Tuesday,

Portuguese: Will be handed out by Portuguese teachers

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Wednesday,

Maths: See Myimaths; work on shape and space

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Thursday,

Unit of Inquiry:  prediction vs. hypothesis

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Thanks from the PYP8 Team

Mr. Benzie, Mr. Peterson, Mr. Hurst, Mrs. Spalla, Mr. Oliveira and Ms. Bianco.

News Week of 24 October, 2016

PYP 8 News

Week of 24th of October, 2016

Dear Parents, We have been very focused on the PYP 8 exhibition this past week. Most of you attended the parents meeting which included a chance for your child to show you the work they have been doing in regards to finding their passions, getting into their groups and beginning to start researching. We spent a considerable amount of time last Wednesday in a workshop with students explaining how to turn their ideas and passions into a Central Idea. For many groups the Central Ideas are final and will be used to focus and define their research. A few groups are still going to continue to work on their Central idea, tweaking words and phrases, to help aid in clarity and understanding. The next step in the Exhibition process is to start writing lines of inquiry that will further guide our research. For further reference, here are the google slides from the PYP 8 exhibition parent´s meeting - PYP 8 Exhibition - parents meeting slides

Our work in Class… This week we are looking forward to a PYP8 Beta assembly where they will be presenting their work on Isaac Newton and his 3 laws of motion. This is work all the classes in PYP 8 have been doing and have been presenting to their classmates. This work has been influencing their Rube Goldberg Machines, nonsensical machines that use materials such as marbles, dominoes and ramps to demonstrate the laws of motion. We will continue to work on understanding the Scientific Method this week, including forming a hypothesis based on an observation in nature and designing an experiment to test and prove this hypothesis. This will link in with developing further research skills to back up their hypothesis with scientific evidence. Since our work with the exhibition took over a lot of our time last week, we will be catching up with math skills and getting back into the swing of reading on a regular basis and developing good reading habits and comprehension skills.

Things to remember, coming up…. Wednesday 26th October: Half day - Teacher´s professional development afternoon Monday 31st October: Halloween dress up Wednesday 2nd November: All souls day - No School Thursday 3rd November: EYs and Primary parent coffee Friday 11th November - Remembrance day - Poppies on sale

Lição de casa - Pretérito Perfeito


Grupo 1
Grupo 2
Grupo 3

Homework Week of 17th October, 2016

PYP8

Week of 17th October, 2016

Homework

Monday,

Language: Work on character traits

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Tuesday,

Portuguese: Will be handed out by Portuguese teachers

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Wednesday,

Maths: See MyImaths; about our work with decimals

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Thursday,

Unit of Inquiry:  Write feedback from observations made when observing other student´s Rube Goldberg Machines.

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News Week of 17th October, 2016

PYP 8 News

Week of 17th of October, 2016

Dear Parents, I hope everybody had a fantastic and restful Half-Term break. But we start back full tilt as our science unit continues and our Exhibition Journey is well underway. For the exhibition we are focusing on developing research skills and how to use the internet effectively for research. The skill we have been focusing on is how to evaluate if a website is going to be useful and appropriate for our research purposes. Before the holiday students presented their findings, which included an experiment or demonstration regarding their understanding of Newton´s three laws and other natural forces that govern our lives. The next few weeks are full of reasons for parents to come into school to see what we are up to. Of course we have the Exhibition parents meeting on Friday, but also both PYP 8 Beta and Sigma have their assemblies coming up in the next few weeks. We enjoyed such a wonderful assembly about Peraltas from PYP 8 Omega!

Our work in Class… We will be starting to introduce the Scientific Method this week to help guide students along their own inquiry paths to further their understanding of our central idea, Natural Laws Help us to Understand and Explore the World Around Us. Students will understand that good scientific research starts with a strong question that is based on something they have observed in the world, or have wondered about. We will make sure students have a strong grasp of conducting science experiments where only one variable is changed. In language students are finishing up their Science Fiction stories, with a strong focus on editing skills. We are going to begin work on explanation texts, this will link to the work we will be doing on Rube Goldberg Machines, which are nonsensical machines that explore Physics, Newton´s laws and Cause and Effect. As students start designing their own machines, they will write explanation texts about them that explain their understanding of scientific principles. Our math work is involving multiplying and dividing decimals by factors of 10 and learning about place value on the right side of the decimal point.

Things to remember this week…. Friday 21st October - Exhibition workshop for Parents

Thanks from the PYP8 Team

Mr. Benzie, Mr. Peterson, Mr. Hurst, Mrs. Spalla, Mr. Oliveira and Ms. Bianco.