October 2009 Newsletter
October Newsletter (PDF version)
Junior Kindergarten – Mrs. Michèle Gignac-Lamoureux
In October, fall took hold and we settled into a wonderful routine in Junior Kindergarten.
We almost never cry any more, early in the morning or during the day. The students
seem very happy and I can already see wonderful friendships taking shape.
Since the Thanksgiving holiday, I talk to the girls in French only. The majority
understand me rather well. Each week, the students learn the new vocabulary with Mrs.
Pham. They manage very well.
On October 14th, during Opera Lyra’s performance, the students were very attentive,
like big girls. On October 29th, to have fun, we made Halloween cookies. Many thanks to
the parents who helped us. On October 30th, the grade 8 students organized a
wonderful Halloween party. Congratulations!
In November, we will commemorate Remembrance Day and “La Sainte-Catherine”. We
will also go to the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
Senior Kindergarten – Mrs. Nicole Duguay
It is already November and the first term is almost over. The students work well and
time passes very quickly. On November 25th, we will go on our first outing with the
Junior Kindergarten, to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Parents wishing
to accompany us are most welcome. During this month, we will discuss the seasons
and the passing of time. We will review the months of the year and will work on our
temporal orientation. In class, we have begun the writing of small dictations and the
reading of syllables. In December, we will prepare for Christmas. We will concentrate on
this theme throughout the month. Together, we will write a letter to Santa Claus to
ensure that he doesn’t forget us.
Grade 1 – Mrs. Véronic Beauchamp
The girls of Grade One really work very hard. They master without difficulty the days of
the week and the months of the year. Recently, they have been able to place more than
six words in alphabetical order, even if Mrs. Beauchamp sometimes has fun setting
traps -- which they outsmart! Carry on with your home reading. Most of the girls in the
class are able to read complete sentences in the Lexibul book. I am very proud of their
progress.
Don’t forget the parent-teacher meetings which will take place at the end of November. I
look forward to seeing you on November 26 or 27.
Grade 1 – Mrs. Donna Jones
October was a wonderful month in Grade One. The students learned many new poems
about fall, Thanksgiving and Halloween. We are learning to identify rhyming words in
poems and enjoy reciting them.
In November, we will continue to work on short vowel sounds and add to our list of sight
words.
Grade 2 – Mrs. Véronic Beauchamp
What a busy month of October we had! The girls of Grade Two completed successfully
a writing project in which they had to present three safety rules for Halloween night.
They needed to compose their sentences according to a well-defined plan. Bravo for
their fabulous work! Also, by using a book titled “Zloukch” as a starting point, the girls
invented animals which they presented in class. They are so expressive and dynamic!!
Don’t forget the parent-teacher meetings which will take place at the end of November. I
look forward to seeing you on November 26 or 27.
Grade 2 – Mrs. Donna Jones
We are now well settled into our new routines and schedules. The girls work very hard
and the mornings pass so quickly.
The girls did a great job helping others this month. They filled our box for the Ottawa
Food Bank in a few days. They enjoyed watching our box fill and liked knowing that they
were helping others in our community. Good work girls!
In November, we will begin our animal research project. The students will be working
with a partner to research a favourite animal. We will invite the parents in to view our
projects once they have been completed.
Grade 3 – Mrs. Annie Duchesne
October is a month during which poems and pumpkins are celebrated in grade three!
The students composed splendid poems and decorated superb pumpkins which they
proudly presented to parents and friends at school. Many thanks to Anne-Sophie for her
help!
We invite you to read our poem titled L’Halloween. It is a collective creation of which we
are very proud. Our dark, dark, dark story has, once again, enabled us become more
proficient in the agreement of adjectives.
We loved our participation in the soccer tournament and the Pumpkin Race! I want to
highlight the admirable gesture that two friends made when Caroline Parson fell. They
stopped their race to come to her rescue! You impressed me!
We also enjoyed Opéra Lyra very much. The animals made us laugh!
L’Halloween
L’Halloween est notre fête préférée
Car nous pouvons nous déguiser
Fantômes, sorcières, vampires et chats noirs
Sortent le soir
À la recherche des bonbons sucrés
Les enfants ont si hâte de les manger
Les rues sont très bien décorées
On dirait des maisons hantées
N’oubliez pas les conseils de sécurité
Que votre professeur vous a enseignés
Poem composed by the grade three class
Grade 3 – Ms. Sabine Neubert
After receiving our successful Interim Report Cards, we are already heading towards
the end of the first term. Writing our creative Halloween stories kept us busy in English.
In Math, we are exploring neat patterns in addition and subtraction, and practicing some
useful skills to speed up our mental math. The ‘Mad Minute’ has become a part of our
afternoons that everybody is looking forward to.
In Science, we presented our Design Projects. They are very interesting and
impressive, and show how much ‘scientific thinking’ has gone into them. They will be
displayed outside our classroom during the parent-teacher meetings in November.
Grade 4 – Mrs. Elaine Bartlett
The grade 4 students have worked with great enthusiasm on their animal research
projects and have produced interesting and informative reports. Congratulations to them
all. Their written documents and dioramas (done in Madame Meurillion’s art class) will
be displayed in the upstairs hallway. Please take a moment to come and take a look at
their spectacular work.
Grade 4 – Mrs. Anne Meurillon
With the arrival of November, the days are increasingly cold and short but your girls’
enthusiasm is contagious as always! They enjoy listening to me read from our first
novel, La grenouille et la baleine. We are also learning reading comprehension
together! In grammar, we are learning the rules of noun gender and number. The girls
appreciate the exercises that their grammar book offers them. Moreover, they have now
also learned to conjugate verbs in the past tense.
Your girls have completed their splendid habitats in Art and, in Social Studies, we have
enriched our vocabulary with a number of terms related to relief and water. In the weeks
to come, I will have the pleasure of reading the stories your children will have written. I
am sure that I will not be disappointed! I always thoroughly enjoy teaching such a
brilliant and dynamic group!
Grade 5 – Mrs. Erin Elliott
October has been another very busy month in Grade 5! Our time together has certainly
flown by, as the girls continue to get settled into routines. In Mathematics, we have been
working very diligently on our second unit, Whole Numbers, and have learned many
different strategies for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing six digit numbers.
We have finished work in our first Language Arts reader and have begun our first novel
study, Roald Dahl’s humourous fantasy Matilda. Although many of the girls have read or
seen the film version, we are all very much enjoying the story. After the holiday
weekend, we had the opportunity to enjoy the Opera Lyra presentation of “The Breman
Town Musicians” and, more recently, we participated in the Pumpkin Run. We were all
very excited for our costume day, pumpkin decorating contest and other Halloween
activities.
Grade 5 – Mrs. Anne Meurillon
We are reaching our cruising speed in grade 5. Your girls wrote splendid recipes and
are now getting ready to write an adventure story. I can’t wait to read them! We have
worked very hard in grammar on the gender and number of nouns and adjectives, and
the girls are now assimilating a new conjugation tense: the conditional. Also, they have
already finished reading our first novel Qui veut enter dans la légende? We will continue
activities linked to this book in the coming weeks.
In Social Studies, we are discovering together geographical coordinates. Latitude and
longitude, as well as time zones, are not concepts that are very easy to integrate.
Therefore, we are taking our time and we are doing whole class and small group
activities, in order to foster co-operative learning. As always, I thoroughly enjoy teaching
your girls!
Grade 6 – Mrs. Sabine Neubert
In English, we are in the full swing of things. Soon we should have completed our novel
study. The girls presented their book reports successfully and inspired each other to
read some of the many interesting books that were introduced. Their creativity in our
writing activities is truly impressive.
Our girls are learning fast about the challenges of grade 6 when it comes to organizing
the workload and to working efficiently during preparation time. I am very confident that,
by the end of the first term, they will have adjusted well.
During the last month, we also held our elections for class president and I am looking
forward to a fruitful cooperation with Ambika, who has already shown great initiative in
class-related matters. Congratulations, Ambika!
I would also like to thank Catherine Labelle Chambers, Sophia Didier, and Ambika
Aggarwall for their initiative in organizing a bake sale with the goal of donating the
earned money to CHEO. What a great idea and what a good cause. Thanks also to
their parents for their support.
Grade 6 – Mrs. Catherine Pham
The girls have completed amazing projects in Social Studies. Their research and the
information they gathered have exceeded anything I have read in the past! You have
become specialists in Native Studies, girls!
Halloween rounded out October and we wrote scary stories, populated with witches,
bats and other sinister screechings. November will immerse us into the universe of Van
Gogh, as we follow Jo, the heroin of our novel Vincent et moi, in Amsterdam on the
traces of a forger. As we are watching the movie at the same time as we are reading the
novel, we are able to discuss the respective qualities of these two media and are
learning how to write a biography. Also, every Thursday, we read a story to the Senior
Kindergarten class. What a pleasant way of practicing expressive reading while
developing a wonderful relationship with Mrs. Nicole’s little students!
Grade 6 Math – Mrs. Kathleen Forestell
Another month has already gone by and we have been very hard at work in our
geometry unit. The girls have been able to make use of their geometry sets, while using
their compasses and protractors and have had some fun drawing 3-dimensional
pictures of objects on isometric dot paper. We are well on our way into our fourth unit on
decimals, which has us practicing, once again, our multiplication and division skills.
Keep up the good work girls, you’re doing great!
Grade 7 Mathematics and Science – Mrs. Kathleen Forestell
Our geometry and measurement unit ended with quite a fun project – Making Food for a
Bake Sale. The girls not only calculated the cost of the baked goods, but also designed
a three-dimensional box to store them in. Also, some of the girls baked their goodies so
that, while presenting our projects to each other, we were able to enjoy one another’s
tasty treats. Currently, we are working on our fourth unit on fractions and decimals and
we will end the term with data management. Very good work everyone!
In Science, the girls have now completed the first unit, which was all about interactions
in our ecosystems. We completed our first really messy lab, where everyone wore
goggles and lab coats. During this lab, we hypothesized about which materials would
best clean up an oil spill. The girls then built a model ecosystem and created an oil spill,
which they had to clean up. To end the unit, we calculated our ecological footprint and
all made some decisions on how to decrease it over the school year. Now, we are
studying structures. This unit will bring us more into the physics side of science, which I
am looking forward to. Good job to everyone!
Grade 7 Language Arts – Mrs. Kristin Greenacre
This month, the students completed their novel study of The Keeper of the Isis Light .
They performed very powerful and informative hypnotic speeches, preparing emigrants
from Earth for life on a new planet. The girls have begun to work on the unit end project,
creating a brochure for visitors to the planet Isis. This project offers a chance to work
with formatting on the computer, graphic design and their many creative skills. They
have continued their work in grammar and the writing process. We had a great month
working together!
Grade 8 Mathematics and Science – Mrs. Kathleen Forestell
The grade 8 girls have been very hard at work, as we have now completed the
geometry unit, as well as the fractions unit. We are currently working on our data
management unit, which everyone seems particularly strong in. During this unit, the girls
will be designing a survey and will then survey others in class. They may even ask
others outside of class, depending on the population that they choose to sample. So
watch out, as you may be surveyed by one of the grade eight girls here at Joan of Arc
Academy.
In Science, we have now completed the first of four units. Not only did the girls learn all
about cells, but they also brought all their knowledge together to create their very own
‘cell’ theme parks. Ideas ranged from vacuoles acting as toilets, golgi apparatus being
roller coasters and even cell membranes being the guarded gates. Everyone was very
creative! We are now working on the second unit, which covers systems in action. I look
forward to seeing what the girls come up with in this unit. Very good work to everyone!
Grade 8 Language Arts – Ms. Kristin Greenacre
The students continued to work on their novel study of To Kill A Mockingbird this month.
They wrote personal accounts that related to aspects of the story and continued their
comprehension and vocabulary exercises. We have been working diligently on the
expectations and formatting of essays and reports, as the girls will be writing their first
essay in Language Arts this upcoming month. The students are developing a strong
sense of structure and of what will be expected at the high school level for written
assignments. We had a great month working together!
Grades 7 and 8 – Mrs. Nadia Pasqua-Cooper
During October, the girls of the intermediate level kept themselves very busy. In grade
8, the organization and animation of a haunted house for the grade 5,6, and 7 classes
on Halloween were a great success. Now that the auditions for Cyrano de Bergerac are
completed, the actors are dedicating themselves to memorizing the verses and the
deepening of their characters. We hope that you will join us during the performance in
January 2010. In grade 7, the girls have studied the first chapters of their novel Enfants
de la Rébellion and will undertake various comprehension and expression activities. It
has been an exciting month!
Physical Education – Mrs. Isabelle Murray
Congratulations to all the girls of 3rd to 5th grades who participated in the Pumpkin Race
which took place on October 20th. Our girls performed well during the race. Bravo!
Congratulations to the girls of the intermediate level who are participating in the OISAA
soccer league which is comprised of five schools: Turnbull, Hillel, Elmwood and
Macdonald Cartier. After the end of the regular season, we have two wins, four losses
and two tied games. All our losses were by scores of only 1 to 0.
We will take part in the finals at the end of October or the beginning of November. Good
luck in the finals girls and congratulations for your wonderful performance during the
regular season.
Good luck to the grade 4 to 6 soccer teams and to our intermediate volleyball team
which will be involved in tournaments in November. Go Cyclones go!
Library News – Ms. Sabine Neubert
In November, we will be holding our popular Used Book Exchange again. The girls can
bring up to seven (7) books in good condition, and will then be able to pick the same
number of books from those that other girls have brought in. Dates to bring in books will
be November 16 and 17, during lunch recess in the library. Dates for choosing books
will be November 19 and 20, also during lunch recess, in the library. This will be an
optional activity. A reminder will be sent in November.
Chess Club –Ms. Sabine Neubert
I am happy to announce that our traditional chess club for interested girls in grades 3
and up is back. About 18 students come to the library on Tuesdays during lunch recess
in order to learn how to play chess or to improve their skills, under the supervision of
their experienced teacher Mr. Pran Manga. Thank you once again, Mr. Manga, for
giving them this great opportunity.
Opera Lyra - Ms. Sabine Neubert
On October 14 at 10:00, our girls were in for a treat. Opera Lyra came to our school to
perform The Bremen Town Musicians. It was almost as interesting to study the girls’
faces during the show and to see how captivated and involved they were, as it was to
watch the excellent, humorous and very entertaining performance itself. What a great
opportunity to experience culture and professionalism, and to learn about friendship and
determination.
Regulations:
- At the end of the school day, for safety reasons please wait for your children in the school yard, behind the fence or in the parents’ lounge, and not in the parking lot. No children are allowed to cross the fence to meet their parents in the parking lot.
- The yard supervisors are there to ensure that every child leaving is accompanied by an adult
- Be very attentive and careful when entering and leaving the lot and when parking. To reduce the chance of vehicles endangering the well-being of our girls, a pedestrian walkway has been marked from the school yard to the parking lot. If all use the walkway (forming a C shape, see diagram below), no one should be walking across the area of the parking lot indicated in dark gray, at any time.
- Designated Parking Areas:
- Facing the Queensway, leaving the walkway clear
- Along the East side fence facing towards West End Villa
- Facing the garden fence, leaving the walkway clear
- The drop-off zone is a drop-off zone and not a parking lot.
- Never park in front of the green fence separating the schoolyard from the parking lot. Also, be careful to avoid hitting and damaging the fence. A damaged fence cannot protect the children as intended and it may even be rendered inoperable.
- Never block another vehicle that is using designated parking.
- Park with the front of the car into the parking space (to avoid backing up into the areas where children walk).
- Remember that the speed limit is 5 km/h and that children may appear unexpectedly in the parking lot, even during classes.
- We thank you for exercising constant vigilance when driving on our property.
Reminder regarding allergies to scents
A number of students and staff members have severe allergies to perfumes. To prevent allergic reactions, it is therefore very important that students, personnel and visitors refrain from wearing any perfume or scented product at school. Thank you in advance for you cooperation.
Fee free to contact us
This is your school and your opions counts. For any comments, questions or general inquiried, do not hesitate to call 613.728.6364 or to e-mail us at: administration@joanofarcacademy.com
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