Don't forget to keep an eye on the calendar for updates and important dates!

About our classroom

M. Mendes' Message

Welcome and bienvenue

Welcome and Bienvenue to another exciting and thrilling school year! I am pleased to be your child's teacher for the upcoming school year! I have a lot of great activities and lessons planned for the year! Hopefully the batteries were recharged and you are returning to school geared up and ready to go!

This year, we will work together as a team on several occasions to achieve the best results possible! Whether in French, Social Studies or on the school yard, building our classroom community will be important to achieving the best results possible. Our classroom theme for this year will be 'Make Your Mark!' We will look at many aspects of how we can make our mark within the classroom and around the school and in our community. Throughout our Classroom Meetings (Reunions de Classe), we will discuss ways to make our learning community the best possible for each one of us and talk about what everyone needs to achieve their goals. This will be a large part of our class meetings and built into several tasks and activities throughout the year. We will also discuss Growth Mindset and what it means to have a growth mindset. How can we live through a growth mindset and be the best version of ourselves.

Planners

Planners are an important communication tool between school and home. Your child will write in his or her Agenda every day sharing information related to our day’s learning along with upcoming activities or events. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns that you may have. I can be reached at the school via email at eric_mendes@wrdsb.ca.

Electric Communication

In order to communicate with students this year, your child has been set up on Google Classroom. Students will find reminders about tests and special events, learning resource links such videos and tutorials and digital homework assignments that may include responses to videos or articles related to our classroom learning. Students will be able to access this by using their Google login and password.

Homework

It is important for your child to read in French 20 minutes at least 4 times a week. This year, much of this reading will occur at school with the library being closed. As well as reading on a daily basis at home, Students should be looking at their Google Classroom for other activities and mini-projects that can be accomplished online.

Assessment

What is Assessment?

A large portion of our daily responsibility in class from both the students perspective and the teachers perspective is assessment. Everything that the students do in class is assessed. Whether or not it is a discussion with a peer or the teacher, a group activity, individual task or a test, everything that the students do is assessed either with a rubric, anecdotal note or formal grade.

How I Assess

Assessment will be completed daily in our classroom. Students will be assess 'for', 'as' and 'of' learning. What this means is that we will look at where students are at the beginnning of a learning cycle, assess them throughout to see their progress and finaly assess the students when our learning cycle is completed.

Additional help

It is my philosophy that each student take the initiative to ask for help from their classmates and from the teacher. Please encourage your son or daughter to come ask for some extra help during nutrition breaks and when required. Besides supervision and regular meetings, I am usually available for these sessions. It is up to your child to seek out this assistance.

Personal Devices

We are very fortunate at WT Townshend to have a variety of devices. As such, personal devices are not needed in the classroom. Cell phones also are not necessary as if there is an emergency and you require to contact your child during the school day, or your child requires to contact you during the day, they may use the school phone in our classroom.

classroom expectations

In order to establish a safe, positive and respectful classroom community, we will practice (rehearse) all of our classroom routines, procedures and expectations until they are automatic. Students will be reminded of the appropriate way to demonstrate an expectation and then asked to redo it. Here is an example of a safety expectation: The expectation is that when we enter the classroom, we walk in (not run).

If a behaviour continues with repeated interventions (3 strikes, moving to different part of the clasroom), the student may be asked to take a reflective walk, grab some water then return to the classroom. If a behaviour continues to be unsafe, the student may be “removed” from the classroom to the office.

Should we see behavious continue, you will receive communication from us either through Class Dojo or a phone call letting you know which expectation your child was struggling with, along with a possible need for a meeting.

STEAM Learning

In Room 22, we are a 21st Century learning community, which means that there is a lot of learning through doing. I use STEAM learning as an inspiration for learning and connecting our curriculum to the real-world.

STEAM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in five specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teach the five disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEAM integrates them into a cohesive learning program

Engineering process

We pride ourselves on using the Engineering Process as a part of all our learning. Making sure that the process is followed is crucial to all learning in our class. Whether in French Language or Social Studies, we use this process to ask important questions, imagine ideas, plan, create and iterate our projects!

Some STEAM Project Examples

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