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November 2013

@Mac Link
Home and School News
Home & School Our kids are worth it!
Macdonald High Home & School has had a wonderful start to the year. Our Membership Chair, Julie Lafontaine, had such a successful campaign that we are now 44 families strong! Members are the mainstay of the Home & School, and we value your support. The more members we have, the louder our voice when we are working on issues that concern all families. It isnt too late to join, just visit the Home & School link on the Mac High website, where you can find more information on how to become a member. Home & School has been successful with our recent Lamontagne Catalogue and Chapters fundraising campaigns! Id like to thank Libby Madramootoo, fundraising coordinator, for her efforts. Thank you, also, to all who participated. Funds earned will be used to help cover the costs of our commitment to buy; Book Awards for Grades 7-10 Celebrate our great Mac Staff during Teacher/Staff Appreciation week Finish off last years Fan Club campaign Work on requests we receive over the year. I hope to meet you at one of our meetings, Casey Stilwell President, Mac H&S machands@yahoo.ca

Mac Link

Highlights:
Home and School Principals message Dance Guidance Sports & Clubs School Events Science Music Sponsors 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 11 13

Reminder: Lamontagne Catalog order pick-up: November 28, 2013

http://macdonaldhighhomeandschool.weebly.com
Our next meetings take place;
Macdonald High School 17 rue Maple, Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue H9X 2E5 (T) 514-457-3770 (F) 514-457-8959 Editors : Tara Glover Jennifer Mohr

Dec 16, 2013 Jan 20, 2014 Feb 17, 2014 Mar 17, 2014 Apr 14, 2014 May 12, 2014 Jun 16, 2014

Our meetings are open to all, so please feel free to join us. These meetings allow us to learn whats in store for the coming school year, and to keep up-to-date on issues that involve our children. Our meetings are primarily a forum to hear members ideas on where we should be spending our energy and funds, to best ensure our students success.

We begin at 7 pm, and meet in the school library.

Our Kids Are Worth It!!

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Home and School News Cont

Home & School members have been involved in various projects around the school. The gardening crew cleaned up the gardens for winter, and also planted some bulbs to provide colour in the spring.

We are very happy to report that we were able to help purchase a reading kit for the Mac English Department! Home & School fundraising allowed us to pay half the cost of the kit, which will help students in grade 7 improve their reading comprehension. Mac Home & School is also encouraging reading through our support of this years Battle of the Books. We had fun welcoming prospective students at the Mac Open House, serving coffee and cookies in the library.

All these projects are made possible by the dedication of Home & School members, as well as by your continued support. Thank-you all for helping out in whatever way possible!

Home and School Fundraisers

Home and School Fundraisers
When you visit the M&M in Ile Perrot, mention youre from Macdonald High School, and M&M will donate 3% of your before tax purchase to our Home & School. Mac Home & School has 2 ongoing fundraisers: Also, we are using the FundScrip win-win fundraiser to raise funds for Home & School while at the same time helping families raise money for students school activities. For more information about the FundScrip fundraiser, please send an email to; machands@yahoo.ca

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Mac Link

Principals Message
Home and School
The first term has come and gone. This being my third year as principal of Macdonald High School, I feel extremely fortunate and Fundraisers genuinely excited to be able to work with such a talented and dedicated staff. I have now had the opportunity to observe the many educational and extracurricular activities that are going on all the time at Mac. This, of course, includes the start-up of our Mobile Labs/BYOD Program. Mac continues to strive for excellence in all areas of school life, but we also continue to be the community first, close-knit and caring school that has been, and always will be, our greatest source of pride. -MAC PRIDEThroughout the remainder of this school year we will do our utmost to continue educating and creating a safe and caring environment for our students, ensuring that all students remain on a successful path.

Thank you, once again, to the parents of Macdonald High School. Your efforts as parents and home educators are a huge part of Macdonald High Schools success.
Macdonald High School has been open since 1907, and we have had a long history of academic excellence. Our motto is: Vires Acquirit Eundo, which in Latin means, It gains strength as it goes - We gather strength as we go.

Jad Deegan

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Macdonald High School Dance Program!

Home and School Fundraisers

OPEN HOUSE WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS THIS YEAR

WITH ALL DANCERS IN ATTENDANCE! DANSEMOTION ..THE DANCE CONVENTION WAS HELD AT PLACE BONAVENTURE IN OCTOBER AND THE MAC HIGH DANCE TEAM WERE GUEST ARTISTS! THE NUTCRACKER BALLET IS OUR NEXT EXCITING EVENT IN DECEMBER!

SONIA BALAVOJECH THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE DANCE COMPANY SBDC WILL TEACH A WORKSHOP AT MAC (ONLY $10) IN DECEMBER THAT WILL BE A MUSIC DANCE VIDEO! LOOK FOR THE MAC HIGH DANCE TEAM PERFORMING A BRAND NEW CHOREOGRAPHY IN THE MAC HIGH TALENT SHOW IN DECEMBER. STAY TUNED MAC AND CHECK THE BULLETIN BOARD OUTSIDE THE STUDIO FOR MORE INFORMATION!!!!

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Mac Guidance News

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Sonia Cisternas and Genevieve Haines to the Macdonald Student Services team this year. Sonia is our new Social Worker and Genevieve is our counsellor from CRD Foster; we appreciate the contributions they are making to the health and well-being of our student body.

Mac Guidance has gone online! All important news, upcoming events and application deadlines are posted on the site accessible from the Macdonald High School home page or directly using the following link;; www.macguidanceservices.weebly.com During the college application period, Mac Grads will be able to access the application sites directly from the Guidance website. Bookmark the site and check it frequently for updates. This fall we have continued our partnership with John Abbott College to offer a few lunch-hour micro-tours of the some of the technical programs, including Engineering Technologies and the Business Administration programs. All of the grads and a number of students from other programs at Mac attended the annual LBPSB Career & Education Fair on November 19th at PCHS. Once again this year, students had the opportunity to get a real sense of all the career possibilities available to them as they toured the many booths representing business partners, colleges, vocational centers, and universities from around the region of Montreal, across the province, and Ontario. Students were encouraged to participate in the passport activity which gave them the chance of winning interesting prizes as they gathered stamps from the booths they had visited. The annual Mac Post-Secondary Information Meeting for parents will take place on Thursday, January 9th 2014 at 7:30pm in Gym 1. You will be offered information about the range of post-secondary options available to your sons and daughters upon graduating from Macdonald High as well as detailed guidelines concerning the application procedures involved with the various choices. Please feel free to contact me either by phone, email, or directly from the Guidance website with any questions or concerns you may have. Andrea Fraser, c.o. Guidance Counsellor www.macguidanceservices.weebly.com afraser@lbpsb.qc.ca 514-457-3770

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Sports & Clubs

MAC GLEE CLUB !!
The Glee Club is pleased to announce that they have chosen an official name for their group. It is now called "Raise Your Voice" We are always open to new members to join in our Glee Club We meet every Thursday from 4 to 5 pm in the Library. Come see what we're all about!! Miss Blackburn

This fall, we have 4 volleyball teams win the silver medal at the GMAA Championships. Congratulations go out to Bantam Girls, Midget Girls, Juvenile Girls and the Juvenile Boys. The Juvenile Girls Soccer Team also won the Championship Banner and are the 2013 - 2014 GMAA Champions! Congratulations to Miss Hoffman and all of the juvenile players on an undefeated season and the gold medal! Jaime Guy
http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Operation Christmas Child

The following is a photo of the two winning homerooms for Operation Christmas child. The shoeboxes, filled with gifts for children, will be sent to Haiti this year. Ms. Brown's Grade 11 homeroom class raised money and shopped, filling 123 boxes. Ms Jones' Grade 7 homeroom class filled 52 boxes.

We are so proud of all their efforts!!

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Remembrance Day at Macdonald High School

Once again, Macdonald High School students took part in a Remembrance Day Ceremony and proved that they are indeed, a wonderfully caring and respectful group of young people. The students formed a parade like formation, with the aid of Ms. McDowells grade 10 students, and marched over to the John Abbott football field to pay tribute to approximately 80 visiting Veterans.

Our grade 11 students brought blankets to tuck in the Veterans while they watched and took part in the tribute. Mr. Cretes band played our national anthem with pride and Ms. Jones class placed Canadian flags around the Memorial Monument. Mr. Duckworth and Mr. Dornan placed all students around the monument; and grade 11 student, Nathan Ladd recited a poem written about fallen soldiers. The students were so attentive, so respectful, that I think parents and all of Mac staff should pat themselves on the back for a job well doneour Mac High students have obviously been well taught!

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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The World of Science!!!

Grade 9 Digestive System T-Shirts

What did you have for lunch today?

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Science Department Open House

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

Notes from the Music Department

Greetings! This is shaping up to be another very busy and successful year for Music at Mac! We have a very strong Senior Band this year! They have already let their musical talents be heard at quite a few occasions, such as the October Convocation ceremony, the joint Mac/John-Abbott/McGill Remembrance Day ceremony as well as an outstanding performance during our Open House! Next on the list will be our elementary school tour at the end of January and, of course, the Official Music Concert that has been scheduled for (drum roll, please) Tuesday May 13 th at 7:00 pm! Our awesome secondary 1 Music students will soon be bringing home new software that will enable their computer to actually listen to them as they practice, assess their playing and suggest areas in which they may improve. They will even be able to record themselves and send their performance to me, the teacher, electronically for comments and evaluation. Makes me wish I were back in grade 7 again! We have also just received from the school board the codes that will enable me to install Notion, a powerful Music notation and editing app, on the iPad minis we have been using in school. With the help of these extraordinary tools, students will be able to apply the fundamental principals of music composition, learn to edit and actually hear everything they compose as they write. Our swinging secondary 2 students have been busy learning to improvise over the blues form! Working from the mixolydian scales and chord tones learned (and hopefully assimilated!) in Term 1, they have been soloing with pride as they apply techniques of pattern repetition as well as call and response. Once again, Id like to take this opportunity to thank you for trusting your childs Music education with me. Lets keep on swinging! Stephane Crete.

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http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

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Mr. Cretes secondary 4 Histoire / Digital Citizenship Class By Courtney Rasmussen, student
Mr. Crete's 10th grade History class has begun to integrate technology into their daily education. Our goal is to create a positive digital identity for ourselves. We have been using technology for blogging about historical and ethical events. We use Google often in our classroom discussions and it is rare that you would not see our devices in hand. Our first assignment this year was to create a blog. Each individual student from Mr. Crete's tenth class was tasked with creating their own blog. We were given free range on titles and content so long as we respected the fact that our teacher and anyone else could read these articles. Our class then chose titles and entries suitable for all ages to read. Choosing topics for blog articles is often a difficult task, therefore every fortnight (give or take a few days due to ped. days and/or holidays); Mr. Crete would give us a new topic and assign a due date. However, many students went beyond the simple assignment and began to blog for themselves. They come up with their own article ideas, often posting the week our class's blogs are not due, and detail their opinions on current events. All of the students' blogs are online and open for anyone to view. Our class has been using Google applications for class work throughout the term. We have used our Google Drives to share folders, projects, and documents amongst our classmates and with our teacher. Students are often given the option to write notes on Google documents while Mr. Crete is speaking. On the board the document will be open and students can see each others notes as they are written. This helps because when Mr. Crete or any of the students are speaking, we have the capability to ask questions on the Google document without interrupting the discussion. After the speaker has finished we can review the document as a class answering any questions that students had had along the way. Another one of our tools is Twitter. At the beginning of the year each student created a Twitter account. Most students followed each other and Mr. Crete upon creating their Twitter. We have both created a hashtag and backchanneled during an online school board videoconference that we watched from home. It is an interesting way of staying connected. Surely people suspect that tweeting and typing during class would quickly send the students off topic, but many students have admitted that it helps them focus more on the subject at hand, helping them to stay connected to the group. Digital identity is a term our class often encounters. Our blog articles, tweets, and Facebook statuses are just the beginning of a teen's digital identity. In our Digital Citizenship course (the Ethics component of our History course) we are setting up the building blocks for our positive online identity. In five years or sooner students will be applying for jobs and one of the first things your boss will do is google you. You are more likely to get the job if you have likes and favorites with a positive attitude that are linked to you.

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca

Message from Yvon Marcoux

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November is the month of the first report card. I am strongly encouraging all students to pursue their effort in their studies, therefore improving their chance of success for a better future. It is also important for me to congratulate both parents and teachers for their constant involvement in motivating our youth to aspire to high standards of academic and personal achievements. L dj le moment des premiers bulletins scolaires et jencourage tous les lves Cest a poursuivre leurs efforts afin daccrotre leurs chances de russite qui leur permettra n daccder un plus haut niveau dinstruction. n Il est galement important pour moi de souligner limplication constante du e personnel enseignant et des parents dans leurs efforts soutenir et motiver notre jeunesse se btir un meilleur avenir. s Yvon Marcoux c MNA for Vaudreuil o l a i r e e s t p r e s

Tel.: 450-424-6666 ymarcoux-vaud@assnat.qc.ca

http://macdonald.lbpsb.qc.ca