Congratulations New Grade 2s!

Dear families,

Thanks again for a great year. Thank you for all the gifts (you shouldn't have), thoughtful cards, and especially thanks to the students for writing in French! Oh, and Sadie! You're so sweet to think of her! She will love her treats and her new kongs.

I have heard from many letting me know that their child has had a great year and has been very happy at school. This is better than any gift - it's why I wanted to become a teacher. Thank you for sharing this with me and being so supportive of me throughout the year.

I hope your child shows you their framed certificate and that you notice how much our writing has changed since September (that sentence would have been copied from the board). On the back, behind the summer worksheets, there is a little note from me to you. Since I was not able to share my reflections with you via report cards (sorry about the nonsense), I really wanted to make sure I could send you a personal message in another way.

I did send home reading packages today with those who asked for them. I hope everyone is able to keep reading every day, even if it's not in French. Here are some other ideas if you have some unplanned time left in the summer:
- FRENCH PLAY DATES! There will probably need to be a reward for speaking in French the entire time, but they can do it!
- Turn everything into headache that only math can solve! How many freezies do we need? How many are in the package? Oh, more than we need? Can everyone have 2? How many will be left over? How much does it cost? Count out the money please. How much change did we get?
- Talk about the places you see in our community and elsewhere. We've never been in this building before. What is it used for? Are there other places like it? Who benefits from it? Is anyone excluded from using it? What if it wasn't here?
- Notice changes in the environment as you go on walks. What are animals doing at this time of year?
- Keep a JOURNAL! Have your student write one thing they do everyday. I'd love to read this in September if it's in French!!
- Watch French movies on rainy days (Kérity, maison des contes, Une vie de chat, Le petit Nicholas and Ernest et Célestine are great, but you can also find lots of Caillou on Youtube)
- Use the links on the blog. I guess I'll have to change the address eventually, but the blog will continue to be available at least for all of July. There's lots of good stuff on there!

The kids were super helpers today, we took everything off the walls and took two big loads up to Area 31. My job tomorrow is much more manageable now! The great thing about moving upstairs is that I didn't have to feel too sad today - I will see the kids EVERY day next year, and I hope I'll be in touch with you too.

If you haven't had a chance, do scroll down and read my thank you note to YOU.

Thanks again, and I wish you the BEST summer with your lovely families.
Tamara :)

Park Pics

Hi! We had a great time at Dufferin Grove today. The kids had a blast playing in the giant sand pit mixing mud, digging trenches and building bridges. Gotta love that place! Some of us also played on the structure, soccer, frisbee and Uno! Thanks to all the parents for coming. Don't forget about the volunteer lunch tomorrow in the library!

Tomorrow I will be sending all remaining work home, including the rubric for our final June dictée. I will also be asking students to clear out their cubbies and take all of their school shoes home. I let them know that they may want to bring an extra bag if they have a fairly small backpack.

Park Tomorrow!

Hi parents,

Here we are in the last week of grade 1! Can't believe the end is already here!

This week I will be sending everything home. I hope you have a little time to look at all the work from the year.

Today was our final theme day of the year. Thanks to Evan and Jared for being SO patient. We saved you for last so that we would have a hot day for playing basketball and eating ice cream! Our theme days this year were all based around our favourite things that we wrote about on the first day of school. This assignment helped me get to know the students a little bit. Therefore, I thought it would be a fitting time to give our next teachers a head start by writing them a little letter about us. Each student wrote to their grade 2 teacher and told them what they like to do, their favourite subject at school and what they're looking forward to in grade 2. Ask your writer what they wrote to their future teacher! In the morning, we also participated in a special Round Dance to celebrate National Aboriginal Day.

This afternoon, we went outside for some basketball activities including dribbling drills, passing, shooting and a game, followed of course by ice cream!

Change for tomorrow: Our music period has been moved to period 1. At the beginning of the school day, students should line up in the music line by the outdoor water fountain - NOT in our line at the North doors. Please remind each other. Thanks!

A reminder that tomorrow we are going to Dufferin Grove Park from 10-1:30. Students will need a litterless lunch and snacks as well as a water bottle. They are welcome to bring a ball, frisbee or game to play at the park, but please no waterguns or other things causing wetness. Please ensure students dress for the weather and come with sunscreen already applied. If you would like to join us at the park for some or all of our time, that would be fine. Younger siblings are welcome too!

We have worked hard this year, beginning with Words of the Week on the second day of school. Last week or not, we have Words of the Week as usual...

Last Words of the Week

Thank you for supporting the Words of the Week program this year!

We are finishing up with être again this week to highlight the accord that needs to be made for masculine & feminine adjectives and some nouns. 

We looked at this briefly in May, and students will continue to work on this for years to come. For now, here are five sentences in both the masculine and feminine forms. Ask your student to circle the part that changes and guess which one is for a boy and which is for a girl.

Challenge questions:

Can you find the sentences where we just add an e? What are some other endings that are added or changed when we’re talking about a girl?

Can you write these sentence starting with “Je suis” instead of “Il/Elle est” and use the right ending for YOU?

Be sure to review all the words of the week over the summer so that you get off to a running start in grade 2!

Il est beau. / Elle est belle.

Il est gentil. / Elle est gentille.

Il est un bon ami. / Elle est une bonne amie.

Il est un acteur. / Elle est une actrice.

Il est amusant. / Elle est amusante.

Quick visit from the Sadie puppy! She was very well behaved and sat 3 times on command.

My thank you to YOU

Dear Area 24 families,

It is the end of another year. It has absolutely flown by. While I am, of course, looking forward to the summer, I am also sad to say goodbye to this class. I have been very lucky to have worked with wonderful kids and great families every year since I started teaching - there has not been a group I didn’t enjoy. However, for some reason I have felt very attached to this class. I feel we built a very close-knit classroom community and had a lot of great moments together. They make me want to teach grade 2 so that I can keep them!

One of the best things about grade 1, as a teacher, is that there is such a noticeable progression between the beginning of the year and the end. Recently I’ve been looking back at their writing from September. Back then, we relied heavily on sentence starters and it took a whole writing period to write one sentence. Our writing was mostly in caps and was generally scrawled across the page. Now we have written our own stories complete with a beginning, middle, end, dialogue and character descriptions. We independently imagine and sound out what we want to say and can revise our own work based on teacher feedback. It blows my mind!

At the beginning of this school year, most of us were just learning what sound the letter A makes in French. Now, we are reading short stories, putting on crazy amazing plays, and even sometimes speaking in French at recess when there is no teacher listening!

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I am very proud of what our students have accomplished this year and am honoured to have been a part of it. YOU have been a HUGE part of it. Thank you for involving yourselves in our classroom activities. From reading my blog, talking about school, going over rubrics and reports and helping your child set goals, to helping with at-home projects and practicing words of the week from the first week to the last, your involvement has positively affected how the children feel about school and how successful they have been this year. I know that you did all this while balancing busy family life. I only recently had to start scooting home at lunch and after school to take care of a puppy and I found that stressful! I want you to know that I do not take your work for granted.

I will miss these kids very much and look forward to catching up with them next year. They are always welcome to come visit and read a story to the new grade 1s. Please keep in touch!

This is not goodbye, I will see you this week!
Tamara

Success!!

Hi families,

Thanks so much for joining us today for our open-house and concert. I am very pleased with how everything turned out. The kids were great and it was so nice that everyone had a guest at one show or the other! I hope you enjoyed it and are very proud of your 6 and 7 year olds!

** If anyone has pictures or videos they can send me, I would LOVE to see them - I have nothing!**

tamara.mitchell2@tdsb.on.ca

As you know, next week is the last week of grade 1. Lots of work will be coming home and a lot will be happening at school. We have some kind of assembly Monday, our park day Tuesday, one last theme day to squeeze in, maybe a movie, hopefully a visit with Sadie and some form of celebration on the last day.

In addition, the kids and I are going to be cleaning out and packing up our entire classroom. The bad news is that it is a LOT of work moving classrooms, but the good news is that I'll be moving to area 31 so I'll be right next door to all the kids in their grade 2 classrooms next year! The other happy news is that kids LOVE cleaning and packing, so hopefully many hands will make light work.

Please help me pack efficiently by sending back ALL school books and white borrow-a-books MONDAY, or as soon as you can. Please have a good look around! We will not do anymore borrowing in the last week of school. Thanks for being on board with this program all year long.

I will put together reading packages for those who requested one and I'll send it home before the end of the week. Please return these materials to me at the start of school in September (in area 31).

Oh, one more thing. Dewson is hosting a Volunteer Tea next Wednesday, June 24th between 11:45-12:30. I have been so lucky to have had so many of you volunteer to help with outings and in-class. I've never had to send out so many rejections! If you helped out around school and I somehow missed sending you an invitation, please consider yourself invited. See you Wednesday at lunch in the library!

Thanks again for making me feel so good about today!

See you next week,

Tamara

Probability Games

Hello parents,

This morning we had our dress rehearsal for the morning concert. The three classes, and their teachers, who attended were very impressed with our performance. Hopefully we can do an even better job for you. Remind your actor to speak out so that you can hear every word!

This afternoon we had a great time playing some probability games with the help of some grade 5 & 6 leaders. There were 7 centres, each with a different game exploring probability.

There was a card draw, 

a coin toss, 

 a spinner game, 

a roll-up-the-rim-to-win centre, 

a game-show-style guessing game,

 a dice game,

 and a lottery game.

See how much your mathematician remembers with the following questions, and ask your student to teach you their favourite game when you're here Friday!
- You're going to draw 5 cards from a deck. What is the probability you will draw the King of Hearts?
- A spinner has a large blue section, a medium red section and a small yellow section. What is the probability of landing on each colour? What is the probability of landing on green?
- When rolling a die with the numbers 1-6, what are the chances of rolling the number 9? What is the probability of rolling a number under 7?
- In a bag, there are 10 orange cubes and no purple cubes. What are the chances of pulling out an orange cube?
- If your friend adds their name to the lottery bag 3 times, how many times should you add your name to give yourself an equal chance of winning?

Open-House

Hello honoured guests,

We are very excited to welcome you to our open-house and concert this Friday. Thursday, I will send home a very small note to remind you of the time you signed up for. We will not start early, but please be prompt so that you can have a proper tour before the concert starts. The little note will also suggest what your actor could wear to look their part. As you know, our second performance is from 1:15 - 2:15. Please avoid early pick-ups before that time as everyone is involved in both performances. Thanks!

You also received a note about an upcoming walking excursion. Next Tuesday, I am planning on taking Area 24 to Dufferin Grove park for some outdoor play and a picnic lunch. Again, there is no form to sign, but do let me know if you have any concerns. We need at least 2 volunteers to make sure we have enough supervision at the park. Please let me know if you can join us!

The Bike Rodeo today was really fun! We learned about signalling, the proper way to wear a helmet and we practiced skills like riding slowly and weaving around obstacles. It was neat for me to see all the kids so capably riding. Big thanks to everyone who shared their bike and helmet, sometimes more than once, so that everyone could have a turn.

Words of the Week

This week we are formally being introduced to the present of the verb être (to be). Like avoir, we use this verb every day and know what it should sound like. We will talk about some similarities between the two verbs that can be helpful for learning the spelling rules.

1.  For tu, the verb ends with s - only one letter changes between the two verbs

2.  Il, elle & on are always the same

3.  For ils & elles, they are always the same as each other and you just add an s to the beginning of what it was for avoir

Again, try making up sentences that begin this way. E.g., Tu es très jolie maman!

je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, on est, 

nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont, elles sont

See you Friday!

Bikes tomorrow!

Ahh, I forgot to remind the kids! 

Don't forget your bikes tomorrow.

Story rubrics are coming home today.

Bike Rodeo

Wow, what a day! I think students had a great time skipping and we had some good luck with the weather - we only lost 15 minutes to rain - it could have been a lot worse! Sorry I didn't get pictures of our class, my phone was busy being the music instead of a camera! In the morning, our students were very helpful and worked through a checklist of things to get done all on their own while I was busy with the event. A massive thank you as well to the many Area 24 parents who came to help. I could not have done it without you!

Our next fun event is a bike rodeo next Tuesday morning. There will be different stations and some police officers on hand to help us learn about bike safety. If your child has a bicycle, this would be a good day to have them bring it to school. If possible, teach your child how to unlock it so that they can use it during our bike rodeo time. I will take the class around to where the bikes are locked up to retrieve them and will see that they get locked back up again afterwards. Our time is 10:45-11:45am. I'm sure you'd be welcome to come if you like.

This afternoon, we ran through our songs for the concert, and we are sounding lovely. Everything is coming together. We can't wait to welcome you in one week! It is quite important that students are at school all day every day next week as we prepare for Friday. Of course, we want them to stay healthy, so keep them home if they're sick, but please try to limit other appointments if you can. Thanks!

Jump Rope

Hi families,

Hopefully (please don't rain), this Friday is our Jump Rope for Heart event. Our school raised well over $6000 for this great cause and earned a crazy hair day. Students are welcome to come to school Friday with a crazy hairdo. Area 24 students will be outside with me for most of the day helping out and working through a list of independent projects (so much responsibility!). Please make sure that all students and come prepared for a day outside.
-hat
-sunscreen already applied
-refillable water bottle
-running shoes
-comfortable clothes for skipping!

Looking forward to it!

Yesterday was our second to last theme day of the year. This one was in honour of Simone and Soren who love snakes and turtles. We began with our regular reading, and lots of extra books on snakes and turtles. We then worked on our new writing-research-science projects. Students are working in partners to research what their animal eats, where it lives, what it looks like and other interesting things about it. They are presenting their information in an informative brochure. We are being careful to close our books after we've found the information we need so that we don't copy the words exactly from the book.
During our work period, we also focused on listening to our partners' ideas before beginning, solving problems nicely and taking the time to put in our best effort. The final social skills rubrics of the year came home yesterday.

During art, we applied our Van Gogh technique (using a fork to add the brush strokes reminiscent of his work) to paintings of reptiles and other animals. Then, before lunch, we did some skipping practice, including a snake game.

In the afternoon, we learned some terms related to probability: certain, impossible, probable, improbable and possible. After talking about them a bit, each group thought about things that would be impossible, possible and improbable for a snake or turtle. Ask your student to tell you about something that is possible, but not likely (improbable) or likely to happen (probable).

We also finished presenting our stories to each other. We are amazing readers now! We are going to keep our good copies at school to show off at our open-house, but I will send home the rough copy and plan soon along with a copy of the fairly detailed rubric. Most of the rubric applies to students' rough work, before I gave them corrections to make. What most of us are ready to work on now is adding periods to separate thoughts within larger sections (e.g., within the introduction). A good way to do this is to read our writing aloud and add a period every time we take a breath or stop our voice. Reading our writing aloud is super helpful because we often know what sounds right. During our reading aloud, several students added words here and there that they hadn't noticed were missing in their writing. If your writer does any story-writing over the summer, have them read it to you aloud and see if they can find places to add petits points!

Words of the Week

This week we are formally being introduced to the present of the verb avoir (to have). We use this verb every day and know what it should sound like. For example, students know that “Nous a du travail à faire” sounds weird, and that it should be “Nous avons...”. This week, work on spelling the verb correctly and making up sentences that start with each person. You can substitute proper names for il and elle. E.g., Elle a les cheveux bruns. Tamara a les cheveux bruns.

j’ai, tu as, il a, elle a, on a, 

nous avons, vous avez, ils ont, elles ont

Festival Info.

Hello parents,

This Thursday is the Dewson Festival! If you've never been, it really is worth checking out. There will be games, bouncy castles, lots of food, a silent auction and much more. The kids will have some time in the afternoon to go to the Festival under teacher supervision. The fun continues after pick-up until 6:30pm. I'm sure many of you are involved in running this amazing evening.

Students will need either tickets or a wristband in order to play games, go on bouncy castles, buy food etc. Each student will receive 4 complimentary tickets to use in the afternoon. If you would like to give your child some money, they can purchase additional tickets in-class Thursday morning. This year, wristbands are also available for $25. A wristband provides unlimited access to games, castles plus a drink and burger or dog. It's much simpler than tickets if you think you'll get your money's worth. Last week a pink form was sent home inviting you to purchase tickets/wristbands in advance. This simplifies the process even more because you won't have to send your child to school with money on Thursday. The pre-purchased tickets/wristbands will be delivered Thursday morning so your child will be ready to play before you get here to join them. Pink forms are due Wednesday June 10th.

Please discuss with your child what they may use their tickets or money for (should they eat before you arrive? can they buy sweets? can they buy additional tickets? should they save some tickets for later in the evening? where should they keep their money and tickets?).

Pick-up on Festival day is always tricky. As always, I need to be sure that every child is accounted for. If you are working at Festival and are OK with your child exploring Festival alone or with a friend, I still need you to find me and let me know that you are now assuming responsibility for your child. If you have made alternate arrangements for pick-up, please write me a note or email me so that I know who to send kids with.

Pick-up on Thursday will take place in the TENNIS COURT area. Please meet us there.

When the 3:30 bell rings, students are asked to hurry over to the tennis courts where we will have left our bags and meet me for dismissal. If you are working a festival shift and can't make it over at 3:30, please either find me in the yard before that time to let me know your child is taken care of, or make alternate arrangements for pick-up. If you could also stress the importance of your child listening for the bell and coming to the meeting spot right away, that would be great. We will have teachers at the exits to make sure nobody escapes, but still, it can be stressful if a student forgets to come to the meeting spot and we have to look for them in the crowd.

Thanks for your support and hope you have a great time!

Still Working!

Hello,

It feels like we have special events every other day now - it might seem like we're done with our curricular work for the year, but we're not! In fact, we still have quite a bit to do and we will keep plugging away until the very last week! No resting!!

In math, we finished up our work in geometry with a game to help practice terms related to location (devant, derrière, à droite, à gauche). In this memory game, students have to describe every step they take and discover the one correct path to get across the minefield. It was really fun! Try it at home!

In what time we have left, we will have some fun with probability. This unit is all about games and anticipating outcomes. If you are available on one of the next 3 Wednesday afternoons (June 10, 17 or 24) in the afternoon, and would be able to help with some amazing probability centres, please let me know ASAP!

In language, we have all finished our stories and are trying to find the time to read them to each other. Now that we are experts on how stories are put together, we worked on taking one apart by working on an in-class book report. Students listened to a story and then wrote a short summary of the beginning, middle and end, as well as describing the main character and what the book reminded them of. They rated the story by giving it between 0 and 5 étoiles! Ask your book reviewer about what happens in  Le dragon de Mimi - is it worth reading?

We will complete one more substantial writing project related to our last science unit. We don't have tons of time left to spend on it, unfortunately, but it will be all about living things. It's closely related to the unit on seasonal changes that we began the year with. We'll get to talk about plants and animals (including humans) and what they need in order to survive. With a partner, students will select an animal and write a report about it using books to find information.

We finished up our write-ups on our places in the community and we had a great discussion about natural v. man-made areas and what we can do to help preserve the natural areas. Our large map of College Street is up and looks really cool. Check it out when you come to our open-house! We are still going to do a little work around mapping next week. We will be focusing on how symbols are used in maps to represent places (we've seen this in books).

Of course, in the Arts areas we have been very busy, not only with our Van Gogh project and other visual arts projects related to our concert, but also with extra music and drama rehearsals outside of what we're doing with Mr. Greene and Mr. Lee. Hopefully we can pull ourselves together by the time the 19th rolls around. We still have quite a bit of polishing to do! Wish us luck!

Finally, now that it's June, we are no longer able to sign-out library books. Please do a final sweep of the house and send in any books you still have. I anticipate we'll be getting little notes from Mme Gaudreault letting us know if we have overdue books to return. We will continue with our class's borrow-a-book routine until the last week of school, but please try to get all classroom books returned by Monday, June 22nd so that we can make sure everything is accounted for.

Don't forget tomorrow, Friday, is a PA day for students. Have a great long weekend!
Tamara

(PS - Still hoping for a couple more volunteers for next Friday, particularly in the afternoon, as well as items for the music gift basket - thanks!)

Words of the Week

Dear parents,

I am still in need of parents to help with our Jump Rope for heart event. If you can spare a half or the whole day next Friday (June 12), I would be grateful. Please email me!
Also, if anyone has any music related items to donate to the gift basket for Festival, we could really use more stuff!

Yesterday, the last Scholastic package of the year came home. This is your last chance to stock up on French books for the summer. Whether through Scholastic, the library or your favourite book store, please make sure you find a way to keep reading in French over the summer. We have worked so hard this year, and want to make sure we don't get rusty over the summer. If you would like a package of books from school to get you started, I would be happy to put something together for you. Please let me know in the next week or two if you would like this. You can return the books to my area at the beginning of September.

This week we are working on finishing up projects in writing, social studies and math so that we can devote more of our time to preparing for our big concert. We've also started a new art project around the work of Van Gogh. Ask your artist what they know about him and what kinds of techniques he liked to use in his paintings.

Thanks to all students who remembered their word of the week sentences. Anyone who didn't have them ready today can bring them in and show me that they are completed tomorrow or Thursday. This is an important part of being responsible and organized!

Words of the Week

This week we are learning how to conjugate regular -er verbs in the present tense, focusing on the first person only (je). This is one of the structures that our students use regularly. I’m not going into a lot of detail with students (e.g., which verbs this rule does and does not apply to) - as they learn more about conjugating, they will learn when this rule does not apply. For now, we will begin simply by trying to remember that when you say (and write) “Je [fill in action word here]...”, that action word usually ends with an e, even though we don’t really hear it.

A fun game this week might be a Wheel of Fortune or Hangman style game. Let your student be in charge of making up short sentences beginning with these words, and you guess the letters - making sure they remembered the final e!

E.g.: _ _   _ _ _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _ _ .

      J e    c h e r c h e   m o n   c r a y o n.

je marche, je cherche, je chasse, 
je me lave, je nage, je parle, je regarde, 
je vole, je donne, je joue