Talk to you... soon?

Dear families,
It looks like as of tomorrow, I will have to take a break from communicating with you via this blog. I'm sure you're aware of why this is. This is not going to be easy for me. I very much enjoy sitting down at the end of a busy day to share what we've done. I think it helps me as much as you, and I know that the kids are more successful when you and I are working together. I know it can be difficult to get a 5 or 6 year old to tell you all about their day without some prompts, and I apologize that I may not be able to provide this for a while. Please DO keep asking your students about what they are doing at school, and if Mlle Mitchell has asked them to tell you anything. I will try to send my messages and requests home through them and hope that they get to you. Please feel free to email me at any time if you'd like some clarification, information or want to meet in person.

In the meantime, I've thought of a few things that I would have shared with you in the next couple months (hopefully this hiatus doesn't last that long) so I'm leaving it all here right now while I still can. It's not all relevant right now, but if I'm still not able to communicate with you when it becomes relevant, at least it's here. As for words of the week, obviously if I cannot post them on the blog, it is even more important that we remember our cahiers on Tuesdays so that we can stay on top of the words. I will also begin copying my little blurbs about pronunciation, and bonus words, and having the kids glue them in their cahier as well. This is the information that I would have posted on the blog for your benefit.

Tomorrow will also mark the end of our first 10-day cycle. Tuesday we begin again with day 1, and we will have library on day 2, so please remind your readers to have their books ready to return. I will send home a copy of our 10-day schedule right after any changes are made, hopefully later this week. Look out for that in the pochette. This should help you and your student pack, and dress appropriately for school.

Thank you ever so much for your understanding and support. Hope to be back on here very soon!
Tamara

Words of the Week & Jetons!

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘e’. In French, this letter makes a different sound than in English. Think “book”. Again, for each new sound that we learn, I love the idea of using 3-D letters or flashcards to experiment with the vowel combined with different consonants. We won’t be looking at each consonant in depth the way we are vowels, so this is a great way to make sure your child has a good grasp of the whole alphabet. Don’t worry if your combos aren’t real words, we’re just working on combining sounds in this game!

le, je, de, me, te 

Bonus words: ne, se

I haven't yet had a chance to tell you about our jeton game to help us speak French. We started on the very first day of school and the children are quite motivated to speak French in order to earn jetons.

Here's how it works:
Anytime that I overhear a student speaking in French, whether to me or a classmate, in our classroom or in the hall, I will give them a little jeton (a token). Once a student has collected 5 of these, they can be exchanged for a big jeton. Once a student has collected 5 grands jetons (which may take a while), they can exchange them for one school dollar. Finally, when they have earned two school dollars, they can choose a prize and begin collecting again!
Rules:

1. Some common phrases that we all use every day do not count for a jeton (e.g., Merci, Est-ce que je peux boire? etc.).
2. If I find out, for sure, that a student has taken someone else's jetons, they will have to forfeit their existing jetons and start over.
3. Mlle is the only one that can distribute jetons. The more French, the merrier, but I need to hear it in order to reward it with a jeton.
4. Jetons are not given if what was said in French was also interrupting someone, and in fact, I may take back a jeton if there are too many interruptions from one person during a class discussion.
5. We are trying not to compare how many jetons we all have. I know that everyone will earn a prize eventually.

Finally, a reminder that this Thursday is the final day to submit Scholastic orders for September.

Thanks!

Volunteering

Dear parents,

Many of you let me know in your letter to me that you would enjoy volunteering in the classroom. If this is true for you, please feel free to get in touch with me at any point (even now). There are always behind the scenes things that need to get done in order for our days to run smoothly (e.g., cutting art paper, refilling glue bottles, sharpening pencils and repairing books), but I can also put you to work any morning working with a small group on reading, letter recognition games or teaching them one of our many board games that they could then play independently during free time. If you can speak French with us, that's a huge bonus, but we will be happy to welcome you either way. The only days that won't work right now are Wednesdays, since we have Mlle Martinson, and I want to make sure she has mine and the students' full attention.

I look forward to hearing from you and setting up some visits!

Musical Stories & Recommended Concerts

Dear families,

As you know, I get to do some music with our class this year - something I'm very excited about! One thing that I absolutely love to do is to tell stories along to music. Not just any stories, the stories of the music. Many pieces are based on a narrative, or at least a scene or landscape, and the music tells you what's happening, if you know what to listen for. This year, I hope to share many of my favourite musical stories with the kids. With any luck, I'll be able to tell you about them on this blog and provide you with links to the music so that you can listen to them at home with your child telling you what's happening.
However, in the off chance that I can't share anything for a while, I want to bring to your attention a few concerts that include pieces that we will surely listen to in class at some point. I very highly recommend going to any of these concerts with your musician, particularly if they have already told you that we listened to the story. Even as a serious classical music student, I still enjoy concerts SO much more, when I know the background of the piece I am listening to. All of these concerts are being put on by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall. Most are in the evening, but I've also highlighted a few that are specifically for children, though kids are also welcome at the evening performances. For more information, please visit the TSO website.

Concert Title: Arabian Nights
Piece that we will be discussing: Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov
Preview: Scheherazade wins the heart of the untrusting Sultan by telling him many captivating tales (including the story of Aladdin) and leaving off each night just at the most intense part of the story. The violin represents Scheherazade and helps us hear when she is present in the story. Based on the Arabian Nights.
Dates: Nov. 18-19, 8:00pm

Concert Title: Peter and the Wolf: In Support of SickKids
Piece that we will be discussing: Peter and the Wolf  by Prokofiev
Preview: Peter disobeys his grandfather when he strays outside the garden walls. He meets a few little animals but gets into a little trouble... Each character is represented by a different instrument.
Piece that we will be discussing: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Britten
Preview: Not so much a story, but an introduction to each section of the orchestra through listening to a fabulous piece of music!
Dates: Nov. 26, 7:30pm

Concert Title: Symphonie Fantastique
Piece that we will be discussing: movements from Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz
Preview: A musician sees his beloved in various circumstances (e.g., at a ball). The beloved is always represented by a fixed idea in the music (idée fixe). We will probably listen to this one around Halloween since the last 2 movements can be a bit spooky!
Dates: Jan. 27-28, 8:00pm, Jan 30, 7:30pm

Concert Title: Peter and the Wolf (specifically for kids this time)
Piece that we will be discussing: Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev
Preview: Peter disobeys his grandfather when he strays outside the garden walls. He meets a few little animals but gets into a little trouble... Each character is represented by a different instrument. *In this performance, the tale is brought to life by the Magic Circle Mime Company!
Dates: May 14, 2:00pm & 4:00pm

Concert Title: An American in Paris
Piece that we will be discussing: An American in Paris by Gershwin
Preview: Close your eyes and imagine walking down a busy street in Paris. In the music you can even hear the car horns!
Dates: June 4, 7:30pm & June 5, 3:00pm

Also, check out all of their Young People's Concerts - short afternoon concerts designed specifically for kids. Very entertaining & totally worth it!

Please let me know if you're going and how you liked it! Happy listening!

Borrow-a-Book (NOVEMBER)

In November, once we have covered a few more French vowel sounds, we will begin our borrow-a-book system. This is an at-home endeavour which greatly relies on your participation and management, and these few minutes of at-home reading practice do make such a difference in your child's development as a reader, so I really hope you are all able to make time for it.

Each student will receive a tracking log containing a list of titles that match the books in the first level (jaune). Your child will bring home one (or more, depending on how they're doing) book at a time to read with you. The idea is to read it over several times (not just once), until the reading is fluent. YOU are the teacher at home! You get to decide when to sign off on each book, and you do so simply by initialling beside the title in the tracking log. Once all books of a level have been completed, the student will show me their log, we'll celebrate their accomplishment and I'll give them the list for the next level. There are 6 levels in all, and I don't expect that everyone, or anyone, will make it through all of them in grade 1. Each child will move at a different pace, and it is much more important to read at a comfortable level, than to go too quickly in order to finish the books, and struggle. Whatever we accomplish is just fine by me. It's not a race and there is no prize for mastering books the fastest.
 I will explain everything to the children, so they will know what to do, and it will be their responsibility to return and exchange their books when they need to. I'll try to remind everyone as well, but since everyone will be reading at a different pace, it's up to the kids to get a new book when they complete the last one. A good time to do this is at the beginning or end of the day when we're packing our pochettes and bags.

When reading at home, try to find a time when your reader can really concentrate. I'm sure many families have bedtime story routines - keep that as a time for cuddles and pick a different time for working on reading. It's also very helpful to insist that your reader point to every word as he/she reads so that we start to make the connection between sound and symbol.
Keep in mind, nobody should feel upset if it takes them a few tries to master a book, the important thing is that we improve our reading over time. There are ideas in the note I will hopefully send home (copied below) that can help keep things interesting if you need to read a book over and over again.

The other thing of note is that, of course, we need to keep our materials in good condition. Students will be told that they can colour on the books using pencil crayon if they wish, but please no marker or pen. Using the pictures is an important reading strategy, so we need to be able to see them clearly. In order to not lose any books, or our tracking logs, I will instruct students to please keep everything in their pochettes when not in use.

Thanks in advance for your incredible support managing this system at home. It doesn't need to be time consuming, just a few minutes at a time is fine. Trust that these minutes will contribute greatly to your child's progress as a reader!

Below is the full note that will hopefully come home when we start borrowing books.

Borrow a book – J’emprunte un livre

How it works

Your child now has a small tracking log in their communication pocket containing a list of books. We are beginning with simple books that usually have a pattern to them, making them easier for beginning readers to read and understand. Your child is responsible for bringing home books from this list, which are kept in colour-coded drawers in our class.

Once you’ve worked on a book at home (see suggestions for reading), please initial beside the title in the tracking log. Then, your child is responsible for bringing the book back and exchanging it for another from the list.

A good guideline is to read 2 books a week, but some children will need more or less time on each book and that’s ok. I will suggest that children exchange their books every Monday and Friday at the end of the day when we prepare our communication pockets. That way, you will have something to read over the week, and something to read over the weekend. However, children may exchange their books at anytime.

Please help your child keep track of the book they have taken. It should stay in their pocket or other very safe place in your home. We have a very limited number of books!

Once your child has worked with every book on this list (indicated by your initials), I will add the next list of slightly harder books and we continue in the same way.

Suggestions for reading

- Start by looking at the pictures to make sense of what’s happening. Ask your child to predict what the book is about. This will contribute greatly to your child’s understanding of the text, and that’s very important since the words themselves may be new.

-  Looking at the pictures can also help us guess a word that we do not recognize.

-  Refer to the blog to review the sounds we have learned and search for them, or other familiar words (such as the words of the week), in the text.

-  Have your child point to each word as he/she sounds it out. Cover parts of words to isolate sounds that you know we should know!

-  After reading, ask questions like What patterns can you see in this book?, What do you like/not like about the book?, Does this remind you of anything you did?, Does it make you think of anything/another book?

-  Make sure your child has understood what the book was about – this is just as important as being able to say the words correctly!

-  Make it fun by having your child read to their teddy in bed, or over the phone to grandma.

-  Record (or video) your child reading it, and then let him/her listen to the recording over and over!

-  You or your child can make a simple word search using words from the book. Ask your child to read each word that they find.

-  Play hangman using words from the book.

-  Read the book using different voices (in a whisper, with a fun accent…)

-  Read the book to your child and let them correct you (they love this!)

The important thing is to read the book many times so that your child is building their vocabulary and developing confidence as a reader. These are just some ways that you can keep it interesting when you have to read the same book 27 times, but feel free to think of other cool ideas as well!

Reminders

-  Please keep the tracking log in the communication pocket.

-  While it is ok to colour a page or two in pencil crayon, please make sure that your children do NOT use markers or pens in the books. Many hours from patient parent volunteers went into copying, folding, stapling and labeling each book and we need to treat them carefully.

-  Again, please help your child take responsibility for returning their book once they are through with it. We can’t afford to lose them!

Thank you for your time in progressing your child’s French reading and comprehension skills.

Amazing week!

Hi Room 211 families,

We've had another really great week! Our students are quite familiar now with how things work and the transitions between activities are getting quicker and quicker. We are still working on being extra quiet in the hallways, since we sometimes come and go while other classes are working.

In French, we've continued to talk a lot about the 'a' sound, including putting 5 words in our personal dictionaries (not necessarily starting with 'a', but containing it) and searching for all the 'a's in a funny poem. Ask your students what the poem was about and what words they added to their dictionary today!

In math, we've been reviewing our numbers from 1-20. Every student has had at least one turn doing a counting solo for the class - sometimes even backwards, by 2 or with their eyes closed! We've also illustrated some numbers in personal counting booklets, counted up various items that we have in our class, and played several math games including bingo, a "de plus" game and dominoes. Time to count higher!

We've read many stories together, including a sung story yesterday called "C'est la poulette grise". Ask your singer if they remember any of the song, or the silly places where the hen lays her eggs. The readers are also developing some VERY strong reading muscles. We are already up to 17 (can you believe it?) minutes of quiet reading (we started with 2 minutes on the first day)! AND - what makes it even more amazing is that the last two days, they have done this without me walking around them all the time. I've been teaching one group at a time to play Uno while the others read. I am so impressed with how they have focused during their reading time.

I have some pictures of our class in action and I would love to share them with you. I am, however, still waiting on a few media release forms. If you still have the package of forms from the first day of school, please return them Monday (I sent home little reminders yesterday in case you're not sure).

Thanks a lot and have a great weekend!
Tamara

Bienvenue Mlle Martinson

I would like to take a moment to introduce Mlle Martinson.

Mlle Martinson is a teacher candidate at York University and will be completing part of her practicum in Room 211. She will be with us every Wednesday this term and will be a second teacher for our students when she is here. I am positive that having another teacher in the room will be a great benefit to our students, and hopefully she will just LOVE being with us and never want to leave! Today was her first day, and she was just fabulous with the students and is excited for next week. Please do make her feel very welcome if you see her around the school.

I am very sorry to say that I am no longer able to attend the Dewson BBQ tomorrow evening. I was really looking forward to meeting many of you. If you would like to set up a meeting with me at any point, please don't hesitate to email me.

Thanks,
Tamara

Words of the Week

Thanks for reminding your child to bring their cahier for our new words of the week today. Very nearly everyone had their cahier ready to go!

We have more a words this week, but a bit more complicated. Try making flashcards and invite your student to draw a picture on each. Using pictures to recall high frequency words is a good strategy for beginning readers.

papa, arbre, classe, table, balle 

Bonus words: maman, animal

I also want to give you a little heads up about a paper that will be coming home tomorrow. One of my goals last year, was to try to help my students develop even better relationships with their peers by organizing some activities where the main focus was on promoting social skills. Depending on the task, we focused on skills such as listening, participating, problem solving, sharing, compromising, turn taking, or using kind words.
After each activity, students completed a short self-evaluation to help them reflect on how well they had used the 3 particular skills we discussed before-hand. I also gave my opinion of how everyone did.

I found that students were always very successful during these activities, and were able to transfer those good social skills to other times when it might not be the main focus of our activity. I would like to continue the same routine this year.

Getting along with others and working together is a focus at school every day, but we will do a dedicated social skills activity with self-evaluation in the second week of every month. I will send the evaluation home so that you can talk with your child about the activity - what it involved, how they feel it went, what they did really well or would like to work on. It is my hope that this extra bit of communication between school and home will allow us to work together to encourage the continued development of great social skills and relationships!

Tomorrow we will sit in our community circle and pass around a microphone. When it's our turn, we will say something nice about our school or a classmate. Before the activity, we will discuss the importance of listening, participating and sitting up properly while on the carpet. The evaluation will come home tomorrow afternoon in the pochette.

Thanks for your support!

Tamara

Dewson BBQ

Dewson is holding it's annual meet & greet BBQ this Thursday evening. It's a really fun event and a great opportunity to meet the families of the other kids in our class.

I believe it runs from 5-6:30pm. I can stay until about 5:30 (I have choir rehearsal Thursday nights and can't miss this one), so please do find me before then and say hi!

First Week

Dear Area 24 families,

We had a great first week in Room 211. I've quickly been getting to know my new students and they've been settling in quickly to our new routines. I've been wanting to share details from the first few days, but didn't want to clutter up the blog before you had a chance to explore all the beginning of the year posts. If you haven't had a chance to sift through all the information (I know, it's a lot), don't worry. Nothing ever gets erased, just archived. If what you're looking for is not below, just click on the Archives at the bottom.

Thank you for all the mail! I already received lots of letters and forms, which I've very much enjoyed reading. If you haven't yet had a chance, please do try to to send all of that stuff in soon. I love and always look forward to reading those first day letters from you! Once I have everyone's media forms, I'll know if I can begin posting pictures here so that you can feel even more a part of our school day.

In my letter to you, I was not sure of our gym days. This was updated in the online version. We have gym 4 out of 10 days and on other days we will either have dance or DPA. A few students have already brought running shoes to school to leave in our bin. This is a great idea! Some students have also brought a little bag of extra clothes to leave on their hook - also a great idea!

As you know, Dewson provides a morning snack to all primary students. Snack program will begin this Wednesday. Please make sure your student knows if they may also eat something from their lunch bag, or if they should save something for the afternoon. It's a good idea to check in now and then to see if they are getting hungry near the end of the day. In the past I've had children begging me for food at afternoon recess! On behalf of the school, thank you for your advance donations to the snack program.

This week we have established all kids of routines for our class. We know how to empty and pack our bags, where to put notes for me, where to line up after recess and where the safe places to play in the school yard are. We have practiced what we do in the case of a fire alarm and we have worked on including others during free time and recess. We discuss our 4 class rules regularly (ask your student what they are) and I have seen amazing listening behaviour from everyone in the class. Keep up the great work!

In French this week, I have learned about what everyone really likes and we are already experts at recognizing the letter 'a'. We began reviewing our printing skills, including a comfortable pencil grip (more important than we tend to think) and forming letters neatly. If you have a chance to watch your child write at home, try to encourage them to start their letters at the top, the way they are practicing at school. This will help them form good habits.

Don't forget, we get new Words of the Week every TUESDAY. Please help your child make sure their cahier is in their pochette Tuesday so that we can glue down our next set of words. (And thanks for jumping right into this routine, the kids tell me they've already started practising!)

In math,we are getting started with some counting activities. At home, you can review French numbers by asking your student to count various sets aloud in French (ex. Can you count how many juice boxes are left in French?)

Finally, sorry about the confusion with entry at the beginning of last week. We are the only grade 1 class that goes to the second floor, and many of you probably remember that my class used to line up at the north doors. Your student knows where our line up spot is for the morning and every recess. We will always enter and dismiss under the overhang.

If you need to contact me at any time, email is the best way to reach me. Don't forget the 2 in tamara.mitchell2@tdsb.on.ca (there is a principal by the same name).

See you tomorrow,
Tamara

DON'T WORRY!!

                        Welcome to online Words of the Week!

I know, homework on the second day? It's not a big deal!
As I mentioned in the First Day Newsletter, we are beginning with our words of the week right away. I really want to match up our words of the week to the sound we are studying in class. Since we are beginning right away with the 'a' vowel, I thought we should begin right away with some words to practice that sound. You can see that they are all very short, I expect many children won't need a lot of work on these words - maybe just a few minutes on a few nights to get warmed up.

Grade 1 words: a, la, ma, ta, va 

Bonus words: sa, Tamara

On this blog, I will attempt to give you a thorough explanation of what we have learned in class, and how to pronounce the sound correctly so that you can be your child’s at-home teacher. (Note: Most consonants are the same in French as in English, so although we will talk about them in class, and you may want to review them at home, I will not discuss them here.) Know that much of what I explain to you, I probably have not explained to the class - or I have explained it very simply. All kinds of rules and exceptions will be meaningless and overwhelming for students at this point. At school we are focusing primarily on what sounds right, and matching this up to what it looks like. The more detailed explanations that you will find here are for your interest and benefit. If you find it is a struggle to get through a list of words, especially as the words get longer, feel free to focus on only some of the words. Similarly, if you feel your child could use a challenge, add the weekly bonus words to your list. You’re the teacher when you practice at home, and you don’t need my permission to adjust the workload to suit your child.

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘a’. In French, this letter is not as bright as in English. Think “dad”. For each new sound that we learn, I love the idea of using 3-D letters (maybe you have magnets?) or flashcards to experiment with the vowel combined with different consonants. We won’t be looking at each consonant in depth the way we are vowels, so this is a great way to make sure your child has a good grasp of the whole alphabet. Don’t worry if your combos aren’t real words, we’re just working on combining sounds in this game!