Sunday 20 September 2015

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!