Joyeuses Fêtes!

Hello again,

Despite missing most of our class this week, we did manage to finish our letters and get them into envelopes. They will be in the mailbox in the next 30 minutes! We also took up our grade 1 science experiment and saw what happens to paper when left in a sunny window for 5 days... we thought about other things that might be affected by the sun over even longer periods of time. We also made a Christmas decoration and wow, does the gold paint look great on some of them! Our last nice thing on our kindness calendar was to make a craft for a neighbour, so the little egg bell with a chocolate inside is our gift for one of your special neighbours.

Thank you so so much for all the thoughtful cards and generous gifts. Your messages are very meaningful. I hope the students like the book I picked for them and are able to read it over the holiday. Many students took extra books from the borrow-a-book drawers, so I'm crossing my fingers that you are able to keep up a little bit of reading in French over your break. It's crazy how quickly we forget!

I hope everyone recovers quickly from the illness we have all shared, and you are able to enjoy a fantastic, restful, safe holiday. See you back here January 9th!

Joyeux Noël, joyeux Hanoukkah et bonne année mes amis!

Cookies!!!

You've probably heard about the nice thing we did today. We had so much fun making cookies to offer to our hard-working caretakers and office staff.
The students worked in groups and each baker was responsible for one part of the recipe. Ask your student what job he/she did. Each group also added a different topping to their cookie, so we ended up with 4 different variations. Ask your baker what kind of cookie they helped make!

At the end of the day, we delivered our presents and we each got to pick one cookie to taste. They were delicious! We self-evaluated our listening/reading of instructions, our teamwork and our turn taking after our baking extravaganza. Look for this rubric on Wednesday.

Another kind act we've done recently is to select one of our classroom toys and gift it to a kindergarten class. We gave away a doll that we think we can live without. To track our votes as we made the decision, we made a pictograph, since we are on to data management now. More on our graphing adventures soon!

Words of the Week

Dear families,

Last week before the break! Unfortunately, we are behind in a couple of our projects, so we'll have to keep working right through, but we'll still make time for some fun holiday activities.
As I think about getting on with our work, I wanted to mention that it wouldn't hurt to review time-telling skills a bit at home. We spent a full week on it, but we're not all there yet. Grade 1s are pretty solid with telling time on an analogue clock to the hour, but half hour was a bit shaky. Grade 2s also worked with me for 3 full periods on quarter hour (:15 and :45). It was starting to sink in by the end... I think. Telling the time is a great, and easy, thing to practice at home anyway since it is a part of our daily lives! Anytime you notice it is exactly on the hour, half hour or quarter hour, ask your student to tell you what time it is!


This Friday, I will make very sure that our cubbies are completely empty and that all belongings are going home. If you need your student to bring home their indoor shoes for your vacation, please let me know so that I can make sure that happens. On Friday I will also suggest to all students that they take a few extra borrow-a-books so that you can keep up your reading routine during your time away from school (important!!). Please let your child know how many extra books you'd like them to bring and we'll do our best with what we've got.
Tomorrow (Tuesday), a small slip of paper will be coming home with the titles of any library books from this term that still need to be returned. Please help your student search every nook and cranny of your home to find these books. They should be returned Wednesday when we have library, or before the end of the week. Thanks for your help.

Also, if you have not yet sent in the address for the person your child is writing to, please do so ASAP. We got a good start on our letters today, so all students should know whose address they need.

I probably should have said this earlier, but please do not feel that you have to give me a gift. Standing in a nice line in the hall every time they enter is the childrens' everyday gift to me! If you would like to get me something, consider something for our classroom. I often spend my own money on art supplies, paper towels and French books, so these are great ideas that will benefit all of us. Also, as per the school's package, please do not send food on Friday. We will not be having a party, but we'll have some fun and the kids will all receive a gift from me. Thanks.

Words of the Week

The ‘en’ sound is very similar to ‘on’, and there are several ways to make it. 'Em', 'en', 'am' and 'an' all usually make this sound (although we've already discovered some exceptions). Again, ask your child to help you with this one, but to me, it sounds like what we say when we don’t understand something - “huh?”. 

This week, grade 1s will focus on finding words with “en” and “em”. Grade 2s have an example of each combination in action so that we can tackle another grade 2 sound after the break.

In the last few weeks we’ve learned a lot of vowel combinations that are so common in French and help us so much with our sounding out in reading and writing. We will be continuing with this in the new year. When reading a book with your child, it is helpful to go for a treasure hunt before you start reading. Ask your reader to circle all of the “en” and “em”s he/she can find within words in the book. This way, when you get there, you already know what that part of the word will sound like.

You can turn this into a good review of old sounds as well. E.g., “Find me a letter that makes the sound ‘s’. Find me two letters that work together to make ‘o’. Now find me the sound ‘oi’.” This is what we do with our morning message every day.

Anything you can do to make working with sounds fun is a great idea!

Grade 1: en, vent, dent, décembre, content

Bonus words: cent, novembre

Grade 2: dent, décembre, janvier, 
enfant, le camping

Skating!

Success!! We had a great time skating this morning. We have many experts already, and the kids who borrowed skates for the first time today persevered and will soon be unstoppable!
Thanks to our first set of parents for all your help on and off the ice. Our next skating adventure is January 25th! Pics from today are below.

Today, students are bringing home a small pink piece of paper. This is for a very easy, quick, homework assignment. Over the weekend, please help your writer decide who they would like to write a letter to (family member or friend) and help them write down the address on the pink slip. We will be working on and mailing our letters next week! Please send this back at school by Tuesday at the latest! Thanks!

Tuesday morning, our kindness calendar is going to ask us to do a bit of a complicated activity that we could really use some help with. It'll be super fun! Please let me know if you're able to help out between 10:30 and 11:30 am. Thanks!

Skating

Dear parents,

This Friday is our first skating outing. We will leave right after attendance and be back just on time for lunch.
If your child has their own skates and helmet, please be sure to send them in a bag that your student can manage on their own. If your student is borrowing skates and a helmet from school, please send them with a large enough and strong enough bag that they'll be able to carry their equipment. We will leave lunches at school.

If you are not an official volunteer this time, but would like to help out anyway, please know that you are welcome on any skating trip, just please provide your own TTC fare or meet us at McCormick arena at 10 am.

Looking forward to it!

1 Free Hug!

Dear Parents,

I hope you're enjoying the winter wonderland! I love it when the snow is fresh and pretty - so much fun to play in! A couple things that will really help us out as we deal with snowsuits...
1. Please make sure all pieces of outdoor clothing are labeled with your child's name. It doesn't take long and could save you tons of time and money searching and replacing. I am pretty good at helping the kids manage their belongings, but things do and will go missing... Names help a lot! We are also getting in the routine of putting all small things (hats, gloves, scarves) in our coat sleeves when we move throughout the school - a good routine to reinforce at home.
2. I am training the kids - snowpants first, then coat, then boots, then little things - mittens/gloves always last so that they can do their own zippers. If you could do the same at home, that would help us become independent dressers and get us out to recess and dismissal faster!
3. Please send extra socks and mittens. These items don't always have time to dry in between recesses and we all know how uncomfortable it is to put wet things back on. Yuck! If your child's boots tend to get wet inside, a plastic bag in each boot is a great solution so that socks and feet stay dry. Honestly though, 2 or 3 extra pairs of socks and mittens in the school bag is not excessive. You can get a bunch of cheap mittens at the dollar store.
Let's have a comfortable winter - thanks for your help!

I hope your child has been keeping you up to date with our kindness calendar tasks. Last week we held doors open, asked adults in the school how we could help and helped our classmates with their classroom jobs, among other things. Today we made a coupon (un bon) for one free hug. Students are giving their coupon to a friend or family member! We hope we can cheer some people up with this one!

In French we are working on writing nice letters. We created a list of 5 things that all nice letters have (e.g., the date, the name of the person we're writing to, some nice words to begin...). We wrote a class letter to Santa and are currently finishing up writing a letter to a teacher in our school with a partner's help. Next we will be writing letters independently, following our success criteria, to a family member. Later this week I will send home a little slip of paper where you can help your writer note the address of the person they wish to write to. We will transfer this to an envelope at school. Please help your student to start thinking about who they would like to write to!

In Math, this week we are working on telling time. Today we reviewed simply telling the time to the hour using analogue clocks, but grade 1s will learn to tell time to the half hour and grade 2s will work on quarter-hour increments.

We are also going to finish up our version of Van Gogh's "Starry Night". Ask your artist about the special tool we are using to create texture in our school paint!

Words of the Week

If the ‘on’ sound is ever forgotten, show your student a picture of a candy and it’ll come right back! Then you can say “C’est bon!” (Good stuff!)

This is another sound that doesn’t exist in English. The easiest thing is probably to ask your child to teach it to you. Ask them how to say “no” or “candy” in French. To describe it in English, say the word “on” with your lips closed almost all the way, and don’t close to the ‘n’. You’ll feel it in the back of your throat. This sound can also be written as ‘om’.

Grade 1: bonbon, mon, ton, non, nom

Bonus words: bon, son

Grade 2: bonbon, lion, maison, content, 

nous avons

Kindness Calendar

Hello parents,

For the last few weeks before Christmas break, we are going to tackle a couple new things in both math and language. 

In language, we are going to take a break from sounding out our daily rhymes and poems and focus on letter writing. We have already written some nice notes to Mme Shyama to thank her for her help, so we will recall how we did that to create a success criteria poster for how to write a nice letter. This will help us do a really good job in our next letters. Ask your student if there is a family member they would like to write to!

In math, we are in the middle of our first measurement unit and still need to tackle time and temperature. Last week, we graphed the weather through the month of November (we had been tracking this daily). Today, we got to look at some thermometers to learn about how they work and practice reading the temperature. We took the temperature in our classroom, noted it, and then took the thermometers outside and watched the temperature change before our eyes!

I also want to tell you about a fun December initiative our class is taking on. I have created a kindness calendar for Salle 211. I'm sure many children (and certain teachers whose names rhyme with camera) have chocolate calendars at home. Instead of chocolates, ours has a kind task that we will focus on during each school day in December. Each morning, a student comes to the calendar to find the card and read the kind act we need to do for that day. 

On Thursday we began by writing thank you notes to Mme Shyama on her last day. Today we went outside and picked up some garbage from our school yard. Please ask your child what our kind task is every day!

Words of the Week

This is one of my personal favourites. I think ‘oi’ is a fun sound to say. In English, it sounds just like ‘wa’, as in “water”. At first, children sometimes use the letter a when trying to write this sound. That’s just fine, they are similar. From now on, we’ll help them listen a little closer and remind them that there’s an even better way to write that sound. Our sound poster in class has a picture of a bird and the word oiseau. If you’re doing rule posters at your house, looking at this one is an immediate reminder of what the sound looks like.

Grade 1: oiseau, froid, moi, toi, voiture

Bonus words: roi, loi

Grade 2s are also adding the 'oir' and 'oire' sounds. This is the very same 'oi' sound, just followed by an 'r' sound. There are tons of words that end like this... avoir, bonsoir, savoir, boire, voir... I've chosen just a couple.

Grade 2: oiseau, je vois, froid, au revoir, histoire

Stuff and things and gr. 1 homework!

Dear parents,

Thanks for all the skating forms. I will put together a schedule for volunteers, so look for an email from me next week.

A couple other things are on their way home:
1. December Scholastic is due next Thursday. We should receive the books in plenty of time for the holidays. If you'd like to keep some or all of your purchase a secret, just let me know and I'll contact you when the order arrives!
2. Dewson is holding its annual vision and hearing clinic on December 21st. This is an optional, but highly recommended opportunity to check your child's vision and hearing at a very low cost. If you notice that your child is not interested in reading, or is struggling with it, or if they seem not to hear you clearly or respond right away, this is a good thing to check. It could be that a simple fix will make a big difference. Forms and payment are due back by the 14th.
3. At the beginning of our measurement unit, we worked for almost a week on finishing the numbering in our personal calendars. We added each others' birthdays and some important holidays and upcoming things to remember (like our skating days). I do hope very much that this will not simply be thrown out, but that students will be able to put it up somewhere at home where they can refer to it, and learn to use a calendar as a tool to stay organized. I am a better person because of learning to use an agenda!!

Grade 1 scientists got to bring home their 3D season yesterday! I hope you also got to see their self-evaluation. They worked in teams on creating all 4 seasons, and then reflected on how they worked together. Mme Shyama and I made sure that we read my comments to each scientist so that they understand my feedback. We have kept a copy of this in our school portfolio since it is such an excellent example of teamwork and reflecting on our work.

Grade 1s also have a bit of homework to do before our next science period, which is next Tuesday. We were talking yesterday about things that help keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We thought of things like blankets, sweaters, a fan, a swimming pool... However, we didn't think of some of the things about our house that help protect us from the elements (such as insulation). The researchers are going to ask you to help them think of things about your home that protect us from the elements. We will discuss our discoveries on Tuesday. Thanks for your help!!

Have a great long weekend,
Tamara

Mots de la semaine

Words of the Week

E might win as the most complicated letter of the French alphabet. It can make so many different sounds depending on the accent or letters around it. In this case, when followed by ‘s’, it makes a more relaxed sound, as in “best”. We don't hear the 's' unless it is linked to the following word, beginning with a vowel. Your student has probably already learned these words, but it might be a good time to go back to playing with movable letters to play with different combinations.

Grade 1: les, mes, tes, des, c’est

Bonus words: il est, ses

Grade 2s are adding another sound to their repertoire this week, 'elle'. This begins with the same sound as 'es', but adds the 'L' sound. The word "elle" refers to a girl, or feminine object. The words "vaisselle" (dishes) and "nouvelle" (new) will help us in our efforts to write out the oral stories and poems we know!

Grade 2: c’est, responsable, 

elle, vaisselle, nouvelle

Also, thanks to Mme Shyama, here are a few shots with me in them!! This is Mme Shyama's last week with us. She has supported our students for many weeks and has done countless hours of behind the scenes work for me and the kids, saving me precious time. Please join me in thanking Mme Shyama when you see her at school this week.

Learning Skills Check-Up

Hi parents,

Today you are getting our November social skills check-up. We focused on saying only positive words, working calmly and staying focused on our task, while we completed the pictures in our calendars. Focused, quiet work has not always been easy for us, but it was much better today since students knew they would be self-evaluating after. We will continue to work on these skills. Please check in with your student about how they did and how they can do even better.

Today, we also completed our November dictée. I haven't looked at them yet, but from my observations, and how quickly we got it done, I think it was our most successful one yet! Look for that on Monday.

We are also bringing home our Halloween Frankens and they have been replaced with some lovely Hanukkah art that we have already completed. We used tape to draw one of 3 Hanukkah symbols that we discussed very briefly, and then we painted over it. They look so cool when you peel the tape off!

Have a great weekend!
Tamara

Skating

Dear skaters,

We're already thinking about our next outings. Once again, Mme Robinson has arranged for grade 1s and 2s to go skating THREE times this winter. Thanks to the parent council, these outings will be completely free for all students. Thank you!!

Our dates are: December 16, January 25 and February 1. On each date we will leave just after attendance and return just on time for lunch. This includes 1 hour of skating at McCormick arena.

As you can imagine, we will need many parents to help with these outings. If you can skate, even better! The blue permission form is coming home today. Please return page 2 by December 1st. On the reverse, please let me know about skates, helmets and days that you are able to help. We will make sure that we find skates and a helmet for anyone who indicates they do not have their own. We want everyone to practice their skating skills this year!

Thanks!

Nature Centre

Hi parents,

We had a successful trip to the Nature Centre today. We learned all about how trees make food for themselves, why leaves change colour in the fall, how trees live through the winter, and so much more. My hiking group even learned some stunning facts from our guide. Did you know that bees have excellent facial recognition?? They can recognize each other! Crazy!

Here are some questions your hiker might be able to answer to get the conversation going...
- What do trees like to eat?
- What part of the tree is the chef?
- When the leaves stop making food in the fall, what happens to them?
- When trees lose their leaves, does it means they have died? What are they doing?
- What's a squirrel's nest called? (We made some on our hike.)
- Tell me about the tag game you played. How can you tell the kinds of trees apart if they don't have leaves on them?

Thanks again to all our parent volunteers, we couldn't have done it without you! If you have any pictures you can send me, please do and I will post them here!

Words of the Week

Sorry, my bad!
Note to self: Never try to do things out of the usual routine. You forget things.

Words will come home tomorrow and grade 2s are excused from Monday homework this week. A reminder that we are leaving at 11:30 tomorrow for our trip. Layers, layers, layers!! This trip will be tons of fun, as long as we are dressed for the weather!

Words of the Week

This week we are reviewing the sound, ‘é’. E-accent aigu is like an entirely separate, extra, vowel in the French alphabet. You can think of the sound ‘ay’ in English, as in “May”. In addition to é words, I would like everyone to memorize the words “j’ai” (= I have, or sometimes, I am) and “et” (= and). They sound like é even though they don’t look like it, and we use these words all the time.

Grade 1: éléphant, bébé, école, *j’ai*, *et*

Bonus words: année, idée

Grade 2: idée, bébé, école, *j’ai*, *et*

Blog Emails

Hi parents,
A few of you mentioned that the blog hasn't been emailing you even though you had signed up. I removed and replaced the gadget and I think the problem is fixed! I signed up for emails today, proved that I wasn't a computer and then clicked the link in the confirmation email I received right away. I just got the email with this morning's post about the field trip.

Please try entering your email address again and follow the steps. Let me know if it still doesn't work for you.

Thanks for following this blog!
Tamara

Field Trip!!

Hi parents,

It was nice to chat with you during our interviews over the last two evenings. Thanks for all your insight, support and involvement. You know you can always contact me if you have questions or concerns, and we don't have to wait until February to meet again if you want to touch base.

Tuesday afternoon is our field trip to the High Park Nature Centre. A note came home yesterday with details about what to bring and how to dress. It looks like it will be chilly next week and a large part of the day will be outside. Remember, we can always take stuff off so it's better to have too much rather than too little. Even if there's no snow, snowpants might not be the worst thing. Definitely hats, scarves and gloves. We will be reviewing safety and behaviour expectations for our trip before we leave. For instance, always hold your partner's hand in the subway station and put your back against the wall when waiting for the train. Also, there are some common sense Nature Centre rules that we will be learning before our hike. Please speak to your adventurer about your expectations for their behaviour on this exciting adventure!

This trip links nicely with what our grade 1s have been working on in science recently. As you know, we've been talking about the seasons. Our latest project was to actually build the 4 seasons using craft materials! The builders worked with their groups to sort out who would do what, put the seasons in the right order, "shop" for materials, and assemble everything. When we were all done, each student completed a self-evaluation thinking about how they worked as a member of their group. The projects look super cool - next week we will present them to each other.

Have a great weekend,
Tamara

Cendrillon

Hi parents,
I just want to mention that the National Ballet is currently performing Cinderella. In the next couple weeks, I plan to tell our class the story along to Prokofiev's music. It would be an amazing experience to actually go see the ballet in real life as well! It is on now until November 20.
If you can't make it, there are some short clips on the website. Enjoy!

Report Card Etiquette

Dear families,

As you know, Progress Reports are coming home tomorrow. Today, I have sent home a confirmation of your interview time (it's a small green slip of paper). I did my best to accommodate everyone's preferences. If you are unable to come at the assigned time, please email me to let me know, and we'll make other arrangements to meet.
Please be prompt for your interview. I will do my very best to stay right on time. If we discover that we need a longer conversation, I'll be very happy to arrange another meeting with you in the near future.

Tomorrow I will explain the different sections of the progress report to the children so that they can begin to understand what it is all about. Side 1 focuses on learning skills - things that we have to do in order to be good learners, such as listening, working together, staying focused and taking responsibility for actions and materials. Side 2 focuses on what we are learning, how we're progressing with our reading, writing, math, and other subjects.
At this point in the year, I think it's really important to focus on the learning skills section. It is very difficult to progress in the subject areas without having established good learning skills. Therefore, I put a great deal of effort into being very specific and honest about what I observe in terms of learning skills. We will have an opportunity later this week to write down something that we are proud that we are doing really well, and what our one main goal will be going forward. My hope is that all children will read their progress report with their parents and decide what area they want to work on. I have given my opinion of next steps in learning skills, language and math, so those are things to consider as part of this discussion. If you would like suggestions for how you can help with those things at home, please bring this up in our interview.

I will also explain what the letter grades mean. E is for Excellent, which really means that you're doing a great job all the time. G is for Good, which means you're meeting expectations and doing well most or all of the time, but there are small ways in which you could improve even more. S is for Satisfactory, which means that sometimes you're doing just fine, but other times you need to be reminded, so keep working on it. N means that you need a lot of support with that skill, so make this your goal going forward.

Finally, there are a few etiquette rules around report cards that will be true for every report this year, and in future grades as well. Here is what I will explain to the children:
1. Do not open your report card envelope until you are with a parent or guardian.
2. Your report card is private. Do not share your marks with friends, this doesn't make either person feel good.
3. Keep your report, but please return the envelope (signed) so that we can reuse it for the next report.

See you all soon!

Words of the Week

Here’s where you get to use your true English  ‘u’ sound. It’s much rounder than plain ‘u’ in French. When you see ‘ou’ in French, think “dude” or “food” in English. 

Some ideas for mixing it up this week:

1.   “ou” means “or”. Ask your child lots of questions involving a choice using “ou” this week. E.g., “Est-ce que tu veux du lait ou du jus?” (Would you like milk or juice?)

2.   It is very common to have silent letters on the ends of French words, and this is something your child has already started to notice at school. Ask your expert to hunt for the silent letters in this, and previous, word lists. (It’s the p on “loup” and the s on “sous”.)

3.   Last week we had the word “sur” (=on top of) and this week we have “sous” (=under).  There’s a cute little song to the tune of London Bridge that begins with these two words. Ask your singer if he/she can sing it for you.

Grade 2s have already looked at the sound "ille" and some of their words that week also featured the 'ou' sound (e.g., grenouille). It's as simple as saying both sounds back-to-back.

Grade 1: ou, sous, loup, rouge, bonjour

Bonus words: jour, pour

Grade 2: loup, souris, jouer, bonjour, citrouille