Skating, Science etc.

Dear Salle 211 families,

Thank you once again to the parents who came skating with us today. It was another successful morning and we had great luck with streetcars this time. Pictures below!

This has been a busy week, we have many projects on the go and I forget what I've told you about and what I haven't. Sorry if any of this is repeat! (Hmmm, maybe I should go back and re-read my own blog!)

In French, when we're not working on our procedures, we've been working on writing out some of our daily rhymes. Each student selected one and wrote it out, repeating it over and over to remind themselves of the words. They can do this work fairly independently
since they don't need to struggle with brainstorming their own content or with figuring out unknown French words.
Once they have written out the rhyme, they refer to a chart with a few things to check for (e.g., capitals, periods, is the word in your dictionary, on the word wall or somewhere else in the class?). Next, they ask a partner to check their work again to correct anything they didn't notice. Their editor has to sign the corner of the page to confirm they have done their job. Finally, they show their work to me and I get to make a few final corrections. When they've made a few corrections (just the stuff that we've covered in class), students begin writing out a good copy of their rhyme using their best printing and including an illustration of the rhyme. We're making a class book of rhymes and already have several good copies in it!

In Math, we're working on conducting one last survey and graphing the results. Almost everyone has now had a chance to visit a grade 2 or 3 class to ask their question and gather their data. I'm very proud of them for having the courage to visit an older class, ask the teacher for permission and ask the older students their question, all in French! (One of the teachers told me they were very cute!)
Now we're working on turning our data into a bar graph.

Our teacher candidate, Mlle Bradfield, is in charge of Science from now until she has to leave us. She planned a fantastic investigation for us this week, where we went to 5 different centres to touch different objects and figure out which adjective would best describe them. For example, at the Rigide ou Flexible centre there was an elastic and a pair of chopsticks. The scientists had to figure out which word described each object and note this on their investigation worksheet.
Part two of the activity was to choose just one of the objects and describe how we use it, and why it's important that it have the quality we discovered in order to do its job. For example, we figured out that spoons are curved and forks are pointy. One student wrote that the purpose of a spoon is to eat, and it's important that it's curved so that we can eat liquids, like soup!
Ask your students what the heavy object was and why it's important that it's heavy, or why it's important that the sticky object is sticky!

A reminder that Term 1 reports are coming home February 9th and interviews are being held on the 10th and 11th. If you would like to meet with me, please email or return the form (everyone got a hard-copy) by Monday the 8th or before. Hope to see lots of you on those evenings!

A message from the library

Dear Parent and Families,

The French Scholastic Book Fair is coming to our school!

We invite you to share this celebration of books and reading with us. You will discover intelligent and fun books, novels, chapter books, leveled books, graphic novels, comic books and many more.   

The French Book Fair is a great opportunity for your child to learn or practice choosing a book independently.    

Students and parents can purchase books one hour before school begins, during the lunch hour and for an hour and ½ after school ends.

Please look at the flyer and don’t forget to enter our Family Event Draw. You could win $50 in books – $25 for your family and $25 for your child’s classroom!

We hope you will join us at the French Book Fair.

P.S. Did you know that for every $10 you spend at the book Fair, up to $6 goes back to our school? This allows us to purchase needed books and educational resources.

See online flyer: http://www.scholastic.ca/festival/featuredbooks.php

French Book Fair Dates: Monday February 8, Tuesday the 9^th, Wednesday the 10^th ,Thursday the 11^th.   

Times:

8:00-8:50 am,

12:00-12:30 pm

 3:30-5:00 pm

Thursday: up to 7:00pm.

Location: Library

We accept cash, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Interac.

If you choose to send your child to school with money, please discuss with your child how s/he will keep the money safe and whether or not the money can be shared with other children. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Mme Gaudreault 

How-to write a procedure

Hi parents,

In the past two weeks we've been learning about how to write a procedure, or instructions. As mentioned, students worked in partners to explain the steps for doing an everyday task, with the goal in mind of helping kindergarten students learn how to be successful in grade 1. Some things we've explained are how to go to the washroom, how to get dressed for recess, how to borrow books and how to use the listening centre.
In writing our instructions, we referred to our success criteria, which outline the 5 parts of a good procedure. We always begin with a title (starting with the word Comment), then a list of the things we need, next the steps and drawings that help to explain the steps, and finally a word of advice in case something goes wrong (un conseil).
During this project, we also began learning to edit our work a little, using feedback from the teacher and checking that we have the appropriate upper-case letters, petits points, and that we are using our dictionaries and classroom resources to check spelling here and there. We have and will be applying what we learn about editing to all of our future writing work.
Today, students had an opportunity to look at their rubric for their partner instructions to see how they did. I used the same rubric that I will use for their individual procedure project so that they know exactly what they can work on in order to be successful. They are bringing this rubric and a copy of their partner instructions home to show you. You'll notice that some areas are crossed off - this is because this project was done by two people and I didn't think it fair to assign the same level for sounding out and printing two both people, when usually one partner did more writing and the other did more drawing. All groups have been successful so far in their procedures, but looking at this rubric will give you a good idea of how the expectations for writing are progressing as we approach the half-way point of the year!

In math, we've continued working on data management by learning how to conduct our own survey. Students are able to think of a question (e.g., What's your favourite colour?), three answer choices, and create a tally chart for keeping track of responses. Surveyors have earned lots of jetons in the last week by asking each other their questions in French! This year, I tried something new, I had students create their own bar graphs in their math journals to represent their findings, rather than giving them a pre-made template. I was impressed at how successful students were. They took all the tips I gave them and remembered what we had learned about making an organized diagram (e.g., using a ruler). This week we will do on final graphing project, which will involve each student planning and conducting one final survey and graphing the results in two different ways.
Thanks to all the parents who have shared their bills and newspaper articles with their children and with our class. It's always nice to be able to make the connection to how these skills are used when we grow up!

Three final things:
1. A reminder that this Friday is our second skating adventure. If you're coming with us, please come up to class with your student at 9:00am. If you are on the schedule, but are no longer able to come, please let me know. Thanks! Students will, again, need their skates and helmet in a bag that they can carry. Everything else will be left at school.
2. Every so often our glue bottles need to be refilled and the caps rinsed out. It is that time. If you have an hour of time that you can spare to sit by our sink and help with this boring job I will be eternally grateful. Hot drink of your choice will be provided and of course you can also spend some time helping in class if you like. Please email me!
3. Report cards are coming up! We are beginning to plan interviews once again. I believe Mme Robinson is sending out the interview form tonight via email. If you are unable to receive the form via email and get it back to me, please let me know ASAP and I'll get you a hard copy. Interview requests are due back to me Monday Feb. 8. Thanks!

Words of the Week

The letter C can make three different sounds in French. On its own it can be either soft (‘s’) or hard (‘k’). The vowel that follows can help you decide which it is, but there are always exceptions. In general, a c followed by an e, i, or y is soft. A c followed by a, o, or u is hard. When a c has that funny little thing that looks like a 5 under it (called a cédille) it is always soft. You’ll see in our words with c-cédille that those c’s would normally be hard, but the cédille breaks the rule. This is a lot to remember, so I haven’t shared all this with the kids, they just know that ç makes ‘s’.

The third sound that c can make, when followed by h, is ‘ch’ - sounds like the English ‘sh’.

ça, garçon, glaçon, le chat, le chien, le cochon
Bonus words: la vache, le cheval

Words & Nutcracker update!

Dear parents,

Hope you enjoyed the skating pictures from yesterday! I want to draw your attention to an old post that I have updated. At the very beginning of January I uploaded and posted the videos of the dances we created with our visiting artist in December, but I couldn't load the video of the dancing toys. This is now fixed, so please scroll down and check out the full story!

Words of the Week

We are now going to start increasing the number of words per week until we reach 10.

This week we have the sound ‘ui’. We’re all familiar with this sound because of one of the first words we ever learned, “oui” (=yes). It sounds just like the word “we” in English.

It is common to see students write “je swi” for “je suis”. This is exactly how it sounds, and they’re using what they know about the letter w, so it’s all good. Because “je suis” is so frequently used, we’ll start correcting it in our writing now so that we get in the good habit of spelling it correctly.

oui, huit, puis, fruit, je suis

Bonus words: juillet, cuillère

Skating!!

Happy Skating Day No. 1!

I was super impressed with the skaters today! They were much more capable than I was expecting. Many students had fun pushing chairs around, other students were quite confident on their own, others were veritable skating experts! For me, it was such a treat to skate on the pristine ice of an indoor arena. I usually only get to skate on the wavy pond ice out on the marsh in Bowmanville. It's so much nicer skating on a flat surface! Who knew?!

HUGE thanks to our grade 4 helpers and the many parents who came. I didn't tie up a single pair of skates, save my own, and every fall was quickly attended to! I hope we didn't scare anyone off with the walk home. Next time we will surely have better luck with streetcars!

Next Friday, January 29th is our next Skating Day!

Words of the Week & Skating

Dear parents,

Thanks for all the skating forms. I am waiting for a handful more and then I'll sort out skates and helmets for those that need. Everyone that wants to will have a chance to skate with us.
Monday is our first skating day! On Monday, please make sure your child is on time for school. We will be leaving right after attendance. Your skater will need their helmet and skates. If the skates could be in a bag, that would be best. At the very least, please make sure they have blade protectors. A towel in the bag is also handy for drying the blades afterwards. Please review with your child how to pack everything up and all the various pieces they are responsible for carrying and keeping track of. Looking forward to this adventure!

Words of the Week

Last week, we were introduced to the sound ‘en’, which can also look like ‘em’. Well, there are two more ways to make this same sound: ‘an’ and ‘am’.

“Maman” was a bonus word in September, but now we have the tools to be able to catch that final syllable. Again, search for this sound (and others) before starting to read a book. See if it’s in a word you already know or that you can sound out. That way, when you get there, you’ll be able to read more fluidly.

maman, dans, enfant, grand, janvier

Bonus words: le camping, avant

In-class activities

Hi parents,

I feel like I've been writing to you very frequently lately about all kinds of other things, but not what we are actually doing during class time. Here's a little update:

In Language, we are more than half way done learning the French vowel sounds/combinations that we will tackle this year. As you know, the words of the week always contain the sound we are working on, hopefully giving you a way to review it again at home.

We have received 5 letters back from the friends and family we wrote to in December! I think I'm more excited than the kids who are receiving letters. Please thank your friends for taking the time to write back. It is so meaningful!

We are now beginning to work on following and writing a procedure, for example, rules to a game or a recipe. Today we co-wrote instructions for how to use the shoe bin in grade 1. Tomorrow, we will work with a partner to explain another routine that we've learned in grade 1.

In Math, we have started a unit on graphing - as I told the kids, it's my very favourite math unit (which is saying something, because I love teaching math period) - graphs are so cool! 

We began by using the weather cards, that we used to track the weather back in November, and turning them into a bar graph (diagramme à bandes). I taught students how to make their own level 4 diagramme à bandes (using a ruler - always - and using colour or decoration to help our eyes differentiate between the bandes quickly) and students tried their hand at copying the information we had collected into their own diagram. It went very well, and, in looking at our work, we shared a few other suggestions for keeping our graphs neat and organized (e.g., using the tick marks at the bottom to know where the sides should be, and putting little dots to remind ourselves of where to start and stop lines).

The second diagramme à bandes that we created was about the birthday months of everyone in Salle 211. Each student wrote their name on a paper and then glued it on our diagramme above the correct month. It was easy to tell which month has the most birthdays, and which months don't have any of our birthdays. Students, again, made their own diagrammes using this data and all the tips from the first assignment, and were very successful. Everyone's work was SO neat - I think every single person was using their ruler, fixing little mistakes and doing a careful job! Graphing is just so fun!!

At home, try to find some examples of graphs being used to give you information and challenge your mathematician to interpret the graphs with you. For example, your hydro or gas bill probably has a bar graph or pie chart showing how your usage compares to last month or last year. This is a cool thing to share and explain. I will show some of these at school too.

In Science, we are finally beginning a new unit on Structures and Materials. We began by discussing man-made v. natural structures. Ask your scientist for some examples of both. During this unit, we will do lots of experiments to test the properties of different materials. Today we did a blind test to differentiate between rough and smooth (rugueux et lisse). Ask your scientist to tell you which materials were rugueux and which were lisse. If you'd like to help out, it's always great to have extra hands for these group activities, and we usually do them between 10:30-11:30am. Let me know if you'd like to help out!

In Visual Art, we had our second clay workshop with Mme Ally. She brought back our clay sculptures, which have been fired in her kiln and turned white, and she taught us how to properly glaze them. It was a really interesting process - some of the colours will look completely different after they are fired once again. Can't wait to see the finished product!

In other news, I'm excited to say that I've applied for ours and two of the grade 2 classes to perform at an Arts Fest day at another school on February 25th. Since we don't have much time, we are going to learn one of the songs I taught my class last year and hopefully the grade 2s that were in my class can help us learn it quickly! I'll let the kids tell you more about the song - it tells a nice story. Here is a link so that you can listen to it at home (I've shortened it a bit, but they can at least sing along for the first verse and the choruses).

Don't forget that skating forms are due this THURSDAY. The earlier the better - I need to organize parents and look into getting equipment for those that need it. If anyone has a helmet that might fit my average-sized adult head, I would love to borrow it if you don't mind.

Last thing - I've again reminded students that we are still missing quite a few of the classroom books and levelled books that went home over the holiday. Please have another look at home and make sure that everything has been returned. Students are looking for their next books and the selection in the yellow drawer is quite slim.

Have a great week!

Tamara