C'est l'Halloween!

Hi parents,

Wow, amazing costumes!! Here's a picture of our class today:

We had a Halloween twist to all our normal activities today. In the morning, we wrote in our journals about what we were dressed up as. Then, I told the students a spooky story and they painted a picture of what they imagined during the story. More about this below... Later, I was invited to watch the Halloween dances they prepared with Mme Morgenstern. We did some mysterious Halloween math (algebra!!) and listened to another Halloween story. Each creature received some stickers, a fancy pencil with eraser and an extra special gift from Estelle to take home.

I want to give ALL students a special Bravo today. Halloween day can be crazy sometimes because we forget that we are at school, but I must say that our class did a great job of following instructions all day. In particular, they were AMAZING listeners during the special story I told this morning, which I'd like to share with you now.

Since I'm a musician in my other life, I really enjoy telling musical stories when I can. I chose a scary one for Halloween (although I don't think I really scared anybody). The song is called Erlkönig (or, The Elf King, in English). It's a German song with music written by Schubert in 1815. The Erlkönig is an evil creature, or spirit, who haunts sick children. In this song, a father is riding on horseback to get his very sick son to the doctor, but the Erlkönig is haunting the child and the son is frightened by visions of the evil spirit. The Erlkönig tries to lure the child away with promises of games, songs and golden clothes, but eventually threatens to hurt him if the child will not come. By the end of the song, when they finally arrive at the doctor's, the boy has died in his father's arms.
Although the lyrics are in German, you don't need to speak German to get an idea of the story. When I told it to the children, I asked them to listen for several things in the music. In the piano, you hear a repeated triplet rhythm representing the galloping horse. This rhythm persists until the very end of the piece, when it slows and then stops as father and son arrive at their destination. Meanwhile, the male singer actually plays 4 roles, and you can hear how he changes his voice to play each character. The narrator introduces and concludes the story in a mid-range. As the sick boy the singer sounds panicked and the notes are in his high range. As the father, the singer is quite serious and sings in a very low range. As the Erlkönig  the singer uses an almost sickeningly sweet voice and sings quietly. Interestingly, when the Erlkönig is singing, the music is in a major (happy-sounding) key because he is trying to trick the child.
Anyway, the students really listened carefully to me translating the story over the music, and were excited to listen to it a second time. Please ask them about it! You might need to prompt them by asking them to tell you what it's about, or how the voices are different. Here's the music, if you'd like to hear it for yourself, or if they'd like to tell it to you with the music as I did.

Today, students are bringing home their second monthly dictée rubric. As I explained, each month the expectations will increase a little, as we learn more sounds and work on writing. Most of the rubric is the same this time, with the exception of the addition of the new sounds we've learned this month (i, o/au/eau and ph for grade 2). The grade 2 rubric has had a few more updates. In the first month, I left it exactly the same as the grade 1 rubric and we did the same sentence. This month, they had a slight variation in the sentence, and I've shifted a few things over to reflect grade 2 expectations.

As always, please celebrate your child's accomplishments and then decide together on one writing goal for this month. I noticed that many students are not quite sure of the French 'i' sound (instead using 'e', like in English), so we will review that, as well as talking about exactly when we should use capital letters. Happily, almost everyone is already using lower-case letters for most of the sentence!

Words of the Week

I think grade 1's are getting bored of 'o', having perhaps learned all three ways two weeks ago when the grade 2s reviewed them. However, let's officially practice the last way to make ‘o’. This happens frequently, particularly at the ends of words. Try writing a rhyming poem where each line ends with one of these ‘eau’ words!

Grade 1: l’eau, beau, bateau, chapeau, cadeau

Bonus words: ciseaux, couteau

Grade 2s are taking this opportunity to learn yet another challenging sound using consonants. 'Gn', in French, makes a funny "nye" sound. It's hard to explain - probably asking your student is the best idea, we went over it today and I'm confident they all got it. This will be a change from the two 'g' sounds we learned last week, and is different from the way 'gn' sounds in English.

Grade 2: grognon, araignée, montagne, 

champignon, gagner

Don't forget, grade 2 homework is due FRIDAY!

Field Trip

Hi parents,

We had a good first field trip today. The Mandir is beautiful, inside and out. The kids were very impressed, I think, at all the intricate carvings and especially the light ceremony. We learned that Diwali is similar to Christmas or Hanukkah. Candles are lit, houses are decorated and people may exchange gifts. If you're interested in learning more about Diwali, or you'd like to check out this very impressive Temple, please see the picture below with some information about the events happening this weekend. The Mandir is also open 365 days a year. I encourage you to check it out with your family if you have a chance! 

A reminder that children may wear their costumes on Monday, but please

- no masks or unnecessary scariness (e.g., lots of blood)

- no pretend weapons at all

- no candy to share

Have a great weekend!

School Initiatives, Trip & Halloween

Dear parents,
You may have heard about 2 collections going on at school right now. Perhaps you can help with one or both.
1) The gym teachers are asking for donations of any old sports equipment that is in relatively good condition, but that you no longer use. Good examples are balls of any kind, baseball gloves, skipping ropes and hula hoops. Please be very sure that you won't miss having it! I believe there is a table in the entry way to the school where items can be dropped, or you can send them with your child to me. These items will support our school's DPA (daily physical activity) programs and be available for recess play.
2) The WE club is holding it's annual WE Scare Hunger food drive. We will set up a box in our classroom and hopefully everyone can contribute a non-perishable food item. In years past, we have heard that baby food or formula, peanut butter (sealed, of course), pasta and canned fish were especially helpful.

A reminder note came home Monday about our upcoming field trip. This Friday we are heading to the Hindu Temple to learn about Diwali. Here are the main points:
- Please be on time for school! We are getting on the buses immediately after attendance and we would hate to leave without you!
- All students and volunteers are asked to cover their arms and wear bottoms that fall below the knees.
- Please speak with your child about the behaviour you expect on the trip. Remember that we will be visiting a location where people will be praying. We must absolutely keep our voices to a whisper and listen carefully to our guide.
- Students will need their regular lunch to eat a bit later when we get back to school. I will bring our morning school snack with us on the trip.
- If you have a child who suffers from motion sickness, the bus ride might not be fun. Please let me know ahead of time so that I can assign them a seat near the front of the bus and be close by.

Halloween! I know the kids are really looking forward to it. We will have a fun day with lots of Halloween-themed activities, but it is still school and that's important to remember. Students are welcome to wear their costume to school on Monday but please leave any pretend weapons (devil's staff included) at home. As you know from the beginning of the year package, we are not distributing treats or candy at any time (birthdays or holidays) and this includes Halloween. Please do not send candy for the class. If you would really like to send something, there are some great, inexpensive, options at the dollar store (e.g., pencils, erasers, stickers, stamps, glow-bracelets). Please don't feel obliged to send anything, the students will all receive a treat from me.

Words of the Week

This week it is our grade 1s' turn to officially learn the second way to make the sound 'o'. We watched the grade 2s review last week that a + u = o. It only works with the letters in that order!

Grade 1: au, manteau, chaud, autobus, aujourd’hui

Bonus words: jaune, je saute

I don't usually focus our words around consonants, but there are some tricky ones, so this week, grade 2s are looking at a couple things:
'ph' - we can write an addition sentence for this too: p + h = f (just like English)
'g' - like in English, the letter G can be hard or soft, so we have some difficult decisions to make! There are some rules which can help us figure out which sound to use. If followed by E, I or Y, G is soft. If followed by A, O or U, G is hard.
I haven't shared these details with students - way too much to remember! What I suggest is reading the words both ways and asking the questions, "Does that make sense?", "Does that sound like a word that you know?". This is a good strategy for solving unknown words.

Grade 2: photo, éléphant, grand, horloge, regarde

Hockey Homework!

Hi families,

We've been wasting no time in moving along with our newest projects. We had our first go at partner reading and it was an absolute success! Students chose their own partners this time and settled right down genou à genou, coude à coude with the book in the middle. Many beginners talked about the pictures, a few groups even read aloud to each other! Here is what partner reading looks like:

We also started working on a new type of pattern. So far, we have worked on repeating patterns, e.g., red, blue, red, blue. We have now started looking at growing patterns. In this type of pattern, rather than having a rule about what repeats, there is a rule about how the pattern grows, e.g., start with 1 and add 1 each time. Partners worked well together to build their own growing pattern, some counting by 1, others counting by 2 or more.

Finally, I've assigned a bit of unconventional homework to the class. If it's ok with you, I've asked students to watch the beginning of a hockey game - they don't even have to see the beginning of play, just the part where they play the National Anthem. I'd like students to share what they notice about the players. Do they sit or stand, move about, whisper, and what do they do with their hands? We will try to be just like these successful athletes every morning when we sing "O Canada" at school. Thanks!

Clubs de Lecture!

Hello families,

Hope all is well! Thank you for all the mail, I have received almost all field trip forms now, however several were returned without the payment. If the $40 presents a hardship, please do speak to me. Otherwise, please get any remaining forms and $$ to me by Tuesday's deadline. Our first trip is only one week away!!! If you indicated your ability to volunteer on a trip, you will be hearing from me tomorrow, one way or the other. No jokes, almost every single parent was interested in coming on one or all trips! It pains me to have to turn people away, but we do have a cap both for transportation and cost reasons. If I haven't been able to put you to work this time, please consider emailing me to set up a time to volunteer in the class. We will also have a couple opportunities for walking excursions this year, and there will not be a cap on how many parents we can have! Thanks for your enthusiasm and understanding!

A couple days ago, you received your second social skills check-up. You'll recall that every month we do at least one activity where the main focus is our learning skills. This week, we worked with our brand new reading group members (see below), to build marshmallow and toothpick towers. During the activity, we were practising working as a team, solving problems independently and nicely, and following instructions (e.g., don't eat the marshmallows!). It was interesting that even in groups where individuals wanted to work on their own at first, over the 15 minutes, all groups kind of came together and started to discuss and support each other more and more. Hopefully this will continue as they work together on their reading tasks! Please review your student's evaluation and ask them how they think it went with their team!

So, yes, we have new reading groups, or Clubs de Lecture. These are groups of 4 or 5 students who are ready to learn similar reading strategies. Some groups will begin by focusing more on letter sounds and combinations, some groups will focus more on making inferences using the pictures, other groups may start working on identifying punctuation when they read etc. During our reading time, I will almost always work with a reading group in order to help them move forward from where they are in their reading journey.
While I do this, the other Clubs de Lecture have different group activities to work on, based on "The Daily 5" program, which I wrote about in my first day newsletter. One activity is listening to reading. All students have already had one or two turns doing this at the listening centre, but we will also begin using our classroom computers to listen to books. Another centre is working with words. This activity will change depending on what our class is learning about. It could be counting the syllables in a word, doing a word search, practising high frequency words using flashcards, finding and circling sounds within words etc. Right now, the task is to put a group of words in alphabetical order. Another centre is the writing centre. Here, the members of the Club de Lecture agree on a topic for writing and then each member works on one page of the short book, including an illustration and at least one brainstormed sentence. At the end, we assemble the book and they present it to the class. Finally, the last Club de Lecture will work on shared reading. Partners will sit knee to knee, elbow to elbow and read together, taking turns. We will work on partner reading tomorrow.
We will still be doing our regular independent reading regularly, but we will mix things up with these literacy centres at least once a week, Club de Lecture meetings with me being even more frequent.

This week, in math, we have started a unit on Patterning. So far, students have shown that they are quite at ease with repetitive patterns (using a colour rule, shape rule, or even two overlapping rules). Ask your student to make or draw you a pattern with a colour rule or even just any 2 rules they can think of, using the whatever toys you have at home (e.g., blocks, lego, animals....). Next, we will get into number patterns!

Our grade 1s were SO excited to start their first science unit! We are beginning with a unit on daily and seasonal changes, and we'll begin with seasons. Already we have started discussing some of the things we notice or do in the different seasons, and students each worked with a group on a poster for one season, and then presented something from their poster to the class!

Have a great weekend!

Field Trip CHANGE

Hi parents,

Thank you for all the field trip forms. I have almost all of them already.
I'm sorry to do this (I spent so much time on those forms!!), but there was a small, yet significant, typo in the information I received from the Nature Centre and at this point they can't change it at their end. Our class will be going in the PM, not the AM, as indicated on the permission form.
This doesn't change much for you - in fact, makes things a bit easier since you won't have to be at school early. We are still going on the same day, November 22nd, but we will leave at 11:45 am and return at 3:00 pm.

I will clarify this again the week of the Nature Centre trip.
Thanks!

Words of the Week

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘o’. This letter makes the same sound as in English. Think “so”. 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!

Grade 1: orange, dos, octobre, soleil, mot

Bonus: Noël, zéro

Next week, grade 1s will add two other ways of making the 'o' sound to their repertoire so, for now, this is bonus. Grade 2s, however, are reviewing all of the ways to make 'o' this week so that we can do a new grade 2 sound next week.

The 2 additional ways to make the 'o' sound are:  a+u=o and e+a+u=o.

Grade 2: aujourd’hui, mot, octobre, 
chapeau, manteau

Math Centres

Hi parents,
This is so cool! Every year, Le Centre du livre jeunesse canadien gets together with TD Canada Trust to provide a book to all grade 1 students! Grade 2 students will remember receiving Le Chapeau de M. Zinger last year.
This year's book is Petit Paul. I read it to the class today - it's very cute. Each grade 1 student has received their very own copy to keep. Hope you love it!

Over the last 5 weeks, we have done a lot of work on counting and adding. We've played counting and skip-counting games, shared helpful counting strategies and learned to write simple addition and subtraction sentences. In our classroom we have over 10 fun math games that help us practice these skills. This week, we learned how to play 5 of them!

Jeu de maths #6 is Bingo! Instead of having a caller, students take turn rolling a die.

Jeu de maths #9 is an adding game. On their turn, each student rolls two dice and adds the number. They fill in a square for that number on their game card. When time is up, whoever has filled in the most squares of a single number wins.

Jeu de maths #8 consists of a set of blocks with numbers and math symbols. Students take turn arranging them into addition or subtraction sentences.

Jeu de math #3 is an adding challenge. Partners roll two dice and have to add the numbers, writing the addition sentence and answer in their math journal. There are 10-frames and counters to help since we have special dice that go all the way up to 12!

Jeu de maths #5 is very similar except we use normal dice that go up to 6 (they're fun and fuzzy), and instead of writing the addition sentence in numbers, we have to write the number names in letters. We have a handy poster to help with this.

Bonus game: Partners take turns quizzing each other using counting or adding/subtracting flashcards.

Together with their math partner, students had a chance to try out 3 of the math game centres. As we continue through other math units, we will use these games regularly to continue to practice our counting, adding and subtracting skills, which are a huge part of every math strand. We will return to Number Sense again in February for some more advanced work.
Ask your mathematician what their favourite math game is so far!

Grade 1s have all now presented one part of their big project to the class. Bravo mes amis! Today we did a self-reflection about what we learned through this inquiry. Ask your student what he or she said was his favourite part of the project!
One question I asked everyone was what they felt they learned through working on this project. I wasn't expecting anything too deep - it's our first attempt at a reflection after all - maybe that they learned that their friend has a dog, or something. I was so wrong! I was absolutely blown away and thrilled at the reflections of all students! Here are just a few of the learnings they shared... (they did try to tell me in French)
- I learned how to say/write something in French.
- I learned about the lives of my friends.
- I learned that it's important to be nice.
- I learned to be creative.
- I learned about things that happened when I was little (e.g., a vacation, or birthday).
- I feel like this project was really important and I'm happy for my friends too.
Here are some of the beautiful projects up on our bulletin board. We'll bring them home soon!

Scholastic Recommendation

Hi parents,

Scholastic packages for October came home today. Here are some books from the Club de Lecture catalogue that may be of particular interest.

Grade 1: #28 - Je lis! MATHS - All these Je lis! series' are great for beginning readers. They are short, simple and in this case teach some language that we will use later in geometry.
Grade 2: #27 - Le dodo de Mortimer - Sometimes books that kids know in English are great to read in French because they already know the story, so they can figure out the words.

For everybody: #22 - Ce n'est pas mon chapeau - We have this book in our classroom... I laughed out loud when I first read it, and it's not too difficult for our students to start reading.

Any orders for October are due on the 20th.

Happy Reading!

Dear 2015-2016 students

This is a message for any students who were in my class last year. If you are still checking this blog, please let others from our class know that there is something here for you!

You will remember that part way through the year, we had an opportunity to be part of a film project to promote OISE, where I went to school. We had to fill out some very complicated media forms in order to participate! Well, after many months, I have finally heard from them. The videos are ready!

We are included in two very short videos. One featuring us plus two other OISE graduates who went in different directions, and a second video just about our class! These are now being shown online on OISE's YouTube channel, Twitter and OISE's website. I promised that I would share with you the finished product, and many of our students have amazing close-ups! Please use the link below to view both videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY2cam0hztk&list=PLp-5iO11hbbf0kIxwN3LOl767dIiTbL0c&index=4

Thanks again for participating in this neat project!

Hope grade 2 is going well so far,
Mlle Mitchell

Field Trips!

Dear parents,

I hope you had a great long weekend!
We're getting right back into things with more words of the week, more work on our newest writing project and we're going to wrap up our first math and social studies (gr.1) units so that we can move on to new things!

Before I tell you about all of that, let me just explain the package you're getting tonight. Together with our entire primary team, I have been working hard to pre-plan and book all of our major field trips for the year. We hope it will be helpful to have these dates up front so that you can mark your calendars, send in one lump payment, and plan any days that you may need off work in order to join us. Our three trips this year will be to the Hindu Temple BAPS Shri Swaminarayan mandir for a celebration of Diwali (October 28th), a trip to the High Park Nature Centre for a science workshop on the changing seasons (November 22nd), and later, a full day adventure to the Ontario Science Centre for a hands-on Energy workshop and IMAX movie (May 5th)! Please do take the time to read the full letter you're getting to learn more about each individual trip.

We are asking that you please send in all forms and payment for the three trips at this time and then we will not have to bug you each time. We will, of course, send reminders closer to each date. The first two (pink) pages of the package are for you to keep at home. You will probably want this information later. Please send in the final 2 green pages (3 permission forms) with the complete payment of $40. This does sound like a lot, but it does cover all 3 trips, including bus transportation for 2 of the trips. If this presents a hardship for your family, please don't hesitate to speak to me.
Permission forms and payment is due by October 25th at the very latest. Please note that this is only a few days before the first trip, so please be prompt.
If you are interested in volunteering on any of the 3 trips, please indicate this on the correct permission form. We will try to arrange volunteers in advance and we will confirm again closer to the dates. Thanks in advance!

Now then, a little update...
For the first time, but not the last time, I am introducing a special "grade 2" sound in our words of the week. So far, grade 1s and 2s have studied the same letter sounds even though their words have been different. However, I do need to find some time to introduce grade 2 students to some more complex sounds that they may not have learned in grade 1. It makes sense to do so this week because the sounds are similar. Grade 1s were in the room with us, so they are welcome to use the grade 2 words as extra bonus words this week!

Words of the Week

We have more i words this week, and in addition, a few y’s, which make the same sound. Keep making flashcards with pictures and underlining. “Y” doesn’t look like it should be a word, but it actually is, though the rules around using it can get complicated. Your student will see it often used, and use it, in the common phrase “il y a”. Note: In the word “famille”, the final ‘lle’ are not really heard. They add a bit of a “ye” sound I guess, but for your practice purposes, it would be better to not pronounce them at all, then to add a regular L sound. :)

Grade 1 words: y, bicyclette, fini, petit, famille

Bonus words: stylo, pizza

Grade 2s are working with words that have the ending -ille. This makes essentially the same sound as plain i, except you might hear a little "ye" sound at the end. Because you don't hear all of the letters distinctly, it is useful to memorize the spelling of a few often-used words with this spelling pattern. The final word, mouillé (meaning wet) is an adjective. You only need the final e, in parentheses, if you are describing a girl or feminine object. For example, La fille s'est mouillée sous la pluie. Don't spend too much time worrying about this when helping your child, we haven't discussed adjectives at all this year.

Grade 2 words: fille, famille, grenouille, cuillère, mouillé(e)

In language, students are working on composing a 3-part continuation to a story we read called "Citrouilleville". Ask your writer to tell you the story of "Citrouilleville" and how it ends, and then what they imagine might happen next! We've already shared several ideas and the authors have the first part of their story already written down.

In art, in addition to the leaf art I told you about last week, students have created collages using only the primary colours. They look great. We will be using the collage technique to illustrate our "Citrouilleville" stories as well!

We are lucky to have 2 moms coming in regularly (and sometimes my own mom likes to visit too... she's a teacher in Bowmanville) to help us learn how to correctly play some of our classroom games during our morning reading time. I have noticed that students are, indeed, choosing to play these games together during free time, where they had not been before. Yay!

During reading time, free time and any other moments when students are working independently, I have been madly trying to meet with every student to check on a few beginning of the year things - their letters, beginning reading skills, numbers and counting. Once I finish this, we will move on to our second math unit on patterning.

Grade 1 students are also finishing up our big social studies projects. We are completing this unit with a look back on everything we have touched on and each student has presented one part of their own project to the group. Students had a chance to rehearse their presentations in order to ask for help with unknown French words. We also talked about what goes into a good presentation - a strong voice, knowing what you want to say and pointing to information on your poster. Everyone did a great job, despite maybe feeling nervous about their first grade 1 presentation. Our audience members were VERY supportive, and had something nice to say about every single presentation!
Next week we will change gears and jump into science!

Alright, that's it for now! Have a great week,
Tamara

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear families,

We've had a busy week in room 211, complete with 3 fire drills! I've had good reports from our other teachers, especially Mme Morgenstern, who today, was thrilled with our class' effort in dance class! Continue le bon travail mes amis!

Obviously because of the long weekend, all words of the week will be coming home next Tuesday, so please remind your student to pack their cahier. 

Today, we reflected a bit on Thanksgiving and what we are grateful for. Ask your child what he or she wrote about!

We've also been working on some leaf art. Earlier this week, students gathered some fallen leaves at recess and traced them using marker. With pastel, they filled in the leaf segments using patterns and colours. Today, we used watercolours to paint over everything. The pastel resists the watercolour and looks really cool! Here are the artists:

I'd also like to introduce a special visitor to Salle 211. Mme Shyama is a teacher candidate from Niagara University. She will be helping in our classroom every afternoon, Monday-Thursday for the next few months. It is always great to have extra teachers in the room, and Mme Shyama has already been a great help to our students and to me. Please join me in welcoming her when you see her around the school!

Have a wonderful weekend with your families. Happy Thanksgiving!
Tamara