Happy Monday!
Lots of things are happening! First of all, don't forget that tomorrow is class picture day, and retakes for individual pictures. Please let me know if your student needs retakes so that I can make sure that happens.
Thank you for all the food donations! Our class collected a big overflowing box-worth of hearty foods to donate. Some strong junior students came and collected our box today, but last minute donations can still be brought in tomorrow and left in the front hall bin.
Last week, all students got a new listening spot on the carpet and new desk spot. Ask your student who their neighbours are and what their special job in on the carpet (everyone has one).
Special Class Bucket Initiative!
This afternoon, I read a special book to the class. It's called "As-tu rempli un seau aujourd'hui?" ("Have you filled a bucket today?"). This book explains that everyone carries with them an invisible bucket where we keep all the nice feelings we have. Nice feelings because somebody helped us, a friend played with us, we helped someone else, we said nice words or someone gave us a compliment etc. When our buckets are full, we feel really happy and good about ourselves. When we fill someone else's bucket, our bucket fills up too. A bucket "dipper" is someone who does the opposite of those nice things, and makes someone's bucket empty out. When our buckets are empty, we feel sad. We have a bucket poster in our class now, and we are going to aim to fill it with 80 little hearts. That's about 2 nice things per person! Students can tell me when someone has made them feel good, and we can add a heart to the bucket. When we meet our goal, students know that our class can choose a reward. It could be an extra recess, bonus free time... we'll see! Just in the last 20 minutes of the day today, we already earned over 10 hearts! Please continue asking your student if they've filled someone's bucket recently!
Words of the Week
This week we are reviewing the final basic vowel sound, ‘u’. The sound doesn’t really exist in
English. It is tighter and more nasal than what we know, you kind of need fish
lips for this one. Think “few”. A cool trick you can try is to shape
your lips for a nice round o, and
then in that space, try to say “ee”. You will end up with the right sound. That
said, the best way to learn this one is probably just to ask your child to say
the word “lune” - show them a picture of the moon and they’ll probably know the
word, and they’ll naturally say it correctly. They’ll enjoy being able to teach
you something too!
Grade 1: une, lune, tu, sur, mur
Bonus words: tutu, un*
Note: “un” does NOT contain
the ‘u’ sound. It sounds a bit like the beginning of the word “under”, without closing to the ‘n’. It is the
masculine version of “une”, and an essential word in the French vocabulary.
Grade 2: turquoise, lune, salut,
légume, une tortue
Grade 1 parents, now that we have some basic vowel sounds under our belts, it is time for us to join the
Borrow-a-book (J'emprunte un livre) routine. You probably know all about it from curriculum night or from reading about it when grade 2s started. Nevertheless, students have brought an explanation home today along with their tracking log and first book. We reviewed the procedure for exchanging books today. Students know that they are responsible for exchanging and caring for their books (I do not check that students are exchanging regularly because everyone will advance at a different rate), but by all means, if you notice that your student is forgetting to exchange books, let me know and I will remind them at school.
I would like to emphasize that this initiative depends completely on your participation and that it really does make a significant difference in our students' reading journey. It doesn't have to take a lot of your time each day and
should be fun for both you and your child. Don't forget -
you are the teacher at home and get to decide when to sign-off on each book. Your child should really master each one before exchanging. It is important for beginning readers to spend time reading texts that they find easy, rather than challenging themselves to read texts that are too difficult.
It is not a race.
Happy Reading!
Tamara
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. 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
ü
Please
keep the tracking log in the communication pocket.
ü
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.
ü
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.
