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