Thanks for coming!

Dear parents,
Thanks to everyone, including Mr. Savage's class, who was able to come on such short notice to make our poetry café extra special for our writers. I was very proud of our students for having the courage to read their poem in front of such a large audience, and for listening so respectfully to each other. After our audience left, we shared many kind comments about our friends' presentations.

Next week, we will begin a short language unit with Mr. G focusing on report writing. Mr. G is almost our full-time teacher now. With him we have already completed our short geometry unit on 3D shapes, and grade 1s are well into their science unit on energy. The scientists have impressed us with what they already know about where energy comes from. This week, we did an experiment that proved to us that heat is a source of energy - it makes things move. In this experiment, hot water moved around in the cup much faster than cold water, and helped to spread the food colouring much more quickly than it did in a cup of cold water. Very cool. 

We also learned a bit about solar energy and saw it in action using some little solar powered toys (you can buy the kits at the dollar store!). Each student also invented or adapted a machine to be solar powered since we know that it is a renewable (renouvelable) energy source.
Don't forget that next Friday is our class' trip to the Science Centre, so please make sure that there are no appointments on that day.
Have a great weekend!

Café Update

Dear parents,

Thanks SO much for all those fantastic boxes and rolls. We used every last one! They have been transformed into 3D creations that we will label with the mathematical names and eventually bring home for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to question your builder on the shapes of future boxes that you find in your home, but I don't think we need anymore garbage donations this year!
In addition to that fun math activity, we also played a little game to practice using the correct names of shapes as well as terminology that describes location. Students took turns describing what they had built out of blocs using all our mathematical language and their partner had to try to build the exact same thing without looking. You know it's a good description when you lift up your partition and both structures look the same!

I'd like to confirm that we will go ahead with our poetry café this Friday morning from 10:45 - 11:30 am. If you're able to join us in our audience, that would be lovely. Each student will be doing a reading of the poem they are most proud of.

Poetry Café

Dear parents,

As you know, we've been learning about and trying our hand at writing different types of poems over the last few weeks. This week we are finishing up by experimenting with shape poems, and then we are going to select just one of the poems we've written over the last 3 weeks and prepare it for "publishing". This just means that we will make sure it's complete, make some corrections and then make a good copy of it. Our goal is to have our poems ready to present for Friday morning. If all goes well, we'll hold a little "Poetry Café" between 10:30 - 11:30 am during which each writer will come up to read their chosen poem aloud to our class and guests. I'll have to confirm a little closer to Friday whether we are ready to go ahead with this, but know that you are invited to be in our audience if you'd like.

Words of the Week

Grade 1: Review of ‘oi’ this week. See if your writer can invent some sentences using some of these words. For example, Je vois trois étoiles dans le ciel noir.

étoile, je vois, je dois, bois, j’ai soif, 

poisson, voilà, noir, au revoir, trois

Bonus words: boîte, miroir

Grade 2: This week the grade 2s are working on "onne". It sounds like the English word "one", but without the 'w' sound. Like the ending 'ette', 'onne' is generally a feminine ending. For example, "bonne" is the feminine form of "bon" (good) and "lionne" (lioness) is the feminine of "lion".

You've probably noticed that over the last few weeks we have focused on longer fragments of words - 4 letters together, rather than 1 or 2. These longer sounds aren't particularly difficult. Unlike 'oi', these letters generally make the sounds you think they're going to - the sounds they normally make in French. However, the idea is that since they are commonly found together, it will improve our fluidity in both reading and writing to have them locked and loaded in our memory bank. Soon we will move away from specific sounds and on to some words of the week with more of a grammar focus.

bonne, personne, couronne, 
donner, pardonnez-moi

Summer Programs

Dear families,
This beautiful weekend reminded me that summer is fast approaching. If you have not yet made plans for the kiddos for the summer, do consider something French, so that they can stay sharp for next year! On the left side-bar of this blog, you will find a short list of summer camps that I've heard about or found online. If you know of others, please let me know and I'll add them. Of course most of them are offered in French, but there are a couple music ones... couldn't help myself! Durham Music Camp is outside of the city, but if you have any friends out that way who take music lessons, please send them the link and tell them to sign up for my music & stories course! It's gonna be great!

Last week, grade 1s finished up their community research projects by doing their final write-up, incorporating their homework and their own thoughts about our community. Look how great our map is with all our storefronts!

To finish up, each student presented something from their project to the class. Throughout this project, students have always been aware of what they would need to do to achieve a level 3 or 4, as we read the rubric together before attacking each part of the project. We will probably keep this project in our portfolios, but when I take them down I'll try to make a copy of each rubric so that you can see it sooner than June. Many researchers worked extra hard in the hopes of earning a specific mark. It's amazing to see such young children setting goals and working towards them!

Now, on to a science unit about Energy, led by Mr. G!

Did I show you our finished prints? We did these a while ago, and they happen to (happen to? there may have been some planning there) accompany our grade 1 community unit very well, since we made a little city. I've had some great feedback on these from our neighbouring teachers, so I'll make sure they are presented at our Arts Evening in May. Thanks to Mme Meg for helping us with this!

We had a good first week of geometry with Mr. G. The students seem to be enjoying this unit so far, and with good reason - there are a lot of objects to look at, touch and investigate, and we get to do some of our own building. We've already learned the French names for most 3D shapes, and we've investigated the differences between prisms and pyramids. Ask your mathematician if they can explain two differences! On Friday, each student had a chance to build their own solid by planning the sides they would need, cutting them out and taping them up. Ask your builder which 3D shape they made!

Thanks to those who sent in some boxes right away. Don't forget to send in all your recycling until this Wednesday (our building day). On that day, everyone will need a large flat-ish box for a base, and then we need a variety of smaller things. Small boxes, paper towel rolls, tea canisters... you get it. We are not desperate for egg cartons or styrofoam trays - just items that have a recognizable geometrical shape. Thanks in advance!

Friday's dance-a-thon was super fun! Thanks, parents, for putting that on!

Seeking all garbage. For real.

Dear families,

I hope you had a fabulous weekend. I'm sure you heard that we had a little Easter egg hunt here on Thursday afternoon. Somewhere in our class there is still one egg that none of us (including me) can find. Estelle, we are all hoping you can find it when you get back - it's yours! The seekers also each found a brand new eraser to keep at school. Here's hoping this solves are perpetually disappearing eraser problem!

We are right back at it and there's lots going on. Here are a few reminders and other bits and pieces:
1. Dance-a-thon envelopes were due today. I only received 10/20!! Please get these in ASAP.
2. Our dance party time is Friday morning at 9:05 am. Don't be late or you might miss it! Don't forget you can still request songs online and if you wear white, you will glow in the dark!
3. The larger envelopes (TDSB questionnaires for parents) are due next Friday the 28th. Thanks to all who have already returned them.

Yesterday, as promised, I sent home the final math word problem that we completed last week, together with your student's self-assessment and my rubric. I've also attached the little quiz that we did Thursday - as independently as possible - to give you an idea of the skills that your mathematician has mastered, and things that you might like to review a bit at home. Everyone did quite well!

We have already begun our 3D geometry unit with Mr. G, and our students are very excited to share what they already know. This will be a short, but super fun unit involving lots of hands-on and building with shapes. As part of this unit, we are planning to have students build something out of recycled materials and label their shapes. Next week, each child will need a large box (like a pizza box or cereal box) to use as a base. In addition, from now until next Wednesday, we will gladly take all of your smaller empty boxes (cracker/cookies/smarties/mini-cereals/tea), paper towel rolls and especially anything that's an interesting shape (do you have anything cone/sphere or pyramid-shaped?? how about J-cloth or Toblerone boxes??).
Send your garbage our way, and we'll return it to you in castle form later this spring!!

In poetry, this week we're working on what we're calling "poèmes de petits moments". These are small moments poems - free poems with no rules, as opposed to the very structured Cinquain, Acrostic and Haiku poems that we've done. Some students are loving the opportunity to express themselves freely without the constraints of lines, syllables or types of words. For other students (I would be one), it is a challenge to dream up what to say when there's no template. To help students in this, I'm introducing various poetic devices that they can try out to move their poem forward. I've also shared a bin of little trinkets I've collected that can serve as inspiration for a small moments poem. Please ask your poet what they've chosen to write about, what inspired them, and if they've experimented with comparisons (les comparaisons) and alliteration (allitération) yet. Still to add this week are rhyming ending syllables and onomatopoeia!
Each morning when we work on writing, a few students get to share a poem they've completed. It's been amazing to see students trying out the new things they're learning every day. Bon travail mes amis!

  Trying out alliteration

Inspired by a seashell

  

Trying out comparison

Mots de la Semaine

Grade 1: Review of ‘u’ this week. See if your writer can invent some sentences using some of these words. For example, J’ai vu une tortue turquoise!

une rue, numéro, j’ai vu, bureau, une tortue, une fusée, une tulipe, j’ai bu, j’ai lu, turquoise

Bonus words: musée, légume

Grade 2: This week we are adding 'ette', which is another common ending in French. It is pronounced very much the way it looks, and I'm sure you are all too familiar with the word "pochette"! Like last week, I've never met a word ending in ette that wasn't feminine (la/une).

assiette, pochette, serviette, marionnette,

vedette (the star of the show, or the team!)

Bonus words: bicyclette, lunettes

Happy Pink Day!

With our desk groups, we created little skits where someone was the victim, someone the bully, and some bystanders who either did nothing but stand by, or took action to help. We saw in one skit that sometimes the bully just doesn't have anyone to play with, so sometimes it works to help not only the victim, but also the bully. Hopefully we can remember our helpful ideas when we see problems happening at recess or even outside of school.

A different teacher got the class ready to go home today and dismissed them, but even without my annoying reminders, I see that no child forget to take home their dyed eggs that we made this morning. They must have been excited to show you! The kids know that, although these eggs are hard-boiled, they are not for eating. They will make lovely decorations though!

I did tell the mathematicians that I had mentioned to you about practicing division through food at home, and they seemed excited at the idea of being the "server". I hope they've offered to help you with the food service at your house and are working on making each plate or snack the same/equal/fair/la même/juste... all good words for beginning dividers!
Today they worked on an addition and division question and assessed their work using that same rubric that you saw a few weeks ago. I'll make sure you get a copy of this one too.

We still have lots to work on in math this term. Next week we will begin a short unit on geometry. It is also the beginning of Mr. G's teaching block. He will be with us full days starting next week until the middle of May, and will take over more of the teaching duties each week. Beginning right away, he will be responsible for teaching and assessing math, so we will look forward to our lesson with him on Tuesday.

Tomorrow is the last school day of the week and we will certainly do something special for Easter, but as always, please don't send chocolate or treats to share. Have a great long weekend!

Start dividing with your food!

Hello Salle 211!

I'm sure you know that this Wednesday is Pink Day, in support of anti-bullying. We've shared the story of how this day originated and we've made some posters with meaningful messages and drawings to put up in the school. I look forward to seeing our girls and boys in their pinks on Wednesday! On Wednesday we will do an activity emphasizing the role of the bystander. Look for the social skills sheet afterwards.

This must be our last week in the number sense strand for now, though we will be able to apply our skills throughout other units. This week we will touch on dividing by talking about how to divide a group of items into equal parts. Kids are naturally good at this because they are used to everything being fair. I'm sure you know the reaction you get if you give one child an extra thing that the sibling doesn't get! Dividing is super easy to practice at home anytime that food is being served. Ask your mathematician to divide the food equally between the plates so that everyone has the same amount!

At the end of the week, we will also do one final problem solving question that we will self-assess and I will send home a copy shortly after.

In language, did I mention that we are becoming poets for the month of April? We have already learned what an adjective is and started a long list of possibilities since we use so many in poetry. We've learned how to write acrostic and cinquain poems and have had time to experiment with both. This week we will add Haiku to our repertoire and discuss why we might write poetry in the first place. Ask your poet what kinds of poems they've tried so far.

Mots de la Semaine

Grade 1: All of these words contain the letter o but in “gomme”, “pomme”, “colle” and “je dors”, it’s a slightly softer sound. Although “zoo” is spelled the same as in English, the word in French is pronounced with a true ‘o’ sound, so imagine the second o just isn’t there!

If you’re wondering about accents on letters other than ‘e’, join the club. Your children have already asked me about what they do, and the simple answer is nothing!

“Gros” and “grosse” are the masculine and feminine version of the same word (meaning large or big). 

In French, everything has a gender - spoons are girls, books are boys! Even my French friend can’t explain to me a fool-proof way of knowing what’s what, there are exceptions to every rule! Anyway, once you know if you’re talking about something feminine or masculine, you can adjust your adjective. E.g., L’éléphant est gros. La baleine est grosse. The kids have already seen that gender can affect words, for instance, un policier v. une policière, and cher v. chère.

 gâteau, trop, le zoo, gros, grosse, tôt, 

gomme, je dors, pomme, colle

Bonus words: ciseaux, océan

Grade 2: Our next grade 2 sound is 'tion'. This is commonly found at the end of words in both English and French. In English, it makes a bit of a "sh" sound, whereas in French, the t sounds more like a plain s, so think 'sion'. Fun fact: As I was saying to the grade 1 group, it's hard to know if words are masculine or feminine without checking the dictionary all the time - however, I've never met a word ending in 'tion' that wasn't feminine. La coopération... Une illustration...

attention, coopération, éducation, 

félicitations, illustrations

Thanks to Rebecca for these pictures of the grade 1s on our community walk last week!

Buddies!

Hello Salle 211,

Our grade 1s went on their neighbourhood walk this afternoon. They found ALL the places on their scavenger hunts and each student took a picture of their special place. I've already received most of the at-home research back from grade 1 students. Don't forget that it's due Tuesday - our next social studies day.

Today was exciting for our entire class because we met our grade 5/6 reading buddies. Mlle Bailey's class will be visiting us once a week (on days 2 and 7) to help us with our reading, and perhaps get us started on the ipads and laptops later on. Today, all grade 1/2 students read to their reading buddy, and chose a book to have read to them by their reading buddy. It was nice to see all students sitting beside their buddies, reading aloud but quietly and really enjoying the experience. Merci à la classe de Mlle Bailey!

I also congratulated the class today on all the recent borrow-a-book graduations that we've had. In just this last week - 5 days - we've had 10 graduations!! That's a record for any of my classes!! Keep up the great reading work!

Homework

Dear parents,

Some little additions to yesterday's post:

1. You all have homework. Please help the TDSB plan for the future by completing the simple questionnaire. Place it back in the envelope and return to me by April 28th. This should only take you a few minutes.

2. Grade 1s also have homework that they will be asking you to help with. They have all drawn (from a bucket) a special place in our community and are going to ask you for two reasons why it's an important place. The researchers have exactly one week to return their homework, but many are planning to get it done earlier so that they don't forget. Very responsible. Completing their at-home research is part of their final rubric mark for this exciting project, and they know how they can not only earn a level 3, but possibly even a level 4 by writing down your comments in French themselves. Yikes!!

3. We introduced an algorithm for adding larger numbers today. It's something that grade 2s need to start working on (hence the name), but some grade 1s are motivated to try it too. Many of our grade 2s are off to a great start using this strategy. Perhaps if your grade 2 student would like some extra homework (coughArcher) you could give them some two-digit addition questions to try, using this method.

Dance-a-thon is soon!

Hi parents,

What a beautiful weekend! I hope you were able to enjoy some outdoor time! I told the class that Sadie turned 2 this weekend. A picture is below for them - I talk about her so much at school!!

Dewson's annual dance-A-thon is coming up in a few weeks, so our fundraising envelopes came home today and the kids attended an assembly explaining everything. Donations can be made in cash or online and kids can also request their favourite songs through the website. This is one of the main fundraising events for parent council and I'm sure you already know that this is how we pay for special things like Artist-in-School, skating and swimming excursions, guest speakers and so much more for our very own students. All envelopes are due April 19th and the event is Friday the 21st. There is a prize for the class with the best participation, so even if you don't feel like you can raise that much money, or if your donations were all online, please return your envelope by the due date so that our class can be eligible! Our goal as a school is to raise $25,000!!!

I hope you all had a chance to look over the math rubric from last week, including the side that I filled in, which was a little more detailed. I will use the same rubric again at the end of next week, when we complete this unit, so that we can see our improvements. I've also talked with the mathematicians about how that rubric was a reflection of only one task that they worked really hard on. We need to work just as hard on our math everyday in order to improve.
Last week, we worked with partners to tackle a very challenging question about animals and legs. Not everyone ended up solving it, but many amazing strategies were tried and shared. Here's the question, in case you'd like to tackle it again at home (or change the numbers to keep the fun going!!).

Brandon and Vanessa visit a farm. They see only chickens and pigs. Vanessa notices that there are exactly 18 animals all together. Brandon isn't sure how many animals there are, but he does count 52 legs in all. How many animals were chickens and how many were pigs?

This week we will work with money and introduce an algorithm for 2 digit addition and subtraction. Next week, before leaving this unit, we will look at some simple division problems.

Today you are receiving the dictée rubric for March. I'm so glad that we are all using mostly lower-case letters within our sentences now - usually at the beginning of grade 1, we have the opposite problem. My overwhelming take-away was that we need to work on using capitals!! Almost nobody used an upper-case letter to begin their sentence, despite me reminding them before we began. Let's make this our goal for next time!

Grade 1 students brought home a note Friday afternoon explaining that we are going on a short walking excursion this Friday afternoon during our social studies periods. Tomorrow, each grade 1 student will draw from a hat a place in our community that they will look further into (ask about their special place tomorrow evening!). On Friday, we will walk along College Street a short distance to look for these places. There is no additional form to sign for this trip, but if you have any concerns, please email me. If you'd like to come with us, that would be great. You can meet us at precisely 12:45 pm in our classroom on Friday.

Words of the Week

Grade 1: Which day of the week does not end with ‘i’? Between last week and this week we have covered them all. Ask your child to sing you the song that helps us remember the order of the days in a week! Note: In the word “fille” (like “famille”), the final ‘lle’ are not really heard. You may remember the grade 2s having this sound earlier this year.

souris, gentil, fille, triste, tigre, 

lundi, mardi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche

Bonus words: coccinelle, je lis un livre

Grade 2: As the grade 1s review 'i', we are adding 'ien' to our repertoire. You may remember "rien" and "bien" being on our lists when we did 'en' (I think), but many other words contain this sound as well. It can be deceiving because the 'en' does not make the sound we expect. Instead of thinking 'i + en', think of  'i + in'. That's closer to how it sounds. The word "chien" will surely help you with the others.

martien, viens, rien, bien, revient

Bonus word: chien