I've prepared our October calendar with all the events that I know of/can think of currently. As always, continue to check this blog for last minute updates. The calendar is on its way home today.
On the calendar, you will notice the beginnings of our Show and Tell (Montre et Raconte) routine. Students' names are written on their show & tell day. I will post the entire schedule in a separate post.
Whew, those were some hot days! We made the best of it - actually had a lot of fun - by staying outside, setting up water stations and a little shower!
I also taught the kids two great outdoor games that you can ask them about. One is called "Soldat" (Soldier). In this game, soldiers stand in a circle around the captain. The soldiers must be quiet and still (arms at their sides) unless the ball is thrown to them. If they miss or drop, they are out of the round and simply sit down (injured soldier!). If the captain fakes and they flinch, they are also out of the round. The last soldier standing becomes the next captain. This game is great for developing good sportsmanship in a low-stress situation, since inevitably, all but the last participant will be out sooner or later.
Here's the band to accompany our game of Soldat!
I have a YouTube video of this song linked to this blog under Language Links. Our class thought it was superbly funny in the book when the wolf put on his pink polka dot undies!
This week, we started a fun system to motivate the kids to begin using the French words that they know. Each time that we hear a student speak French, we give them a petit jeton (a counter). Students keep their jetons in their personal tin. When they have collected 10 jetons, they can exchange them for a prize from the prize box, and then begin collecting again. In just 3 days, many students have earned several jetons, and I've given out two prizes!
Right now, since our French vocabulary is small, we're giving out jetons for even the smallest efforts (saying "merci" as we pass out snack, for example).
When might we not give out a jeton? I can think of a few situations:
- outside (we don't usually carry jetons outside, and we don't have our storage tins)
- when we know students are just saying French words to try to get a jeton, without actually having a meaning behind it (good example: "Excuse-moi madame." "Oui?" "Excuse-moi!" "How can I help you?" "Excuse-moi!" hehehe)
- when students have been asked to do a thing and we are helping a million and one people do the thing!
Please ask your student if they have earned any petits jetons yet. Could be good motivation to practice the words of the week!!
Words of the Week
Some of us are catching on to how to answer this question, and others need a little more practice. Maybe this is a question we can ask in French at home too, since we're definitely asking it one way or another! Of course I hope everyone is always doing well, but I definitely want the kids to be honest if they're not.
Comment ça va?
Ça va bien. 😊
Ça ne va pas bien. 😔
In the past 4 weeks of school, we've gotten started learning about the alphabet, one letter at a time. We're up to C right now. We spent a lot of time on A, as we likely will with all the vowels, as they are the most different from the English versions. In French, 'a' is called and makes a softer sound, think "bat". Try looking for A's, B's and C's in the books you read together! Here are some students doing the centre challenge of making or building the letters that we know so far!
We had fun running around the field today in support of Terry Fox and cancer research. We've read a book about his life a couple times and the kids LOVED hearing about him and wanted to keep reading the book over and over again. Please ask them to tell you what they learned about Terry Fox!
Thank you very much for the donations. Our class raised over $30 to donate to cancer research.
Don't forget to wear orange tomorrow!