It's been a fun week so far in salle 202! Let me give you a few highlights...
On Tuesday we left our outdoor crayons in the sun all morning, and when we went out after lunch, we discovered that they were melting. Some clever students figured out that crayons, like candles, are made of wax, so they melt when heated. We had fun doing some finger painting with the very squishy ones, and we set up another experiment to see if we could melt more, but the sun wasn't as hot in the afternoon. A very cool discovery - and we have the finger painted proof on our science board now!
We came up with a good game to play using the rubber paddles that we have outside... limbo!!
I tested out a Moon Sand recipe (you'll hear more about this later) and we set up a new sensory centre. Students really enjoyed the soft feel of the moon sand and made shapes and letters out of it. I've also been receiving lots of little playdough gifts from the playdough centre. It's so wonderful to know that we will be receiving new playdough every couple of weeks, as it allows us to save and dry small creations, and we don't have to worry about the colours getting too mixed up. Thanks again for your contributions!
Mme Dominique also made a new letter game which has us matching up the upper and lower-case version of each letter. She made them in the shape of ice cream cones, so this game is tons of fun!
We are up to the letter D now in the letters that we have spent time working on. To help students really develop good connections between the letters and their sounds, not only are we talking about letters each morning, circling them in the message, working on our printing and trying to work them into our centre time, but also, I have a great book about letter sounds that I'm slowly reading to the kids. It's about le village des sons, and each letter or vowel combination is a character. So far, I've told stories about a (who has a toothache and screams "aaaaaa", but then gets better and says "aaah"), b (who eats too much, gets a big belly and can't stop burping "b b b") and d (who always carries a backpack with dice in it, but stutters when he asks anyone to play with him "d-d-dice"). The kids are really into these short stories and I think the stories are helping us differentiate, especially between often confused letters like b and d. Ask your student to tell you the stories of Petit b and his brother d.
Wednesday morning was a bit of adventure... our first rainy drop-off of the year, and we really hadn't discussed the procedure even one little bit. If it's raining at drop-off, all kindergarten classes will meet in the downstairs kindergarten hall. The upstairs classes will be lining up by room 101 and the on-duty teacher will be present in the hall until we come pick up the kids. Rainy day pick-up for home kids is in the SE stairwell.
Thank you for being so flexible as we get our new independent morning routine going. You had clearly read my message before Tuesday morning, and got into the new routine even before the Principal sent her formal email out. The kids did manage to make it to Dominique and I on their own, and, even though you had been so helpful in gathering your children to me for attendance, it was even easier with fewer bodies standing around. Yay us!
Don't forget that next Tuesday is picture day!!
Mots de la Semaine
Here are some snacks that we eat frequently in our class. As we offer them to the kids, they always answer in French with "oui" or "non merci"!
Here are some snacks that we eat frequently in our class. As we offer them to the kids, they always answer in French with "oui" or "non merci"!
une pomme
une orange
une tomate
le lait
le fromage
