Sadly, our class is shrinking. We didn't have an opportunity to say a proper goodbye to Xavi, who changed schools over the holidays. We did, however, have time to celebrate August's last day with us before his family moves. We all signed a special card and gave him a big group hug. We celebrated his birthday a little early, and we set up a special activity centre at his request: building 3D shapes with marshmallows and toothpicks!
We have a special opportunity to be pen pals with August now, and look forward to hearing from him as he gets settled at his new school. Bonne chance August!!
Yesterday I sent home the February calendar. Don't forget that the $8 for the science workshop is due this Friday. Scholastic catalogues will come home this week and any orders are due next week.
On the back of the calendar, I've put our class list of names. Many students are excited to make valentines for their friends (one student didn't even want to pack the note because she wanted to get started right away at aftercare!!). Of course, it is completely optional, but if your child is going to give out valentines, please make sure they have one for everybody. If writing all those names is a daunting task for your beginning writer, or if you think that matching up each name with the name on a paper bag "mailbox" will be too great a challenge for your beginning reader, please do encourage your child to address their cards to "mon ami". That way, any card can be for anyone. Easy.
Thank you again to the parents who came to the library on Monday. The puppet show this time was "Mud Puddle", by Robert Munsch. The kids found it hilarious and roared with laughter throughout (I laughed out loud too). Our next trip to the library will be in the last week of February.
This week, I've witnessed some great counting at the math centre and a lot of great letter and word work (do we ever love those new printing pages!!). We have continued to add regularly to our list of poems. Ask your student to teach your their current favourite. Some very popular ones are, "Les amis", "Bateau sur l'eau" and "Les tasses de thé". Some newer ones are, "Voici le petit garçon", "Petite souris de cendre" and "Patapi patapiège". Our song, "Hymne à l'amitié" is also coming along nicely. We're about half done learning it - just have to work on the verses now.
Students are getting the hang of checking in their borrowed book and signing out another one and are able to do this more and more efficiently.
We have made it all the way up to Q in the French alphabet, and have continued reading about each letter in our book about "Le Village des Sons". We learned that Q's best friend is U, and that U let's Q make his own sound when they're side by side. We've also practiced pinching our lips together, like a fish, for when U is alone. This sound doesn't really exist in English. A cool trick is to shape your lips for an O vowel, and then say "ee" through that space. You will end up with the French U sound.
OK, so we skipped over R, S and T... we'll go back. But we've now officially learned the vowel sounds in French. There are many exceptions, and different ways to combine them, but we'll worry about that later.
Mots de la Semaine
Alistar noticed that as we placed words beginning with C on the word wall last week, I organized them into two columns. One for words beginning with C, and one for words beginning with Ch. Great observation! We read the story about a little girl named Ch, who is trying to shush a baby to sleep. Whereas in English, we almost add a tiny t sound in front of a ch (think: chatter - the tongue touches the teeth), in French it is a gentle sound, like the English sh (think: should - the tongue is raised). There happen to be many animal names that begin with ch in French...
un chat
un chien
le cheval
la chèvre (goat)
le chameau (camel)
As you probably know, Term 1 report cards (called the "Communication of Learning" for kinders) are coming home on February 13th. We will soon begin scheduling interviews for the following Thursday evening and Friday morning. This time, interviews are by parent or teacher request. I will extend an invite to everyone, and will let you know if I feel that meeting would be beneficial. Look for this paperwork next week. I guess this means we are half way through the school year... wow!