Upcoming Dates

Dear parents,
Yesterday you received two important notes.
1) The yellow note is about our upcoming workshop with Scientists-in-School. These workshops are always amazing, and I've selected a theme that I think will appeal to our group. The workshop is $8/child, and we will need 4 parents to lead centres. Payment is due December 3rd. You need only return the yellow slip if you wish to volunteer. Thanks!
2) Dewson is hosting a vision/hearing screening clinic in a few weeks. This is a great opportunity to have some quick check-ups done during the school day. In particular, if you notice your child doesn't seem to hear you, is uncomfortable around loud noises, gets headaches, isn't interested in listening to stories, or doesn't seem interested in print material, street signs or picture books, this may be a good reason to sign up. Sometimes what we think of as an attention issue, really just comes down to an eye or ear thing. Kindergartens get a good deal - both check-ups for $10. If you're interested, please return the form with payment by December 5th.

Today, I am sending home the complete December calendar. There are other dates to watch for, such as an after-school open-house type thing that we are preparing (stay tuned), another library outing and your December Scholastic opportunity. As I mentioned last month, if you would like to order gift books in secret, just write me a note so that I know not to send the books home with your child. Instead I will contact you to pick them up.
Now that I've sent the calendar home, I've just realized I forgot to number the school days and mark down when we have gym. This isn't hard to figure out. Monday Dec. 3rd will be a day 2 and we currently have gym every day 2, 4, 7 & 9.  This works out to gym on Dec. 3, 5, 11, 13, 18 & 20. Our schedule may have to change in the near future, I will let you know if this affects our gym days.

Yesterday was a rainy day from beginning to end. We tried to spice it up with a few new activities.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed moon sand or play dough so far. We got out the play dough for the first time and it was VERY popular. Ask your student how we use this centre (e.g., are we allowed to keep our creations?). We were great about putting the play dough away properly so that we can have more turns another day!

Thanks (again) to Emmylou for donating her old puppet theatre and puppets. We have enjoyed making our own puppets, but today we got out her fuzzy ones, and that was very exciting as well!

This week, students are working on their printing and vocabulary with me. I've noticed that our group is very motivated to learn new French words, phrases, poems and songs, which is very rewarding for me! We have learned some amazing songs recently, such as Sur le Pont D'Avignon, Frère Jacques and Alouette. Ask your singer to teach you one!

Here are some daily questions we are really working on asking in French:

Est-ce que tu peux l'ouvrir pour moi?

Est-ce que je peux ranger mon déjeuner?

Les feuilles!

Dear families,
Announcing the debut of winter. With this comes all the shivers and all the clothing. We do encourage students to come well prepared for the cold weather, even if there is no snow. If we are well-dressed, our daily outdoor time will be a pleasure, rather than a struggle. I've invested in my own pair of fuzzy boots so that I can enjoy playing outside with the kids this winter without being cold and uncomfortable!

On wet, slushy days especially, it is very helpful to send extra socks and gloves in the backpack, or we can add them to the extra clothes bag for this season. I know the pain of putting wet mittens back on, and I don't wish that on anyone! Also, please go through your winter gear and make sure every last glove is labeled. We are doing our very best to keep our belongings off the floor and organized, but things will get lost and many of our items look alike. Also, I highly recommend the dollar store for cheap socks and gloves.... they don't last as long, but it's also not a tragedy if they get misplaced! Haha!

To help us manage our clothing, I am encouraging the kids put their assorted small items (hat, scarf, mittens) in their coat sleeves. Please encourage your kids to do the same when they undress at all their other after-school locations so that they get in the habit. Also, whenever you have the time to wait, please do encourage your student to get all dressed up on their own, including boots and zippers (mittens after the zippers). The more practice we get, the better. Don't worry, I have a special talent for helping kids get their mittens over their coat sleeves, and fix their inside out boot liners, but imagine 15 kids sweating in their snowsuits while I do this for everyone!

Ask us about leaves!! This week, we began an investigation into what kinds of leaves we have in the Dewson school yard. It's been really interesting and fun, and there are still more ways we can go with this. We began by collecting a few leaves from each area of the school yard (field, structure, kinder). Then, we each took part in sorting them and glueing them onto our chart. We looked at the completed chart together, and counted up how many of each type of leaf we had collected. We had 10 feuilles d'Érable and slightly fewer of the others. We hadn't collected any feuilles de Février Doré. I asked what we can learn from looking at this chart. We had many responses, all thoughtful and interesting.
- Maybe we have more Maple trees at Dewson because we have the most Maple leaves.
- We can learn the names of the trees.
- Maybe we only have one Mûrier because we only found one leaf.

Following up on the second point, we talked about how, yes, if we look up at any remaining leaves on the trees and they match with one on our chart, we'll be able to identify the type of tree! So, we went outside with a mission to find the trees our leaves fell from. Here are some pictures of us identifying some of the trees. Still looking for that Ginko...

During our search, we found more matching leaves, and a rare bit of fallen Cedar... we'll have to talk about this next time!

Another project this week has been to continue our counting practice by making number posters. The challenge was to use the stickers to build our number, but to organize the stickers so that they would be easy to count. Some students used colours, or patterns, some arranged them in rows, some made sure each row had the same number in it (leading us to the possibility of skip-counting), and some even arranged theirs to look like the number itself! Ask your counter which two numbers they worked on.

On Wednesdays, when Mme Diamond is with us, she is in charge of planning our outdoor activity and leading a reading group meeting. This week, she had us doing a really fun version of a hula hoop bean bag toss with goalies. For some letter work, she made an amazing board game that was so fun that even those of us not in her reading group wanted to try it out!

This week, I also had an amazing time designing my own farm buildings out of the logs (my favourite childhood toy), and watched many different students sort our animals into their various pens.

Some more building...

Finally, I'm sure I've mentioned how much pleasure I get from watching the kids lead their own activities after I've shown them how to do it once. A while ago, we did those Halloween relay races and they've designed their own a few times since then. This one, complete with a jump and zig zags, became so popular that almost the whole class was lined up to participate!

 Bonne fin de semaine, and please return those activity bags Monday!!

Oh, wait! Small bit of shameless self-promotion... My group's gig, which was cancelled at the last minute at the end of September, has been rescheduled for next Saturday December 1st. See poster for details. If you can make it, it's family friendly and I would love to see you there!!

small v. BIG problems

Dear parents,

Thanks for taking the time to meet with me last week. It was really lovely sitting down with you all and with your children to talk about all the great things, and how we can continue working together. It is always such a treat to work together with parents that care so much for their children and are there to support them, and even support their teacher, however they can. I really appreciate your involvement, feedback and support!

In addition to our personal goals, which each student is working hard on, we have had a little talk about big problems v. small problems. I explained to our class that many times, people come to me with problems even if their friend has already apologized. Sometimes, if a problem has been solved and everyone is OK, it's not necessary to tell me. I'm super thrilled when I can stand at a distance and watch the kids solve problems nicely on their own, and we gave many examples of what this might sound like. On the other hand, I've made it clear that if someone is purposefully hurting your feelings or your body, it's important to tell me. Or, if you've tried to solve a problem with your words, but it's not working, I am happy to help. To help us out with this, maybe you could ask us to tell you some examples of small problems and big problems, or check in now and then and ask if any problems came up at school, and how we solved them. Thanks!

Recently, we have moved on from vowels to learning the rest of the French alphabet. Most of the consonants are the same or similar to English, so many students are already quite confident. Therefore, as we go through the alphabet, I'm trying to teach them some of the exceptions and irregularities that exist in French. I don't expect that the kids will remember all of them, but hopefully the more we review it, the more it will support their reading later on. For example, last week we learned that the letter S is often silent at the ends of words.
We also learned that C can make 3 sounds. It can make 'sss', as in ce or cette, 'k', as in mercredi, and when combined with H, can make "sh", as in chat. Therefore, when we see a C in a word, we have a decision to make, and one tip I gave is that if C is followed by E, it will almost always sound like 'sss'.
This week, we are following up on C with our guided activity, which is to search for animals in our bin whose name begins with C and make a poster for our class. We have most of these, and we've thought of a few to add, such as crocodile  and caméléon.

Un chat

Un chien

Le cheval

La chèvre

Le cochon

La coccinelle

This week, we are learning the letters G and J. While they sound just like they do in English (G can make both a hard and soft sound), their names are reversed - something that can confuse us for years! G is called "jay" in French, and J is called "gee"! This is why we call Mlle Jaramillo, Mlle J (gee).
As you are reading with your child this week, pay special attention to these consonants and highlight when they make their assorted sounds!

Recently, our students have been super interested in tracing and making puppets. We love all the fine motor practise we get through tracing and cutting! Last week, we set up a whole tracing centre and made some cardboard templates of shapes the kids wanted. Later, we watched a puppet show featuring some butterflies, ghosts and a fish (who, safe in the ocean, was the sole survivor of the ghost attack).

Here's a cool idea: measuring each other using our new blocks as the unit!

I finally received my order of additional storage bins, which we have been needing to help keep our books organized. Today, several students helped to sort our books by looking at the cover and matching it to one of the themes on the bin labels. Our book shelves look much better now!

We are waiting on 6 green bags to complete our exchange this week! Any Scholastic orders for
November are due Thursday. If you would like to order books as gifts and keep it a secret, simply send
the order in a sealed envelope and write a note for me. I will contact you when they arrive.

Oops!

Please disregard the email you may have gotten with a post from last June. I'm quite confused why it has sent itself to you, as I haven't touched it, and it hasn't been reposted on our current blog. Anyway, let's hope it's just some one-time random blip.
Have a great weekend!

Goal Setting & Interviews

Dear parents,
Today, you are receiving our Initial Communication of Learning (Progress Report). I hope you enjoy reading the report card with your child, celebrating all of their accomplishments, and talking about next steps. We will do a small goal setting activity this week, so I would like to ask for a favour in preparation for this. If you could please talk to student about one thing they are doing very well already, and then help them pick one thing that they could work on improving right away (just one!). It can be very simple, like packing their bag on their own, or tidying up quickly when asked. We will write down our goals, and begin earning stars for doing them!

Yesterday you should have received your interview time confirmation. It was a very small green slip. Please let me know if your time no longer works for you, and we will rearrange. Students are invited and encouraged to come with you, this way, they can show you some of their work and be part of our discussion. Please do your best to be on time, and I will do my best to stay on time. I know you have other places to be!
While you are visiting, here are some things you might want to do...
- Check out the book fair in the library
- Check below, in and above your cubby and check the lost and found (the clothes line in our hallway) for items you can take home
- Check that your extra clothes bag is still complete
- Admire our leaf art that we made a while ago. We collected leaves, made rubbings using wax candles, and painted over with watercolours.

Thanks again to the parents who came on our library outing yesterday. We listened to some stories about giants, including a puppet show of "Jim and the Beanstalk"! Afterwards we went over to Fred Hamilton and had perfect weather for some fall outdoor play.

Jour du Souvenir

Dear families,
First a few reminders...
1. Monday is our library outing, so please make sure students are dressed for being outside no matter what the weather.
2. Report Cards come home Tuesday. I haven't gotten a hold of all your other teachers yet, but I will confirm your interview times on Monday. I think I've been able to accommodate all requests.
3. Don't forget to send your green activity bags back Monday!

We observed Remembrance day today with a beautiful assembly in the morning (at which we were VERY well behaved) and several other activities. We had an opportunity to read about and share stories about people we know who may have served or been affected by war. I was able to share some stories about my own grandfather who was in the Navy during WWII, and is still kicking in his 90s! We were given some Remembrance Day activity books, which many students started at school and have brought home. We also painted some coquelicots, which we wore to the assembly, and did some beautiful marshmallow print poppies which are on our bulletin board.

For her show & tell, Emmylou decided to bring in her mom, Mary, to talk about her work in renewable energy and do a little activity with us. We got to see some pictures of the wind turbine in Toronto, and we made our own pinwheels. We loved seeing them spin!

Thanks, also to Mary, for our new building blocks. They have been a popular addition to our class!

This week, our guided activity was again to make patterns, this time with pattern blocks, and without the use of the template, like with the beads.

Did I share this yet? This is old, but I don't remember if I showed you our cool box painting session. Mme Barnett (who is frequently our lunch supervisor), rescued this box from a moving van across the road. There was some debate as to whether it became a castle or a submarine...

Also, several week ago, we did a colour hunt in our classroom. We made piles of objects that matched each colour and took a picture of each group. Now we have these cool colour posters!

If you haven't yet heard, I told another oral story last week. It's called "Tipingee", and we've been having a lot of fun acting it out this week. Please ask your student to tell you the whole story - I'm sure they can do it! Here are some pictures of us acting it out and a brief outline of the story.

Tipingee lives with her mean aunt (sa méchante tante) who makes her do all the housework.

She even has to go to the forest to cut wood for the fire.

Until one day, Tipingee has to go to school, and the mean aunt has to do all the work herself. But the firewood is too heavy, so she calls for help. A man appears out of the forest. 

He offers to help her, and in exchange, the mean aunt agrees to give him Tipingee to be his servant.

But Tipingee, having returned from school, heard the conversation and asks her friends to come over the next day, wearing the same colour as her.

When the man comes to find Tipingee, he can't figure out which girl is the real Tipingee. So he asks them, "Laquelle entre vous est Tipingee?"

And they all answer, "C'est moi Tipingee, c'est elle Tipingee, c'est nous Tipingee toutes!"

Oh boy, is he ever mad! He marches right into the mean aunt's house, and she promises that the next day, Tipingee will wear a different colour, and he'll recognize her.

But Tipingee overhears again, and with her friends, tricks the man two more times!

He becomes so upset, that he decides to take the mean aunt back to his house to be his servant, and Tipingee and her friends live happily ever after!

La Fin!