I'm sorry I'm late with this update, I think we were all feeling a bit ill last week. We've been very busy, and there is lots going on in our school as the end of the year approaches! Come to think of it, save the date: May 30th, we are planning a concert for the evening.
I had so much fun tricking the kids yesterday morning for April Fools! I turned our classroom upside down, so we had to work at upside down tables on the floor, and sit in chairs on the carpet. Even our message was upside down, though the kids still found words they recognized. I also made them brownies... kind of! I'm sure they told you. I laughed and I laughed....
Yesterday we decorated and practiced our cutting skills with some fish. The kids enjoyed trying to stick their fish to my back without me noticing. This is the French "Poisson d'avril" tradition!
Today we started a really neat experiment. We received two packages of tomato seeds. Half of the seeds were sent to the International Space Station for 6 weeks. We are wondering if there will be any difference in how the plants grow - Earth tomatoes V. Space tomatoes! Students made their predictions and then planted a seed from each package. Now we need to observe and track their growth and see what really happens. Ask your scientist what their prediction was!
We have been adding to our repertoire of songs and poems all year. Recently, we have learned some new favourites. Ask to hear "Kati-Katère", "J'ai vu un serpent" and "Vieux Jean Boujou". So funny! In the serpent poem, we hear a bit about how the snake looks, so we decided to make some snakes out of plasticine. Notice how skinny (mince) and long they all are... just like the poem says!
Last week, Dewson hosted a family math night. I don't think I saw anyone from our class there, but please do check out the beautiful math board outside our class that I prepared for that evening. It has examples of our math work, open-ended problems we have done, and photos of the kids participating in math activities.
The evening focused on open-ended questions in math, which was a school-wide focus recently. I have already shared some of the counting activities we did during this inquiry, but we regularly do problem solving where there is more than one possible approach and solution. Here we are working on a question about how many/which animals we could choose if we had to have 24 feet. Each group ended up with a different combination of animals, some with 2 feet, 4 feet, even 6 or 8! (This question was based on an oral story called Ungali, which you should also ask about!)
We've also been doing an intro to measurement. Mme Diamond has already had us comparing sizes, and our reading buddies helped us measure classroom objects using non-standard units, such as Q-tips. We learned that to measure precisely, you have to have the units touching, tip to tip. Not overlapping or leaving gaps.
On another day, we measured some of the same distances again, but using the same unit. When estimating, many students knew that you would need more units to measure a longer distance. For instance, they said it would take more footsteps to measure across the classroom, than to measure just across the carpet. They also recognized that it would take more Q-tips than footsteps, because those units are so much smaller.
We had some fun with distance by racing cars down a ramp and measure how far they went in pencil lengths!
To get started in time, we are only working on telling the time to the hour (il est 11 heures, for example). Therefore, I glued down the minute hand of these clocks right at the 12, before students numbered them. We practiced moving the hour hand around to make different times, and talked about what happens regularly at certain times. For instance, school starts at 9 heures and we eat afternoon snack at 2 heures. Some students knew their wake-up and bed times. Others, not so much.
We investigated temperature by talking about how a thermometer works and watching what happens when you place it in hot water, and in cold water. Students noted their observations and thought about how outdoor temperature might affect their clothing choices. We're going to try to track the outside temperature for the rest of April to see how the temperature changes over time, in the spring.
In our reading groups, we are beginning to look at some high-frequency words to practice sounding out. For example, le, la, je, bonjour, papa, pomme, orange. For fun, students like to arrange some word cards, kind of like a sentence that we can try to read, even if it doesn't quite make sense. It is going well! Here are some common phrases to review:
Bonne fin de semaine.
À plus tard.
À demain!
Joyeux Anniversaire!
Bonne Fête!
Finally, last week we had a visit from Mlle Sofia. The kids were excited to share with her what they had done over March break. She and Mlle Jade enthusiastically led our two teams in a soccer game, even making up team names with their groups.
OK, I think you are all caught up! See you soon!