Dear families,
I hope you've had a lovely weekend. I'd like to give you a little recap of the past week and what's upcoming. But first, thank you so much for the submissions of work that I've received so far. I've started to add due dates to previously completed assignments in all subjects in the hopes that I'll be able to look at some of our student's work up close. I won't ask for everything to be submitted, but if you could have a look for things that have a due date (they should alert you) and upload photos of those items for me, I'd really appreciate it. I know that for work completed by hand this often involves an extra step of getting the photo from one device to another, but I really appreciate your efforts to help me keep the work organized and in one place. That said, if email is much easier, please don't hesitate to send images that way.
This coming week, as you know, I have tried to schedule a conference with each child to read a book from RAZ kids. I'm really looking forward to this, and if this format works, hopefully we can do more conferencing during independent time. Please ensure that your child has chosen a book and knows what day and time to come back to the meet (I will remind them as well). This week we may also try a new Google Meet feature during French or Science time: breakout rooms! It will take a little fiddling the first time, but should allow me to work with individual grades in science, or students working out of the same workbook in French. Thanks in advance for any support you provide with this, like everything!
You've probably noticed some routines emerging in how our days go. Each morning we begin the day with our message, which allows us to review sounds and vocab. After this, we have been working on building our repertoire of oral poems. We began with "Un petit lapin brun" and have since added 3 more poems with actions which we review daily. These are amazing for oral language and vocabulary building, and there are so many drama, writing and art extensions that we can do, in time. We are working on reciting our poems in unison, unmuted (!!), so that maybe one day we can perform one on the morning announcements! At some point each day I tell a story, but last week my stories weren't always from a book - once the story was completely oral, where students had to listen and imagine. Another day, the story of "Pierre et le Loup" was told really by music, with me narrating overtop. In this work by the composer Sergei Prokofiev, each character is represented by an instrument. So, for example, when you hear the strings, that means Pierre is in the story. Ask your listener what instrument was used to represent the little bird!
As you know, in French, students should have completed their personal recipe assignment - the last procedure we will write - and it is one of the assignments to turn in (just the writing side is fine). We will take this week off from a large writing project and do some work from the books I sent home. I would like to start another larger writing project soon though - we will brainstorm, plan and write stories!
In math, last week we tackled some geometry and spatial sense, reviewing 2D shapes and finding them within our 3D boxes, which we then got to build something creative out of. We played lots of "Qui suis-je?" and some students took turns giving the clues describing the characteristics of 2D and 3D shapes. Next week we will continue on with a variety of measurement tasks beginning with non-standard units, into centimetres and metres, and finally measuring mass and capacity. Please check our Google Classroom Stream for special materials and the math pages that will be needed this week!
We are about half way through our look at Structures and Materials (grade 1) and Simple Machines that help us Move things (grade 2). Last week, we all participate in a few simple machine tests involving the wheel and axle and the lever. We tried moving a heavy object using just a finger, and then tried again using marker "wheels" and a ruler as a lever. Most of us found that it was easier with the help of a simple machine. Many of us also tried to flatten playdough with just our hand and then with a rolling pin, another great example of a wheel & axle. This coming week, we will investigate other machines including the inclined plane (ramp), and grade 1s will continue investigating the properties and uses of different materials. Note that this Thursday the weather looks nice, so we will attempt to do our science outside. We will go on a field trip to our back yards, balconies, porches - if those aren't options, let's open a window! I know this might be an internet/glare/battery life problem (plan ahead!), but it's just a half hour that we can hopefully chat about natural v. man-made structures out in some fresh air - no worries if it's not possible where you are.
