So sorry for the confusion this morning. Our first supply teacher must have cancelled last minute without notifying me, and I was on my way to our appointment when I got the email from the new teacher asking for the links so it took me a while to get it sorted out... I know you couldn't get in until she did - hopefully you found some useful links on Google Classroom to pass the time. My apologies.
I expect your student has told you, I've had an exciting week at home. Last Sunday (hours before my vaccine was originally scheduled) I got news that there was a positive case at my son's daycare. We are fine - W had his second test this morning - but daycare had to close for 2 weeks and he needed to isolate just in case. So, he's been home with me and will be this week as well. I've gotten a glimse into your lives trying to manage work and childcare! Fortunately, it hasn't been too bad - he's an excellent napper - but the kids have been putting up with some background noise and I've had to dash off to change a diaper here and there. Actually, they are so sweet with him and have enjoyed seeing him on camera as much as I've enjoyed sharing him. But I really appreciate their patience and yours!
Last week was Children's Mental Health Week, and we celebrated this throughout the week by playing games such as emotions Charades, where, rather than acting out an animal or action, students had to show an emotion on their face and we had to guess how they were feeling and why they might feel that way. We discussed why reading each others' feelings is important and several students identified that if we are paying attention to how others feel, we can help them feel better. We made little emoji feelings booklets naming just a few of the long list of feelings we identified. Being in tune with our own and others' feelings is important every day - not just one week of the year - and I hope when we are back together at school, we will continue looking for these cues and supporting each other when we can.
Last week in math, we finished up working on measurement. We learned how to use a ruler to measure in centimetres and talked about when metres are a more appropriate unit. We also learned about measuring capacity by counting how many scoops various containers could hold, and mass by predicting which would be the heaviest and lightest items and weighing the selection using a scale.
We are going to begin our number sense unit now. I learned from Mme Tatiana that students have previously worked on their number recognition and counting skills for the lower half of the value range for each grade, so we will be working a bit more with the higher numbers. To begin, I've posted some number grids for students to complete and refer to as we practice counting together, and hopefully individually. I've also posted a few materials that might be helpful, or make working with numbers more fun. A deck of cards, dice, Monopoly money, Canadian coins and bills... We need lots of practice and don't want it to get boring! This is a great month to play lots of games that involve numbers and counting - such as Snakes & ladders, Dominos, Monopoly and Uno! Try to use French number names as you play! Also, just for fun, I've suggested that if students own an article of clothing with a number on it (like a jersey or "you're #1" sweater) that they wear it on Tuesday! Later this week we will also start working on filling in an addition & subtraction grid. I'm all about using manipulatives to help us solve number problems, but it's handy to have some of the basic facts memorized (for instance, 5+5=10). Once we do the hard work to fill in our grids, we should keep reviewing it so that in the next part of the unit, we have a few addition/subtraction facts safely stored.
Speaking of Thursday - I've had to adjust our weekly schedule already as I've learned of our second X-Movement workshop in the morning. There is a second, full-school X-Movement workshop that afternoon, but I don't know that all of our students will want to do it, so I'm going to go ahead with our regular science class - which is a very exciting field trip - at the same time. Students who choose to go to the X-Movement workshop will be able to do the virtual tour later during independent time.
This afternoon we began a story writing project which we will work away at each day for a few weeks. I'm skipping some of the written planning steps that we would do at school because it's so difficult to help individual students when we are all writing different things, but, I have created a template that should prompt us to consider all the story components we need. We are also going at it a bit backwards, beginning with some illustrations today. Once we have our story told in drawing, I think it will be easier to put into words - less wondering what comes next. Finally, I suggested that students base their story on their drawing that we did way back in April on Pink Day - an animal that doesn't fit in with the rest. Today we completed drawings of our main character, where he/she lives and the problem with what the main character wants to do. We helped each other brainstorm ideas for this!
We also re-told the musical story from the previous week, "Pierre et le Loup" - but this time, instead of the symphonic accompaniment by Prokofiev, we brought our own musical instruments and created our own accompaniment! We assigned each instrument that we had to a character (e.g., our maracas were the duck) and those students could play when their character was in the story. Our "orchestra" did a great job of playing when it was their turn, and stopping for the story to continue. We got to hear each character, just as we did in Prokofiev's version. Really neat and fun activity!
Thanks for helping your reader prepare for their conference with me. Students had clearly chosen and practiced their book and I got through almost everyone. We will definitely take some time now to review or learn some more French vowel combinations. I'd like to read with everyone again soon, but next time I will choose the book!
Have a great week!
Tamara