Songs we love!

Happy Halloween! We have been in the spirit this week. Our class has some decorations, and we've been watching French Halloween episodes at lunch. The student announcers this week have even been getting us up to do some Halloween dances! The leaves are falling like rain in the school yard, and the kids are making piles and jumping right in! We have also learned yet another outdoor game called "Promenons-nous dans les bois", where we sing a song and play in the woods while a wolf slowly wakes up and gets ready. When the wolf says it's lunch time, it's like tag and (s)he has to catch someone to eat/be the next wolf. It's a great game for our recess zone under the trees by the little house. It's been a great 2 weeks, but I think we are in store for more concrete now...

One day at lunch, I asked students to collect some nice fallen leaves to bring in. We painted the backs of these and used them as stamps to create pictures. Some kept it abstract, while others tried to make a specific picture, or animal out of their leaves.

We have wrapped up our first Science unit with a fun fall scavenger hunt outside and we have begun our first Social Studies unit on Roles and Responsibilities. We are starting by talking about different rules that exist at school, at home and in our community.

Thanks to all of you for diving right into reading in French at home with your student. The kids have been so excited to tell me what they've done. We are practicing some of the books at school as well, and we've talked about how we have RAZ-kids to work on reading. Avatars are fun and stars are encouraging, but we would still be working on reading if we didn't have these things. Here are a few more tips for reading, especially when you need to repeat it many times:

• have your student circle all the 'i's in red, for example, using the pen tool
• ask your student to find the word(s) that repeat and underline them with the pen tool
• ask your student to highlight "le" in green, and "la" in purple (for example) using the highlighter tool
• have your student stamp a question mark by any word that they can't figure out. They can ask me to open the book at school, we can look for the question mark and I can help!
• your student can record themselves reading, and then listen to themselves (I can also listen!)

I also just want to acknowledge (because I'm sure you will notice soon), that I didn't put all of the titles on the purple list. Mainly, it didn't work with my formatting (haha), but also a couple of the books are a little more challenging than the others, more like level A books. Feel free to practice them anyway if you like - we read "On habille Fido" at school today and looked for a repeating word to help us - but also you may choose to focus on the books on the purple list and move on when those are solid.

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘o’. This letter makes the same sound as in English. Think “so” (with many exceptions). Again, for each new sound that we learn, I love the idea of using 3-D letters or flashcards to experiment with the vowel combined with different consonants. We won’t be looking at each consonant in depth the way we are vowels, so this is a great way to make sure your child has a good grasp of the whole alphabet. Don’t worry if your combos aren’t real words, we’re just working on combining sounds in this game!

orange, dos, octobre, soleil, mot

Bonus words: Noël, zéro

In math this past week, we've been playing with money. We've had a few, very popular, class stores, where students have been offered a selection of items to choose from, and they have been asked to "buy" 2-3 items. To do this, they must add up the cost of the items they select, and "pay" by using the school money to get exactly the right amount, and then draw their bills and coins on their paper. We have focused on simple dollar amounts under $20, and we did some group counting with cents as well. 

We will move on to some patterning work now, and revisit numbers and operations later. Before we do, I'm just going to have a quick meeting with each student to do some counting and review some of what we have covered so far. I'm doing the same with letters and reading strategies as well. Always good to check that what we are doing as a group is sinking in. Ask your reader if they have had their interview with Mme yet, and what book they chose to read ("La crème glacée" or "Salade de fruits").

Finally, I mentioned before that we were loving the Kids United songs, but this week we have been learning the words to "C'est l'Halloween" - that very popular song. This video, with lyrics, is great for singing along to. I've also been asked to share "C'est comme ça ici" - this song has beautiful lyrics about working together, but the kids just find the video hilarious. I've created a folder on Google Classroom where I've linked these, and more of our favourite songs!

At-home Reading using RAZ-Kids

Dear at-home-teachers,

We are beginning our at-home-reading routine! I used to call this “borrow-a-book”, however, we have all grown accustomed to doing so much online, and last year at-home-reading in French became one of those things. We will be using the French RAZ-Kids books for our leveled reading this year. These are available online using your student’s account information (see yellow note, sent home). I have introduced this site to students at school and shown them some of the fun features, including building their own avatar, recording themselves and the highlighting tool. Having said this, I recognize that it may be beneficial, and more enjoyable, to have paper books in hand. Please email me if you would like me to send home a package of books for each level. I would be happy to do so. We are grateful for your support in managing the routine and hope it is fun for both you and your child.

How it works:

Students will receive a list of books for each level, beginning with AA. Work on reading these books at home, using the suggestions below, until you feel your child has “mastered” each one. This means they can read the book fluently and independently. As your reader masters the books, initial beside them on the list. When the entire level has been mastered, send the list and any paper books back to school. I will congratulate them with a certificate and provide the next list of books. 

Reading tips:

• I suggest 5-10 minutes a day to begin. You can adjust the length of time as your child grows as a reader, or as you settle into a routine.

• Try to do it everyday! Sometimes your child won’t want to, and sometimes you won’t want to. Sometimes you will be very busy and it just won’t be possible. That’s okay. Try your best to be consistent with the time of day and treat it with the same importance that you might treat homework for an older student.

• Some readers may master the first level, or others, quickly. For many readers, each book may take many repetitions to “master”. It’s not a race. Take your time. Re-reading books that are starting to feel easy is a great thing to do.

• But I don’t speak French! Neither did my parents. You can still talk about the pictures together, look for specific letters, the words of the week and discuss what is happening in the book. Likely you’ll be able to learn along with your child, at least for the first couple years!

• Use the highlighting tool, or coloured pencils, to circle specific letters or underline words that repeat. Students are welcome to colour the pictures in the paper books using wax or pencil crayons.

• Keep it fun by recording your child reading aloud and letting them listen to themselves. Read to grandma on the phone or your stuffed animal “students”.

• You can still read in English too! You don’t need my permission to read to your kids in English, or whatever language you speak at home. Kids can learn multiple languages simultaneously. Because reading and word review is the only at-home-work that I suggest, I would love for every family to read (or look at) 1 short French book everyday, but what you read in other languages will also contribute to your child’s growth as a reader.

• Above all, make sure it’s manageable for you and your family. Working with your child is important, but it should always be enjoyable.

I thank you in advance for all your amazing help and dedication this year. Your efforts at home will contribute greatly to your child’s development!

How to access RAZ-Kids online (link also posted on Google Classroom):

1. Go to www.kidsa-z.com

2. Enter or choose the teacher's username: tmitchell142 

3. Your child can find their name on the class chart

4. Click on your password picture(s) (see below)

5. You’re in! Click on Reading Room and then French to see your French leveled books. (The leveled books are under “Livres en français”, at the bottom.)

Great presentations!

Hello Salle 213 families!

I hope you are well. It's starting to look and feel like fall outside, though the school is still warm, and the kids are having tons of fun playing in the leaves and in our current zone with the play structure. Ask them about our new structure game, "Shark Attack"! With the cold mornings and warm afternoons inside, it's good to have layers of clothing that we can remove or add on - please make sure names are on everything! It's not too early to start sending a hat and gloves, as we do try to spend some extra time outside even on non-gym days.

In our class, we have gotten in the routine of checking our visual schedule every morning, so the kids know what we will be doing for the day, and they ask when they see something out of the ordinary. Yesterday, they wondered why we had story time in the morning and again in the afternoon. This was because in the morning, they began presenting their short stories to the class! We took some time to practice with a partner, and then we started with some brave presenters. Whoever is reading gets to sit in my chair (I am beside to help) and of course earns a jeton for reading in French. We talked about using an excited voice when we read our stories aloud, as it will keep our audience interested. We also talked about being good listeners when we are in the audience. I'm so proud of our class for being up to the challenge of presenting to the class! Please ask your student how accomplishing this made them feel!

With announcements now being student-led over zoom, we have changed our morning routine to include silent reading while we wait for the zoom to start. We've been talking about strategies that help us read books, so during this time, everyone is trying so hard to find words they can read in their books - lots of le, la, ma, un, une and sometimes I encourage students to find other words of the week in there. It's great that they are using the strategy of looking for high-frequency words. I'm also encouraging them to look for words that repeat, as many of our leveled books have repetition. Please check back soon for tons of information on our home reading routine, which will begin, likely, next week!

Words of the Week

We have more i words this week, and in addition, a few y’s, which make the same sound. “Y” doesn’t look like it should be a word, but it actually is, though the rules around using it can get complicated. Your student will see it often used, and use it, in the common phrase “il y a”. Note: In the word “famille”, the final ‘lle’ are not really heard. They add a bit of a “ye” sound I guess, but for your practice purposes, it would be better to not pronounce them at all, then to add a regular L sound. :)

y, bicyclette, fini, petit, famille

Bonus words: stylo, pizza

In math, we are finishing up our Number unit with some estimating and skip-counting fun. Yesterday we had 7 centres to rotate through in small groups. At each centre, there was a different collection of material to count (for example, marbles, coins, shapes). Each group was encouraged to estimate, and then count their collection by 2, 5 or 10 by first making groups out of the material. Each group worked very well together to group and count the material and then tidy it up before rotating. We did SO much counting! We're getting pretty good! We did notice that when we grouped items by 10, it was faster to count than going by 1s or 2s. This is a good reason to keep practicing! We are also doing some simple addition using money and learning the value of our coins and bills. If you have a collection of coins at home, this is a material for practicing skip-counting!

In Science, we are wrapping up our Seasonal Changes unit with some sun experiments. Last week, we used two heat lamps as our "suns" and shined them on a white and black t-shirt, placed over thermometers. I won't give it away, but one of them heated up more than the other in the same amount of time. Ask your scientist which one, and what we can learn from this! We also put a little sun collage in the windows for a week and predicted what will happen when we remove our sun circle from our dark blue paper. We haven't had a chance to look at our results yet, but we will try to draw some conclusions from this as well (possibly related to our skin...). We are also talking about different cycles; the days of the week, months of the year, and the 4 seasons. We have a couple songs that help us keep things in order. Ask to hear our days of the week song!

In art, we did another project using the primary colours - this time a collage. You can see that many students were inspired by my example (I did a house), but they got much more detailed and creative than me. They look great!

Next Friday, we will celebrate Halloween at school. Students may dress up, if they wish, but keep in mind that it is a gym morning, so it may be best to bring a costume only for the afternoon (and also that we still need to be masked). In addition, our school has decided not to have any food or treat sharing this year, but we will have fun and students will all receive a little Halloween favour from me.

Finally, I wanted to share that students have started requesting to listen to specific French songs at lunch. In particular, songs by Kids United. If you haven't heard of this group, do check them out on YouTube. They have lots of great French songs that we enjoy singing along to!

Please check back next week for reading info,

Take care, Tamara

Mots de la Semaine

I think I forgot to include the words of the week in last week's long update... 

Last week we continued to work on e, but we additionally learned that U and E are best friends. Whoever comes first gets their sound without interference from the next guy, so here, we only hear the regular ‘e’ sound that we learned about previously.

bleu, feu, fleur, deux, yeux

Bonus words: cœur, sœur

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘i’. In French, this letter makes our English ‘e’ sound. Think “see”. Again, for each new sound that we learn, I love the idea of using 3-D letters or flashcards to experiment with the vowel combined with different consonants. We won’t be looking at each consonant in depth the way we are vowels, so this is a great way to make sure your child has a good grasp of the whole alphabet. Don’t worry if your combos aren’t real words, we’re just working on combining sounds in this game!

il, ici, si, avion, ami

Bonus words: lit, rit

Do scroll down if you haven't yet read my previous post. It will get you all caught up and give you some conversation starters!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello Salle 213 families,

I hope you are all well and enjoying this warm weather.  We are doing very well at school, and after a busy beginning to the school year, I'm now finding time to set up a few more initiatives for our class. I'll take a moment now to catch you up!

First of all, as always safety - covid specifically - is number one. We are very diligent about sanitizing our hands every single time we enter and leave our classroom. We now have a class helper who offers the squirt to everyone as they enter, or once we are lined up. We all line up to wash our hands with soap and water before eating lunch in-class, and we are experts at masking. Nobody ever complains, and the kids are great at reminding each other before we come inside. 

Our recesses have been going well, despite having a few challenging recess zones in a row. We are on week 3 of pavement and very much looking forward to getting our turn at the structure next! As I've said before, our class has been just amazing at understanding the challenges of these less interesting zones and making the best of it. We have talked about fun things we can do and have brought out some sidewalk chalk, did a group game of hopscotch, learned some skipping games and some students brought colouring or other activities from home. I taught the class a game called 'Soldat', where we stand in a circle pretending to be soldiers, and try to catch the ball when it is tossed our way, but not flinch if the leader tricks us! Before playing we talked about the challenge of elimination games and how we would handle being "out", as it will happen to almost everybody. We had no problems at all, and the game became so popular that I've actually observed a group start up their own game independent of me, when I gave them some balls to use during recess. I like taking advantage of our DPA time to play group games, not only for community-building, but also to teach proper use of the equipment I have for our class, so that I can then give it to students to use during their long lunch recess when I'm not with them. 

In class, we have recently assigned classroom responsibilities. The kids are excited to have a special job that they are needed for - these are things that help us take care of our materials, stay safe and save us time. The jobs include holding the door, giving the sanitizer, pushing in forgotten chairs, checking that we are not leaving crayons on the floor to be swept away and more. Ask your student what their current job is. We will switch every day 1, just like our recess zones.

Another initiative that we have just begun is our jeton system. Les jetons are little counters, like bingo chips. When I hear students speaking in French, I give out a jeton. Each student has a personal jeton jar to keep these in. When a student has earned 5 jetons, they can exchange them for a bigger one (it's like money). There's a long exchanging story, but eventually we can earn a school dollar. Two school dollars is enough to "buy" a prize. I hope this will be motivating! 

In French, we review our letters and read syllables and high-frequency words each morning, and we continue to add more poems and songs to our repertoire. Recently, we began learning the song "Aux Champs-Elysées", a famous French song by Joe Dassin. I have changed the lyrics a bit to make a shorter, simpler story, but so far we mostly just know the catchy chorus! We do some kind of writing each day, whether it's working on printing, making word cards, writing in our journal, or working on a special project. Currently, our project is writing a short story about a time when we went somewhere special. Students are writing where they went, what they saw and what they had fun doing. Ask your student where they are writing their story about!

In math, we have been spending all our time really working hard to learn our number words in French - not just being able to count out loud by one, but also be able to hear a number word and understand what it represents (e.g., draw a group), write our numbers with words and symbols, compare numbers and now skip-count. We are making this fun with a bean bag toss game that we enjoy, where we all count together. Keep practicing at home!

In science, we are continuing to talk about seasonal changes. We waited patiently for a sunny day to trace our shadows with chalk in the morning and again in the afternoon. We noticed that they were pointing different directions! This taught us something about how the Earth turns. Last week, we worked in groups to create 3D seasons using all kinds of craft materials. We focused on working nicely as teams - listening to our group members - and we did self-evaluations after to think about how we did. Later, each group presented their season and we said what we like about each one. We understand that these can't come home, but please enjoy the pictures!

This week we talked about how animals handle the cold Canadian winters. There are 4 main options that animals can do - please ask your scientist what they are! We played a great game as well where we pretended to be squirrels preparing for winter, but then when I called out an animal name, we had to do a specific action (fly, curl up and sleep or super-hero pose) to show what that animals does for winter. This weekend, I invite you to show your scientist some of the special features of your home that help keep us cool in summer and warm in winter. We will be talking about this next week!

Last week our school celebrated Orange Shirt Day. We had several conversations about why this day exists and students had some important knowledge and experiences to share. We listened to a message from Phillis Webstad, the actual woman who had her orange shirt taken away as a child, and listened to the book she wrote about her experience. We spent some time also talking about our land acknowledgment and why it is important, and how this is connected to residential schools. Our students participated in these discussions thoughtfully, and it was clear that many had learned about these issues at home as well. To mark this day, we painted rocks using orange, of course, and the medicine wheel colours: white, yellow, red and black. Some students included words such as l'amour and paix (love and peace). I gave these a coat of glaze so that the paint will last, and students brought these home. They are welcome to keep it, display it, or leave it in a park for others to find and enjoy.

This weekend, many families are celebrating Thanksgiving. We took some time to share and write what we are thankful for, and what we think we are doing this weekend. Students said that they are thankful for their parents, their families, the Earth, air, water and trees, and the food they eat. We also made a cute little turkey decoration to add to your celebration. 

I wish you a lovely long weekend with your families.

See you Tuesday, Tamara