Patterns & Poppies

Hello families,

Some updates for you! Firstly, you may have heard that we got to sign out our first book from our school library last Monday. Our regular library time will be on day 4 (currently Wednesdays, but will be Thursdays after the upcoming PA day). If your child brought home a library book, please help them remember to bring it back to school on or before the next day 4 (tomorrow!) so that they may return it and sign-out another book. 

I have had some questions about reading library/home books in our class during our daily reading time. The answer is, if it is in French, YES! If it is in English, it is for reading at home or at recess. Some students have expressed an interest in getting some French books for their home. I have always done Scholastic in the past and many students took advantage of all the French (and English) resources. I'll get on it and send that info home for you - always optional, and doesn't replace our work on RAZ-kids.

Secondly, there are some important dates coming up this month. Progress reports will be sent home on Wednesday, November 17th. These reports focus on how we are doing with our learning skills, which contribute so much to our academic success and overall happiness at school. On Thursday the 18th (eve) and Friday the 19th (am), interviews will be scheduled. I think there will be an online booking system - you may know more than me - and I think we will try to do mostly video conferences. I will share how this will work as I receive the information, but I am looking forward to chatting with you all. 

I wanted to share that we have been working as a group on our lines this week. Many of us LOVE being at the front of the line! This becomes problematic when students begin running forward and squeezing themselves between people where there really is no space. We have had conversations about how people don't really appreciate that, and anyway there's no prize for getting anywhere first. But, we've also talked about, and modeled, how to handle it, if someone does go in front of us. Maybe we can just say, "Oh well, I guess my friend really wants to be first today!", and not worry about it. We have also played some line games, like stop and go, and we know that the fewer stops we need to make, the more outdoor time we will end up with. This has been motivational, and our last few transitions have been awesome! Perhaps you can review this, and the no hands and feet idea, at home. Thanks!

Last Friday, we made lovely tissue paper poppies in advance of Remembrance day, this Thursday. We have been talking a bit about this day, and why we wear poppies. I've already shared a little story about my grandfather who was in World War II, and happily lived to be 96 years old. On Thursday, I look forward to hearing the many stories students have to share about people they know and are thinking about. We will wear our handmade poppies on that day and bring them home. 

In math, we have been working on completing, extending and creating our own repeating patterns. We've even learned to label them with letters (e.g., AB AB AB). The kids loved using fruit loops to create colour patterns, but now we are trying to combine 2 attributes and consider both colour and shape.

In language, I recently told my first (of many) oral stories. With no book in front of me, students used their imaginations to envision the characters and the story. The story is about a boy who hides in a peanut, and is subsequently eaten by several animals before being sneezed out by a chicken (hehe). Now that we've heard it a couple times, I'm sure your child could tell you the whole story! Together, we broke the story down into 19 parts and each student is working on writing and illustrating one part of the story. We will soon have an amazing book that we wrote all together!

I also wanted to share that in our class, we have a chart with some helpful reading strategies that we can use when trying to read books at our level. Some strategies are, look at the pictures, look for words of the week and look for words that repeat. Our newest strategy, that we just added this morning is to point to each word as we read it. This may be difficult to do online, plus RAZ-kids highlights them for us, but if you have other beginner books that you're reading, in any language, please encourage this strategy. It's helpful for connecting sounds to letters.

Words of the Week

Here’s the last way to make ‘o’, and this happens frequently, particularly at the ends of words. Try writing a rhyming poem where each line ends with one of these ‘eau’ words!

l’eau, beau, bateau, chapeau, cadeau

Bonus words: ciseaux, couteau

See you soon, Tamara