Happy Holidays!

Dear families,

Happy last week of school! I've had a busy week of packing and moving homes and I feel like I've gotten a bit behind with posting updates and words, so here we go.

As you know, each school day this month, we are drawing a card from our calendrier de gentillesse and reading what kind action we can focus on that day. We've done things like asking how we can help a teacher, writing to le Père Noël (our letters are in the mail!), making a little ornament with hidden chocolate for a neighbour, cleaning up our classroom and school yard and making treats for our families! I hope you enjoyed your Rice Krispie Squares last week!

We are building on our letter writing skills by learning to write a holiday card to a friend. We've done some group writing to learn the structure of a letter or card, and soon we will get to make our own to bring home and give someone.

This Friday is the last school day before the break. Our class is having pyjama day, so students are welcome to come to school in pyjamas and bring one stuffy if they wish. I plan to have a fun afternoon of either watching a movie or games and activities. I may offer small individual baggies of popcorn, so please let me know if your student should not have popcorn.

In language, we've also been focusing on connecting the vowel sounds we are learning to the consonant that comes directly before. So, after we circle 'ou' in the message, for example, we then practice reading it with the letter before, for example, "jou" in bonjour. For some students, this is review, but for many, it's a good next step in sounding out new words.

Here are the current and last sounds and words of the week:

E might win as the most complicated letter of the French alphabet. It can make so many different sounds depending on the accent or letters around it. In this case, when followed by ‘s’, it makes a more relaxed sound, as in “best”. Your student has probably already learned these words, but it might be a good time to go back to playing with moveable letters to play with different combinations. 

les, mes, tes, des, c’est

Bonus words: il est, ses

This is one of my personal favourites. I think ‘oi’ is a fun sound to say. In English, it sounds just like ‘wa’, as in “water”. At first, children sometimes use the letter a when trying to write this sound. That’s just fine, they are similar. From now on, we’ll help them listen a little closer and remind them that there’s an even better way to write that sound. Our sound poster in class has a picture of a bird and the word oiseau. If you’re doing rule posters at your house, looking at this one is an immediate reminder of what the sound looks like.

oiseau, froid, moi, toi, voiture

Bonus words: roi, loi

In math, we've been learning how to organize data into a graph. We began by graphing our birthdays by stacking individual squares over the correct months and were able to notice that the majority of our class was born in the spring. We've since done more class surveys to gather information (e.g., what is our favourite school subject?), filled in tables with the results, and learned to present it as a neat bar graph (diagramme a bandes), using a ruler and colours to make the graph neat and attractive. This week, we are inventing our own individual survey questions to ask our classmates, and graphing the data we collect.

In social studies, our culminating task for this unit on roles and responsibilities, was to think about what we want to be when we grow up and fill out a large project template. We first drew a detailed picture of ourselves at work, wearing what we might wear and performing a task. We then listed some of the responsibilities we would have in that role. Finally, we considered and wrote what would be fun about our job, and what would be hard. Students had a chance to present their projects to each other, and we also had fun playing a charades game where the roles to guess were all helpers in our community. Please ask your student what they said they want to be when they grow up! In January, we will take a break from social studies and get back to some science.

In art, I decided to try some Christmas hand-print art, inspired by what I tried to do last year with baby Wales, but he was just too wiggly (it turned into foot-print art)! Fortunately, many students had some experience with hand-print art, so they knew just what to do, and nobody was afraid to get their hands dirty! Our artists were able to try two out of my 4 ideas. They will look amazing in a frame!

Yesterday, you received a package of rapid covid tests. I assume you have received information from the office about this, or that there are instructions in the package. Please call the school if you are unsure of how to use these.

I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and relaxing holiday. 

Take good care, Tamara

(This is us playing "Quelle heure est-il Mr. le Loup?" during DPA!)