Today was a very exciting day! In the morning, Area 24 participated in the Terry Fox Run around the Dewson field. The weather was perfect for the run, and the children had lots of fun. Ask your child how many laps they did around the field! We counted up all of the money we brought in, and together our class raised $55.23 for cancer research. Thank you!
This afternoon, we began a very exciting partnership with another class. We are teaming up with Mlle Segreto's grade 5 class (my former students!) for reading buddies (les amis de lecture). Every day 3, last period, Mlle Segreto's class will come to Area 24 and help us work on our reading. Each grade 1 student is paired up with one or two grade 5 students.
During reading buddies, the grade 5 students will be teaching grade 1s how to read with a buddy (e.g., how to sit knee to knee, elbow to elbow and hold a book in between) and encouraging them to begin sounding out words. For now, I am asking every pair to read one very simple book with high frequency words that the grade 1s might recognise, and one book that the grade 1 student selects. Often my students ask me to read to them during their independent reading time and, of course, I can't read everyone's book to them at the same time, so this will be really fun for them.
As we learn more sounds, I hope that the older kids will be able to support our class in sounding out more and more words and that by the end of the year, my students will be doing a lot of the reading in simple books. Ask your child who their buddy is and what they read today!
In math news, we have started working more on number sense, beginning with counting, reading numbers, drawing what a number represents, and writing numbers. This is easy stuff to practise at home, in the car, out for a walk... For example, "How many books do we have on this shelf? Can you count them in French?". You can also grab a scrap piece of paper and write a number on it and have your child draw a set of something (e.g., 7 apples) to match the number. Try doing the reverse as well, if you give your child a few grapes as a snack, have them count how many there are and write the number before they eat them! If you notice that your child has written a number backwards, ask them to turn it around right away to avoid forming bad habits.
I noticed a big improvement in backwards counting the last time I mentioned it on the blog! In October we will be challenging ourselves to count backwards all the way from 20! We have already tried starting at 15. Keep up the great work!
Tamara
