Happy Holidays!

Dear families,

Thank you for the thoughtful gifts and school supplies! The kids and I were SO excited to receive so many exciting new supplies! We'll look forward to using them soon.

I hope you have a wonderful and restful break with your families!

Happy everything,

Tamara

In our last week of 2013...

Well, in our last few days we have certainly been getting lots done!

In Francais, we are still working on "ui", which we didn't spend much time on last week. We did look for more words containing this sound in our reading, and we made a good list of words that we were able to sound out together.

We are also working on personal letters to a family member - get ready, you might receive one soon!
Before we started this letter, we looked at the feedback on the letter we wrote previously to a teacher, and we reviewed the expectations for this letter. The writers are learning to use the resources they have to help them in their sounding out. They have the word wall, their dictionaries, our sound posters, tons of posters and charts around the room, many kids know of books that contain words they need, and each child also has a personal placemat with words and sounds right on their desk. It's wonderful to see students looking around to help themselves learn, and equally rewarding to see students trying their best to sound out words on their own.

In math, we have been continuing our work in geometry by sorting shapes using a Venn diagram (the 2 overlapping circles). This increased the challenge from the sorting game we had been playing before, as now we had 2 rules to follow, and some shapes followed both rules and were therefore placed in the middle section. We also created some neat pictures using only shapes. Check it out:

This week we are learning about symmetry by doing some more sorting games, and some more lovely math-art! We learned how to use special mirrors to check our shapes to see which ones were symmetrical (lots of students earned jetons for saying "C'est symétrique!" or "Ce n'est pas symétrique.").

We drew the shapes that were symmetrical and used this information to make symmetrical decorations. They look great! Please ask your mathematician what symétrique means and how they made the decorations to make sure both halves would be exactly the same.

I have to say, the mathematicians amazed me with how capably they used the special mirrors to complete symmetrical shapes. Here is the Venn diagram we solved today. Ask your student what the 2 rules are. What does it mean when shapes are in the middle?

Please note the change of time for the carol sing-along. It will now be Thursday afternoon, rather than morning, due to the Cross Country breakfast. I believe parents are invited to join us for the carolling!

Finally, while your child has hopefully returned all of his/her library books for the holidays, I am happy to lend out lots of our classroom books, and the white books, so that you can continue your French reading routine over the holidays. I'll make sure the children know that they can take books, but if you are concerned that your reader may not remember to take extra, just email me by Thursday morning and I'll double check. Please help your reader keep track of these precious books and make sure they come back to us in January!

Thanks so much!
Tamara

Bravo!

A HUGE congratulations to all of Area 24, and Area 20! I was so proud of you last Thursday evening. I thought our performance went very very well, I couldn't be happier!

I have a rather shaky video of our song. If you have a video or some pictures, I'm sure it'll be much better than mine, and I'd love if you could share it with me somehow! Thanks!

Bravo mes amis!

Science Discoveries

As we finish up our unit on daily and seasonal changes, we have been talking about day and night activities, and the sun. We made a list of what we already knew, and we were able to answer some interesting questions. We performed two experiments using the sun.

1. We each cut out a yellow sun and stuck it on dark blue paper, then we put it in our window and left it alone for about a week. We made predictions about what we thought would happen. Some scientists thought the paper would feel warm, some thought the sun would make a mark, or the paper would lighten, others thought that there would be no change. Ask your scientist what happened!

2. We waited for a sunny day and then went outside in the morning, and again in the afternoon to trace our shadows. Students worked in pairs and used chalk to trace each others' shadow on the concrete, and took note of the direction their shadow was pointing in the morning. In the afternoon, the scientists found that their shadow was pointing the opposite direction. Why did this happen?

We will have a chance to talk more about the sun, from an energy perspective, in the early spring.

Message from the Library

Dewson Parents and Guardians, 

As we are getting ready for the Holliday’s, your child will not bring library books home. All library books have to be returned before the last day of school, Thursday, December 19.    

Please have a last look around your house and return all remaining library books to Dewson. 

Thank you.

Have a great Holliday season!

Mme Gaudreault

Words of the Week

Here are the words that came home yesterday:

bon, fait, beau, maman, Noël

This week we will learn the sound "ui" (sounds like "we"). No big trick here, the u and the i still make their usual sounds, just really quickly together! We use this sound all the time in the word oui as well as in the words aujourd'hui, huit (8), fruit, biscuit and cuillère (spoon).

These will be our last words and our last new sound for 2013 - we'll take next week off and resume first thing in January.

If possible, please attempt to work a little bit on reading and reviewing old words of the week over the break. I know it's a busy time, and the kids definitely deserve a break, but it's amazing how quickly we forget if we aren't practising every day! Just a little bit - that can be my present!

Tamara

(Scroll down if you haven't seen the two messages from yesterday.)

Citrouilleville... la suite!

You may remember hearing about the extended endings to the story Citrouilleville  that we wrote around Halloween. I have finally taken them off the wall and am sending them home with the rubric this week. This rubric is quite different from the rubrics we have been using for our dictées. Keep in mind that our stories were written at a time when we were still working on basic sounds, and could not do the amazing sounding out that we can do now. Therefore, the writing mark for this project does not come from a sounding out effort (I wrote most of their ideas for them), but from their creativity and independence when it came to generating ideas for their story, which itself is a difficult task. We brainstormed many ideas together, and students were free to use them. To earn a level 4, students had to think outside the box a little and come up with something different, or with a twist, without my help. There is also an art mark for this project, as the illustrations were made collage-style, and I encouraged students to take their time and add as much detail as they could.

The other area that was assessed using this rubric was the students' oral presentation of their story. Each author read their story aloud to a small group of classmates. We discussed how to hold the booklet so that the audience would be able to hear their voice, and how to speak with a clear and strong voice. This was our first attempt, so don't worry if the mark is low. This task was also challenging because students were often unsure of what they had written. You will notice that there is a separate comment in each box for how they did with reading their story independently. Again, please don't worry if your child has a level 1 in this area. In retrospect, it was a little early in the year for me to expect children to read anything without lots of assistance, so I will not be using this mark to calculate their next reading mark. We'll go with more recent assessments when the time comes.

From my perspective, this rubric is an opportunity to see how your child is doing in terms of how much effort they are putting into their work. Do the illustrations look like your child's best work, or do they seem rushed? Does the rubric suggest that your artist worked independently, or did they need lots of suggestions in order to keep the ball rolling?

I really hope you LOVE looking at your writer's story. Maybe they can read it to you, or explain what happens. I think they're all fantastic!

Holiday Celebrations

Dear families,

The winter break is coming up very soon! I'm sure everyone is just as excited as I am (it's my favourite holiday)!!

A note came home today with information about this Thursday's Winter Concert. The important details are:
- All students should arrive in Area 24 by 6:10 pm to rehearse our song.
- All students should plan to wear dark bottoms and a white top. If possible, please bring a winter/festive sweater or scarf to wear for our class performance.
- The show begins at 7:00 pm. Please try to stay in the gym until the end of the concert, out of respect for the other performers. Mr. Greene has worked hard to keep the program to a reasonable length.
- Performers will return to A. 24 after their performance and await pick-up (free babysitting!)

On Thursday December 19th, we will have a little class party in the afternoon to celebrate the holidays and the end of school in 2013. Please remember our no-food policy!

Recently there was a note and post on the Dewson blog regarding an alternative gift idea for teachers. Please don't feel obliged to give me a gift at all. If you are planning to, check out the Dewson blog for a way to contribute to a good cause. Another idea is materials that our whole class can use. I quite often spend my own money on paper towels, hand soap, Kleenex, craft supplies and erasers. I enjoy receiving these things as gifts so that I don't have to carry them to school myself!

See you at the concert! Wish us luck!

Hello Geometry!

For the rest of December, we will be working on identifying and sorting 2-dimensional shapes. We have already talked about attributes of lots of shapes, and we filled in some charts with the information we gathered. Ask your student what a polygon is! Is a square a polygon? Is a circle a polygon? Why, or why not? Ask your mathematician how many sides an octagon has. What is our trick to help remember this?

We spent some time this week labelling shape cards that we will use in the next few days to play some sorting games.

We're going to use shapes in some artwork as well. Our most recent art project is done and looks amazing. This project is modelled on artist Paul Klee's painting of a face that is made using geometrical shapes. We began our version by adding details to a face using only shapes.

Next, we coloured everything in using lots of fun colours and making sure to cover absolutely all of the paper.

After that, we painted over our hard work and let it dry. Finally, we scratched off most of the paint using wooden blocks. This gives the finished project an aged appearance and the face shows through just enough that you can tell what it is. I think they look very professional!

Je parle le français!

The new words of the week are:

ou, qui, quoi, mercredi, ici

Our new sound is 'en'. I explained what this sounds like in a previous post. It sounds a bit like "huh?" - it's pretty far back in the throat, and remember, it doesn't close on the n.

There are other ways to make this exact same sound: 'an', 'em' and 'am' all make the same sound.

Some high frequency words containing a version of this sound are: enfant, dans, vent, dent, quand, décembre, avant, vacances, éléphant, triangle...

This week, please ask your student about our new game to help us speak French. We just started Monday, and already children are making more of an effort to slow down and think about what they want to say in French. Here's how it works:
Anytime that I overhear a student speaking in French, whether to me or a classmate, in our classroom or in the hall, I will give them a little jeton (a counter). Once a student has collected 5 of these, they can be exchanged for a big jeton. Once a student has collected 5 large jetons (which may take a while), they can exchange them for one school dollar. Finally, when they have earned 2 school dollars, they can choose a prize and begin collecting again!
Rules:

1. Some phrases that we have been using all year do not count for a jeton (e.g., Merci, Est-ce que je peux boire? etc.).
2. The jetons are kept in baggies attached to each students' desk. If I find out, for sure, that a student has taken someone else's jetons, they are out of the game. I don't think this will happen.
3. Mlle is the only one that can distribute jetons. The more French, the merrier, but I need to hear it in order to reward it with a jeton.
4. Jetons are not given out if a student is not doing what they should be doing (i.e., working) because they are preoccupied trying to talk to me in French. Jetons are also not given if what was said in French was also interrupting someone, and in fact, I may take back a jeton if there are too many interruptions from one person during a discussion.
5. We are trying not to compare how many jetons we all have. I know that everyone will earn a prize eventually.

Re: School Newsletter

At the beginning of the school year many families signed up to receive school info electronically through the Dewson Blog. The office has informed us that we will not be distributing paper copies of the school newsletter, as it is accessible on the blog (in the 'Favourite Links' list). If you would like a paper copy, they are available in the office. I can grab one and send it home for you if you let me know.

Tamara

Vision & Hearing Clinics

Dear at-home doctors,

Once again, Dewson will be hosting a vision and hearing clinic just before the winter break. Whether you have your child's vision and hearing tested through this clinic, or by taking them for regular check-ups with your family doctors, I think it's a really important thing to do. It's surprising how many problems (e.g., reluctance to read, unsure of letter sounds, seeming to not understand instructions) can be solved simply after a thorough check-up.

If you would like to take advantage of the opportunity here at Dewson, please return the form with payment as soon as you can. Thanks!

December Scholastic is coming home today as well. We should have our orders on time for the holidays, so again, if you would like to place a secret order, please indicate that on your forms or envelope and I'll let you know when it's in.

Tamara

Owl Pellet Dissection

Last week a few students had the messy job of taking apart the owl pellet that we found at High Park, and trying to identify the critter that the owl had eaten based on the bones. Sadly, there was only one bone big enough to identify in the pellet (a leg and foot with claws), but we all had a chance to look at it and make our best guess at what the animal may have been. We looked at some charts, borrowed from the grade 4s, to help us with this. The kids wanted to have a closer look, so here you go:

Ask your child what safety procedures the scientists followed to make sure that this activity was done safely!