Wow Geometry!

Hello parents,

We've been having an extra-good and extra-productive week here.

Our stories are quickly coming together. Students who have already completed their good copy with all their revisions are working on typing it using our class computers or the school laptops. This is all very new and exciting, and the kids are crazy motivated to keep working on their stories when they're done other work. We will use the laptops as a class more regularly until the end of the year and each student will learn to log in and find work that they have saved independently. To begin developing good keyboard skills, there are lots of good typing games. I have one linked to the blog (under Jeux) that walks you through the beginning steps of how to place your hands. Some of us have already started working through the levels at school, but it's a good thing to do at home as well. Thanks SO much and bravo to our two computer experts who quickly learned how to make accents and proceeded to help absolutely EVERYONE else with their computer issues so that I could be with the other writers.

In geometry, we have quickly become experts on recognizing and naming 3-D shapes based on the other shapes we notice within them. We have played a couple fun games that you might like to try at home. First, Qui suis-je? (Who am I?). Ask your mathematician to give you some hints about a shape that we're learning about at school, you can help by asking about the number of sides or the shape of the sides. See if you can guess what 3-D shape they're describing. Second, using blocks or lego, give your mathematician and yourself a group of shapes, the same ones for each person. Put a book between you so that you can't see the other person's blocks. Ask your child to build a castle out of his/her blocks and then, in French, explain to you how to recreate it. Don't look! When you think you have it, remove the book and see how close you got to matching castles! We had great fun with this the other day, and I heard lots of great French and math terms spoken between partners giving their instructions. (And, I have to say, my partner and I successfully matched our castles three times! Go team!)

This afternoon, while we were playing Qui suis-je and as we started our math work, some special guests visited our classroom to see what we're learning about. I found out later that they were very impressed with what they saw and the math work the children were doing. Félicitations Aire 24!

You probably already saw the 3-D shape that your student brought home today. Your student built it with no help from me, but by drawing on what they've noticed about 3-D shapes in the last 3 days. They chose a shape, thought about what kinds of sides they would need to build it, and went to it. After, everyone introduced what they had built. Definitely ask your builder what their shape is called and how they know!

J'ai, Tu as...

Happy almost-may! Wow, so much to do and so little time!

Here are the words of the week:

This week, we will review a few “j’ai” expressions, and compare them to matching “tu as” expressions. Tu as is the verb avoir in the 2^nd person singular (“you have”). You can practice using “tu as” to replace every “j'ai” in the phrases from the last 2 weeks!

The 10 reading words for the week beginning April 28^th are:

J’ai six ans.	Tu as sept ans.
J’ai les cheveux courts.	Tu as les cheveux longs.
J’ai les yeux clairs.	Tu as les yeux foncés.
J’ai un poisson.	Tu as un oiseau.
Je n’ai pas fini.	As-tu fini?

Last Friday you should have received a green science note that explained the expectations for a group task we did recently with my comments and feedback for your scientist's group. We had some great French presentations on how to be safe when using energy-using devices. Ask your scientist what his/her group talked about. 

Tomorrow you will receive the April dictée rubric.

Here are a few pictures of our Picasso project: a collage of our fairy tale hero using shapes and a variety of materials. Ask your artist about Picasso's work of art that this is based on.

We have begun our 3-D geometry unit and students have already begun identifying various attributes of 3-D shapes. Does it roll? Can it stack? Does it have corners (des sommets)? We have also started noticing that 3-D shapes are often made up of shapes we already recognize. For example, a cube is just a bunch of squares, a cone has a circle as a base. Today we talked a lot about prisms. What is a prism's favourite shape? It can have any matching shapes for the top and bottom, but for the sides, it always has..... In contrast, what is the favourite shape of a pyramid?
Each student contributed to making a poster explaining what a particular 3-D shape consists of. Ask your mathematician to notice shapes around your home. Boxes are great for this, but I've found other things that are quite interesting to examine: traffic cones, cushions, step stools, coffee cans, balls etc.
Don't forget to hang on to one big empty cereal box, we will each need one soon!

Finally, I think I told you about the school-wide math challenge that we did a couple weeks ago. Remember the problem with the chickens and the pigs? Ask your mathematician about this if you haven't already. Here are some of our solutions - lots of different, great ideas!

Words of this Week

Here are the words (short sentences) that came home yesterday:

J’ai froid.       (NOT  Je suis froid.)	J’ai mal au dos.
J’ai raison.	J’ai mal aux pieds.
J’ai tort.	Je n’ai pas mal aux pieds!
J’ai faim.	J’ai fini.
J’ai soif.	J’ai un chat.

You might be interested in attending tomorrow evening's Spring Concert here at Dewson. The primary classes that did not perform in our Winter Concert (including the other French grade 1 classes) have been working hard in choir and in their classes to put on a great show. We will attend their dress rehearsal this afternoon, but I'm sure they would love to see your smiling faces at their performance tomorrow evening. Thursday, April 24th, 7pm.

Do plants really need the sun?

Welcome back! I hope you had a lovely long weekend and enjoyed the warm weather!

A reminder that Dewson's dance-A-thon is this Friday. Please return the pledge bag by Wednesday. Thanks!

This week I will be meeting with students to check-up on their understanding of some of the various measurement skills we've been exploring. Most recently, we worked on measuring mass and capacity. We learned how to use a scale and used it to put several snack packages in order from lightest to heaviest.

Later this week we will begin a fun 3-D geometry unit. This unit will involve a bit of building and I will be asking each student to bring in one cereal box. We don't need them yet, but if you empty a big one, you might want to hang on to it. Any other small but interestingly-shaped boxes (see my wish list) would be welcome donations at any time.

Last week we discussed the results of our flower experiment. Here is a picture of the flowers after 3 weeks in their different environments. Can you guess which one was in the dark cupboard? Ask your scientist to tell you what we observed, what might happen if we continued the experiment for longer and whether plants really do need the sun to live.

In art, we have been learning a bit about Picasso and a familiar technique that he used a lot: collage. We have already prepared our "stage" backgrounds, and will be using a variety of materials to make a collage of the star of our fairy tales. This will also tie into our math unit as we talk about which shapes we should use within our collages. Ask your artist what character Picasso made a collage of and why.

Last week's pictures

Area 24 was very PINK last week in support of pink day!

Here are the words for this short week:

“J’ai” (“I  have”) is the present of the verb “avoir”. We use it all the time in conversation and in our writing. With it are common phrases, and some negative versions (adding the “ne” + “pas”). Miming helps children associate the action with the word and the correct pronunciation.

The 10 reading words for the week beginning April 14^th are:

J’ai peur.	J’ai mal au ventre.
J’ai chaud.	J’ai mal à la tête.
J’ai 7 ans. / J’ai 6 ans.	Je n’ai pas vingt ans!
J’ai les cheveux longs.	Je n’ai pas les cheveux longs.
J’ai les yeux foncés.	J’ai un chien.

I'm a bit behind in my picture posting. Here are a few events from last week…

Recently we've dedicated our art periods to creating backgrounds for our puppet plays. The artists had to consider what happens in each location, what the house or castle would have to have in it, we even thought about what materials the house would be made of, what the ceiling would look like, and what season it might be. Here we are in progress:

In math, we were exploring Area. We talked a little about how it is important to learn about area, especially if you want to build or design houses some day. In one activity, the children helped me calculate the area of my home by counting the squares on my graph paper and adding the area of each room with a calculator. In another challenge, the mathematicians came up with various strategies for deciding which pasture was bigger. Many children filled in the 2 pastures with cubes and then counted them, while others discovered that they could use one row of cubes over and over if the pasture was a rectangle. It was neat to see an array of strategies that eventually led to the beginnings of multiplication!

In the upcoming week we will be measuring mass and capacity. Should be fun!

Dance-A-Thon

Dear families,

Dewson will be having it's annual dance-A-thon on Friday, April 25th. If dance-A-thon is new to you, it's a fun event where all classes get some time, with their age group, to dance up a storm with DJ Professor Jamz in the gym. Students love it, and it's one of the school's biggest fundraisers.

Tomorrow, students will be receiving their dance-a-thon pledge sheets and bags. All the instructions are on the pledge sheet. Here are the important points:
1. Dancers ask family and friends to sponsor them (no door-to-door).
2. Write down the amount of all pledges on pledge sheet. Payment can be cash, cheque or credit online.
3. Online pledges can be made at www.professorjamz.com, so you can ask far away relatives to be sponsors as well. Be sure to note the amount of online pledges on the pledge sheet.
4. Be sure to sign the back of the pledge form so that your child can participate in the dance.
5. Return pledge form (and cash/cheques) by April 23.
6. Get ready to dance!

There is no competition between students for collecting the most pledges and all students will get to dance no matter what they raise. You can feel good about the money though - it goes right back to the kids in the form of special activities like the Visiting Artist program we recently enjoyed. The two classes who raise the most money will win a prize!

Thanks for your help!

Words!

So sorry, I forgot to post the words of the week. Hopefully you got the paper, but here you go:

“Je suis” (“I am”) is the present of the verb “être”. We use it all the time in conversation and in our writing. With it are frequent feelings. The feminine version is on the right and mostly involves adding an e. Miming helps children associate the action with the word and the correct pronunciation.

The 10 reading words for the week beginning April 7^th are:

garçon	fille
je suis content	je suis contente
je suis triste	je suis triste
je suis fâché	je suis fâchée
je suis calme	je suis calme
je suis fatigué	je suis fatiguée

Today, ask your writer if it's possible to write an entire book in 1 day. 

Hopefully this will lead into what we wrote today!

Summer is coming!

Dear parents,

It's crazy that summer vacation is only 3 short months away. The year has flown by!
This is the time of year when you're probably starting to plan for the summer and you may be considering camp for the kids. Of course, I recommend anything French, as the summer is long and we forget... If you're looking for suggestions, I have a few in the link list to the left. I don't know much about them except that they have been recommended by other teachers and parents. Feel free to investigate further, and if you know of a French summer program that you like, please email me the link and I'll post it for everyone.

We are continuing with measurement this week, but focusing on Area. We learned that measuring area means counting the number of units needed to cover an area. For example, yesterday we estimated and then counted how many cue-cards were needed to cover our chairs, desks, math books and how many students were needed to cover the carpet!
We have also completed a school-wide math challenge. All classes are working on solving the same problem and I think we'll get to look at some solutions that other grades came up with when everyone's done. Ask about the pig and chicken question. It would be a fun one to do again at home!

In French, we are working away at our fairy tales. Most of us have moved on to writing our rough copy, which is our real story but with lots of mistakes. When we've written our beginning, middle and end, we need to check our writing. Each writer is going to check their own writing, then ask a friend to check it, before coming for their teacher meeting. We are looking for words that we have in our dictionaries that we could fix, les majuscules et les petits points, and we are asking ourselves if we have any questions about the story or details we could add. When we write our good copy, we will include the corrections we made to our brouillon.
Ask your writer what's happening in their story, and try to dig deeper by asking why or how questions. This will help us add details beyond what we had in our first plan.

Wednesday, April 9th is Day of Pink. Many students already know the story of how this day originated. We talked a little bit about it last week. Today and tomorrow we will talk more and read a book about what we like about ourselves. Check out DayofPink.org for more info.

Have a great week!
Tamara

Science question for you!

Hello parents,

Today we completed an experiment to see the effect of the sun on water. In the morning we put some water in 2 cups, took the starting temperature of both and then put one in the shade and one in the sunny window. Both cups of water started out at 18 degrees. At the end of the afternoon, the water that had been in the shade was still at 18 degrees, whereas the water that had been sitting in the sun had come up to 21 degrees! Our prediction that the water would warm up was correct. Our prediction that the shady water would become colder didn't come true.
This experiment led to an interesting discussion about the temperature of lakes that we might swim in. Many children said that they have gone swimming in lakes in the summer and that the water was warm. One scientist said he'd gone swimming in a lake in the fall, and the water was freezing. We talked about how the only heater for a lake is the sun.
Here's where it gets tricky: How come the air and water feels SO cold in the winter, even when it's really sunny out?
We ran out of time, so I asked the scientists to bring this question home to you to think about it some more, and we'll share our findings tomorrow.

Oh, also, you may remember that we did not have the use of our field for most of last year. After all the hard work and time that went into redoing the field, we want to make sure we take care of it so that it stays nice and grassy. To this end, we'd like to remind students and families to please stay off the very wet areas so that we don't damage the roots. I'm very much looking forward to a time when we can wear one pair of shoes to school and stay in them all day, however that time has not yet come. For now, it is still important to have outdoor shoes or boots and indoor/gym shoes. This way we can keep the mud off our carpet.

Thanks for your help!