Dictation Rubrics Explained

Dear at-home-teachers,

Thank you all for coming to our curriculum night. It was lovely to meet you and fun to see the kids so excited to give you their classroom tour. I'm still smiling!


I hope I didn't confuse you with all our routines... I know we have quite a few and I threw them at you all at once. I'll post information here as it becomes relevant, and please feel free to email me for clarification at any time. As I mentioned, the rubric for our September dictée is coming home tomorrow. Here is the information that I shared tonight:

The task: At the end of each month I will do a little check-up of how we are doing with our writing. I do this by reading a sentence out loud slowly and repeating it several times, while the children try to write it down using the sounds and writing conventions we have learned. This will certainly not be the only assessment of writing (bigger projects are much more fun), but it will act like a running record, and will hopefully show progress over time and highlight areas where we need extra practice.

The rubric: The rubric you are receiving today reflects the expectations for this point in the year. In a couple months, the expectations will be different and greater, since we will have had more instruction and practice by that point. By the end of the year, the rubric will likely look quite different. Always remember that several marks go into a grade when it comes to report cards, and in this case, I am most interested in using the rubric to guide my lesson planning. Therefore, I have not given an overall mark, but have circled the areas that apply. It is common for students to be strong in some areas, and need work in others. Again, as you collect these rubrics, look for patterns, and decide if maybe there is something you’d like to help with at home.

In the left-hand column of the rubric are the areas that I am assessing: Sounding-out, Punctuation and Printing. Along the top row are the 4 levels that work may fall into. Achieving a Level 3 means that you are meeting expectations. You are showing that you have followed instructions and have understood what was taught. This is really good! Celebrate it! Level 3 is like getting the letter-grade ‘B’. Achieving a Level 4 means that you have gone beyond expectations. This is hard to do because it means that you have made a connection with your own prior knowledge and applied it to the task, or you have remembered something that was mentioned in passing, but was not explicitly taught. Level 4 is like getting the letter-grade ‘A’. Level 2 means that you are approaching expectations. Please don’t worry about a level 2 (which would be like the letter-grade ‘C’), it simply means that we need a bit more practice. The comments in the rubric will indicate where the practice is most needed. Level 1 means that we could really use that extra help from home because we’re falling behind. I’ll be in touch if there are repeat level 1s in a subject area.

In the center of the rubric are comments that indicate why work would qualify as that level. I circle the comments that apply for each area. It is possible to nail sounding-out skills, but need to work on the neatness of printing, for example. This is what makes a rubric so handy - it really points out areas of strength and weakness.

Today’s rubric reflects only what we have worked on thus far. At this point, I expect for printing to be legible and in the lines. I expect for students to use the correct letters when they hear the sounds ‘a’ and ‘e’ since we have spent time on those sounds, and hopefully use beginning consonants that make sense, even if they are not exactly the right ones (e.g., ‘ca’, ‘sa’ & ‘za’ would all be pretty good attempts at the word “sa” because they can all make that approximate sound). You’ll notice that I do not expect for students to use capitals and periods appropriately or spell any words correctly. This is level 4 stuff since I haven’t put much of an emphasis on it in class yet.

Clear as mud?

Now that you’re an expert in rubrics, enjoy the one you’re getting tomorrow. You can keep it, it’s a copy. Please approach this rubric positively and be sure to look for the good things your child is doing before you look for where you can help!

Yours,

Tamara

Words of the Week

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘i’. In French, this letter makes our English ‘e’ sound. Think “see”. Again, for each new sound that we learn, I love the idea of using 3-D letters or flashcards to experiment with the vowel combined with different consonants. We won’t be looking at each consonant in depth the way we are vowels, so this is a great way to make sure your child has a good grasp of the whole alphabet. Don’t worry if your combos aren’t real words, we’re just working on combining sounds in this game!

Words: il, ici, si, avion, ami

Bonus words: lit, rit

Theme Day & Curriculum Night

Dear parents,

Tomorrow is Curriculum Night! Please come visit Area 24 sometime between 6 and 7pm. Again, I will be sharing some information about upcoming initiatives in our classroom at 6:10 and again at 6:40. It would be great if you can attend one of these quick presentations, but I will also post the info here when it becomes relevant. I think it is easier to explain in person. In addition, your child is invited to come give you a tour of the classroom and show you some of his/her recent work. Please remember that this is just a casual drop-in night. If you have specific concerns about your child's progress, I'd be very happy to schedule a meeting for another time. Thanks!

I hope your child has already told you all about the special day we had Friday. Our entire day was planned around cats, in honour of Beatrice and Georgia, who LOVE cats! Every month we will have a theme day in honour of two special students. The themes were decided on the very first day of school, when each child drew a picture of their favourite thing. Ask your child what they said their favourite thing was!
For our cat day, we imagined, drew and wrote about our own crazy cat, we played a cat and rat game outside, we did a math problem about cats, and our story was about a cat named Caramba. Ask your child about the cat he/she created and about Caramba's story!
Looking forward to our October theme day! I wonder what it will be about...

Friendly reminder: Dictée cahiers needed tomorrow for new words!

Terry Fox Day

We had a great Terry Fox day today. Here are some pictures of our runners in action!


Later, we brainstormed some different things to write about Terry, drawing from what we learned in the book we read the last two days.


Have your skip-counter count by 2 in French to tell you how much money we collected!

Words and Jeton Game!

We have more e words this week, but here, e is followed by u. U and E are best friends. Whoever comes first gets their sound without interference from the next guy, so here, we only hear the regular ‘e’ sound that we learned about last week. Keep making flashcards, but this time, also ask your student to underline the letters that make the ‘e’ sound.

bleu, feu, fleur, deux, yeux

Bonus words: cœur, sœur

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 token). Once a student has collected 5 of these, they can be exchanged for a big jeton. Once a student has collected 5 grands jetons (which may take a while), they can exchange them for one school dollar. Finally, when they have earned two school dollars, they can choose a prize and begin collecting again!
Rules:

1. Some common phrases that we all use every day do not count for a jeton (e.g., Merci, Est-ce que je peux boire? etc.).
2. If I find out, for sure, that a student has taken someone else's jetons, they will have to forfeit their existing jetons and start over.
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 class discussion.
5. We are trying not to compare how many jetons we all have. I know that everyone will earn a prize eventually.

Two more things, while I'm thinking of it:
1. Tomorrow is the Terry Fox Run - students are encouraged to donate a toonie to this great cause. Make sure your runner is dressed for the weather and in running shoes.
2. Also tomorrow, primary reading club is beginning. This is organized by our fantastic librarian, Mme Gaudreault. Interested students were given permission forms last Friday. Reading club is every Wednesday at lunch recess beginning tomorrow.

Check back soon to the last few posts - I'll try to get some pictures added!

Tamara

What we're up to

Well, the transition from one class to two went very well. Everyone seemed happy on Friday and we said "Hi" as our classes passed in the hall and at recess. The remaining Area 24 students and I worked together to write a letter to each of the departed students saying that they were missed, but hopefully having a good time in their new class.

Our new class seems very small, even though it is now a regular size. We shifted around the hall tags and mailboxes to give everyone some space. We also have new listening spots on the carpet and everyone has their own assigned desk. Our places are never permanent, but ask your student who they are sitting with for now.

Here's what we're working on at the moment:

Language
Every morning we begin with our carpet routine. We practice saying the date and work on reading by hunting for the current week's sound in the message and starting to put sounds together. This is, perhaps, the most important part of the day (at least when it comes to learning to read), so please try to be on time for school!
Then, everyone has time to read independently. We have been working on developing our reading muscles by gradually increasing the amount of time that we read for. We are up to 12  15 minutes a day now of focused, quiet reading. When our reading is well established, we will open a listening centre and computer centre during this time, and everyone will have a turn at each at least once a month.

Every week we add words to our word wall and personal dictionaries, which can be very helpful during writing periods. Students have already written a few journal entries and aren't afraid to sound out words as best they can. Way to go!

Math
This month we are working on counting and the beginnings of addition and subtraction (using the words "plus" and "moins" - not using symbols or number sentences). Skip counting by 2, 5 and 10 is something that will come in useful later on. We've been talking about things that come in pairs, and figuring out how many shoes it would take to make 16 pairs, and vice versa. We'll continue playing some games to practice this. You can review your numbers and practice skip counting at home as well!

Social Studies
We are beginning with a unit on Changing Roles and Responsibilities. This fits in nicely with the typical beginning of the year discussions around school rules, class jobs and families. I may ask students to do a little home "research" to help us make connections between different contexts.

Visual Art
Our first major project involved colour mixing. It will be up on the hall bulletin board soon - ask your artist how he/she made it. We began this project by reading the book "Petit bleu et petit jaune". There is a YouTube video of it in the Language links section. Check it out (so cute)!

I think that's it for right now. Don't forget to remind your student to bring their dictée cahier Tuesday and their library book by Friday. I look forward to meeting you properly at curriculum night next week. I would like to take a few minutes to tell you about a few classroom initiatives in person, so I'll give two short presentations beginning at 6:10 and 6:40 (same thing both times so that you can get to multiple classrooms). You'll also have the opportunity to look around the classroom and see some of your child's work. The kids are, of course, welcome to come show you around.

See you soon,
Tamara

New beginnings

Hi parents,

Today you have received a letter from the office outlining the changes that need to made to primary classes as part of our anticipated reorganization. As you were probably expecting (you could see our line up was much longer than other classes), this has affected our class quite a bit.

Although I am very sad to say goodbye to so many students that I care about, I know that this is the best thing for everyone, and that the kids will adjust quickly. Happily, the interim teacher for all of our moving students is Madame Corina, who we already know very well. Madame Corina has been in Area 24 for the past 2 weeks supporting our large class. I would like to thank her VERY much for jumping in and being a real second teacher for our students. Our moving students are very lucky to be making the transition with her. As the office letter says, she and I will continue to plan together and I will certainly do everything I can to help everyone settle in. This afternoon, the new class practiced lining up in their new spot and got to check out their new classroom. To my great relief, every single student seemed very happy with their new placement and was excited to be moving to the second floor. I think I have some jealous students who are disappointed to be stuck with me!

I look forward to checking in with my moving students often to see how they're doing in their new class, and I invite them to come visit me when I have yard duty or even come read a story to Area 24.
If you had signed up for blog emails, but are now moving to Area 32, there is definitely a way to turn off the emails, I assume there are instructions included in the email somewhere.

If you're stuck with me, stay tuned for regular updates as we get re-settled.

Thanks for your incredible support and understanding,
Sad Tamara

Social Skills Updates

Dear parents,
Like all teachers, I'm always thinking of what I want to do differently, or improve upon. One of my goals for this year is to try to help my students develop even better relationships with their peers by organizing some activities where the main focus is on promoting social skills. Depending on the task, we will focus on skills such as listening, participating, problem solving, sharing, compromising, turn taking, or using kind words.
After each activity, students will complete a short self-evaluation to help them reflect on how well they used the 3 particular skills we discussed before-hand. I will also give my opinion of how everyone did.
Getting along with others and working together is a focus at school every day, but we will do a dedicated social skills activity with self-evaluation in the second week of every month. I will send the evaluation home so that you can talk with your child about the activity - what it involved, how they feel it went, what they did really well or would like to work on. It is my hope that this extra bit of communication between school and home will allow us to work together to encourage the continued development of great social skills and relationships!
Last week we played a guessing game where we relied on others to help us guess a word. For this activity, we discussed the importance of listening, participating and staying on task. It was a fun game, and I think everyone took the self-evaluation seriously. This first evaluation is coming home today.
Thanks for your support!
Tamara

Words

This week we are reviewing the sound ‘e’. In French, this letter makes a different sound than in English. Think “book”. Again, for each new sound that we learn, I love the idea of using 3-D letters or flashcards to experiment with the vowel combined with different consonants. We won’t be looking at each consonant in depth the way we are vowels, so this is a great way to make sure your child has a good grasp of the whole alphabet. Don’t worry if your combos aren’t real words, we’re just working on combining sounds in this game!

Grade 1 words: le, je, de, me, te 

Bonus words: ne, se

Grade 2 words: bleu, feu, fleur, deux, un cheval

Bonus words: demain, neuf

PS. If your reader forgot their cahier for the words today, they have their small yellow paper in their pochette. I hope you can glue them in at home.

Don't forget, tomorrow (Thursday) is the last day for September Scholastic book orders. If there are any final orders, please send them in tomorrow. Thanks!

Words & Welcome!

Thanks for remembering to send the cahier for our new words of the week today. They are copied below.

I've added a bunch of dates to the to-do list, so mark your calendars! Coming right up this Thursday is the Welcome BBQ. I can stay until 5:30 and then I'm off to choir rehearsal. Hope to see you there!

We have more a words this week, but a bit more complicated. Try making flashcards and invite your student to draw a picture on each. Using pictures to recall high frequency words is a good strategy for beginning readers.

Grade 1 words: papa, arbre, classe, table, balle 

Bonus words: maman, animal

Grade 2 words: avec, mal, le canard, le rat, pas
Bonus words: avion, animal