We tried our language centres for the first time this morning. Every Club de Lecture was at a different centre for 30 minutes and did a really good job staying focused on their activity. At the Jeux de dictée centre, Club Rouge made two crossword puzzles and quizzed each other with flashcards. At the Centre d'écoute, Club Vert listened to a story and then drew about what it made them think of. At the Centre d'écriture, Club Violet write a story about animals, independently finding books that they knew could help them spell words. They later read it aloud to the class. At the Lecture Partagée centre, Club Bleu sat in partners knee to knee, elbow to elbow, and read books together. Finally, at Lecture Guidée avec Mlle, Club Jaune worked on reviewing and combining sounds using magnet letters. Thanks to Mme Fox for running this centre today!
Later, in math, we did another round of centres focused on growing and shrinking patterns as well as balancing both sides of an equation. Having worked on growing and shrinking patterns (croissantes et décroissantes) last week, it is nice to see many students confidently showing an understanding of how to invent or follow a growing or shrinking rule. For example, one question today was if Darcy starts out with $20 at the beginning of the week and spends $2 on a carton of milk each day, how much money will he have left at the end of the 7 days? We haven't taken this up yet, but try it at home!
In science, we discussed what people do to prepare for winter at home. We had some incredible ideas including using a fireplace, getting out winter clothes, covering up cracks around windows and even switching to snow tires!! All students are bringing home their red Science duotang today so that they can do a little at-home research. They want to find out what parts of their home help protect them from wind, rain, snow, animals, the sun etc. I've marked the page where they can write and draw what they discover. We talked about being responsible for bringing this duotang back with the homework completed by next Monday. This should give everyone lots of time - it shouldn't take more than 20-30 minutes tops. Thanks for your help!
I've also sent home a copy of the group evaluation your child completed after their big build-a-season project. I put a few notes about how the group did, and what each presenter said. Hopefully this gives you something to talk about while you wait for the project itself to come home after we've admired them a bit more.
Finally, the Scholastic order for December is coming home. As I wrote on the note, if you'd like to order books without your child knowing, you can send the order in a sealed envelope with my name, and maybe a note telling me that these are gifts. I'll let you know when your order arrives.
That's it for today!
Tamara