ArtsFest

Dear parents,

A permission form is coming home today for our upcoming trip to ArtsFest on February 24th, where we will be performing "Café de la Paix". We have been working on this song for the last month and it is coming along very well.
This is a very simple trip since all three classes will be hopping on a school bus together. We just need a couple parents to help us out. If you would like to join us at Perth to watch the show, please speak to me. Permission forms are due back by the 17th.
Please read the attached note carefully for information about the dress for the performance. We are going for an overall navy and white look with a red accent (think Paris). Suggestions are included on the note! If you don't have a small red accent, just send me a note and we can make a cute little flower at school. Thanks for your help!

We have now been through every math strand once and will go back to each one and add a greater challenge level. First up is number sense. In the fall, we focused on counting strategies and beginning addition. Now we're going to work more on addition and subtraction. We began with a review of some math centres that we did once or twice in the fall. They are simply fun games that get us doing some math in a fun way. Feel free to steal these ideas or create your own games for practising some basic addition/subtraction facts at home!

Each partner adds two cards. Pac-man eats the bigger number!

Bingo!

Dominos - our way is to connect like numbers.

Roll the squishy dice and add the numbers - BUT - write your addition sentence using words!

Each popsicle stick contains an answer and a new question. There's only one way to connect them and use all the sticks!

We had another science-filled Wednesday with Mlle Bradfield. This time we made predictions and then tested different materials to see if they would sink or float. The interesting one is the clementine - ask your scientist why the clementine floats with the skin on, but sinks with the skin off! Later, we used what we learned about materials that float to build a boat! The scientists presented their boats and explained their design choices. We tested them in a bin of water and they all floated! 

Don't forget that any Scholastic orders for February are due tomorrow, and if students made valentines for their classmates, they should bring them tomorrow. Here's our most recent art project - we used cool colours inside our hands and warm colours in the rest of our circles. Cute, right?

Also, be sure to check out the showcase display in the front entrance of our school. It contains the sculptures we made with Mme Ally and they are so beautiful!

Words of the Week

The sound ‘in’ is very tricky. I remember sitting around the table with my exchange family trying to match exactly what they said so that I might have a nice French accent!

Your expert French speaker needs no assistance speaking this sound, they know it well. The best way I’ve found to describe it is to start saying the word “kangaroo” but pause on the “an” part. This is approximately the right sound. Note: The last 2 words in the list have a pesky e in between the i and n. We already learned what sound e+n makes, but in this case, they make the ‘in’ sound. We still hear the regular i sound as well. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, Très bien!

lapin, la fin, train, vingt, bain, rien*, bien*
Bonus words: cinq, dinde