Well, this isn't doo-wop, but it'll be an excellent concert
for anyone you know who enjoys classical music!
Thursday 30 March 2017
Monday 27 March 2017
Learning to self-assess
Hi parents,
First, I apologize for the confusion.I think we may be We are postponing our Grade 1/2 Arts Evening. It will take place May 17th instead of April 5th. Hope to see you then!
We're also not sure what's going on with the bracelets we thought we had to pay for last Friday... oh well...
Learning to self-assess is an important thing in life as well as school. We want to be aware of what we are doing well and what we need to work on so that we can practice the things we want to improve and try to find strategies that we know will help us. It could be something as simple as thinking about our manners (Am I being polite right now? What could I do every day to be just a little more polite?) or as fun as reflecting on our skills in gymnastics (I think I have some good trampoline tricks, but I'd like to work on my balance beam skills.)
At school, our students are already reflecting on their progress frequently, with our help. For example, when they bring their green social skills check-ups home, they have reflected on their behaviour during an activity. With you, they think about whether they have mastered their book or whether they should read it a few more times. We have set learning goals at different times this year, for example, recently most students earned a prize for practicing something that was mentioned in their report card. After each dictée, I encourage you to set a writing goal with your child and we've written a reflection on an important project from the year, noting something we could improve on a future project. Phew! This is all great. We are trying to apply these skills to math now!
In our current math unit on addition, subtraction and beginning multiplication and division strategies, students know that we are more interested in their process than we are in always getting the right answer. They have heard me say how a number on it's own, even if it's right, can't earn more than a level 2 because (unless I was sitting beside them) I can't be sure if it was a lucky guess, or whether some thought went into it. As you've seen, we have a large and growing selection of student-developed strategies on our math board that can guide us both in solving problems and also in writing complete answers. SO, today, we put together a rubric for problem solving in math. Students matched up different expectations with the appropriate levels and then, very successfully, assessed some examples of our own problem solving. Students were able to explain why each answer fit into it's level (e.g., "I think this is a level 3 because it's clear and easy to understand, it has one good strategy, but the person could add more, like a number sentence."). I think it's so great that our students are confident in knowing what a level 2, 3 and 4 answer look like. It means they can decide what level they want and work towards it. It means their number sense mark won't be a surprise to them, and it means that they will be in good shape when it comes time for EQAO (this is very much how test questions are marked). I've posted our co-created rubric and our examples on a board and I've suggested to students that when they're working on a math question, they compare their answer to our rubric and examples so that they can decide whether or not they should try to add more detail or try new strategies in order to get their work to the next level.
Soon, I will give each student their own copy of the rubric so that they can self-assess one of their own math questions and bring it home to show you. We still have a few weeks on this unit, so there is plenty of time for us to make some improvements and we will work with harder numbers and money amounts as well.
All that to say, ask your mathematician what they need to do to earn a level 3 when solving a math problem, and whether they would like some extra practice at home. Keep your eyes out for a blue problem solving rubric at some point this week!
It's also time for you to ask about your student's role in our play "Reine des abeilles". We're very excited about acting out this story, and everyone has already worked on how their character moves and what they need to say to tell their part of the story (a social skills check-up came home last Friday after we worked with our character groups on this). Ask them to practice for you!
Today, we also started writing out the different parts of this story in partners, each group explaining a different part so that we can make a book. Ask your writer which part of the story they are responsible for writing.
At the same time, students worked with Mme Meg (thanks!) to do the prints that we planned and carved into styrofoam last week. They used a real speedball brayer and ink to transfer their drawing from the stencil to paper. We made a mural of our city. We'll make sure to have it up for the Arts Evening!
Grade 2: Our next new sound combines two that we have learned before: 'oi' + 'in' = 'oin'
Most students already knew how to make this sound this morning, but it's pretty much the sound a pig makes in English, or the sound a duck makes in French. Don't forget that 'oi' in French has the 'w' sound in front. Your kids are your best teacher really...
First, I apologize for the confusion.
We're also not sure what's going on with the bracelets we thought we had to pay for last Friday... oh well...
Learning to self-assess is an important thing in life as well as school. We want to be aware of what we are doing well and what we need to work on so that we can practice the things we want to improve and try to find strategies that we know will help us. It could be something as simple as thinking about our manners (Am I being polite right now? What could I do every day to be just a little more polite?) or as fun as reflecting on our skills in gymnastics (I think I have some good trampoline tricks, but I'd like to work on my balance beam skills.)
At school, our students are already reflecting on their progress frequently, with our help. For example, when they bring their green social skills check-ups home, they have reflected on their behaviour during an activity. With you, they think about whether they have mastered their book or whether they should read it a few more times. We have set learning goals at different times this year, for example, recently most students earned a prize for practicing something that was mentioned in their report card. After each dictée, I encourage you to set a writing goal with your child and we've written a reflection on an important project from the year, noting something we could improve on a future project. Phew! This is all great. We are trying to apply these skills to math now!
In our current math unit on addition, subtraction and beginning multiplication and division strategies, students know that we are more interested in their process than we are in always getting the right answer. They have heard me say how a number on it's own, even if it's right, can't earn more than a level 2 because (unless I was sitting beside them) I can't be sure if it was a lucky guess, or whether some thought went into it. As you've seen, we have a large and growing selection of student-developed strategies on our math board that can guide us both in solving problems and also in writing complete answers. SO, today, we put together a rubric for problem solving in math. Students matched up different expectations with the appropriate levels and then, very successfully, assessed some examples of our own problem solving. Students were able to explain why each answer fit into it's level (e.g., "I think this is a level 3 because it's clear and easy to understand, it has one good strategy, but the person could add more, like a number sentence."). I think it's so great that our students are confident in knowing what a level 2, 3 and 4 answer look like. It means they can decide what level they want and work towards it. It means their number sense mark won't be a surprise to them, and it means that they will be in good shape when it comes time for EQAO (this is very much how test questions are marked). I've posted our co-created rubric and our examples on a board and I've suggested to students that when they're working on a math question, they compare their answer to our rubric and examples so that they can decide whether or not they should try to add more detail or try new strategies in order to get their work to the next level.
Soon, I will give each student their own copy of the rubric so that they can self-assess one of their own math questions and bring it home to show you. We still have a few weeks on this unit, so there is plenty of time for us to make some improvements and we will work with harder numbers and money amounts as well.
All that to say, ask your mathematician what they need to do to earn a level 3 when solving a math problem, and whether they would like some extra practice at home. Keep your eyes out for a blue problem solving rubric at some point this week!
It's also time for you to ask about your student's role in our play "Reine des abeilles". We're very excited about acting out this story, and everyone has already worked on how their character moves and what they need to say to tell their part of the story (a social skills check-up came home last Friday after we worked with our character groups on this). Ask them to practice for you!
Today, we also started writing out the different parts of this story in partners, each group explaining a different part so that we can make a book. Ask your writer which part of the story they are responsible for writing.
At the same time, students worked with Mme Meg (thanks!) to do the prints that we planned and carved into styrofoam last week. They used a real speedball brayer and ink to transfer their drawing from the stencil to paper. We made a mural of our city. We'll make sure to have it up for the Arts Evening!
Words of the Week
Grade 1: Almost all of these words contain the ‘e’ sound. Notice the difference between “je” and “jeu”. They sound
the same, but the latter means game.
With an ‘x’ on the end it would be plural (J’aime
jouer les jeux.).
The word “elle”
(=she) does not contain the sound ‘e’
even though it has the letter twice. The grade 2s spent a week working on it, so the grade 1s probably know how to say it (think:
Isabelle). Since it’s a word we use all the time, I wanted to make sure
we included it in our practice at some point.
je peux, je veux, j’ai peur, les cheveux,
genou,
mercredi, jeudi, jeu, cheval, *elle*
Bonus words: neuf, renard
Grade 2: Our next new sound combines two that we have learned before: 'oi' + 'in' = 'oin'
Most students already knew how to make this sound this morning, but it's pretty much the sound a pig makes in English, or the sound a duck makes in French. Don't forget that 'oi' in French has the 'w' sound in front. Your kids are your best teacher really...
loin, coin, point, moins, besoin
Wednesday 22 March 2017
Me to We initiative
Hi families,
Earth hour (not to be confused with Earth day) takes place this Saturday evening and will be celebrated at Dewson this Friday afternoon.
The Me to We club is encouraging us to walk or ride to school on Friday and is raising money to support their various excellent initiatives. They are selling bracelets and charms and have already taken pre-orders. If your student has not mentioned it, please check in with them about whether or not they ordered something. I did ask them to consider whether they thought you would allow it before ordering anything. If it's a go, they will need their money at school on Friday.
Charms are $1.
Charms on a bracelet are $1.50.
Thanks!
Earth hour (not to be confused with Earth day) takes place this Saturday evening and will be celebrated at Dewson this Friday afternoon.
The Me to We club is encouraging us to walk or ride to school on Friday and is raising money to support their various excellent initiatives. They are selling bracelets and charms and have already taken pre-orders. If your student has not mentioned it, please check in with them about whether or not they ordered something. I did ask them to consider whether they thought you would allow it before ordering anything. If it's a go, they will need their money at school on Friday.
Charms are $1.
Charms on a bracelet are $1.50.
Thanks!
Monday 20 March 2017
Welcome back!
I hope you had a refreshing week off. I'm told there are 70 school days left this year. Better get back to work!!
In the week before the break, we got started on a few things that I didn't tell you about, so I've got a good subject update for you. Also before the break, we joined 277,000 other students accross Canada in The Great Big Big Crunch. At precisely 2:30 on March 9th, we all crunched into a yummy apple provided by Foodshare to promote healthy nutrition for children. Foodshare is located right in our community and has lots of programs (I've taken a few of my former classes). Visit their website to learn more about their initiatives!
Français
Before the break, we were working on procedural writing. We answered several questions involving choosing between options or giving an opinion and then backed up our answer by giving several reasons. We know that in this kind of writing, we are trying to convince someone to agree with us. We have learned some important vocabulary for this kind of writing:
Je voudrais, Je pense, Oui/Non, J'aime ... parce que...
Our last question was, what kind of pet would you like to have? We finished getting our thoughts down before the break and we will spend a couple days this week making some improvements to our writing and creating a good copy of this assignment. Ask your student what pet they would like and why they think you should allow it (we were imagining what you would say, and how we would defend our choice when questioned!!).
In reading, we are all coming along SO well. In reading with students individually, I have noticed many great strategies, which we have been sharing with each other (e.g., read each part of the word on its own, covering the rest, then say the whole thing together and repeat it again faster). Remember to use that pointer finger and review past words of the week so that we grow our vocabulary of words that we can recognize in a snap, to make reading books a bit easier!
As you know, we begin every day with some poems from the 3 to 3 program. I also frequently tell oral stories from this program in lieu of a book at the end of the day. Recently I've told the stories "Le nom de l'arbre", "Le lit de grandmère" and "Le tambour magique", which your student can tell you about. Soon, we will begin working on a drama unit which will involve acting out the next story I will tell, called "La reine des abeilles" - ask about this story later this week. I'll let you know when you can ask your actor about their role!
The last book I read the class before the break was the story of the movie Le Petit Prince (not to be confused with the actual novella by Saint-Exupéry, which I hope to read with the class later this year). Many students had clearly seen the film and knew what was happening. If you haven't yet seen it, it would be a great time!
Math
We are back to number sense, this time with an focus on addition and subtraction strategies. We have already invented many helpful strategies not only for completing an addition or subtraction, but also for how to write a complete answer to a word problem. We all understand very well that you cannot achieve a level 3 unless you show your thinking in some way (and that you can still achieve a level 3 even if you haven't gotten exactly the right answer, as long as you have evidence of using an appropriate strategy). Check out our math strategy board so far!
It is amazing to see students using each others' strategies and trying new things every day in order to continually improve their work and expand our problem solving vocabulary. Because grade 2s have to learn double digit addition and subtraction, we are spending some time on place value using Base 10 material (very helpful). Ask your student to explain how many unités you need to make a dizaine, and how many dizaines you need to make a centaine.
In addition, grade 2s are learning how they can turn a long repeated addition into a multiplication in order to be more efficient (like taking a short cut). We have begun to look at how we can rephrase something like 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2 as 10 x 2 (10 groups of 2) - this came up in a question about how many mittens we have in our class! Some of our grade 1s are motivated to try multiplication as well, and it's been clear for a while that many students know some crazy multiplication facts thanks to their work at home and in after school problems. Let's focus in our class on really understanding what it means to multiply and communicating that in a complete answer - not just on memorizing facts, as impressive as that is!
Social Studies
Grade 1s are back to social studies for a bit. This time we're looking at our local community. We've already worked together to draw some quick maps of our local community, adding the important places that are near our school and our homes. We included restaurants, shops, the fire station, some TTC stops, the park, some garbage cans, houses, apartment buildings and an animal hospital (for Sadie!). I have an exciting project planned for this unit involving a community walk. We'll get started on that soon. Start talking to your child about the places you pass when out and about. What is this building used for? Who works there? Who does it help? What would happen if it didn't exist?
The Arts
In visual art, we started a printmaking project which will extend on our community unit. Each student has completed a sketch of a building, or several buildings, that we might have in Toronto. We added texture by considering the exterior material of the buildings (wood/bricks/rocks/windows). We are now carving our sketch into a piece of styrofoam (thanks for the donations, you can stop now!) and we will use special speedball ink to create a mural. Very cool!
In addition to beginning drama very soon, we are also setting some time aside each week to begin piano lessons. We have already learned how to play a 5 note scale, and proper posture for playing. Ask your musician about this! I should mention that for those students who take piano outside of school, these lessons will not be a challenge. We will look forward to hearing and being inspired by some solos at times, but for the most part, we want to keep this as a level playing field, so we'll all learn the same 5-note songs and support each other in that!
I'm not sure if you've heard, but there is an Arts Evening being planned for grades 1 and 2 and it's coming up soon! Mark April 5th on your calendars and plan to join us for a fun evening including some visual arts displays, dance and choir performances and a repeat performance of our Artsfest song! Invite all your family and friends, but most of all, ensure that your child can be with us to perform!
Finally, a reminder that any March Scholastic orders are due Thursday.
See you soon!
Tamara
In the week before the break, we got started on a few things that I didn't tell you about, so I've got a good subject update for you. Also before the break, we joined 277,000 other students accross Canada in The Great Big Big Crunch. At precisely 2:30 on March 9th, we all crunched into a yummy apple provided by Foodshare to promote healthy nutrition for children. Foodshare is located right in our community and has lots of programs (I've taken a few of my former classes). Visit their website to learn more about their initiatives!
Français
Before the break, we were working on procedural writing. We answered several questions involving choosing between options or giving an opinion and then backed up our answer by giving several reasons. We know that in this kind of writing, we are trying to convince someone to agree with us. We have learned some important vocabulary for this kind of writing:
Je voudrais, Je pense, Oui/Non, J'aime ... parce que...
Our last question was, what kind of pet would you like to have? We finished getting our thoughts down before the break and we will spend a couple days this week making some improvements to our writing and creating a good copy of this assignment. Ask your student what pet they would like and why they think you should allow it (we were imagining what you would say, and how we would defend our choice when questioned!!).
In reading, we are all coming along SO well. In reading with students individually, I have noticed many great strategies, which we have been sharing with each other (e.g., read each part of the word on its own, covering the rest, then say the whole thing together and repeat it again faster). Remember to use that pointer finger and review past words of the week so that we grow our vocabulary of words that we can recognize in a snap, to make reading books a bit easier!
As you know, we begin every day with some poems from the 3 to 3 program. I also frequently tell oral stories from this program in lieu of a book at the end of the day. Recently I've told the stories "Le nom de l'arbre", "Le lit de grandmère" and "Le tambour magique", which your student can tell you about. Soon, we will begin working on a drama unit which will involve acting out the next story I will tell, called "La reine des abeilles" - ask about this story later this week. I'll let you know when you can ask your actor about their role!The last book I read the class before the break was the story of the movie Le Petit Prince (not to be confused with the actual novella by Saint-Exupéry, which I hope to read with the class later this year). Many students had clearly seen the film and knew what was happening. If you haven't yet seen it, it would be a great time!
Math
We are back to number sense, this time with an focus on addition and subtraction strategies. We have already invented many helpful strategies not only for completing an addition or subtraction, but also for how to write a complete answer to a word problem. We all understand very well that you cannot achieve a level 3 unless you show your thinking in some way (and that you can still achieve a level 3 even if you haven't gotten exactly the right answer, as long as you have evidence of using an appropriate strategy). Check out our math strategy board so far!
It is amazing to see students using each others' strategies and trying new things every day in order to continually improve their work and expand our problem solving vocabulary. Because grade 2s have to learn double digit addition and subtraction, we are spending some time on place value using Base 10 material (very helpful). Ask your student to explain how many unités you need to make a dizaine, and how many dizaines you need to make a centaine.
In addition, grade 2s are learning how they can turn a long repeated addition into a multiplication in order to be more efficient (like taking a short cut). We have begun to look at how we can rephrase something like 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2 as 10 x 2 (10 groups of 2) - this came up in a question about how many mittens we have in our class! Some of our grade 1s are motivated to try multiplication as well, and it's been clear for a while that many students know some crazy multiplication facts thanks to their work at home and in after school problems. Let's focus in our class on really understanding what it means to multiply and communicating that in a complete answer - not just on memorizing facts, as impressive as that is!
Social Studies
Grade 1s are back to social studies for a bit. This time we're looking at our local community. We've already worked together to draw some quick maps of our local community, adding the important places that are near our school and our homes. We included restaurants, shops, the fire station, some TTC stops, the park, some garbage cans, houses, apartment buildings and an animal hospital (for Sadie!). I have an exciting project planned for this unit involving a community walk. We'll get started on that soon. Start talking to your child about the places you pass when out and about. What is this building used for? Who works there? Who does it help? What would happen if it didn't exist?
The Arts
In visual art, we started a printmaking project which will extend on our community unit. Each student has completed a sketch of a building, or several buildings, that we might have in Toronto. We added texture by considering the exterior material of the buildings (wood/bricks/rocks/windows). We are now carving our sketch into a piece of styrofoam (thanks for the donations, you can stop now!) and we will use special speedball ink to create a mural. Very cool!
In addition to beginning drama very soon, we are also setting some time aside each week to begin piano lessons. We have already learned how to play a 5 note scale, and proper posture for playing. Ask your musician about this! I should mention that for those students who take piano outside of school, these lessons will not be a challenge. We will look forward to hearing and being inspired by some solos at times, but for the most part, we want to keep this as a level playing field, so we'll all learn the same 5-note songs and support each other in that!
I'm not sure if you've heard, but there is an Arts Evening being planned for grades 1 and 2 and it's coming up soon! Mark April 5th on your calendars and plan to join us for a fun evening including some visual arts displays, dance and choir performances and a repeat performance of our Artsfest song! Invite all your family and friends, but most of all, ensure that your child can be with us to perform!
Finally, a reminder that any March Scholastic orders are due Thursday.
See you soon!
Tamara
Words of the Week
le canard, avril, le rat
Bonus words: ajoute, théâtre
Grade 1: Now that we’re experts in tons of French sounds, we’re
reviewing all our sounds within slightly more complex words. Each week,
challenge your expert to figure out which sound is found in all the words on
the list. Suggest that they circle all the ‘a’s in green, ‘e’s in blue, ‘i’s in
purple (for instance).
pas, mars, avec, mal, calme, la balle, le canard, avril, le rat
Bonus words: ajoute, théâtre
Grade 2: As the grade 1s take this opportunity to practice more words with the sounds we have learned so far, grade 2s will be challenged to add a few more complex sounds to their vocabulary. As always, please feel free to review the grade 1 words as well. They should be review, but the more words we have in our sight-word vocabulary, the better.
This week, we are adding to a sound we already know. We learned ille some time ago (fille, famille). Now, we are adding one letter in front of this sound, or in front of just il (it will sound the same).
With an e, it has the sound of an è + the regular ille sound, as in abeille, bouteille or soleil.
With an a, it has the sound of an a + the regular ille sound, as in paille or travail.
Wednesday 8 March 2017
March Break
Hi salle 211 families,
This afternoon was our performance at Arts Fest. Our students looked great and did a fantastic job! We sang our song with confidence and enthusiasm. It was definitely better than any rehearsal we have had! We look forward to performing "On écrit sur les murs" for you at Dewson in the near future! Bravo tout le monde!
I can't believe that March break is next week! Ahhh! We still have so much to do!
While there is no homework over the break, I must repeat, as always, how important it is to maintain your reading routine. It's like brushing your teeth! On Friday, I will encourage students to take extra borrow-a-books so that they have enough reading material for the week. Please talk to your child about how many books you'd like them to bring home.
On that subject, if you have books at home that you have completed, please send them back as soon as possible. We do have many students trying to share and lately we haven't been able to find the books we need. In particular, our red drawer is almost depleted. If that's your current level, please make sure you're not keeping too many books at home at the same time.
If you would like your child to bring their indoor shoes home for your vacation, please make sure they come to school Friday on a mission to do this, or email me so I can remind them. In addition, if you know you are missing items, please tell your child what they need to find. I will be reminding students to check the lost and found this week.
Things to look forward to after March break:
- an update on our current number sense unit and all the problem solving strategies we've been inventing (you can already ask your mathematician about this!!)
- piano lessons
- learning to use ipads during reading centre time
- a walking excursion as part of our next grade 1 social studies unit
- we will turn ourselves into poets!
- an evening to celebrate the arts in grades 1 & 2
- we will become actors in some class plays!
- Mr. G takes over more and more of the teaching... bonne chance!
- our trip to the Science Centre
- Sadie's thinking about coming for a little visit one day...
This afternoon was our performance at Arts Fest. Our students looked great and did a fantastic job! We sang our song with confidence and enthusiasm. It was definitely better than any rehearsal we have had! We look forward to performing "On écrit sur les murs" for you at Dewson in the near future! Bravo tout le monde!
I can't believe that March break is next week! Ahhh! We still have so much to do!
While there is no homework over the break, I must repeat, as always, how important it is to maintain your reading routine. It's like brushing your teeth! On Friday, I will encourage students to take extra borrow-a-books so that they have enough reading material for the week. Please talk to your child about how many books you'd like them to bring home.
On that subject, if you have books at home that you have completed, please send them back as soon as possible. We do have many students trying to share and lately we haven't been able to find the books we need. In particular, our red drawer is almost depleted. If that's your current level, please make sure you're not keeping too many books at home at the same time.
If you would like your child to bring their indoor shoes home for your vacation, please make sure they come to school Friday on a mission to do this, or email me so I can remind them. In addition, if you know you are missing items, please tell your child what they need to find. I will be reminding students to check the lost and found this week.
Things to look forward to after March break:
- an update on our current number sense unit and all the problem solving strategies we've been inventing (you can already ask your mathematician about this!!)
- piano lessons
- learning to use ipads during reading centre time
- a walking excursion as part of our next grade 1 social studies unit
- we will turn ourselves into poets!
- an evening to celebrate the arts in grades 1 & 2
- we will become actors in some class plays!
- Mr. G takes over more and more of the teaching... bonne chance!
- our trip to the Science Centre
- Sadie's thinking about coming for a little visit one day...
Monday 6 March 2017
Arts Fest coming up!
Hi singers!
Wednesday is our Arts Fest performance at Perth Public School. We have been rehearsing "On écrit sur les murs" with the other classes and I think we will do a great job. We will have an opportunity to perform our song at Dewson later this spring. Please look for information on that shortly after March break, and join us for that event, as it will be quite crowded at Perth this week.
Please remind your singer to come to school on Wednesday wearing black on the bottom and a solid colour on top. We'd like a variety of colours - any colour will do - but try to avoid pictures or writing. We're going for a unified look. Thanks!!
In addition to the words of the week (below), I've sent home a few other recent work samples that I hope you'll enjoy looking at and might give you an idea of how you'd like to continue supporting your child at home.
- February dictée - overall this was very successful! We will be reviewing the basic vowel sounds again in the coming weeks. If your child is not yet confident with 'o', 'a', 'e' (v. 'i') or the order of letters within a sound (e.g., 'ch/hc'), this is something you may want to work on a bit more at home.
- Independent written instructions - at many interviews, we discussed how we were in the middle of reviewing our partner rubrics to make improvements to our independent writing. This is the result of those efforts, so I thought you might want to see it. We are working hard on becoming independent writers, so finding ways to help ourselves (e.g., using our dictionaries, books, reviewing words of the week) will play an important role going forward!
- Grade 1 science/sign - we decided together who got to keep each part of the project. We decided to keep our rubric for this project in our school portfolios as an amazing example of teamwork. Please ask your scientist how they did on this project!
Words of the Week
We have arrived at our final grade 1 sound rule for this year! After the break, grade 1s will review old sounds again while grade 2s will go on to learn a few more complex sounds.
Rather than focusing on a sound that some letters create, we are focusing on a
sound that is not created. Two months
ago, we learned about the sound ‘en’.
However, when an action word ends with ‘-ent’, the nt is SILENT!
This will occur all the time in the 3rd person plural of most verbs.
Pronouncing the ‘-ent’ is one of the most common reading errors made by French
immersion students, even in the junior grades. This is a hard rule to explain,
and I haven’t gone into conjugating with our grade 1s. I’m explaining that we
need to think about whether the word is an action (something we do) and if so,
we ignore the ‘nt’. To my delight, we are starting to get it! Have
your reader go through their list and put an X over all the silent letters.
Quick review:
Les parents travaillent.
(not an action word - normal ☝) (☝ action - ignore)
Grade 1: les oiseaux chantent,
les grenouilles sautent,
les enfants parlent,
les chiens courent, les chats dorment,
les amis jouent,
les parents travaillent,
les feuilles tombent, les avions volent
Bonus words: ils peuvent, elles aiment
Grade 2: 5 of the above (I'll have to check tomorrow)
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