Hello Salle 211!
I'm sure you know that this Wednesday is Pink Day, in support of anti-bullying. We've shared the story of how this day originated and we've made some posters with meaningful messages and drawings to put up in the school. I look forward to seeing our girls and boys in their pinks on Wednesday! On Wednesday we will do an activity emphasizing the role of the bystander. Look for the social skills sheet afterwards.
This must be our last week in the number sense strand for now, though we will be able to apply our skills throughout other units. This week we will touch on dividing by talking about how to divide a group of items into equal parts. Kids are naturally good at this because they are used to everything being fair. I'm sure you know the reaction you get if you give one child an extra thing that the sibling doesn't get! Dividing is super easy to practice at home anytime that food is being served. Ask your mathematician to divide the food equally between the plates so that everyone has the same amount!
At the end of the week, we will also do one final problem solving question that we will self-assess and I will send home a copy shortly after.
In language, did I mention that we are becoming poets for the month of April? We have already learned what an adjective is and started a long list of possibilities since we use so many in poetry. We've learned how to write acrostic and cinquain poems and have had time to experiment with both. This week we will add Haiku to our repertoire and discuss why we might write poetry in the first place. Ask your poet what kinds of poems they've tried so far.
Mots de la Semaine
Grade 1: All of
these words contain the letter o but in “gomme”, “pomme”, “colle” and
“je dors”, it’s a slightly softer sound. Although “zoo” is spelled the same as in English, the word in
French is pronounced with a true ‘o’ sound, so imagine the second o just isn’t there!
If
you’re wondering about accents on letters other than ‘e’, join the club. Your
children have already asked me about what they do, and the simple answer is
nothing!
“Gros”
and “grosse” are the masculine and feminine version of the same word (meaning large or big).
In French, everything has a gender - spoons are girls, books are boys! Even my
French friend can’t explain to me a fool-proof way of knowing what’s what,
there are exceptions to every rule! Anyway, once you know if you’re talking
about something feminine or masculine, you can adjust your adjective. E.g., L’éléphant est gros. La baleine est grosse. The kids have already seen that
gender can affect words, for instance, un policier v. une policière, and cher v. chère.
gâteau, trop, le zoo, gros, grosse, tôt,
gomme,
je dors, pomme, colle
Bonus words: ciseaux, océan
Grade 2: Our next grade 2 sound is 'tion'. This is commonly found at the end of words in both English and French. In English, it makes a bit of a "sh" sound, whereas in French, the t sounds more like a plain s, so think 'sion'. Fun fact: As I was saying to the grade 1 group, it's hard to know if words are masculine or feminine without checking the dictionary all the time - however, I've never met a word ending in 'tion' that wasn't feminine. La coopération... Une illustration...
attention, coopération, éducation,
félicitations, illustrations
Thanks to Rebecca for these pictures of the grade 1s on our community walk last week!
