October Calendar En Route

Hi families,

I've prepared our October calendar with all the events that I know of/can think of currently. As always, continue to check this blog for last minute updates. The calendar is on its way home today.
On the calendar, you will notice the beginnings of our Show and Tell (Montre et Raconte) routine. Students' names are written on their show & tell day. I will post the entire schedule in a separate post.

Whew, those were some hot days! We made the best of it - actually had a lot of fun - by staying outside, setting up water stations and a little shower!

I also taught the kids two great outdoor games that you can ask them about. One is called "Soldat" (Soldier). In this game, soldiers stand in a circle around the captain. The soldiers must be quiet and still (arms at their sides) unless the ball is thrown to them. If they miss or drop, they are out of the round and simply sit down (injured soldier!). If the captain fakes and they flinch, they are also out of the round. The last soldier standing becomes the next captain. This game is great for developing good sportsmanship in a low-stress situation, since inevitably, all but the last participant will be out sooner or later.

                                          Here's the band to accompany our game of Soldat!

The second game is a version of tag, but with a bit of a story to it. In fact, we read a book that tells the story of the game before we played it. The players (the piglets) are playing and dancing around the forest while the wolf gets ready to come out. While we play, we sing the game song "Promenons-nous dans les bois...". At the end of the song, we ask the wolf what he's doing ("Que fais-tu?"). Whoever is playing the wolf answers by saying something like "Je dors" (I'm sleeping) or "I'm putting on my shoes". If the wolf isn't ready, we play and sing the song again. When the wolf is ready, he answers "Je vais vous manger!", at which point everyone screams and the tag game begins. The person the wolf catches becomes the next wolf.
I have a YouTube video of this song linked to this blog under Language Links. Our class thought it was superbly funny in the book when the wolf put on his pink polka dot undies!

This week, we started a fun system to motivate the kids to begin using the French words that they know. Each time that we hear a student speak French, we give them a petit jeton (a counter). Students keep their jetons in their personal tin. When they have collected 10 jetons, they can exchange them for a prize from the prize box, and then begin collecting again. In just 3 days, many students have earned several jetons, and I've given out two prizes!
Right now, since our French vocabulary is small, we're giving out jetons for even the smallest efforts (saying "merci" as we pass out snack, for example).
When might we not give out a jeton? I can think of a few situations:
- outside (we don't usually carry jetons outside, and we don't have our storage tins)
- when we know students are just saying French words to try to get a jeton, without actually having a meaning behind it (good example: "Excuse-moi madame." "Oui?" "Excuse-moi!" "How can I help you?" "Excuse-moi!" hehehe)
- when students have been asked to do a thing and we are helping a million and one people do the thing!
Please ask your student if they have earned any petits jetons yet. Could be good motivation to practice the words of the week!!

Words of the Week

Some of us are catching on to how to answer this question, and others need a little more practice. Maybe this is a question we can ask in French at home too, since we're definitely asking it one way or another! Of course I hope everyone is always doing well, but I definitely want the kids to be honest if they're not.

Comment ça va?

Ça va bien. 😊

Ça ne va pas bien. 😔

In the past 4 weeks of school, we've gotten started learning about the alphabet, one letter at a time. We're up to C right now. We spent a lot of time on A, as we likely will with all the vowels, as they are the most different from the English versions. In French, 'a' is called and makes a softer sound, think "bat". Try looking for A's, B's and C's in the books you read together! Here are some students doing the centre challenge of making or building the letters that we know so far!

We had fun running around the field today in support of Terry Fox and cancer research. We've read a book about his life a couple times and the kids LOVED hearing about him and wanted to keep reading the book over and over again. Please ask them to tell you what they learned about Terry Fox! 

Thank you very much for the donations. Our class raised over $30 to donate to cancer research.

Don't forget to wear orange tomorrow!

Water Day

SO sorry for the confusion. We still aren't sure if we will go ahead with the kinder Terry Fox run tomorrow morning, or Thursday once the weather is cooler.... scheduling issues...
Either way, we plan on doing a water day tomorrow. Please send students in old clothes that can get wet. Perhaps a bathing suit underneath wouldn't be a bad idea.
Thanks!

Events this week

Happy Monday!
There are a couple things going on in the world this week:
1. Terry Fox Day - Dewson will be celebrating Terry Fox day  tomorrow (Tuesday)  Thursday by walking or running around our school yard. Kinders have their turn first thing in the morning. Please ensure that students have a hat and water bottle, and are dressed for gym. Students are encouraged to bring a toonie to donate to Cancer Research. We will read and talk a bit about Terry Fox's story today and tomorrow.

2. Orange T-shirt Day - We encourage everyone to wear orange on Friday in support of First Nations, and in the spirit of anti-bullying and anti-racism. We will plan some age-appropriate activities centered around this theme for Friday. If you would like more info about this day, please visit www.orangeshirtday.org.

3. Dewson is holding monthly assemblies this year. It is an opportunity for us to come together, for just a very short time, in order to celebrate days of significance and review important school rules and routines together with our Principal and Vice-Principal. The September assembly will take place first thing Thursday morning, so please try not to be late to school.

Thanks for a great arrival this morning. Attendance was much, much easier - don't forget to say goodbye to me before you leave in the afternoons!

First Pics & Third Words

Dear families,

I'd love to share a few pictures of what we look like in action!

At outdoor time, we enjoy riding around on scooters and bikes and jumping from stump to stump. We love to draw, look for bugs and other treasures, and talk with the teachers. Today, some of us played I Spy.

At discovery centre time, we are very interested in building things of all kinds, for example a marble run or fort out of the big blocks. Many of us love playing house with our little houses and characters.

We had an extra challenge today during centre time. I asked the kids to do something that would represent the oral story I told yesterday about the the boy who turns himself into a peanut (ask about it!). Some kids drew the story, some painted, one group even made the characters out of playdough and put them in story order!

I'd like to ask for your help with morning arrival. We would like to continue beginning our day outside to minimize transitions, however attendance has been a challenge. Please remind your student to come to our bench at the bell and please stay at our bench until I complete morning attendance. If we all do this, it will take only a few minutes. If you arrive late to school, it is crucial that your child come to me straight away so that I know who I am responsible for! Thanks for your help with this. I would hate to mark someone absent who was here and cause an automatic phone call that would cause great worry on your end.

Mots de la Semaine

We have been working every morning on figuring out the day of the week. We have a cute song that I think everyone knows pretty well now. Here are the 5 days of the school week (plus the weekend so you can finish the song!). Try asking your student what day it is each morning, using the song as needed to remember the order.

lundi

mardi

mercredi

jeudi

vendredi

samedi et dimanche

Have a great weekend!

Tamara

Scholastic

Hi there,
This is just a quick reminder that this Thursday is the final day to send in any Scholastic orders for this month. Again, catalogues will be provided each month and it is always optional. The reason I like to do it is because the kids get so excited to receive their books, and I'll do just about anything to get kids excited to read!!
Because the French catalogue contains a lot, and you may not know exactly what would be useful, I will endeavor to post a couple recommendations each month.
In the current catalogue, I like the look of
- No. 1F1, "Tika tika boum boum!" - it's about the alphabet, and we are currently learning the letters of the alphabet in French.
- No. 13F1, "Voici les saisons!" (set of 4) - we have these books in our class and have already read the fall one together, so it will be familiar.

Happy Reading!!

Gym Change

Apologies, I didn't think to mention that one of our gym periods has been changed. Clearly you are very organized because the kids are dressed for gym and asked me why it wasn't on our schedule!

Our day 9 gym has been switched to day 6. We still have drama/dance on day 9 and library on day 6 in addition to the new gym.

Have a great weekend!
Tamara

Mots de la Semaine

Hello salle 202,

Thanks for coming to the barbecue and open-house last night. It was great to see the kids proudly showing you around our classroom!

Thank you to all who signed up on our playdough calendar - it looks like we will have regular fresh playdough deliveries until almost the end of February, which is amazing! If you didn't have a chance to sign up, but feel you would be able to whip up a batch of playdough later in the year, do feel free to email me and I can let you know when there are openings.
I will also try my very best to remember to send home a ziplock bag (and the recipe I used, in case you don't have a favourite) shortly before your donation date so that you don't have to send in your own containers. I apologize if I ever miss one! Again, my intention is not that anyone should spend money buying pre-made playdough. If your turn comes around, and you don't have time to make it, just don't do it! We'll live!

If you were not at curriculum night, don't worry - I didn't say much that hasn't already been mentioned either on this blog or in the first day letter. I did provide a brochure that outlines the 4 frames in the new kindergarten curriculum. If you would like a copy of this, let me know and I'll send one home.

OK, for our words this week, I thought we could review some body parts. We've been singing "Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds" quite a bit. Mme Dominique has us doing it a really fun way where we begin singing all the words, and then repeat the song over and over, each time omitting one more body part. Ask your singer to show you what I mean!

Here are 5 of the body parts (plus the rest so that you can finish the song!)

tête

épaules

genoux

(et) pieds

yeux

(oreilles, bouche et nez)

Shameless self-promotion!

Dear Salle 202 families,

Here's the schedule for Thursday evening:
5:00-6:30 pm - BBQ outside. Meet your child's classmates, their parents and your teachers.
*Mme Dominique would love to meet you during this time. She will not be at the in-class portion.

6:00-7:00 - Classroom visits. I will be giving a short presentation at 6:15 and again at 6:30. It would be great if you could stop in to our room for one of those times. Otherwise, please feel free to tour the room with your child.
*Be sure to meet our specialists, Mr. Greene (just next door), Mme Gaudreault (library) and Mme Mary Ann (gym).

It feels far too early in the year to be sharing personal news (we aren't even on a first name basis yet!!), however, events like this don't come up too often for me, so I thought I'd let you know... just in case!

You may know that in my non-teacher life, I'm a musician. One of the groups I perform with is a doo-wop band called "The Redeemers". We sing classic doo-wop tunes from the 50s and 60s - it's super cute, and super fun!
This Friday evening, September 15th, we are performing at the Gladstone Hotel's Melody Bar at 8pm, and it's FREE! I realize it's late for the kids, but if you or your friends are looking for a fun evening out, please keep us in mind. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Here is our info - I'll put out some hard copies at curriculum night this Thursday.
See you soon,
Tamara

What are we doing???

Hello salle 202 families,
I'm glad you've found this blog and I hope you've had time to scroll through the many posts I put up here to begin the year. I know there was a lot, so I didn't want to add too much more in the first week, but I've been looking forward to updating you on how things are going since we met your wonderful children. If you haven't had a chance yet to get through all the beginning stuff, don't worry - just scroll down, or dip into the archives.

First, let me say that your kids are lovely. I think Dominique and I have all the names sorted out and we are getting to know the different personalities. Everyone seems to enjoy being at school and is friendly and eager to help out. We have lots of little helpers, friends, errand runners, cleaner-uppers, translators, listeners... we have a great class!

If you got the idea from my first day letter that I like routines and structure, you nailed it. I think routines are important for kids, and it helps me stay organized and sane! You already read a lot about my routines, but let me just give you a snapshot of what it looks like with all the humans in the room.

We have been getting used to the routine of entering the school at 9 am like the older students, however, we will soon transition to our permanent routine of having outdoor time first thing and coming in later. This will reduce the amount of dressing and undressing we have to do as the weather gets cooler. Long stretches of uninterrupted play/discovery time is our goal!
So far outside, the kids have been gravitating towards digging, investigating bugs, drawing and scootering around on our many bikes and wagons.
We are often outside along with other classes, so it has been a challenge gathering up our group when others are still playing. Our class knows that we blow the whistle 2 times in a row when we need them to come to our table and we'll keep working on trying to get everyone listening for it so that we can speed up our transition time.

When we go upstairs, our first job is to unpack our bag and pochette. The kids have been really amazing at remembering where everything goes. Their extra clothes and shoes stay in their hall cubby (these are the only two items that are invited to sleep-over at school on a daily basis). Lunch bags and bottles are kept in our in-class cubbies. Pochettes are kept in our individual mailboxes with mail for me being dropped in my bin. When I have notes for the kids, I put it in their mailbox so that they can pack their pochettes at the end of the day.

After unpacking, we go to the carpet for our morning routine, which includes a song and some new vocabulary led by Mme Dominique, as well as working on our weekly alphabet letter in our morning message. On the board is a visual schedule (picture cards) for the day. When you visit our room, ask your student to show you how they know what they're doing that day. They can already explain very clearly what activity each card represents, and if something unexpected happens and we miss an activity, you better believe I hear about it!

Next we usually have some centre time. Our little house (which includes a lot of make-believe play and music making) has been quite popular, along with the big blocks area. I'm already trying to brainstorm ways to expand these areas so allow for more people. Our rule is 4 students per centre so that we all have room to build, play and move around. So far children have been very understanding when they can't have their first choice of centre.

Sometimes in the morning we try to squeeze in some kind of guided activity, such as working on our fine motor skill by tracing lines (eventually we will do letters). We usually have a special subject at some point - music, gym, drama or library. Mr. Greene, Mme Mary Ann and Mme Gaudreault are all experts in their areas and it always looks like so much fun that I almost want to stay and participate myself!! Please visit these amazing teachers on Thursday evening!

At lunch, Sally comes to watch the kids and she does her VERY best to make sure they are eating their healthy food first, and lots of it. Your lunches look amazing, and it's clear that you've spoken to your children about what is snack and what is lunch. Afterwards, they get to play in the class, sometimes have some stories with Dominique and then we all go outside for more outdoor play.

To minimize transitions, we stay out for the beginning of the afternoon, and similar to the morning, we come back to the carpet upon entry. This time, I teach the kids poems from the 3 to 3 program (I'll explain this on Thursday) and we've also been using this time to talk about and review our 4 class rules (as outlined in the first day letter).

After this, we usually have another snack and then quiet time. The kids love quiet time more than I imagined. Their choices so far have been rest, read or draw. We have cushions, blankets and some stuffies that the kids can lie down with, and many do (we are working on actually resting though :). Lots of kids also draw, or take some extra tracing sheets to practice their letters or numbers - also a surprisingly popular activity.

At the end of the day, we have story time and then we work on packing up lunches, pochettes, creations from the day etc. We usually have a Bravo note or two to give out, and the students have been so kind to acknowledge their friends without being jealous. They understand that we can't possibly write 26 every day and know that it doesn't mean we haven't noticed them being good.

That's pretty much how our days have been going so far. It's been fun!

Looking forward to sharing our classroom with you on Thursday,
Tamara

Words of the FIRST Week

Dear salle 202 families,

I hope you've had a great first week back to school. I've really enjoyed getting to know our new students, and I must publicly thank Mme Dominique and Sally, from the Dewson Y, who support us and work along side me every day. We are lucky to have them!

Thank you for all the mail and clothes! Mme Dominique and I love your letters and appreciate the time you put into all this beginning of the year paperwork. Please keep it coming! In particular, I want you to know that in signing the TDSB Media Release form (top portion), I assume that you are agreeing to having your child's photo occasionally posted on this blog. If this is not the case, please email me.

Since writing my first day newsletter, I've learned that gym periods on days 2 and 4 will take place indoors, and gym periods on days 7 and 9 will take place outside. I will endeavour to specify this on future calendars, but please add this to your notes so that you can ensure that children are dressed for success on outdoor gym days especially. For now, indoor/outdoor gym probably doesn't affect clothing too much, but as the weather changes, it will become very important. Remember, we do spend time outside daily, even if it's a bit wet or cold.

Also, as we discovered Thursday, if it is raining at pick-up time, we will stay inside in the stairwell where we normally enter (SE corner). Please meet us there. Thanks!

In the first day newsletter, I explained that as we grow our French vocabulary, I will let you know about 5 words (or a short phrase) each week that we have learned and are using at school, so that you can practice the words at home if you choose. I don't expect students to do any reading or writing, just perhaps tell you the words and what they mean, and use them in lieu of the English words from time to time, for review. Who doesn't like a little Franglais, right?

We are learning a LOT of vocab quite quickly at the beginning, but here are the main words that we practiced using this week:

Bonjour (Hello)

Au Revoir (Goodbye)

Oui (Yes)

Non (No)

Merci (Thank you)

Lastly, please plan to join us on Thursday Sept. 14th for the annual Welcome BBQ in the school yard, followed by curriculum night in classes. I look forward to meeting, or re-meeting many of you, and having the chance to explain a bit more about our classroom routines in person. I'll provide more specific information about how this evening will run early next week.

Talk to you soon,
Tamara