Virtual fun!

 Dear 113 families,

I hope you are all keeping healthy and well! We had a great week back after the April break. We kept busy with work, and mixed in lots of fun as well. 

Thanks so much for your ongoing support with technology, materials and work, but an extra special thank you for taking an hour off last Thursday to be in the kitchen with your child for our cookie making activity. It was such fun (I hope) and I think seeing the cookie recipe and working through it, even if they couldn't read the whole thing themselves, will help us finish up the snack recipes we are writing. If you haven't heard, I've asked students to tell me a snack that they know how to make themselves. We have some sandwiches, crackers and cheese, s'mores, some smoothies, even pancakes! Please ask your chef what snack they are explaining in case they need help thinking of the steps they need to write out. I am aiming to finish up this project in the next couple days.

Each day I read a French story to our class, and I hope they are practicing their independent reading as well, through RAZ-kids. I am aiming to have individual reading meetings with students beginning later this week to make sure their assigned level is correct. I will manage individual meetings by booking a time with students during asynchronous time. They can simply come back to the meet at their time and read me whatever book from their French reading room that they choose. I will explain this on Monday and encourage them to select a book and begin practicing it!

In math, we have spent a couple weeks focusing on the Data strand, always a favourite of mine. I'd like to touch on each strand before the end of the year, which means we'll have to go quite quickly, but I'm happy that we've covered each component of this strand and students have seemed to understand and enjoy the unit. We collected data both as a class and by planning our individual survey questions and using tally charts. We learned to display this data using a bar graph (diagramme à bandes) complete with title, labels and scale. We've practiced analysing data by asking ourselves what we can learn from diagrammes and what information we would still like to know (actually, I've been very impressed here, with several students asking thoughtful questions about the data, for example, in a graph about how many girls v. boys enjoy the park, students wondered, how many boys and girls were in the class that voted, and if they don't like going to the park, what DO they like to do?). I also showed the class the bar graph on my gas bill, and another example showing gas and electricity usage. Our students were able to figure out why gas usage went up (and was expensive) during the winter months, and electricity went up during summer months. (We linked this to our recent discussions on energy and conservation.) Please ask about this, and consider showing them any graphs that you refer to.  We also learned several probability terms (e.v., certain, impossible, probable, improbable) and played some fun games using these terms to predict and describe the outcomes, for example, if each of our names are in the lottery bag once, what is the likelihood that my own name will be drawn?

In Science, we've moved on to new units. Grade 2s will be investigating simple machines that help us move things, for example, the wheel & axel. Grade 1s will be investigating structures and materials. When we do bigger science experiments, we will do them together as a class regardless of grade - the units are closely connected anyway. We got started with a super fun building and material testing experiment last week, designed for the grade 1s, but fun for everyone. We first read the story of the Three Little Pigs, then, built our own versions of the three houses using the best materials we could find that were like straw, wood and bricks. We drew what we built, noted the materials, and tested their strength by rolling a ball towards each wall. I had fun doing this, and it looked like the kids did too! 

Also in science, we went on a virtual field trip to a wind farm - a fun way to finish off the previous energy unit and I created a Kahoots! quiz on what we had learned (great job everyone, that was SO much fun!). 

On Thursday we celebrated Earth Day by proving that we can create something beautiful out of a piece of recycling. For this occasion, our librarian created a beautiful, interactive, slide with many links to thematic stories and activities - this is still available on Google Classroom. Ms. Hutchinson also led the class in a pledge to take care of our Earth, our home.

Earlier last week, we managed our first virtual art project. I'm sure you helped your student collect the materials with texture, which they used to create rubbings. We then cut those up and used them to create lovely collages. Thanks for sending me the pictures, I will post a gallery of work when I have a few more minutes, but here is mine, and a photo of us holding up our work!

I would love to see more of our students' work as they complete it. It is quite simple to turn in work using Google Classroom if it has been done using a template through Classroom (you just click "Turn In"). But, when the work has been done by hand, as ours is, we have the extra step of scanning or taking a photo before we can attach it to an assignment. I hate to bother you with this, but if we don't return to school, it may become necessary. I will start to create "assignments" for some of the work we have completed, that I would like to see. When you have a moment, perhaps you could sit with your child to find the matching work, take a quick photo and turn it in. This video gives good step-by-step instructions on how to do this. No rush!

To end the week, we participated in an X-Movement workshop which got us up and moving early on a Friday morning. We finished the day with another fun Kahoots! game, reviewing what we had learned that week.

Please be sure to check Google Classroom regularly. I have been posting an outline of our days along with materials that will be needed. I aim to get this to you at least the evening before, if not earlier - especially if it requires more prep, as with the science building and the cookies. Sometimes things change through the week, so make sure to check back for updates. Never worry if you don't have the exact materials - we have been pretty good at finding substitutions and working with what we have. Currently, students are trying to collect boxes for an upcoming 3D math project. They will need around 5 different empty boxes or other 3D items, such as paper towel rolls, cone cups or plastic easter egg cases. It will be best (for math) if each item is a slightly different shape! 

On the outline, you will see that on Tuesday morning, I am planning a little time for a quick show & tell. Students may bring one item or pet that they'd like to tell us about (en français, j'espère).

Finally, please note that I will be absent Tuesday afternoon. We will have a supply teacher, and I'm sure it will all go smoothly - supply teachers all know how this works. I will be sending him/her a good plan, of course, but I am also posting the math work to print and exact science pages on Classroom JUST in case something happens. It should be fairly straight-forward.

Have a great last week of April!

Tamara

What we're up to!

Dear families,

Happy March April break! 

This week has been a huge learning experience for me, but I've enjoyed getting to see the kids sans masks, introduce them to Wales and Sadie, and get a glimpse into your home lives also. I'm very impressed with our students technological abilities - I know you're helping, and I know they've done this before, but I appreciate how they stay muted, raise their hands, unmute and then mute again, do their best independently and let me know when they've completed a task. I hope they've enjoyed some of what we've done in the last 3 days. 

I probably don't need to tell you, but, we started with a little tour of my house, including counting up all the whales we could find (it was over double what I thought it would be.... yikes!). We did a float/sink science experiment at my sink, making predictions and noting our results. We even discussed why an orange floated with the skin on, but sank when it was peeled. So cool!

The grade 2s learned three new words describing the changes of state of matter and the grade 1s talked about how we conserve energy in our homes and learned the word renouvelable (renewable). Energy conservation is a great topic to continue discussing, especially as we have become so dependent on our technology right now.

In math, we continued some work we had started at school making bar graphs. We have practiced graphing class data a couple times now, and students are working on planning individual survey questions to ask the class. We are part way through this and will continue after the break, then graph this data as well. Looking ahead, after a bit more data management, we will look briefly at probability and then 3D geometry.

In French, we have been working on some procedural writing. At home, students completed their instructions for how to get ready for bed. There are some easy and fun ways to practice reading procedures at home, such as following a recipe or reading instructions for a game or lego set. I've also set our class up on RAZ-kids, which many of you are familiar with. Every student has a password image to access their account and they need my username. This and instructions are posted on Google Classroom, but I think most students have already logged in and started reading! Yesterday I showed students how to access their leveled French books and how to use some of the features, such as recording themselves reading and marking up the books with the pen or highlighter tools. Students earn stars for reading books and doing the quizzes and can use them to do fun things like creating their personal avatar. They seemed pretty motivated to get going on this which is wonderful! You will see they have access to English books as well, and unlike the French books, there is an audio option. Please encourage your readers to visit their French reading room daily!

On Pink Day, we wore our pink, read a story about a pink penguin who doesn't feel like he fits in, and discussed how we can help our friends if they are being teased about something at school. We drew pictures of a group of animals where one is different than the rest, and we plan to use these as inspiration for a story project later on.

We have tried to play some games together, eye spy and charades, which is a fun way to practice our oral French online. We finished off the week with a great dance party and I was so happy that the kids got to meet Wales. 

Whether or not we are back in school or online after the break, I would like to ask families to start collecting paper towel rolls and small boxes that we can use for geometry. Interestingly-shaped boxes are even better (e.g., toblerone boxes or J-cloth boxes). In addition, relatively flat items with texture, such as the mesh bags clementines come in, lids of large tins, corrugated cardboard etc. Please hang on to these recyclables! If we are still doing virtual, a few materials that students will need for some projects are white glue, crayons or pastels or markers, construction paper and thick white paper (at least construction paper thickness). These are not "essential" items, so I don't expect you to go out to buy them, but if you have these items at home that will be great.

One last reminder that tomorrow is the last day of the online book fair. Thanks to those that purchased books off our class' wish list - it is so generous. There are still a couple great read-alouds on that list, if you're interested. We read one of these gifted books, that arrived right before we were sent home, yesterday.

Wishing you a safe and relaxing week off from school,

Tamara

Virtual Learning

 Well, that was short-lived!

(A little bit regretting lugging all Wales' battery-powered toys to school today as examples of where items get their energy... that would have been a good at-home lesson...)

I'm glad we had today to do some fun stuff like acting out some skits (ask your actor what common school scenario they acted out the right way and the wrong way), working together to make a bar graph (diagramme a bandes) and sorting baby toys into their sources of energy. These activities were so fun for us, that about half our class was motivated to work on their own play at recess and perform it for the class at the end of the day, and students are excited about their own surveys that we started planning and will finish from home. They also loved Wales' toys and my other household items and were fantastic participants in sorting these. Please ask them to point out where your household items get their energy. Scratch that - I'll do it myself!

Today I also spent some time reading with individual students to try to determine their "perfect fit" reading level. Had the announcement come sooner, I would have made sure to get to everyone, but I thought I had tomorrow. Anyway, I am setting us up for RAZ kids, which is where our levels will be helpful. I will guestimate for those readers that I'm not sure about and we'll work from there. More details on how to complete the setup will come very soon!

I am busily planning and researching ways that I can make online learning fun and engaging, but I know it will never be the same as in-person. I have also heard from several of you about the challenges with technology, enthusiasm and ability to help. Please don't worry - we will all just do what we can, and that's enough. Hopefully it's just three days!

Here is the plan for the rest of this week:

Virtual Learning Schedule for the rest of this week:

mercredi, le 7 avril (jour 5)

8:30 - 10:45 - Attendance, Activites avec Mme Hutchinson

10:45 - 11:15 - Bienvenue avec Mme Mitchell

11:15 - 12:15 - Dejeuner (lunch)

12:15 - 1:30 -  Sciences avec Mme Mitchell 

1:30 - 1:45 - Pause ("recess" break)

1:45 - 2:15 - Jeux avec Mme Mitchell

2:15 - 3:00 - Asynchronous (I will suggest activities for this time)

jeudi, le 8 avril (jour 1) *PINK DAY* wear your pink!

8:30 - 9:45 - Attendance, Francais avec Mme Mitchell

9:45 - 10:00 - Pause (break)

10:00 - 10:45 - Maths avec Mme Mitchell

10:45 - 11:15 - Asynchronous (I will suggest activities for this time)

11:15 - 12:15 - Dejeuner (lunch)

12:15 - 1:30 -  Sciences avec Mme Mitchell 

1:30 - 1:45 - Pause (break)

1:45 - 2:15 - Jeux avec Mme Mitchell

2:15 - 3:00 - Asynchronous (I will suggest activities for this time)

vendredi, le 9 avril (jour 2)

8:30 - 9:45 - Attendance, Francais avec Mme Mitchell

9:45 - 10:00 - Pause (break)

10:00 - 10:45 - Maths avec Mme Mitchell

10:45 - 11:15 - Asynchronous (I will suggest activities for this time)

11:15 - 12:15 - Dejeuner (lunch)

12:15 - 2:30 -  Activites avec Mme Hutchinson

2:30 - 3:00 - Dance Party avec Mme Mitchell!

Happy April Break! See you on the 19th!

Please be sure you have the correct Meet link, and are not using Mme Tatiana's old one. Students have an invitation to my Google Classroom in their TDSB email, and the link is posted clearly in there. Mme Hutchinson will be live with you tomorrow morning at 8:30 and I will see you at 10:45.

Thank you, parents, for all your help getting set up at home - we appreciate you!!

Tamara

Happy Easter and preparations...

Dear room 113 families,

I hope you've had a good week. Easter snuck up on me this year, but we had time to do some watercolour painting of paper eggs, using salt and glue to give them a crystalized effect. I love how the watercolours are soaked up by the salt and mix a bit. We also had some fun today making Easter cards and decorating fish for le "Poisson d'avril"! I can't resist a good egg-hunt, so we had fun searching for an egg with a little gift inside, and an Easter game booklet.

We have done a bit of gardening! We have planted peas and beans and you can see our little seed babies in the window outside our class. I was very impressed with the turn-taking during this activity. We are also jumping into some procedural writing, and used this opportunity to write out the materials and steps that we used and followed to plant our seeds.

In math, before we jump into my own plans, we are finishing up some stuff Mme Tatiana left for us - some of which was related to time. We made paper plate clocks to make this more visual and worked on telling time to the half hour, and associating the numbers on the clock to elapsed minutes (counting by 5).

I know there have been whispers of preparing for a return to virtual learning. We all hope very much that this doesn't happen, however, I know we need to be prepared as a positive case in any classroom could pop up unexpectedly. To this end, I've opened my Google Classroom and invited our students to it. Your student can also join with the class code: eomti73

Our Meet link is clearly posted in the header of Google Classroom, should we need to use it. Please make sure everything is working for you and let me know if you need any support. I will send invites to parents as well as soon as I get a minute.

This blog will always remain my main form of communication with you, but if it becomes necessary, I will start populating Google Classroom with links and information for students. Until we hear otherwise, I will continue to put my time and effort into our physical classroom.

In addition, I've quickly gone searching for materials I can send home. Each student has a ziplock bag with some reading material, workbooks and current class work. For the time being, I would appreciate if these bags can stay in backpacks and go back and forth each day. This way, we can use the materials at school, but also have them at the ready if we are told to stay home on short notice.

You will notice that the French workbooks are not the most current resource... However, we had them lying around and they serve the purpose of giving us some grade-appropriate texts that we can read and respond to together as a group. I like that they will save us reading off a screen, are in colour, avoids you or I having to print countless worksheets and include some interesting activities like cutting and pasting. Unfortunately I couldn't find enough of any one workbook for our entire class, or even all the grade 1s, but at least everyone has something. I will figure out how to work with the variety if need be, and it will also be useful for asynchronous time. 

Everyone loves a new workbook. Please discourage your student from using these workbooks over the weekend or just for fun. Please encourage them to save these materials for school time - we talked about how we want to be able to do activities together. The workbooks, obviously, will belong to your child and they can write directly in them when we use them. The other books belong to the school and will need to be returned. I appreciate your help keeping track of these resources. 

Thanks for all you do, and have a wonderful long weekend!

Tamara