Dear parents,
Time seems to be flying by, and it is report card season again. Reports will come home next Wednesday the 16th (I believe) and interviews will take place the evening of Thursday the 17th and the morning of Friday the 18th. You will likely receive information on how to sign up using the online system again. Interviews are not required at this point, but I am always happy to meet with everyone, even if we have no pressing concerns.
On Monday, I sent home the math and writing rubric that I mentioned last week, and I've started teaching our students how to read one. I've told them that if they follow instructions really well and do what has been asked, that's usually a level 3, which is like a B, and is really good. Level 2 means that they were close to understanding how to do something, or they did it with help from me. This is like a C grade, and is something to be proud of. We are learning. Level 4 is like an A, and it means that you did everything that was asked, but also a little bit more. Some examples for us might be, colouring your work in, even if it's not required, or colour coding it to make it easier to read; adding as many shapes as possible to a Venn diagram, not just the minimum; sounding out a longer, more challenging poem; giving more examples, or adding more detail to work. Right away students were interested in knowing how to get a level 4 in the math work we were doing, and started doing the extra challenges I suggested! We will continue talking about how we can show extra effort, even when it comes to learning skills.
Next Monday is also Valentines Day. We will have time during the day to exchange cards. It is completely optional, but if your student would like to prepare cards in advance, please make sure that the whole class is included. Here are our names:
Abigail, Alex, Alfred, Bennett, Callum, Cersei,
Eliane, Elijah, Elowyn, Finlay, Helena, Isaac,
Kai, Logan, Milo, Niamh, Rose, Sophia, Theo
This week, we did a beautiful heart art project exploring warm and cool colours. Warm colours inside the heart, and cool colours around it. They are really brightening up our room!
The letter C can make three different sounds in French. On it’s own it can be either soft (‘s’) or hard (‘k’). The vowel that follows can help you decide which it is, but there are always exceptions. In general, a c followed by an e, i, or y is soft. A c followed by a, o, or u is hard. When a c has that funny little thing that looks like a 5 under it (called a cédille) it is always soft. You’ll see in our words with c-cédille that those c’s would normally be hard, but the cédille breaks the rule. This is a lot to remember, so I haven’t shared all this with the kids, they just know that ç makes ‘s’.
The third sound that c can make, when followed by h, is ‘ch’ - sounds like the English ‘sh’.
ça, garçon, glaçon, le chat, le chien, le cochon
Bonus words: la vache, le cheval
