Help, we're all wet!

Dear wardrobe coordinators,

It is VERY wet in the Dewson yard. As the weather warms up, I anticipate that we will have lots of wet and slushy days ahead. The children often complain that their outdoor clothes are soaking, and I can appreciate that it is very uncomfortable for them to put wet boots and socks back on, but there isn't much I can do for them. I've asked them to talk to you about possible solutions... here are some of my ideas:
1. Send some extra socks (2 or even 3 pairs) in their backpack.
2. Send a complete change of clothes that they can keep on their hook at school.
3. Wear plastic bags over socks inside boots (teach them how to put these on).
4. Send extra gloves.
5. Talk about whether their boots are waterproof, and if not, places to avoid.

Thanks for your help!
Mlle
                                     

Hello Piano!

Happy Monday!

Our words this week are:

mes, tes, train, cinq, samedi, dimanche 

Last week we learned the sound "in". This is a very French sound. Unlike in English, you do not close on the 'n'. It stays open and is quite nasal. The best way to learn it is to have your student teach it to you by showing them the poster below. They'll know the word, and hence, the sound.

Other words that use this sound are: bain, coin, voisin, cousin, vingt (20), basin (bin), lapin and matin

This week we will review the sound "ch". We've met this sound before, so many children know it, or have been able to guess it based on other words they know, like chat and chien.

Other words that contain this sound are: le cochon, le cheval, une chose, j'ai chaud, les cheveux, je chante une chanson, je cherche, un chapeau, méchant

Last Friday we had a fun surprise - we finally got to open our piano! I hope to teach the children some simple songs before the end of the year. We started with some important pre-requisites, like how to be a good audience member, good sitting posture, and a relaxed hand. For our songs, we will always keep our thumb (finger #1) on middle C and we will use the first 5 notes of the C major scale. Therefore, we are starting by learning a 5-note scale. On Friday, everyone had a chance to play the 5-note scale, practising good posture, and using each finger to play the scale.
I know several students take piano lessons already, so they won't find our lessons challenging, but we'll look forward to hearing some performances soon!
Ask your students to play you our scale (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1) on the air piano!

Bienvenue 2014!

Welcome back everyone, I hope you had awesome vacations!
The kids have been telling me, in French and in their writing, what they did over the holidays.

If your reader borrowed classroom books for the break, please help them find and pack each and every one so that we can get them back to class for our daily reading time. This includes the white books as well, we are continuing with our borrow-a-book program so please remind your student to exchange his/her books regularly. Also, most children brought their indoor or gym shoes home for the break. Please ensure that these are back at school tomorrow so that we can all participate safely in gym. Thanks!

Tonight several items are coming home:
1. Milk form due WEDNESDAY if you want milk next week.
2. Words of the week: on, papa, chien, tous, ils, ont (That's 6, I know - I think we're ready to increase the challenge!) 
3. The letter your student wrote in December. I had previously sent a copy so that you could read it before Christmas. Now I'm sending the real thing. It has a rubric on the back so you can see what the expectations were, and how your child is doing. The rubric is very much like the sounding-out rubric that you see monthly, however since we were working on the structure of a letter, that becomes a very important part of it as well. There is no need to return this, but I suggest keeping it with your other rubrics so that you can continue to check for things you want to help with at home.
4. Our day/night activity project from our last science unit.

This week we are starting several new units.
In French, we will be starting to learn about procedures, when we use them, and how to write one. This will be really fun, and you can easily expand upon this at home by reading and following instructions (e.g., when playing a game or trying out a new recipe).

In math, we are starting a data management unit on graphing. It's my favourite math unit, and should be great fun for the kids too. They will get to build and draw lots of graphs and will even get to create their own survey, collect data, and make their own graph to show off their results! Today we got started by building a graph of our vacation activities. Each child placed his/her own bar on the graph to represent something that he/she did.

We are continuing with Science, but changing our unit. We will now be investigating structures. What structures do we have in our community? What makes a structure strong? What kids of materials are used in different structures? Today we did our first experiment building shelves using different building materials. The scientists had to make a prediction of what material they thought would be the strongest, then build a bookshelf with their group. We tested the shelves using our books, and then the scientists noted which materials held all the books successfully.

See you all soon,
Tamara