Les questions - a quick update

We are very lucky to have M. Bazin in our classroom a few days a week this month and next month in order to co-teach with me.   M. Bazin and I have been teaching the students question words and how to ask and answer questions in French.  We will use this learning in order to explore our next word study poster as well as the themes of celebration and the 5 senses.

Here are a few songs that we have been singing in the class that fit in very well with our learning so far.  It would be great for your child to practice at home by singing along (and who knows, maybe the whole family will want to join in!).

Qu'est-ce qu'il y a à manger?  Par Jacquot:

 Y a un chat par Charlotte Diamond (click here)

Qu'est-ce que c'est? par Jacquot:

 Other things to mention:

This Friday's spirit day is called Thrifty Threads.  This day is meant to encourage students to help the environment by wearing second-hand clothing. 

Here is an article that lists 10 foreign language apps that can help foster bilingualism in children.  I know many parents were asking me about apps to support their child's learning, so I hope this will be helpful to you.  Click here for more information. 

A short recap of last month's learning

In November, we worked on so many things!  We learned about different schools in Russia, England, Africa, Japan, and more.  We created our sentences, some of which we based on our comparisons that we noticed and discussed in our learning about schools around the world.  We played with our sentences by changing the punctuation (adding question and interrogation marks) and by turning them into a negative sentence by adding ne and pas to the sentences.  We also created a book of our sentences with our care partners in grade 3/4 which will be going home with students one by one soon.  We continued to learn about the sounds of the alphabet in French and learned many sight words in French, such as c'est, je, mon, ma, il, elle, and so on.  When I would add a new sight word to our word wall, the students would be encouraged to look for this word during Reading to Self, or partner reading time.  We have been adding new words every week to our Sight word book, which students are taking turns bringing home for a night.  We have also been working on speaking and writing in sentences as much as possible in order to develop our language skills.  
In math, we explored patterns and learned about different types of patterns with 2 to 4 elements.  We also have been working on counting by 1s and 2s.  
In this term, we will continue to work on speaking as much as possible in French in the classroom in order to continue to grow in our learning in all areas.  In the new year we will also begin to learn about word families in order to help us write and read in French, and we will take a closer look at our writing by creating and using a writing continuum (more on that later). 
The themes for this next term will be:  questioning, traditions and celebrations, the five senses, and family.

If you have any questions about our learning, please feel free to contact me.

Physical Education

The following is a short summary of Mme Muzika's Physical Education program:

Physical Education

During this past term we have covered the following concepts:

Personal Space – We have worked on movement in our own personal space.

Locomotor Movement – We have learned different locomotor movements such as walking, running, skipping, galloping, hopping, jumping, shuffling, and leaping.  We have worked on these movements at different levels as well as changing directions. These movements have been taught in general space in the gymnasium. Students have also worked on ways to avoid and dodge each other while performing these movements.

Manipulative Skills—So far this term, we have been working on throwing, catching, and hand dribbling. 

Fitness – We have begun to incorporate more emphasis on fitness activities on a daily basis. Strength and endurance have been emphasized at this time. 

Games – The students have been taught a select few games this term. The emphasis has been on participation and sportsmanship.

Progress reports

Your child's first Progress Report is being sent home tomorrow, and I know it may be an exciting/nervous evening for parents and students alike!

In order to ensure that this first evaluation is as positive and productive as possible, here are some suggestions on how to approach reading and responding to your child's report card:
1) Set aside a quiet and private time to read through the documents on your own
2) Arrange a quiet and private time to sit down with your child to read the report card together
3) Discuss the evaluation calmly and positively, beginning with your child's areas of strength, including examples of how your child exhibits these behaviours and skills at home
4) Discuss the areas needing further attention in a practical manner, including brainstorming ways that these skills can be practiced and reinforced on a regular basis at home and at school
5) Make jot notes together about areas needing further clarification to take with you to the conference this week

I am looking forward to discussing your child’s progress during three-way conferences on Thursday and Friday of this week.  When arriving at the school for your conference, please remember that, due to sensitivities in the school community, our school is now a scent-aware building, so please refrain from wearing perfumes or colognes when coming to the school.

School words - an update

This week, we made a list of actions (verbs) that happen at school, in order to further build the students' vocabulary.  We read the words, acted out the words, made up sentences using the words orally and in our journals.  Here is a picture of our class list:

I have created an online flipping book on FlipSnack, which can be viewed here.  It has all the classroom words as well as some of the verbs seen in the picture above. 

Over time, I will add other pages to this online book, so that there is always an easy way to look back at all that we have studied in class.  If you would like to download a .pdf version of this document for your own use, you can do so by clicking on the embedded picture below. 



I have also added the article words (le la les des un une l'), and some high-frequency words that we have learned so far such as deux, je, j', je suis, c'est, and et.  If you would like to use these to practice reading with your child, please do!

Next week, I plan on playing this song for the class, so feel free to give them a sneak peek this weekend.  It is a fun rap song called Mon sac à dos:

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone!

Home Reading

The students are doing a great job remembering to have their agenda signed by you, and getting their home reading done - I am impressed!  When bringing home books in particular (although this could apply to any home reading materials), there are a few rules we have discussed as a class:
1) no eating or drinking near the books
2) books are treated respectfully and with care
3) books are not to be handled by little brothers, sisters, or pets (they are for grade 1 students only)
4) the books stay in the sac vert when they are not being read
5) they need to be returned to school the next day

It has taken a lot of money (merci, parent council!), time, and hard work to build up the grade 1 class libraries, so your support in assisting your child to be responsible with the home reading materials is greatly appreciated.  The cost to replace lost or damaged books is 5 dollars.

Thanks so much for your support at home with the home reading program.  For those looking for an iPad equivalent to google translate, last year a parent told me about an app called iTranslate, which she found to be a very useful tool for at-home reading.  I will add these two links to the side bar for easy reference.

Today we discussed what plural words are (they usually are followed by article words des or les, or a number word that is more than one like deux), and we learned that plural words have an s or x at the end of the word but that those two letters at the end of a plural word are silent letters. 
Tip:  Why not have your child to practice this by finding all the plural words and practice reading them, making sure that the s and x are silent at the end?

Tomorrow, I will post an online version of the words, as well as some frequent French words, and some verbs related to school, for those who wish to have further practice at home.  Next week, we will begin writing sentences related to our word study poster. 

A September Recap

Two samples of student work based on our
 classroom discussions.

     Since September 4th, we have been studying the classroom in a variety of ways.  We have co-constructed classroom rules and expectations and we have discussed what we already know about Grade 1 and what questions we have about it.  We even asked some Grade 2 students what they could tell us about what it was like in Grade 1. (It is interesting that, at least a few of them said that, although Grade 1 was more work, it was also more fun than kindergarten!)  We did a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting Kindergarten and Grade 1 (asking: how are they different?  How are they similar?).  We have also been singing lots of songs, as well as reading lots of books related to l'école.  All of this is being taught with the aim of building oral language skills related to school, as well as develop good thinking and questioning skills.  One of our questions as a class was:  is grade 1 the same in other parts of the world?  Today, in order to begin to delve into answering this question, we read and learned about what school is like in Afghanistan.  Tomorrow, we will read about a school in Australia. 

     Below you will find our first word study poster.  Each student has chosen their own word to add to it.  We will be learning to read and write by using, exploring and classifying the words found here.  Your child should have brought home seven of the 28 words to read tonight for home reading. 

Since September, we have also been practising writing numerals and reviewing the quantities 0-10.  We will begin patterning this month. 

That's all for now!  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Bonjour et bienvenue!

Bonjour, et bienvenue à mon blog!  Hello and welcome to my blog!
During the year, I will post so many things on this site so be sure to bookmark it and check it regularly.
Here is a display you will notice outside our classroom that we started working on in the first few days of school.  We read a few books by David Shannon:  Non, David and David va à l'école and then made our own David as well as some advice for him as he learns the rules at school.  Some ideas from the students included:  don't chew gum in class, no running in the hall, raise your hand to speak, and so on.  It fit in very well with all the brainstorming we have been doing to decide as a group on expectations in and around the classroom. 

I hope you will have a chance to check out your child's David as well as meet all of his or her teachers tonight at the Meet the Staff night.