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.