Happy Return!!

Hi folks,
I hope that you all had a great March break and that everyone is well rested. I had a great trip but I am glad to be back. The students will get a chance to see some pictures from my travels and they will also be very excited to see that Dimoitou came along for the adventure.

We are continuing our travel and methods of travel theme this week. We are getting a lot of post cards from around the world. I hope to have more through out the remaining months so that we can keep the students learning going. They get very excited when we get a new postcard. We have been very lucky seeing that most of them have been in French. After I read the postcard we find its location on the map then chat about how we would get there, whether it is by train, plane or boat. They are starting to develop a sense that the world is very large and that it does take sometime to get to certain destinations.

We are having a great time in math learning about measurement and have a bunch of great activities planned for the next couple of weeks. I still encourage your child to work on their addition and subtraction, counting to 100, counting by 2,5, and 10, as well as counting backwards.Somethings that you can do at home is have them observe different household items and determine which are long(long),longer (plus long), short (court)shorter(plus court), about the same ( a peu pres aussi long), far (loin) further (plus loin), furthest ( le plus loin).

We have started a new reward system in class which is designed to encourage students to speak french in class. If a student is speaking french in class, whether it is to a friend or myself they are rewarded with a sticker on a piece of paper. At the end of the week a store will be open, where students will be able to purchasee items with their stickers. Every item will have a different value, larger items will be worth more.I have gone to the Dollar store and picked up a bunch of items. If you are interested in helping out you can also pick up a few items from the dollar store and send them and I will add these items to the store. Our first store opening will be this Friday!
In the next little while we  will be doing some crafts that will require egg cartons, if you could, could you please save them and send them in with your child. Also we have 2 boxes of Kleenex remaining in class, which will not so us till the end of the year. If you could send in a box with your child it would be greatly appreciated!

That is all for now, I hope that you have a great week !
Laurie Anne :)

I thought I would include a picture of Dimoitou enjoying a boat ride through Venice, Italy!

March break is around the corner!!

Hi everyone,
I hope that you are having a great start to the week. This will be a very short week for the students seeing that school was cancelled Monday,delayed today and no school Friday do to parent teacher interviews.
We have finished up our theme on home and will be starting En voyage. I have gotten some great responses from my friends around the world about sending our class some post cards. I expect a lot in the next couple of week. If any of you are going away for March Break feel free to drop a post card in the mail addressed to the school.I will list the address below.I would also ask you to take pictures of your vacation and ways that you are getting around while away. The students will then take these pictures in to share with the rest of the class. If you are not going away, you may still send some pictures in of the activities that you have over the break.

The students are absolutely loving the science unit. I try to have at least 3 students present a day. They are asking lots of questions (in french!!) and learning new vocabulary. Our first experiment will be on how we use our ears to locate sound.

We have changed literacy centers today. All the centers are focusing on the sounds such as on,ou,oi and so on. Some of the centers include go fish with sounds and punctuation, bingo, reading with a partner and an interactive computer game.
I will be changing the math centers this week as well, which will be focusing on additions and subtractions. We have been practicing number recognition with our dot plates. (A plate that has a number of dots on it, lined up in rows of 5.) Students should be able to recognize within 3 seconds the number on the plates. So far we are mastering numbers 1-15. I encourage you to keep counting with your child at numbers 1-100 and have them count backwards as well.

I will be adding some great fun french websites that your child can go on at home. Some of them even allow the students to be read to in french! Have fun!

That's all for now. I look forward to meeting with you all at the parent teacher interviews. Till then have a great rest of the week. Keep Smiling :)

En voyage

Well February has come and gone. Iam looking forward to March. Hopefully it will be easier on us and have very little snow!!

A new month means a new theme!  This months theme is called En Voyage, which is very fitting because March break will be here before we know it.We will however continue to work on last months theme(home), seeing that we miss a lot of days. Students will be exploring the different methods of travel (bus,car,plane,boat,train) as well as the different places they can travel to. I have made a request to some of my friends from around the world to send our class post cards. This way students can be exposed to different places around the world and we can have small discussions on how one might get to that destination.(method of transportation) If you have any family or friends around the world, feel free to have them write the class. They may send their postcard addressed to me at the school. Also, seeing that our theme is travel, we will do a little project about our March breaks. I will give you more details later on. So keep your eyes open for that.


I have sent home the notes about our science project. The students are very excited about this. I will be having some small experiments in class through out this month to further their understanding of the 5 senses. The students have also asked to have science centers. This is something that I will look into and if possible will have once a sequel.

We are just about done of our math unit on addition and subtraction up to 12. I encourage you to make flash cards at home and work on these problems with your child. Once we wrap this unit up, we will moving onto measurements. I know that the students will enjoy this unit, seeing that there are a lot of hands on activities. We have also added math centers to our daily schedule. The students are really enjoying this and it is also a great way to reinforce what they have already learned.

As a class they have come along way in reading. I'm so very proud of each and everyone of them.We are starting to predict what might happen in our books before reading them. Also we are paying more attention to punctuation and reading with expression. We will continue to work on reading strategies. Keep up the fabulous work guys!!

Parent teacher interviews are coming up. I will be sending home times sometime this week. Please let me know what works and what does not so I can make arrangements if need be. I look forward to seeing you all next week, until then I hope you all have a great week.
Keep smiling

Laurie Anne