Hi everyone hope all is going well and that you are avoiding the winter blues. This is going to be a long post I feel in order to catch up with everything that has happened since my last post.Sorry in advance!
February is coming to an end and with that it is the end of yet another theme. This past months theme was Staying warm in my house. Students learn about the different rooms in the house and items that could be found in the house. They were pair up and giving a room to paint last week, some of them are very interesting! Its great to see some of their creativity come out!
We had a great valentines day party, thanks to all of you who sent something in! We also celebrated the 100th day of school ! Some of the students thought with the 100th day of school that meant that they would then go to grade two the following day!
Everyone is starting to speak in full sentences and are asking how to translate words from English to French.They have also started to add the (er= ay) to the ends of English words, which I find so cute. I have limited my English in class and peak it only when absolutely needed. Come March I will no longer speak English in class, unless necessary. I continue to encourage them to speak French in class, they will only get better with practise and they are all very capable in doing so, sometimes they just need that extra push or encouragement of those around them.
In math we are covering additions and subtractions up to 12. We have also covered doubles and doubles plus one. We continue to count by 100 and will be starting to count by 2. Feel free to give your child a head start on this, seeing that some will find it challenging. We have gone over story problems, how to solve them and answer them in complete sentences. We have also looked at how we can determine whether the problem will be subtraction or addition based on the wording. Each morning the students come into class there is a story problem on the board for them to solve. This not only enforces what they are learning in math but also literacy as well. We will continue to work on this through out the year. Feel free to practise at home with your child. I will be sending flash cards home as well.For the month of march we will be taking a break from addition and subtraction and moving on to shapes and measurements.
We continue to review all the different french sounds. Each week we have a different sound and make a list of all the words we know with that particular sound. They also have a sentence of the week, which allows them to practise the correct sentence structure. We have been focusing a lot on word work this past month. Some of the things we have gone over is syllables, the different sounds in a word whether its at the beginning, middle or ending of the word, the sounds of letters at the beginning and end of a word and punctuation.
As a school we are focusing on phonological awareness and with the help of our speech language pathologist we had the opportunity to test all the students from kindergarten to grade 2.I will be happy to share the results of your child at Parent teacher.
*** March is travel month and methods of travel. We have already received a couple of postcards and are excited to see more coming in. Our class puppet Dimoitou is away on an adventure. I had friends that were going away to Africa for vacation so I decided to send him along. They have been great so far sending facts about where they are and pictures of him. He has been on a safari so far and has had the chance to see lions, water buffalo, elephants, and so on. Once they get back they will be able to share more of their pictures with us. I was thinking of trying something different this year but would require the help of some of you. I got the idea from one of the students actually. Awhile ago I ask what they wanted to learn about, they had great ideas which I have put in place for the reminder of the year. One boy said he wanted to learn about the different places from around the world like their language, the people and most of all what they eat there. That got me to thinking..... we can do that.....we just have to pick 1 place to focus on each week of the month of march. I thought we could learn all about a particular place show photos, and on Friday eat a dish from there. I have been to Italy and have photos so I thought I would start with that. Here comes the part where I need some of you. Maybe you have travelled somewheres different and have stories and photos to share and could whip up a dish. Let me know your thoughts on this.I will do the first week of March where we will explore Italy.
That's all soo sorry for the long post! Have a great week end!
A few reminders.....
Parent teacher interviews will be March 8th &9th. Report cards will be sent home March 7th. If any of you have any concerns and would like to meet before report cards and parent teacher please feel free to contact me.
Please send in extra socks and mitts. I have already gone through the emergency stash that you already sent in.
March is nutrition month, I encourage you to pack healthy lunches.
