Hi everyone happy Monday!
I hope everyone is feeling well rested after the week end! We are on the last week of school before Christmas holidays I cannot believe how fast it has come and gone. We sold our candy of grahams at lunch today, selling out the whole 260 I bought. We are all very excited about the amount we have raised so far, we have about 146.00$. I will be going tomorrow after school to exchange the change and hunt down a deal on turkeys. If you know of any sales let me know!
I will not be here Thursday or Friday. I had already booked my flight to PEI in July. So we will have our Holiday party on Wednesday. If you wish to send in any healthy snacks they would be more than welcomed. Also the students have won their first 30 points and have chosen what they would like to do with them. For this time they had requested a Christmas movie with popcorn. So we will watch that this week. They had great suggestions for what they could use their points for.....to make cookies, extra recess, free time in the gym, a day filled with science, to experiment with modelling clay and so on.
We have started working in our centres today's which have a focus on Christmas vocabulary and sentence structures. We will start guided reading in January. They have started reading from their reading bags with appropriate levelled books.They seem to be really enjoying this. Our sound for the week is "OU" (hibou, mouton) Feel free to think of other words that you might know that have the sound "OU" in them. Our sentence of the week is "Qu'est ce que tu cherche?" (What are you looking for?) "Je cherche....." ( I am looking for......) Feel free to practise this at home!
In math we are working on the 100 frame, counting to 100, by2,5 and 10. We will also finish up addition up to 18.
I think that's it for now. If I do not have a chance to chat with you before break. Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.
Be safe and Merry
Laurie Anne
Monday, December 17, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Yay for pennies!
Hi folks,
First of all I just wanted to say that it was great meeting you all at parent teachers I hope that you feel the same! I am excited to begin working alongside of you with your child. We have had a great first week with story book theatre. We have started to practice our lines and put our scene together somewhat. We will continue to work on this throughout the week until the concert Thursday. Your child will be sent home with their lines today, please feel free to practice these with your child. Please note that you should send your child on Thursday for both performances dressed in black or if you do not have black dark navy clothing would be best. Also if your child is a townsman please send in a tuque for them to wear.
We will be discussing Christmas traditions this week so please share with your child your traditions that you had as a child and any that you may have started with them or continue to do. We will be also exploring Christmas traditions all over the world as well as the meaning of peace.
A huge thank you to Nathan for bringing in some pennies, keep them coming! We will be using them to count one to one, by 2,5 and groups of 10.You may continue to bring them in until the 18th of December which will give our class enough time to role them.
We are looking at french Christmas vocabulary this week and practicing our g (dur-hard) and g (doux-soft) sounds. Feel free to brainstorm with your child any words you might know with these sounds. Our mission was to find more soft sounding g, seeing that we could not think of that many. Our sentences for the week are "A qui ce______?" (Who does this ______ belong to?) and "Pourqui fais tu cela?" (Why are you doing that?)
That is all for now. I hope that everyone had a great week end and see you Thursday at the concert!
Mme Laurie Anne
First of all I just wanted to say that it was great meeting you all at parent teachers I hope that you feel the same! I am excited to begin working alongside of you with your child. We have had a great first week with story book theatre. We have started to practice our lines and put our scene together somewhat. We will continue to work on this throughout the week until the concert Thursday. Your child will be sent home with their lines today, please feel free to practice these with your child. Please note that you should send your child on Thursday for both performances dressed in black or if you do not have black dark navy clothing would be best. Also if your child is a townsman please send in a tuque for them to wear.
We will be discussing Christmas traditions this week so please share with your child your traditions that you had as a child and any that you may have started with them or continue to do. We will be also exploring Christmas traditions all over the world as well as the meaning of peace.
A huge thank you to Nathan for bringing in some pennies, keep them coming! We will be using them to count one to one, by 2,5 and groups of 10.You may continue to bring them in until the 18th of December which will give our class enough time to role them.
We are looking at french Christmas vocabulary this week and practicing our g (dur-hard) and g (doux-soft) sounds. Feel free to brainstorm with your child any words you might know with these sounds. Our mission was to find more soft sounding g, seeing that we could not think of that many. Our sentences for the week are "A qui ce______?" (Who does this ______ belong to?) and "Pourqui fais tu cela?" (Why are you doing that?)
That is all for now. I hope that everyone had a great week end and see you Thursday at the concert!
Mme Laurie Anne
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
A warm welcome!
I am so excited to start teaching at Holy Name. I had such a warm welcome these last few days and am so lucky to have a great class! They are all so kind and helpful.
For the next two weeks we have story book theatre here at the school. In our class we are lucky to have the very talented Selena Wong. She has taught for over five years, is a vocal coach, actress and is now one of teachers with Story book theatre. She is also performing in The elves and the shoe maker at stage west. We are very happy to have her with us and look forward to all her ideas and creativity to make this concert the best ever.
We have kept some of our daily routines through out the day to keep the students engaged and on task. I am sending a letter home today with them with a small introduction of myself and how I run my classroom. I am sure it will take sometime for all of us to adjust to these changes but am sure once we iron everything out we will have a great time.
Some of the ideas I have for the classroom are literacy centres, which allow the children to work on their french oral skills as well as anything we might have covered in class. There will be different centres that will be rotated everyday to allow everyone a chance. I keep these same centres for two weeks and then change them to go along with any themes that we might be covering. During this time I will be taking a group of students to work on their reading strategies, decoding, comprehension,story predictions and so on. I will also give the students a bag filled with appropriate levelled books that will be kept in class to read during silent reading time.They will keep these books for a week and then change them moving up as they are ready. I strongly encourage that you read with your child at home in french. There are tons of libraries with great resources and appropriate levelled books for your child. I can always go with you a couple of times and help you pick out books if you want, just let me know in advance.
I also have a reward system that has work great for me in the past. Like i have mentioned in the letter i sent home today, I view my class as a community and most communities work together to have success. The students get points for working together, being helpful to others inside and outside the classroom, for solving problems and so on. As a group we sit down and go over some of the things they might want to win with their points.(Hot chocolate, guest reader, free time) We have started at only 30 points, but it will be increased to 50 then 100. They also lose points as well.
With any French immersion classroom its hard to keep the students from speaking English, its especially hard when you know your teacher speaks English! I have used Je parle en francais charts which are on the students desks.By having the charts on their desk its a reminder to them to speak french. When they speak French and I have heard them make an effort to do so I will give them a sticker for their chart. However if I hear them speak English I remove a sticker. I would really like for us to get to the point where the only time we speak English is during English class.
We are also making our decorations for our scene in the Christmas concert. If you could please send in a glass mason jar that would be wonderful. Selena has also requested that the students bring in a winter hat and scarf that can be left in class as part of their costume. We will also be discussing Christmas traditions in class so feel free to talk about any traditions you had with your family as a child and what you do today. my Christmas tradition when i was young was to go to the woods with my father and find the perfect tree. Then we would decorate it listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas record.I bet some of you had that record! If I could find it now on CD am pretty sure I would keep that tradition alive today! I cant wait to hear some of yours!
That's all for now. Feel free to contact me anytime to ask questions or if you have any concerns. I hope to meet you all at parent teacher interviews! Until then enjoy the rest of your week, keep smiling!
Mme Laurie Anne
For the next two weeks we have story book theatre here at the school. In our class we are lucky to have the very talented Selena Wong. She has taught for over five years, is a vocal coach, actress and is now one of teachers with Story book theatre. She is also performing in The elves and the shoe maker at stage west. We are very happy to have her with us and look forward to all her ideas and creativity to make this concert the best ever.
We have kept some of our daily routines through out the day to keep the students engaged and on task. I am sending a letter home today with them with a small introduction of myself and how I run my classroom. I am sure it will take sometime for all of us to adjust to these changes but am sure once we iron everything out we will have a great time.
Some of the ideas I have for the classroom are literacy centres, which allow the children to work on their french oral skills as well as anything we might have covered in class. There will be different centres that will be rotated everyday to allow everyone a chance. I keep these same centres for two weeks and then change them to go along with any themes that we might be covering. During this time I will be taking a group of students to work on their reading strategies, decoding, comprehension,story predictions and so on. I will also give the students a bag filled with appropriate levelled books that will be kept in class to read during silent reading time.They will keep these books for a week and then change them moving up as they are ready. I strongly encourage that you read with your child at home in french. There are tons of libraries with great resources and appropriate levelled books for your child. I can always go with you a couple of times and help you pick out books if you want, just let me know in advance.
I also have a reward system that has work great for me in the past. Like i have mentioned in the letter i sent home today, I view my class as a community and most communities work together to have success. The students get points for working together, being helpful to others inside and outside the classroom, for solving problems and so on. As a group we sit down and go over some of the things they might want to win with their points.(Hot chocolate, guest reader, free time) We have started at only 30 points, but it will be increased to 50 then 100. They also lose points as well.
With any French immersion classroom its hard to keep the students from speaking English, its especially hard when you know your teacher speaks English! I have used Je parle en francais charts which are on the students desks.By having the charts on their desk its a reminder to them to speak french. When they speak French and I have heard them make an effort to do so I will give them a sticker for their chart. However if I hear them speak English I remove a sticker. I would really like for us to get to the point where the only time we speak English is during English class.
We are also making our decorations for our scene in the Christmas concert. If you could please send in a glass mason jar that would be wonderful. Selena has also requested that the students bring in a winter hat and scarf that can be left in class as part of their costume. We will also be discussing Christmas traditions in class so feel free to talk about any traditions you had with your family as a child and what you do today. my Christmas tradition when i was young was to go to the woods with my father and find the perfect tree. Then we would decorate it listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas record.I bet some of you had that record! If I could find it now on CD am pretty sure I would keep that tradition alive today! I cant wait to hear some of yours!
That's all for now. Feel free to contact me anytime to ask questions or if you have any concerns. I hope to meet you all at parent teacher interviews! Until then enjoy the rest of your week, keep smiling!
Mme Laurie Anne
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