Last week together before 2015!

Hi everyone!
Last week together for 2014! I cant wait to see what 2015 has in hold for all of us! If I do not get to see all of you before then I wish you all the very best Christmas. May it be filled with laughter and the love of your family and friends. Have a very Happy and safe new years and cheers to the new adventures that 2015 brings.
This week we will be tidying up a few projects and assignments but mainly having some fun in class. We have started our Christmas centers, worked on our Christmas gifts to you, finished up the Christmas cards for seniors and counted and rolled all the change that was donated for our turkeys! We have right now about $1100.00!!!!!! I sure hope that we are able to get 100 turkeys with that! I am going to shop around to see what store will give me the best deal. If ya see any good deals keep your eyes open!
At the last minute we decided to dress up all this week as something fun. no worries if you cant make it happen, its just to get into the spirit a little here at school. Today we are all elves and those who didn't have a hat we made some thanks to Holly's great idea! Tomorrow we are thinking of being presents, soo stick a bow on their heads and some ribbon and voila! Thursday will be PJ day. The kids can also come with a pillow or a stuffie to snuggle with when we watch our movie in the afternoon. If you want please feel free to send in a snack for Thursday. We are going to use that day to celebrate and exchange gifts! ( I hope mine get here for the kids I ordered them but they haven't arrived yet!!) Thursday will also be the day we face paint. Don't forget to leave a note in the agenda to give permission.  Friday is the half day of school, packed with a lot of assemblies. Then it is au revoir at noon until January 5th. I hope to get the Turkeys bought as well before Thursday so the kids can help pack them in the back of the truck for the delivery. I put some extra books in the reading package for the long break, that's if you get around to reading ;) That's about it for now. Have a merry Christmas everyone. I am heading to PEI to spend it with my dad. I will see you all in the New year.

Get ready to hum along to those Christmas favs!

HI Everyone the count down is on until the Christmas Holidays! I hope that you are all doing well and staying healthy. There's a gastro bug going around so remind your kiddies to wash, wash, wash their hands. No one needs to be sick for Christmas.
As this week comes to an end we will be getting ready for Tuesday's Christmas Concert. I picked up the candy canes last week so the students prepared them for the candy o grams Friday. They pretended they were Elves and some took their job very seriously. We will also be starting our Christmas cards for seniors and some of the cards are soo cute. The virtue of the month is "Love" which our class seems to have a ton of!  Here is the scoop for next week.
On Monday Dec 8th we will be having our first Advent Liturgy starting at 10h30 you are all welcome to attend. Choir is cancelled for after school on Monday. On Tuesday we will be having a practice run through of our concert at school in the afternoon. This is the first and only practice as a school so lets hope all goes well.  The Christmas concert is at St. Michael's church. The doors are said to be open around 6:00 ish ( I'll be there getting ready for the candy cane sales) The choir is asked to be at the church for 6:20 and all other students should be there for 6:30. The concert will start at 7:00. The consensus of the class is that they want to dress up. Girls in nice dresses and boys in dress shirts and ties. The students are not allowed to leave without telling me before hand, so please make sure that if you are to take your child they are to let me know.
On Thursday December 11th students have Zumba 1:30-2:15, so please make sure they are dressed properly. Friday December 12 the holiday train is in town. I go every year. I find its the best way to get into the Christmas mood, a train covered in lights, Christmas music and hot chocolate. I hope to go but I thought Id mention it to you just in case you are looking for something to do with the kids this week end.
 Santa has sent us a magical elf named Lulu, I am sure you have already heard all this. A box arrived Friday after library. They were so excited to open the package. Lulu has been sent to keep a watchful eye on the students this time of year. She also works the night shift in Santa's doll making workshop. I am sure you will hear lots of stories about her. Next week is our last week of school before the Christmas Holidays. I am looking for some parent volunteers to come in, preferably one parent each day to read their favorite Christmas stories with the class. You are more than welcome to read more than one and English is ok too! If you are interested please let me know. Next Thursday December 18 is spirit day. Students are allowed to wear the Pj's to school. We will take advantage of the comfy clothes and do some Christmas centers with the other 2 grade one class. (That's the plan anyway) Also Mme Jacqueline has offered to paint the students faces. She works for a company that does face painting so everything will be sanitary. If you are ok with having your child's face painted please leave me a note in the agenda. I will also try and remember to send a reminder note home next week. Next Friday we have half a day and it will fly by. I believe we have a liturgy in the first part of the am and then we will have a little Christmas party where we will exchange gifts. Students will be dismissed at 12 noon. Please send in a glass mason jar with your child by the end of this week. We need them in order to do a class project. A smaller jar is ideal but if you do not have that any size will do.
I have found some more French and English books to send home in the weekly reading package. This will give you more selection and some of the French books have easier words in them to build your child's confidence. Please take care of the English books, they belong to the Fontas and Pinel collection in the reading room. Also could you please take a look around the house for matching games. Some have come back missing pieces or not come back at all.
I think that's it for this week and hope I haven't missed anything. I went to post this once and lost everything soo this is all I could remember! ;)
If you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line.
I hope to see you all Tuesday, don't forget your .50!
Laurie Anne

November is almost over!

I cant believe that this is our last week of November. This school year seems to be flying bye for me! Next week we will start our countdown for Christmas. With a new month comes another new theme: "C'est bientot Noel". Students will be learning  new Christmas vocabulary and opposites (grand-petit). We will also learn how to identify the sounds of the different accents (symbols over letter to change the sound) they will learn how to correctly pronounce the sounds. We are starting to count by 5 and 10 to help us when it comes time to count all our change.

We have started to collect the change for the Turkey drive. The students are supper excited and love adding to the bucket of change. Keep it coming! The Christmas concert is in two week (Dec 9th) I am looking for volunteers to sell candy canes before and after the concert. Ideally I would like to have 6 and 6. I am going to divide the tables into division 1 (K-3) and division 2 (4-6). That there is less people surrounding the tables all at one time. Those who come to sell early to volunteer can go hold their seats. Please email me if you are interested.

We are singing "Douce nuit" and "We need a little Christmas". The students need a little extra practice, so if you have time please practice with them at home, especially the French song. Here is the links to  We need a little Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6OJYTv4ipM. We only sing the part and stop after the first chorus. I will add Douce nuit to the side bare under another voki, seeing that I cannot find the version we sing online.

Next Monday could you all send in the Pink book copy A back with the reading package. We are done of those stories and are now moving onto copy B. I also sent home today your child's portfolio, take a look at it, there is a page for you to fill out. They are due back on Monday Dec 1. If your child came home with it in a green clothe bag, please send that back. I am hoping to keep those until the end of the year to send all their school supplies home in.

Scholastics are Due Dec 5. I will be placing the order then so that the books arrive before Christmas. Thursday is Spirit day, so your child may wear a jersey to show their school spirit. We have parent teacher interviews Thursday evening and all day Friday. Do not forget to sign up for a time. You can find a link on the school website. Library is on Wednesday. Please do not forget to send back your child's report card envelop. We use them for all three reporting periods.
That's all I got this week, keeping it short!
Have a great week and hope to see all of you Thursday or Friday.
Laurie Anne

Short week

Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a great extended week end with your family and that the weather did not stop some of you from getting out.
Seeing that this is a short week I do not have all that much to share. We have picked our song for the Christmas concert. We will be singing two, one in French (Douce Nuit) ,one in English (We need a little Christmas).  I will send home the lyrics and you can start practicing. I wil try to post the songs somewhere on here. The Christmas concert is on December 9 at St. Mikes church, I am not sure of the time, once I find out more I shall pass it along.
 Wednesday there is a School council meeting at 6h30 if any of you are interested in attending.  Picture retakes will be on Friday morning for those who are wanting their children to have them. We are in charge of morning prayer this week. So we have some brave students who have practiced all last week to get ready. All students will be given the chance to say a prayer throughout the year, if they want that is. Report cards will be sent home November 21 and parent teachers will be held on November 28th. I will be sending home sometime soon, your child's portfolio's. It is a collection of some of their work or quizzes they have done so far this year. Monday November the 17th our class has Rocks and rings in the gym, so that will be exciting.
I hope they students are sharing what they have had the chance to eat in class everyday with you. Again I thank you for helping make this happen.

I am starting to think about my Christmas projects that I do with the class. Every year my class raises money to purchase Turkeys for those who might not otherwise get one.  I have been doing this for about 5 years now and every year we seem to surpass the last with more turkeys. Last year we sold candy canes and collected coins to help purchase around 74 turkeys. My class donated them to the Calgary Food Bank. This year I am hoping to donate them to the Calgary Drop in Center. At the beginning of the school year we went as a staff to serve breakfast. Upon chatting to one of the ladies I learned that the drop in has not had a real Christmas dinner for the thousand who use it  in a long time. The reason for  that is that turkeys are way to expansive. Soo I got to thinking, my class can do that for them, why not! So I am hoping to start our coin collection a little early this year. In the past we usually just collect pennies, but that's no longer so we have started collecting nickels and dimes. this is great because I use it as a math activity seeing that we need to learn how to count by 5's and 10's. I will talk to the students this week about our mission and will plan on starting our coin collection next week. I usually send out a facebook message to all my friends recruiting them to help us out. They are great to respond and we usually have special deliveries of random change dropped off at school! I will be needing some volunteers to help sell the candy canes at the concert, so if you are interested in doing this please let me know. There is usually two shifts before and after the concert. The more people the better and easier it is to cover it all because it can get hectic. So that's one project I have planned for our class. I have one other in the mix but need to figure out some details before I make that big announcement.

The next is a favorite of mine. The students make Christmas cards for seniors. I love this because I have in the past have hand delivered the cards and to see their faces light up is better than any gift. I usually go to a seniors home back in PEI because I know the activities coordinator but I would like to go here this year and if any of you are wanting to come along Id be more than happy to have some company. I need some volunteers though to help cut cardstock in cards, fold them and get them ready for the students to draw on them. I am hoping to start this very soon so if you can start right away that would be great.

I am also looking for a volunteer to come help me get the scholastic orders ready to send home. I have slacked on that department seeing that I was working on report cards. I am thinking of sending home both November and Decembers orders so that you have more selection and if you are wanting to order Christmas gifts you can. That way I can place the order early and guarantee that you will get it all in time. If you are ordering gifts just let me know via email or a little note and I will hold onto them for you!
 ok so short week and a lot of info being put out there for you. I am excited to get things rolling. I know the kids will be pumped too. If you have any other ideas or suggestions on what we could do for a community project I would love to hear them. Enjoy the week everyone!
Chat soon,
Laurie Anne

Hello November!

Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a great long week end with your kids and that Halloween was not too crazy for you. It was great seeing some of you at the Gala, Thanks for coming out and supporting our school. A huge thank you to some parents who got together and bought the class some cool fieldtrips.

Report cards are just around the corner so lately we have been review a lot in class and having a few quizzes. Something you can do to help your child out is to review the French alphabet sounds, try practicing their French sentence structures and review the sight words daily.
We have started our Fruit and Veggies project today. It was a great success. The students tried pomegranates, black and green olives. We had a few shy ones that didn't want to try any, but I am sure with time they will all be giving it a go. It was hilarious to see their faces when they tried olives! To a couple of their surprises they actually liked them. They are so looking forward to the next coming weeks.

We have been talking about Remembrance day and they meaning behind the poppy. They had some really interesting questions and some I had a hard time answering. The hard ones where why was there a war, who was the bad man, why did he start it and so on. So if you all want to tackle those that would be great! We have our Remembrance day assembly on Friday at 10h30, you are all welcome to join. If you get the chance too on Tuesday next week to attend a service I encourage you to do so.

In math, we are starting to learn more and more about addition and how if we take a certain number of objects and divide it in two that can give us a math problem. ie: I have 8 chocolate bars, I separate them into 2 piles, 4 on one side and 4 on the other. That gives us 4+4=8. You can do this at home, it will reinforce the concept of addition but also work one to one correspondence. We continue to work on the concept of more and less as well.

In Science, we have started to look at our 5 senses. In the next couple of weeks the students will be learning about our sense, their importance's and how we use them everyday. We have a bunch of fun experiments coming our way!

In English, we continue to review the daily sight words and are working on sounding out letters to form small words. We do need to continue to review the letter sounds in English, seeing that we are sometimes getting the French and English sounds mixed up.
Next week we only have a 3 day school week. Remember no school Monday and Tuesday. That's all I can think of at the moment. Have a great week and chat soon.
Laurie Anne

Happy Halloween!

I can not believe that we are into the last week of October! EEeek how the time is going fast. We have a very busy week this week. A lot of things are going on in school.

On Monday afternoon the students will be attending a play based on the life of Emilie Carr. This will be most of the afternoon. there is young Rembrandts after school for those who are taking art lessons.

On Tuesday we have Mme Elaine is coming in to do an art project with our class for the Gala. Elaine has been a great addition to our school community. For those of you who do not know who she is I will give you a quick rundown. Elaine was a guest speaker last year at our Faith day for the students. She was born with a rare brittle bone disease which had her spend the first 5 years of her life in a hospital and the rest of her life in a wheel chair. Despite her small size Elaine has a huge personality, she is filled with zest and life and has a super awesome sense of style. She was asked last year to come and share her artistic talents with the students and her experiences in life. The students loved having her, so she is back this year. Elaine teaches our students so much just by being present in our school. Also Mad Science is on Tuesday at lunch for grade one and choir is at little recess.

We have music class with Mme Wilma on Wednesday. The students are loving music class with her and are singing along to all the songs!  Thursday is a big day for us. We have our pizza party at lunch so it is not necessary to pack your child a lunch, only a snack. If your child does not want any pizza please send them with a lunch. They are also aloud to wear their Halloween costume on Thursday. Holy Name has some rules in regards to costumes. Please no violent costumes, no masks, no swords, guns, knives. If your child's costumes requires make-up please be sure to apply at home. I cannot apply anything for them. We will have a class celebration at the end of the day. If you want you may send in a healthy treat for the students. Terry Fox donations are also due on Thursday. Not sure if you heard or not but Mr. Desrocher has challenged the students to collect more money than last year. If they reach that goal he will shave or wax his legs. Even if you donated on line I still need the forms back, so that we may tally the grand total. I also want to throw it out there how great it would be for those parents who pick up their children to maybe pick them up in a costume at the end of the day. It would be a great surprise for them!

We have no school on Friday because all the teachers are at the Faith Day convention. I hope you all have a super safe and fun Halloween night. There are lots of fun activities taking place all over the city this coming week end.

So that's all the news on what's happening at school, so lets get to things in class. We are going to be working on a couple of writing assignments in class based on Halloween. I am hoping to finish up our Science unit on colors and moving on the the 5 sens. In math, we are going to focus on correct number formation, especially when we get to higher numbers. Some students have been writing 02 for 20 and 12,32,42 when counting past 20 and higher. They are aware, but just need a little extra practice.  In social studies, we are taking a look at  school plans, how to follow a map and how to create a map of our classroom. In health class, students have been learning about proper hand washing. We are finishing up that unit and will move on the importance of brushing your teeth and how to keep them healthy by eating less sweets. Great timing seeing that Halloween is just around the corner.

Next months theme the students will be learning about fruits and vegetables. In the past I have done a project that involves your corporation. I am hoping to do it again this year. The students love it and the feed back I have received from the parents in the past has been nothing but positive. I have assigned each student a fruit/vegetable to bring into class on a particular day for the month of November. The deal is that the students all must try what is brought in, unless an allergy. They then will write in a book whether they liked what they have tried or not. Once they have finished trying everything on the list, the books are sent home for you to look over. It is an easy way to see what your child likes, so that making snacks/ lunches can be a little easier. It also saves you from trying out pomegranates for example to see if they like them or not. I will get the list out to you for Thursday. Feel free to add anything to the list or if you cannot find what you have been give to replace it with something else that is not on the list. Calgary has a lot more options out there than PEI did so I look forward to seeing what you might suggest or bring in. I will take care of the first couple of days in November. If you are unable to participate that's ok too, just let me know so I can make arrangements to get what is needed for that day.

That's all folks, a lot of info here! I wish you all a fabulous week! Happy Halloween.
Laurie Anne

Happy monday everyone!

Happy Monday!
I have sent home the reading packages today! I have explained to the students what is in there, how it works and when it is to be returned to school. I also gave them the option to take home their French reading packages to practice every night. With those though, they must be returned back to school everyday for silent reading time. You are more than welcomed to encourage your child to do so!!! Only a few decided to take there books home today. If you have any questions on the reading packages please let me know, id be happy to help you out. Please return them Monday October 27, 2014.

In French, we are starting to learn double sounds (ou, oi, on) we are also starting to play with putting different sounds together to form words or non-sense words. This can be great fun! If you have magnet letters at home or even a white board you can do this at home. We have been working on beginning letter sounds of words. For  example: if Madame says bateau, what is the first sound you hear? (b) Do you know another word that starts with that sounds? This can be fun to try with your child, it is a great indicator for you, to see if they know their sounds and are able to hear them in words. You can also try middle and ending sounds. Its easy to do in the car too!
We have started centers in class today. They are literacy based centers focusing on what we have previously covered in class. The centers change every two weeks. This week they have a focus on body parts, family, colors and letters.  During this time I will be doing guided reading. I hope to start this in the next couple of weeks once we have established a routine. I have started my evaluations for the report card. Some of the things your child will be asked are the letter sounds, names, to respond correctly to questions in French. For example: Comment t'appelle tu? Quel age as-tu?

In math, we started to count to 50 and by 10. We have also started to learn about 1 de plus (1 more than) and 1 de moins (1 less than) This has caused some confusion for some students. If you have a chance please go over this concept with your child at home. ( Show me 6. What is one more than 6? What is one less than 6?) We have been using manipulatives to help with the concept. We are doing great counting on from 1- 20, however are having trouble identifying numbers out of sequence. This is something you can help out at home. If you have a number line or by simply writing a number down and having your child say the number in French. We are starting to use ten frames to represent numbers. This helps your child visually associate the number set up in groups of 5.

In social studies, we continue to look at how to identify different groups, whether it be by their clothing, language they speak or different symbols. Once we finish this we will be moving onto our rights and responsibilities.

Science we continue to explore colors. In the next couple of days we will take a look at the different hair colors in our class as well as eye color.

Things to keep in mind this week....
You still have time to get your Gala tickets if you have not yet. We had a parent donate their tickets to a family who might not otherwise be able to afford to attend. WOW! Thank you for doing that!
Choir is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 10h15
Gala basket winners for the pizza party will be tomorrow.
Christian action Friday at 9h30
** There is a parent information night at Our Lady of Assumption school) Wednesday on Mood regulation, anxiety, anger and sleep issues starting at 7h30pm**
Reading packages are to be returned Monday October 27|

That is all for now! Have a super week!
Laurie Anne :)

Bravo parents!!

Hi everyone,
First of all I have to say a huge MERCI to all of you who have helped to fill our classroom Gala basket! Last week we had 12 items remaining and today we have none! Thank you so much for this. The students are pretty proud too! You still have time as well to get your tickets to the Gala if you have not yet. Ill be there with Mike, ready to bid on some awesome baskets and prizes.

I hope you all had a great long week end with your family! I had a great time on PEI. I love the island in the fall, it has so many more colors than Calgary gets. As you may have heard I was not in school Tuesday. We missed our flight back, we mixed up the times!!! So Monday we had quite the adventure to get back here on time. We ended up in 5 provinces LOL, it was all worth it though.

This week is almost over so here is what is going on so far. We have started our family trees, we are still missing some family pictures. I wrote most of you a note in the agenda letting you know. I am hoping to finish them this week and start to present them next week.  We are also going to start to learn about Halloween vocabulary. We will have finished all the sounds of the letters in the alphabet this week and will be moving onto double French sounds. They can be a little tricky and should be reviewed regularly.

I have started to get your child's reading packages together. I was hoping to send them home this week, but missing my flight has put me a day behind. I am hoping to come in on the week end to get them ready. In the package there will be 4 French books in there own courier bag to be returned everyday. In another courier bag there will be 1 French book with the stories of the week, 2 English books (photocopy books, if I can get my hands on colored books Ill send those home) 1 French book from the oui, oui, oui collection. With this collection you will get a CD, which can stay home until the end of June. There will also be puzzle pieces, please be sure to count them once you are finished using them. If all the pieces are not returned your check will be cashed to replace the missing pieces. This package can stay at home until the following Monday. We will exchange every Monday. If you haven't read the books just let me know and I can re-send them home for that week. I also like to try and add some games that you can play at home, so look for those also.
I have to say that all your children are super excited to learn how to read in French. We practiced today and talked about picking the right books, that it is ok if you are not on the same level as someone else. We also talked about how they are responsible for themselves and their learning. It was great to hear some of their comments.

Friday is student faith day. There will be events planned all day based around this special day. They are asking if the students still have their blue bracelets from last years Faith Day to wear them to school on Friday. This years theme is "Love Kindness'.

I am looking for any volunteers who may want to help me out.....it is very peaceful work....at least I like to think it is. I need someone to help cut some laminate. There's a lot there and I wont be done until November if I do it all by myself. If you are interested in taking it home with you and cutting it up for me please let me know!

Also if anyone wants to come in the next couple of weeks to do a Halloween craft or read some Halloween stories, we would love to have you!!

I think that is all for this week.
Laurie Anne :)

Happy Turkey day!

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the late posting! We have a short week this week seeing that Friday is an PD day. I am off to the wonderful PEI for thanksgiving....yes only for 3 days but you just cant beat thanksgiving on the island, the smell of the leaves, the different colors and spending it with your family. The students are super excited that I am going because I will be bring back Dimoitou. He was my class puppet that I had in PEI. He is quite the traveler and has been to Italy, Africa, different parks of Alberta and BC. I am sure you will hear all about it when he arrives.

This week we continue to learn about the members in our family. The students have been learning about when you use une, la, un and le. "Une" and "la" are feminine words so they are used when talking about maman, soeur, tante, grand-maman. "Un" and "le" are used when talking about papa, frère, oncle, grand-papa. We will start our family tree next week. I think I am only waiting a couple of other students to bring in their family pictures. Once we complete the family tree, the students will present them in class, in French! They will receive a mark for their presentation. Feel free to practice at home with them. The can use the following structure. "Voici ma maman. Elle s'appelle.....", Voici ma petite soeur, Voici mon grand frère." They will need to do this for every member of the family. For those who want they can also add the age. "Ma maman est....ans"

The students continue to write in their French journals. They are working on writing a proper sentence, starting it with an upper case letter and finishing it with a period. We are also working on following a line of print and making sure not to add an upper case in the middle of their sentences.

Math, the students continue learn about numbers 1-20 and how to recognize the written form. We have started to count by 10 up to 100 and are learning about place value. I encourage you all to practice counting at home as high as they can and writing the numbers now so that they can work on their reversals.

In health we are going over proper hand washing and when to wash our hands. Please go over this at home with your child.

Things to remember....
Our thanksgiving liturgy is Thursday October 9th at 2h00. You are all invited to attend.
The food bags are to be returned tomorrow October 9th, (sorry I didn't get them to you sooner)
**We still have 12 items remaining on our list to complete our classroom basket. The Gala has put a call out for more donations, and they would also like to remind all parents that they have just one more week remaining to collect items. The Gala is November 1st. I hope you all got your tickets, its funny and you could get yourselves some great prizes! They also have auctions you can bid on, whether by yourselves or with other parents. Last year some parents pooled their money to get their child's class and extra fieldtrip ;) I also went to see a play with one girl I taught and her sister. It was great.  Here is the link to the Gala basket if you are not sure what to get or sign up for.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d49acae2fa0ff2-happy
If you cannot access it you can find the link to it on the school's webpage.

Thanks all for now. I wish you all a happy safe thanksgiving week end. May you spend it all with those you love and get out to enjoy the fresh air. See you all next week.
Laurie Anne

October is upon us!

Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a great week end with your family. Thank you to all of you who made it to parent reading night. Those who didn't if you have any questions feel free to drop me a line. I cannot believe that October is upon us! Where did September go? With a new month comes a new theme to learn about in grade one. The month of October is about our family, Halloween and body parts.

I will be sending home a note this week where it is asking you for some pictures of all the members of your family. You will not be getting that back as the students will be cutting them up and gluing them to their family tree. Please pick pictures that are not to small and if possible individual ones of each family member is easier. If you could please put them in a ziplock and label it with your child's name that would be super. you can put the information sheet in there as well.

We are starting to know all the letter sounds of the alphabet and are going to be learning about some of the more common double sounds that they will be seeing more often (like "ou" "on"). I hope the paint chip sight words are working out for you at home. I love that some of you are working on writing them down, it is not necessary but they kids are soo excited to show me and I get as excited as them when they do! Keep up the great work! We are also learning the difference between vowels and consonants. We will  be starting to put letter sounds together to form small words. You can do this at home as well. If you have magnet letters or even white boards. Do not worry if the words make sense its all about recognizing the sounds.

In math we have finished the patterns unit with great success. We are moving onto representing and recognizing number 1-20.The students must be able to recognize the number and say it in French and also the corresponding word that goes with it. For example 15-quinze. They should also be able to count out 15 items. I will be sending home hopefully this week a bag with the numbers and written words up to 20. Play matching games, memory, putting them in order or just practice saying them out of sequence. It is very easy for the students to count 1-20 no problem but they often struggle counting backwards as well out identifying numbers out of order.

We continue to learn about colors in Science class. They students are starting to be able to recognize the written words for each color. They have also been using the dictionary to help them out. I am so proud of them for using that strategy. They will be learning about how one color can be a darker or lighter shade.

We are pretty lucky to have Mme Wilma come in to help teach the music program. We are hoping that she will be with us the entire year. So far she has come once and we are looking forward to seeing her again next week.

Library will always be on day 2 of the 6 day cycle. Please be sure to return your child's book on or before. I will try to always leave a reminder in the agenda.

We also had a fire drill practice last week. the students did great. Feel free to talk with them at home about fire drill procedures and also what should they do if a fire breaks out in your home, how to get out, who to call, where to go....We will also be talking about lock down procedures in the next couple of weeks. Sometimes students get a little scared about this chat, so if you want to have one at home before we do at school feel free. We are going to be having a lock down practice sometime in October.

We have a busy week at school this week. The Terry Fox run is tomorrow afternoon. The assembly is starting at 1:30 then we are heading out to run. Please feel free to join us if you can. It is also school spirit day, so all the grade ones are to wear purple. Please make sure you child is dressed for the weather, we are going out even if it is raining a bit, so they are free to bring umbrella's.
-Picture day is FRIDAY OCTOBER 3, I sent home today the sign up sheet that you are to fill in and send back to school, please do so by Thursday.
-Also if you have not done so already please send in your checks for the CD deposit. Do not forget to date it for June 20th, 2015.
-Special lunch is on Wednesday: Extreme Pita.
-Scholastic orders are in, will be sent home tomorrow.

I think that's all folks! Have a great week!
Keep smiling:)

Welcome to a new School year!

Hi everyone,
I finally remembered my password to the blog! Thanks for your patience. Welcome to a new adventure called grade one! I was so happy to meet all of you last week at the meet and greet. I am very excited for this year and I know working along side all of you will be great. Thank you for all your support so far!
Every week I will post a new message to let you know what will be happening in class, at the school and everything in between. At the beginning of every month I will post what your child will be covering, the theme, math concepts and so on. If you need anything feel free to contact me anytime via email or give the school a call.

The month of September in Mme Laurie Anne's class is all about routine, structure, expected behaviours and setting/following the rules. So far it has been fabulous! This months theme is "A l'ecole avec mes amis" At school with my friends. We have been learning the different letter sounds and names in French. I like to teach the sound first then the name. I also teach them a hand action to go along with the sound. I follow the Jolly Phonics program in both French and English. It helps the students remember the sounds. You can find the English songs online. We have been working on our printing skills as well both upper and lower case. They still need some work, seeing that some continue to have reversals. Please feel free to work on this at home. Some fun things to try are drawing the letters in sugar, flour or fill a ziplock with paint and have them practice on the bag. You can also get a white board at Dollarama and practice with that. Play-doh is also fun!

In math we are reviewing numbers 0-10 in French and learning how to recognize and write the French written number. We have started our math unit which is patterns. Students are learning about what/ how to make a pattern, repetition, prolonging and how to have several different attributes to one pattern. We have started our number printing book as well. I encourage you to count with your child at home as high as they can count and practice writing the numbers out.

Science we have been learning about all the different colors. We will be doing some fun experiments in the next couple of weeks. I was hoping that some brave soul might want to come into class and make play-doh with us? If your up to it please let me know.

Social studies we are learning about being a member of a group. The focus is all about being a good person, learning to get along with different personalities and respecting all cultures.

Things you might want to make note of.....
-We have Lacrosse week in gym. We have two Roughneck players here to teach the kids some skills. Our class will have gym Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
-Library will always be on day 2 in the afternoon. If you have not please send your child's book back with them tomorrow so they may return it.
-Choir sign up was today. If your child is interested in singing with the choir they can go see Mme Kitt. You must give them permission, just leave a note in the agenda.
Young Rembrants art class starts Monday 22 after school.
- Gala Basket theme for our class is Happy Hobbies. We have already started to get donations. You may send them into class at anytime. This is the link to sign up: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d49acae2fa0ff2-happy If you cannot access this you can go to the school website and click the Gal picture and it will direct you where you need to go. I love our theme for this year it is very fitting!
- Thursday is the parent reading information night. I hope to see you all there, if not we can arrange a time to get together and go over the information covered. Please do not forget to come with a cheque date for June 20th, 2015. It will be a deposit on the reading CD that you will get with the reading package, as well as for any puzzle pieces that might become lost.
That's all I got for now! Have a super week everyone!
Laurie Anne

Busy week

Hi Everyone,
This week in grade one we have a lot going on it seems. Just wanted you all to know that tomorrow is the last day for Scholastic orders if you have not already handed them in. I will be placing the orders hopefully Friday after school.

The ice cream reading challenge is still on going. We have had some very successful students who have already gotten their bowl, spoon and first scoop of ice cream! Bravo! Remember parents any reading that they do at home with you can count, don't forget to sign when they read for at least 10 mins. Students have been letting me know when they are ready to be tested for their words and sentences. Its great to see how excited they are about this challenge, I am hoping that they are enjoying reading to you as well.

This week I have sent home two permission slips. The one that is blue is for your child to be able to participate in a skye conversation with Fabian Cousteau. He will be partaking in an under water study of ocean life. He will be under water for a period of 31 days, this was previously attempted by his grand-father who was success in living on the ocean floor for 30 days. It is called Mission 31. Here is the link if you wish to seek out more information. http://mission-31.com/ . Please be sure to sign this permission form otherwise your child will not be able to partake in the skype session with the rest of the school.

You may have also seen a permission form for Butterfield acres that was sent home yesterday. Please also make sure to sign this and send it in by the end of the week. We will be heading there for June 18th, for the whole day. Thank you to all who have volunteered. I have had some parents ask if they can come join us. I will check and see if it would be alright for others to come. I believe if it is allowed you would be required to pay your own entrance fee seeing that we have only allotted for 4 parents in our budget. I believe it is a cost of $5. I can always get back to you if you email me with an interest to go.

Not sure if you heard from your child yet or not but we are raising butterflies in class. We got the larvae last week....this week they are caterpillars which are growing extremely fast. The students are amazed, but so am I. I cant get over how fast they have changed. We will be observing all the stages and once they become butterflies we will release them. They are called painted lady's if you wish to seek out more information to share with your child.

I mentioned before that we would be doing an author study on Barbara Reid with a focus on her illustrations however I never got around to finishing the activities. I will re introduce and be doing an art project with modeling clay. If you all could send in an empty CD case that you do not wish to get back I would really appreciate it. If you do not have a CD case I have used in the past 4x6 white easels at dollarama that has word great, you may also send one of those in. If I could have them in by June 6th it would be really appreciated!

In math we are deep into addition and subtraction. Addition has come easily to most however subtraction is causing a few bumps in the road. If you have time can you please explain to your child the concept, play some math games or go over addition and subtractions 1-20.

Friday is spririt day this months theme is Cultural. If you child wishes to participate please send them to school dressed. Also there is still time for your child to show off their talent. Tomorrow will be the last day for them to audition. Please have a note in their agenda to allow them to participate.

I think that is all for this week. Thanks again for everything.
LA

Hello sunshine!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a restful long week end and were able to get out and about with your family. I had a great trip to Seattle. The ocean air was calling me and how great it was to soak it all in !

This month is going by so fast as it always does and before you know it June is here and gone. In class we are really going to focus on our FRENCH reading and writing as well as our addition and subtraction up to 20. Students have been working on writing french stories in class. They are excited to share them with the class once they are done. They are developing good spelling strategies by sounding it out, looking on the word wall, looking in a dictionary or asking a friend or me for help.

 In math we are learning about all the different ways to add and solve problems. Students have been using manipulatives to show different addition problems as well as to help count on or solve problems. They are learning that there can be key words to help them know that they must add. For example en tout (in total), le total ( the total) or ajoute (add). They will also be learning how to solve story problems. You can help your child at home by practicing additions up to 20. You can use flash cards, grab a deck of cards and play a game of math war. You split the deck in half and each of you flip the cards over at the same time, the first to solve the addition problem gets to keep it. The most wins. Another game you can play to practice additions is to use domino's, have your child to solve the problems on each domino piece. The students also need to continue to work on counting by 2 and 5 in french. Also if you could have them write it out it would be a big help for them to practice there number formation too. There are several students who continue to have number reversals. (2,3,4,5,7,9).

I have sent home the Kids in the know sheet today. I am hoping to start that this week. We will be talking about personal safety strategies. Students will learn how to protect themselves and how to make the right choices. We usually have great chats and students have many "What if questions" If your child comes home after a class and wants to chat about the topic, please take the time to talk with them.

In the next couple of weeks I will be looking for parent volunteers to come and talk with students about their career choice. In health we will be learning that everyone has different interest that leads them into different jobs. If you are interested in coming into class and chatting to them please let me know.

I hope that you are all working hard towards helping your child achieve their ice cream sunday! I know it can be challenging especially this time of year. Some easy ways to have your child read would be when you make supper, on the way to soccer, swimming, gymnastics have them read to you in the car, before bed. You do not have to be next to them to have them read for 10 mins. Have them read to you a loud and do not forget about the French! It is easy to do because you all feel that you can help more in English, let me assure you they are all doing fairly well with English reading! They need that extra French practice and the more they read the better they will get, the better they get the more confidence they get, the more they participate in class, the more they speak French to everyone!

Thats all for now!

Happy Friday

Hi everyone,
Happy Friday to you all, too bad it is raining and is not suppose to be nice all week end long! Regardless I hope that you will all get out and do something fun with the family, maybe visit the library near your house to get the kids ready for summer ready or maybe explore the Science center. Whatever it may be have fun!

Month is upon us already and with that we will be switching our focus from farm life towards plants and insects. We will also be learning some very important safety tips in Health class and in Social studies the students will learn about the country they live in and the provinces and territories that make up Canada. In math we have started to look at addition and subtraction again. The students will be required to know simple addition and subtractions up to 20. We have also been reviewing skip counting by 2,5,10. I think most students have forgotten how to do so. Please can you review this with them at home. My suggestion is to have them write out the numbers or you can draw out a number line with numbers up to 50 for now to practice. I noticed that some could skip count orally however when I put a number line there and asked them to do the same thing, a lot of them did not know what to do.

We will also be doing an author study on Barbara Reid. We will learn how she creates her illustrations with platiscine and the different technique's she uses to create her fun lifelike pictures. I would like to ask you all to send in an empty CD case that you will not need back, seeing that we will be using it to create a picture.

We are nearing the end of the year and my focus for the remaining time will be on reading and writing simple sentences. It would be beneficial for your child to read more at home in FRENCH. Studies have shown that over the summer students drop at least two reading levels. My goal is to have them all beyond the recommended reading level of 7-8 which is E. I can only do this with your help and hope that over the summer you continue to read with your child in French so that they maintain what they have learned and enter grade two exactly where they are meant to be. If any of you would like I can always meet you at your local library and show you what types of books are good for your child to read over the summer. Just let me know. We will also be taking part in an ice-cream reading challenge, once I figure out all the details I will send home the information. Look for it next week. This will require your time to sit down and read with your child and to sign a paper to show that they have read.

That's all the news I have for now. Take care and stay dry!
Laurie Anne

EEEkkk long overdue!

Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well. Sorry for the long overdue post. This month in grade one we have been learning about farm animals, their homes, the sounds they make and what they eat. Students will be responsible for researching their favorite farm animal and putting the information into a book. They are to pick an animal, find out where it lives, what it eats and state what they like about that animal. They will share it with the class. We have also started to write our own stories in class and the students are very excited about this. Some have already finished their first story and are working on their second. My hope is to have a meet the author day in June, where the students can show you their books. We will have to see how theses next couple of weeks go. I hope that you are all still reading in French at home with your child. This is the time where you should see it become more easy for them to read and that they are starting to read with fluidity and expression. If you notice they are still a little choppy and that the flow is not all that great, you can help that along by reading daily a loud.

In math, we finished measurement and now will put all our focus into addition and subtraction up to 20. You can help them along at home by making flash cards or asking them math questions.

In health, we are finishing up the food groups and will start to look safety. We will also be doing Kids in the know in the next couple of weeks so look for the permission form in your child's agenda.

In social studies, the students loved learning about the differences between country and city living. We will switch our focus in the next couple of weeks towards learning about Canada, the provinces and so on.

I have to say a big thank you to Anna and Shae for having their family come into class the other day and play guitar and sing songs. The kids loved it and so did I !!

That's all I can think of at the moment. I hope to run into some of you tonight at Spring Fling! Have a great rest of the week!
Laurie Anne

Hello March!

March is upon us and flying by already. I hope the report cards found you all. If you have any questions regarding them please contact me to discuss.

This month students will be learning about ways to get around. They will be learning about transportation and how not all places have the same types of transportation as we do. We will also be focusing on Rhyming words, punctuation and reading with expression.

In social studies students continue to learn about urban and rural areas (urbaine-ville, rurales-campagne) We will look at the different characteristics that make up city life and country life.

In health, students are looking at the Canadian food guide and learning about portion sizes and what is recommended for them at this age. We will also review fruits and vegetables.

In math, we will be starting our unit on measuring. We will also continue to count to 100, by 2,5 and 10.

Religion class students are learning more about Lent.

I am going to send home a note this week sometime explaining this months project. Students are required to invent their own means of transportation. they can do so with any thing they find around the house. In the past I have had students make their projects out of fruits and vegetables, pop bottles, card board boxes and so on. Please be as creative as possible. It can be a new invention all together or the students take on an old one. We will present them to the class. Students will be evaluated on their use of French when presenting so feel free to practice at home.

We have our last class of in line skating tomorrow. Bricks for kids is also starting to finish up.
I hope to see you all Thursday and Friday at parent teacher. This time around it is student lead so make sure to bring them with you. They will show you what they have learned.

That's all for now.
Laurie Anne

Where did February go?

Wishing you all a happy day,

In French, we have just started to review parts of the house and the house hold items that you can find in those rooms. We will continue to work on this for the next couple of weeks. We will also be learning about syllables and how to separate words into syllables.

In Health, we will be wrapping up our feelings and moving onto the five different food groups. Students will have the chance to take a closer look at the Canadian food guide.

In social studies, students will learn about the differences between urban and rural communities once we finish up our environment.

In math, we are finishing up the shapes unit and will move onto measurement. Students really enjoyed the shapes unit and this week will be reviewing what they learned. Please continue to practice counting with your child 1-100. They would also benefit from counting backwards 20-1 seeing that some still struggle with this concept.

In English, students will be learning about the many different word families. We are also going to start writing more simple sentences focusing on proper punctuation and capitalization. We do need to finish up explode the code and so I might include it in your Child's reading package so that we may move on.

Calling all musicians.....do we have any talented parents who would like to come in and show the students your skills. I would love to introduce them to different instruments seeing that they are loving using the xylophones.

The 100 day of school is coming up soon. We will celebrate the day by doing activities throughout the day. If you wish to come help and lead an activity please feel free to do so. I am also wondering if you are all willing to help your child create a fun t-shirt with 100 things glued onto it that they can wear the day of to celebrate. You can glue pompons, buttons, bottle caps, macaroni or just about anything.

 Here is some ideas from pinterest if you are up for the challenge of leading an activity or want to contribute to the day.

http://www.pinterest.com/allison_drake/100th-day-of-school/

For the month of March the students will be learning about modes of transportation. I have done this class project for the last 3 years and the students loved it! I do need all of your help to make this a success though. I am asking that you send out emails, facebook messages, letters and so on to have your friends from around the world whether they be far or near to send our class postcards from wherever they live or are visiting. They can include on the post card some interesting facts about the place they are from or are visiting, the food they eat there, the language they speak, population and so on. They may send these post cards addressed to our class. Once we get the post cards rolling in we as a class read the messages talk about the details that are added, find it on the map and talk about how could we get there. Could we fly, walk, take a train and so on.
Also I know most of you will be going on some adventures over the March break. If you are willing to take a class puppet along with you that would be fantastic. All that is required that one it speaks in French lol and that you take a picture of you all and the puppet along the way. I brought my class puppet to Italy and England one year. He also travelled to Africa with some of my friends. The students loved seeing their puppet. Let me know if you are interested.

 

Here is the address of the school where your friends and family can send the postcards. Thanks for your support in advance.

La classe de Mme Laurie-Anne
Ecole Holy Name School
3011 35 St SW, Calgary, AB
T3E 2Y6


Things to keep in mind for this week at Holy Name.
Monday- ALL reading packages are due back. Some of you have not returned these for some time. Please return them so that other students may have the chance to read them.
Wednesday students are to wear pink shirt in support of anti-bullying. Please have a chat with them to talk about this topic.
Friday we have an assembly at 9h30 to celebrate those students who received a confidence nomination.

Carnaval

Hi folks,
I am going to repeat the same sight words, sounds as last week seeing that these two weeks were not full weeks. This week is also Carnaval at Holy Name. Students will be having a fun day Friday. They will be outside for most of the afternoon so please make sure that they are dressed for the weather. Don't forget too that Friday is red and white day to show our Olympic spirit. It is also sandwich day too. A lot happening. Could you please send in the reading packages as well some of the packages are missing puzzle pieces and so on so that needs to be fixed up. That's all for now.
Laurie Anne

Brrr its cold outside!

I hope you are all staying warm these last couple of days! Its hard to get motivated to get out and do when its that cold.

This week is flying by, the whole month of February I feel is flying by too. This week in French we are finishing up the booklets J'aime...Je n'aime pas. We are also working on writing small stories, where students can chose to write what they wish or follow a repetitive text. This story will be evaluated for their report card. I have told the students that I am looking for neat printing, spaces between words, periods at the end of their sentences and that their sentences make sense. We are reviewing vowels and their sounds. We have a weekly message and each morning we work on a different concept or strategy. The students are loving this and find it so silly when I mix up the sentences. I must say, some of them are getting better and picking out the mistakes by simply listening to me read it a loud.

In math we have finished our testing of counting by 2,5,10 as well as identifying written numbers up to 20. They also had to fill in the missing numbers on a hundreds frame. They students got to play with the geoplan boards the other day. It was interesting to see them trying to manipulate the elastic into shapes. We played a game of what am I, where I give characteristics of shapes and the students have to represent them on their geoplan.

In English we are finishing up our colours booklet and we will be working on a small story about ourselves. If any of you would like to volunteer your time once a week to come in and read with the students we would greatly appreciate it. If you are interested please let me know. Don't forget if you have time to practice the English sight words! You could always play tic-tac-word!

In social studies we have been talking about the environment, how to be responsible and how we all have responsibilities at home, at school and in our communities. I had chatted to some of you about my ideas on creating a project that the students can do at home to help them with their listening skills and make them more responsible....aka  doing chores! I found the perfect sheet at Scholars choice the other day. I have laminated it so you may use it over and over again!! I will be sending them home on Monday in the reading package. You may keep these home to use. My goal for doing this project is to have the students work on listening skills, once you tell them their chores or to go do their chores they are to listen to you the first time. NO REPEATING! This requires you to think of a consequence though, so I am relying on you all to be tough! I will send home a note attached with more details. Here are some  articles I read about how to make kids listen... I am trying some of the strategies in class.

http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2010/03/20/how-to-get-students-to-listen-to-you/
http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/parenting/discipline-behavior/25-ways-talk-so-children-will-listen

In religion we are learning about paraboles. If you have not done so yet please send in the meaning and reasoning why you named your child. I am loving reading the ones so far, each one of them have touched me!

Tomorrow we have a theatre group coming in to present to the students. On Friday there is also another group coming to present to the students and in the afternoon the students will have their Valentine's dance. Students are asked to wear pink and red that day. If you wish to send in valentines I will be sending home a class list with the students names. You might notice a new name on there, we are suppose to get a new student Monday.

I think that is all this week.
Stay warm,
Laurie Anne

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the delay on this weeks post.
We are still working on everything mentioned in last weeks post. We continue to work on our books "J'aime mais je n'aime pas" Some of the students are doing a great job and putting forth a lot of effort into their work. Today we were detectives and went through the dictionary to find all the hard and soft "g's". They students really enjoy doing this and love seeing if their friends found the same ones as them. I have been trying to get the students to speak more in French and to answer in complete sentences rather than just one short answer.This helps them practice speaking in French and being able to recognise correct sentence structures.

In math we are working on comparing objects, finding out their similarities, differences and the different ways to classify them. You can practice this at home if you want, here are some of the words we are using to describe shapes. face plane (flat surface) courbe (curves) points, coin (corners) empiler (to pill or stack) rouler (to roll) glisser (to slide) sommet. We still need to work on counting backwards from 20 in French.

I have a social studies projects in the makes but it requires your help. Once I figure out all the details I will let you all know.

I hope the reading is going well I can see a change in those who are reading daily at home! Keep working on the French sounds as well. Once they have those mastered the reading will come that much easier.

We still have lacrosse this week. Library will be on Friday.I think that is about all. Not much this week. Have a great rest of the week.
Laurie Anne :)

Je parle en francais!

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a great week end and are enjoying the great weather! I hope it keeps up this coming week!

In French we continue to learn about winter sports and clothing. The students are starting to learn about singulier(singular) and pluriels (plural). There are a couple of rules in French when it come to pluriel. For example if a word finishes with eau or ou you must use an "x" rather than an "s". Bateau- les bateaux, un hibou-les hiboux. Also they are begining to see more often in their reading books words that finish with "ent" in most cases "ent" does not speak. It shows the reader that there is more than one person or thing being talked about. They will also notice if there is "ils" or "elles" usually "ent" will follow. For example: Ils jouent dehors., Maman, papa, Sophie et moi courent.
We continue to work on making story predictions, answering the 5w's and talking about the beginning, middle and end of the stories. In class the students are also learning to pick out important details in the text. We have been practicing reading small texts and then doing what it tells use to do, whether it is to color the jacket green and his mitts purple or to put an x on the dog. I will be giving the students a quiz regarding this at the end of the week, which I will count for the report card on reading comprehension and reading/following instructions.

We will also be working hard this week on producing complete sentences with an upper case to start and a period to end the sentence. The students will be require to create a booklet on the things that they like (j'aime) and the things that they do not like (je n'aime pas). They will present their book to their classmates. I will also be evaluating who is able to produce a complete sentence, who is able to present their book orally in French to the class.

I will be including a sheet with the pronunciation of French words in English to help you all out at home with pronouncing words. All the letters of the alphabet are included along with combined sounds. I hope this will help you all out!

In health we are learning about being a good friend, how to react to both positive and negative situations and the emotions that we can experience in a run of a day. Students will learn that we are not all the same, but unique in our own ways and might react differently to different situations.

In social studies we have been learning about our environment and how we have a responsibility to protect it. Some of the students are very excited about this and are wanting to do their part....like going to a beach to clean up its shores. We talk a lot about marine life for some reason when it comes to protecting our environment and they are all concerned for the safety of whales.

In math we continue to play with shapes. They will have a quiz at the end of the week which requires them to pick out particular shapes mixed in with a bunch of others. They must be able to recognise un carre (square), un cercle (circle), un rectangle (rectangle), un losange (diamond) un triangle(triangle). I will also be sending home math sheets that have a 100 frame on it, it asks that you skip count by 2,5,10. You can have your child color the numbers when you count by counting by 2,5,10. please le me know if you would like math sheets with addition and subtractions sent home, seeing that we will be taking a break from practicing them to continue working on our shapes.

English we are working on colors and reading and producing  small complete sentences. We are also focusing on making story predictions and answering the 5w's. If any of you would like extra work sent home for English please let me know. I have put together a duo tang with extra work, saong with activities to do with your child to build their phonemic awareness. There are several activities for each level, 5 levels in total.

This week at school we have our New years liturgy. We will be singing a song and Annika will be doing a reading from our class. This will take place on January 22. Bricks for kids have started and young Rembrandt will start on Monday.

I think that's all for now. Enjoy the day and see you soon.
LA

Oh ps; We have started Je parle en francais and I am happy to say I am impressed with some of the students speaking French all the time and how eager they are to do so. I hope this continues!! Bravo mes amis! Je t'aime.

Great first week back!

Happy Friday !
What a great week back! I must the week went by fast! The students were great and ready to learn. I hope next week is the same for all of us!

This coming week we will continue to work on learning about clothing, winter activities and sports. We have started to have weekly morning messages where the students are required to read it every morning. Through out the week I might change a few words, mix up an entire sentence or take out the punctuation. Students love doing this and they find when I mix up the sentence to be so silly. Little do they know they are starting to learn and recognize proper sentence structures.
I will also be start next week Je parle en francais reward chart. I find that a lot of our students are able to speak French but chose to speak in English instead. By implementing the chart I hope to motivate them to speak in French and make it a habit to do so. Once students have the chart filled they will be able to pick from the prize box.

In French class we are really starting to work on double sounds and playing with words. We are learning how to decode and cut words apart by sounding them out.
Math class is pretty fun lately seeing that we are playing with blocks and working with different shapes. This coming week we will work on classifying objects by similar traits and look around our surroundings at the shapes we can find in everyday life.
In health today we reviewed how to properly wash our hands and had a chat about H1N1. In health in the coming weeks we will talk about how we are all unique and how to be a good friend.

I will be sending home in their reading package on Monday some memory games with winter activities as well as clothing. These can stay at home. I am also going to send home double French sounds like oi, ou and on. If you have time please feel free to practice these with your child, it will help them with their reading skills.

The virtue of the month is Gentleness and boy oh boy we have some gentle souls in our room. Yoga will start next week as well as Bricks for kidz. Sandwhich day is on Friday. We got second the last time and the kids were so pumped about it. We also won the good deed cup for the Turkey donation to the Food Bank. Every now and then I see a couple of them giving it a rub or a touch.It keeps them motivated.

Thats about it for this week. Enjoy the week end. If any of you are looking to get out of the city I know that they are having a kick off for the olympics in Banff tomorrow from 2-4. Sounds like a great time with lots of activities for you and the kids. Chat soon and see you next week.
Laurie Anne :)

Happy New Year!

Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a great break and are well rested. My break went way to quick and the snow never stopped slamming the maritime's! I am glad to be back and ready to start 2014 refreshed and motivated. I have many resolutions and I am hoping to keep them....for at least a couple of months!

This month in grade one we will be learning about the different winter activities one can do, as well as the clothing we might need to keep warm. We will also be learning about verbs, pronouns and the important ingredients to make a story complete-beginning, middle, end. I tend to teach the students this by showing them a hamburger. The top bun is the beginning of the story, the ingredients or juicy parts is the middle of the story and the bottom bun is the ending holding it all together.
 I will also be focusing on the comprehension of texts by learning how to make story predictions, retelling the story with details and by giving their own personal opinion on whether they liked the story or not. Some of our books are coming in that we ordered from the Gala money!YOUPIE! In those books that have arrived there are some beautiful non-fiction text. We will be reading some of those in class and talking about what we already know about the subject being read, what we would like to learn more about this subject and what we learn by reading the text. 

In math we have put aside the addition for the time being. Please continue though to work on these at home. For the next couple of weeks we will be explore the world of geometry. Students will learn about the different characteristics of shapes and how to class shapes based on these. They will also look at 2d shapes and 3d shapes.

Social studies we will take a closer look at what we need to do to protect our environment and what we can do to help it last for years to come.

We are responsible for putting on the New Years liturgy this coming  month which will be on the 22 of January. We are doing this with Mme Janice's class. More information will soon be sent home.

I also added new books to the reading package to give you more options at home. These can stay in the reading pack until Monday, where I will exchange them for new ones. We also go new books yesterday for our in class library. If you would like for your child to take their French reading bag home every night to practice, please let me know. I would be more than happy to send them home. Please just make sure to send them back everyday, seeing that we use them for silent reading.
Dont forget to practice those sight words when you get a chance!

I will start to do my reading evaluations this month. By the end of grade one your child should be reading at level 7-8. However I always like to have them reading at least two levels above where they should be. It is a known fact that over the summer students drop at least two reading levels if they are not reading. By having them ahead if they drop they are still exactly where they are meant to be reading wise.

I think thats all. Thanks again for the lovely gifts. Wishing you all a great week filled with positive energy!
Laurie Anne