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