Sunday, October 29, 2017

Happy Halloween!

Where did the month of October go?? I cannot believe we are in the last week of October and starting November already. I find the time usually zips by from now to Christmas. In the month of November we will start to fund raise for the annual Turkey drive, you will learn more about that later, we will start to practice our Christmas song for the concert which is usually the first week of December, I will have to confirm that date. Evaluations will continue for the first part of the month and then reports cards will be making their way home at the end of the month. ** If you want to better prepare your child for evaluations they will be tested on alphabet letter sounds/names in both French and English, weekly sight words in both French/English up until now, associating numbers 0-20 to objects and written form (1= un, 19 = dix-neuf), identifying numbers 0-20 out of sequence as well as counting forwards/backwards up to 20. In English, three letter words, they are required to write and identify them in a sentence.**
On Tuesday October 31st students are allowed to come to school dressed in their costumes. I encourage you to dress up if you are dropping them off or picking them up. They love showing their friends there cool parents costumes. Please send your child in their costumes ready to go. If their costumes requires face paint that must be applied at home. I am not permitted to touch up their make-up. They are not allowed to wear masks or bring any weapons of any sort. We will have a Halloween celebration in the afternoon. If you wish to send in a health treat to share with the class you are welcome to do so. We will also be having lunch together this day thanks to some great parent volunteers who will be providing soup, rolls and I believe a desert. If your child is a picky eater I suggest that you send something in just in case they are not fans of the soup. It would be great if you could send in a plastic bowl along with a spoon to help reduce waste. I will have extras on hand, just in case you forget.

In the afternoon we are lucky to have parent volunteers coming into class to run Halloween centers from 1-2:30. The students loved carving pumpkins on Friday and I am sure they will love the centers as well.

There is no school on Wednesday November 1st seeing that staff will have their annual Faith day. We do have school Thursday November 2 and Friday November 3. I will not be here from November 2-8th. I will be attending ACPI which is a French Immersion conference. I lucked out because this year the conference is held in Charlottetown, PEI. Yay! I get to go home and learn. I also decided to extend my trip there for a couple of days seeing that I will not be able to fly home for Christmas this year! First one EVER! I have Mme Amy and Mme Johanne in for me to cover those days.

For the month of November we the students will be learning a lot of new things and will continue to build on their knowledge they have learned so far since September. Our theme this coming month will focus on fruits and vegetables, continue to learn about body parts and our 5 senses. These all tie in nicely and work well across the curriculum.
Students will also be starting to put sounds together to form little words in both French and English. We will play with letter tiles in class and work on blending these letters together. This is something you can also start to do at home with the Jolly Phonics cards that have been sent home weekly. This is great practice and will help your child on their reading journey.

To best learn the names of fruits and veggies our class requires a little help from yourselves. This class project is always a huge success for both the parents and the students. It does however involve your corporation and support. I am hoping for another successful year of getting students to try new things with a little positive peer pressure! I have assigned each student a fruit/vegetable to bring into class on a particular day for the month of November and the first couple days of December. The deal is that the students all must try what is brought in, unless an allergy. It has to touch their tongue and get on their taste buds! If they want to spit it out they are free to do so, at least they tried it. 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 and saving you some moola. The list will be sent home this week. 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. If you are unable to participate that's ok too, just let me know  in advance so I can make arrangements to get what is needed for that day. To make our life in grade one easier, we would love it if you sent in the items cut up and prepared for 23 students. Don't worry about napkins I got that covered. Thanks in advance for your support. I hope you will hear some positive stories about our tastings! I should also mention during this we use our 5 senses which is apart of our science unit. The students especially love when we bit in the fruits or veggies and the sounds they make.

Math is still identifying numbers 0-20 and we will be starting to look at simple addition and subtraction up 12 to start. If you have time students always struggle with the concept of subtraction. they would benefit by going over this with you at home. Words that you can use to help are moins (less) enleve (take away) soustraire/ soustractions (subtract/ subtraction). I will also be sending home an association game that you can play with your child. They are required to associate the numbers to the written word up to 20. Please practice when you have time.

Science, we are learning about our five senses, (la vue (sight), le toucher (touch), le gout (taste) l'odorat (smell), l'ouie (hearing). Each week we will learn about a sense and build on that as the weeks pace. We will learn about Helen Keller as well as a boy who uses echolocation to get around.

 In Social Studies, students have been learning how to identify different groups, whether by the clothing they were (uniforms), symbols (maple leaf) language they speak, music and so on. They are encouraged to pay attention to different symbols they see, languages they hear when they are out and about. We will also look at National symbols.

 In English, we have started to put sounds together to form new words or nonsense words with a focus on three letter words. We are also paying closer attention to rhyming words we hear in stories. We are also looking at the beginning, middle and ending sounds of words. Students have also been learning about books, the title, title page, publishers, authors, illustrators and why some books have write ups on the back cover.

This week and next info to note:
I will be sending home Scholastics book orders for this month. If there are any Christmas gifts just let me know and I will put them aside.
No school on Wednesday Nov 1st- Faith day for teachers
Choir is Thursday at noon.
Library is Friday Nov 3rd
Pictures orders due and retakes are Nov 3rd
Gala November 4th.  I hope you all have a great time and get some great deals.
Remembrance day assembly is Nov 10th at 10:30am. All are welcomed.

A note from our lovely reading package volunteers: It would be very helpful if you could take out items that could stay at home such as reading CD, Jolly Phonics duo-tang and flashcards...

I think that is all...a lot of info to process. Happy Halloween everyone. be safe on Tuesday night with your little ones.
Laurie Anne

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

How are things?

Salut,
Welcome to a new week. How are things going with the reading packages? Are we all remembering to fill out the reading log sheets for both French and English? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Don't worry I am sure you are not alone. You do not have to do everything in the package every single day.  A lot of it is there to do throughout the week, all I ask is that you read everyday if possible with your child, whether they read to you or you read to them say at bedtime. Pick alternate dates French -Mon-Wed-Fri, English-Tues-Thurs. After you are done reading help them build on comprehension by asking the 5w's (who, what, when, where, why). I have been taking students during snack time to go over their sights words, the last two weeks I have only focused on the French side. I am very happy with their progress so far. You may see my chicken scratch initials on the cards, which means if they read 5 they got a prize from the prize box. Students had to read each word correctly in order to get a signature. For the rest of this week and next I will be asking them to read the English side, so please remind them to practice.

I have started to evaluate the students with their French alphabet sounds and names. Those tested so far have been great with sounds but seem to have forgotten the letter names in French. If you get a chance to review with them that would be great...even singing A,B,C in French will help.
In French and social studies we are learning about our family tree and how we are apart of that group. Students are also learning how to identify if the words are femine and masculine. ( un papa, une maman, la soeur...) In the next week we will start to learn our Halloween vocabulary and do some fun activities.

Today we talked about literacy centers and how we should behave in centers. I hope to start these in the next couple of weeks. As a class we will start to practice how centers should run and once we have got the hang of it, we will do them on a regular basis. Students will participate in 5-6 centers working in small groups of 3-4 children. At first students will be placed in groups at random. Once I have had the opportunity to read with them a couple of times they will be placed based on reading level. This will change through out the year based on progress and working well together. When students are in centers I will be working with a small group.

In Math, we have finished up with patterning and have moved onto numbers 0-20. Students are learning the different ways to count and represent numbers. They are required to recognize the written name of numbers 0-20 in French. (un, deux, trois, quatre...) These can be found in the yellow duo-tang if you are wanting to practice with them. We have also started to count backwards from 20-0 in French. 20-10 is a challenge, especial numbers 13,14,15,16.
Reminders:
Food donations are due tomorrow, please return bags.
Hip hop dance will start next week
Special lunch- Wednesday- Jugo juice
Happy Week!
Laurie Anne

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Hello fall....or should I say winter??

Happy October everyone,
We have a short week this week. Students do not have school on Friday October 6th seeing that teacher are attending a PD session. We also do not have school on Monday October 9th as well. I hope you will all enjoy your long week end and get to enjoy some family time and turkey.

School choir starts on Thursday at 11:45 in the gym. any student from grade 1-6 who want to join the Christmas choir are asked to bring their lunch to the gym at that time. Choir will be every Thursday after that, up until Christmas. If they do not want to join this choir there will be another after Christmas. More information will follow once they know more.

We have our Thanksgiving liturgy on Thursday at 1pm in the gym. All is welcome to attend.

The clothing drive has started, if you have any gently used clothing that you would like to donate to those in need, please bring them in. They will gladly accept infant- adult clothing as well as shoes. All they ask is that the clothing be cleaned and in good conditions. Please no rips or stains. All clothing can be placed on the gym stage, collection ends on Thursday.

The school is also looking for parent volunteers to come in October 10th at 9am to help sort the donated items. If you are interested please contact Mme Laviolette and she will get you into contact with the right people.

Family pictures are due on Thursday October 5th. Please send in individual pictures of each member if your family. Group photos are hard for the students to cut out everyone's head. Along with the pictures please in the form sent home last week with family members names.

Scholastic book orders are also due on Thursday October 5th. I want to get them in early just in case you are looking for some great Halloween books.

Picture day is also next week October 13th. Please mark that in your calendars.

Thanks again to all who are helping donate to our classroom basket. We have 4 items left...Mme Shelby has 2... we are in a slight competition with the grade 5 class....lol They students have me checking the status every other day.

Reading packages can be returned on Tuesday October 10th. Please be sure to fill out the yellow and blue pages with the title of the books and if it was easy, just right, or to hard. A lot of you did not do this and it makes it difficult for those exchanging to keep track of books, seeing we have limited copies. If you did not get to read the materials just let us know and you can keep it for another week.
I also wanted to correct myself, I said that there would be two paper books of each. That will start after Christmas. Right now your child will only receive 1 French, 1 English.
Also on Monday's you can send the whole package back in to be exchanged. I suggest you keep everything in the package so that you do not lose anything, however if you want to keep some items at home you may keep the following:  Pink book (until asked for it to be returned), reading CD, numbers game, tic-tac-to, jolly phonics game cards and black duo-tang (Be sure to put new sheets into the duo-tang, the kids know how to do this). Matching games (les couleurs ect.) will be exchanged every 2 weeks, wiki sticks.  If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Our class is looking for more volunteers to help with pumpkin carving and Halloween centers. If you are available October 27th from 10:15-11:45 we would love to have you come join us to carve pumpkins. Students love this activity. We estimate how many pumpkin seeds we may find, talk about what type of face we want to draw and how to keep ourselves safe.
We are also looking for 3 more parent volunteers for Halloween centers. Centers will take place October 31st. ( I will email you this week if it will be in the am or the pm, just want to check the schedule)

I have started to randomly ask students to read their sight words for their prizes. So far we have ad to happy students successfully read through all their French words. Keep practicing.

In the next two weeks students will be tested on what they have learned on patterns. Feel free to practice patterning at home. They will be required to finish patterns, make patterns longer by recognizing the elements as well as make more complicated patterns by adding colors. There are a few of us that still need a little help on this, please ask your child how they are doing.

I will also start to test students on the French alphabet in the next couple of weeks. Students will be required to identify upper and lower case letters, give me the sound and name of each letter in French. These letters are out of sequence, feel free to practice at home with your child.
That is all for this week. I hope you have a great rest of the week. My thanksgiving wish for you all is to be surrounded by those you love, may your house be filled with warmth and laugher and be sure to cherish the time you have together. Happy Thanksgiving everyone to your family from mine both far and near.

Mme Laurie Anne