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