Our second week

We continued talking and writing about favourite things, and the students began writing the "good copies" of their sentences. We coloured strips of paper using watercolour paints, and the kids are copying their sentences onto these colourful strips in black pen. We began our review of the letters of the alphabet as well, beginning with a, b and c. For each letter, I review proper (top to bottom) formation of the letter and the students practice in a group on the carpet using small whiteboards. Then we brainstorm together all the French words we know that begin with the letter. Then I give everyone a smallish piece of paper and ask them to write one of the words we came up with and illustrate it. These words and drawings will be posted above the alphabet letters on our classroom walls for the rest of the year. The students also complete a letter formation practice sheet for each letter.

I will be teaching a gesture for each sound in French, which helps develop "phonemic awareness" in young learners. This week we learned the gesture for "ah" and we practiced identifying this sound through use of the gesture in our song "J'adore les tomates" and in a short rhyme with many "ah" sounds. The students read the rhyme several times and completed related exercises asking them to circle "ah" sounds, replace missing words, and re-arrange scrambled lines. We focused on learning a few short sight words: ma, ta, sa, ça, va, a and la.

In Daily 5, we extended our silent "read to self" time to 8 minutes successfully. I had the chance to read individually with each student this week and assess their reading level.

In math, we read a fun story about 8 kids having a sleepover party on a bunk bed, which raises the question of how many ways can 8 kids split into 2 groups, in the top and bottom bunks. I introduced the kids to the "rekenrek" which resembles an abacus but is specifically intended for young kids to help them develop number sense. It has 2 rows of beads, with 5 red and 5 white on top and 5 red and 5 white on the bottom. The structure of the rekenrek encourages kids to use 5 and 10 as benchmarks. I asked the students to find all the ways they could that 8 kids could split into the top and bottom bunks. The rekenrek rows represented the bunks of the bed, and they drew the groupings onto a sheet with a similar image. They were also asked to write a math sentence for each arrangement, such as 5+3=8. Later, the students were asked to complete the same challenge with a number of their choice, to allow for different entry points. Then we played a game in partners where the students represented an arrangement+math sentence and then moved one person up or down the bunk bed ladder and gave the resulting arrangement+math sentence. We continued to sing and play games to review the number names in French. I also introduced to them the "Collection to 100" project which I expect everyone learned about from the green note I sent home on Friday.

In addition to the watercolour painting this week, we did an activity to decorate the plain file folder boxes in which the kids keep their notebooks. They cut images out of magazines and collaged the boxes with them.



So a full week! A couple of housekeeping items: Mme Aradj, who teaches gym to the kids, has asked that they always wear closed running shoes on gym days. Also, at lunchtime there are some items available for purchase from the Milk Program. Milk (2% or chocolate) costs 75 cents, yogourt costs 90 cents and milk-to-go costs $1.25. A cookie is usually provided with each purchase.

And finally, I want to inform you that teachers are stepping up our work-to-rule protocol in response to the latest breakdown in negotiations. The next phase begins Monday September 21 and one of the activities now struck is the updating of classroom blogs and the dissemination of classroom newsletters. Keeping parents well informed is very important to me, but evidently more pressure is necessary at this point for contract negotiations to move forward. So this will be my last post for now. Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon!

How to connect with me

I sent home a calendar today with the kids with the blog URL, so hopefully everyone can access the blog now. With the current work-to-rule situation, we will need to be creative about how to meet and keep in touch. Struck work includes handling any administrative forms (so that packet of forms which many of you returned will be slow to get processed) and any meetings/events outside of school hours (so no Curriculum Night is planned at this point). I would love to gather all of the parent email addresses so that I can be in touch easily by email. Would you please take a moment and send me an email at diane.hamilton@tdsb.on.ca? Let me know who you are and who your child is, and I'll be able to create an email group of the class parents. Thanks!

Also, if ever you would like to meet me in person or chat about anything with regard to your child at school, I can always be found after school in the schoolyard. I have duty every day from 3:30 to 3:44 (14 minutes!) between the tennis courts and the large play structure. I know this timing doesn't work for everyone, but if it works for you please feel free to find me there after school and we can touch base then.

A Delightful First Week

Hello parents and guardians!

Welcome to my newly created blog for room 308 at Lord Lansdowne. I will gradually be building up the content available, adding useful links and photos. I'm excited to explore all the ways this platform can make the activities in our classroom transparent and accessible for all of you.

A word about privacy: I will never be mentioning the names, first or last, of any of my students. I would like to post photos including the students' faces to fully portray life in our classroom. Many of you have signed a media release form that allows this to happen. If you would prefer that your child's face not appear in blog photos, just let me know and I will gladly accommodate your request.

This past week we had a larger class (24), but now we have settled down to 20 students for the year. We focused on "favourite things" as a means to review vocabulary and get to know one another. The students drew their favourite things and labelled their drawings with words. Then we brainstormed categories of favourite things and tackled a couple of categories each day in our Writer's Workshop. For a given category (i.e. colours, animals, sports...) the students gave their preferences and I listed these on the board. Then students wrote the corresponding sentence, such as "Ma couleur préférée est rouge." (My favourite colour is red).  Students are also learning the routine of Writer's Workshop, which includes 10 minutes of writing in silence...a bit challenging, but we're getting there. We also did carpet "games" in which students each spoke the sentences they were writing, either taking turns around the circle or in pairs. We began learning a song called "J'adore les tomates" (I love tomatoes) and I read books aloud each day relating to favourite things and respecting differences. In our morning circle, we began discussing the agreements we will need to keep our classroom friendly, positive and orderly. We have begun making a book of our classroom agreements.

We reviewed the number names through games and a song (Les Nombres de 1 à 20) and reviewed the concepts of addition and subtraction. Then we had a couple of problem-solving sessions, in which the whole class tackled a word problem together. They were asked to draw a picture to represent the problem and give the math sentence that answers the question "Combien?" (How much?). When they were finished the students looked over each other's work and put stickies where they saw something of interest or wanted to ask a question. Then we discussed the solutions and various approaches using the stickies as entry points.

This week was largely just about establishing routines and expectations and creating a positive atmosphere in the classroom. I got to know the kids a bit and they began getting comfortable socially. We have a lovely group!