April 18-22

We began a new project during Daily 5 time, to review the French "sons" (letter combinations that make one sound). The kids are each making a book with a page devoted to a different "son". We work together on the carpet, brainstorming words for a particular "son" and writing the words, as well as drawing illustrations for each word. We follow this up with word work, using the letter tiles, making words with the "son" we just explored.

In writer's workshop, we talked again about adding punctuation and how you can hear the end of a sentence because your voice usually lowers there. I re-told Le Tambour Magique and the students motioned and said "point" at the end of every sentence they heard. I also introduced a tool for those having trouble coming up with story ideas: Story Cubes. These dice have various images on each face to spark ideas for stories, and the kids started using them when they got stuck in their writing.

Continuing with measurement, we talked more about how we estimate, and we identified together some estimation strategies. We then looked at everyone's measurements of classroom objects from last week, and found a range of answers for each. We talked about "l'exactitude" (precision) and how we measure precisely.

Then we went back to measuring those same classroom objects, but this time I switched around the units. Afterward, we could compare the difference, for example, in measuring the carpet with popsicle sticks instead of wooden skewers (which are longer). We talked about how a smaller unit of measure yields a larger number when measuring the same length.

The kids also measured parts of their bodies (fingers, feet, ears, forearms...) in partners. As before, they started off by estimating after reviewing our estimation strategies. They all used interlocking cubes, and they had a lot of fun!

Before the week's dictée, I reviewed the 3 strategies we came up with for dealing with negative thoughts about one's abilities. The dictée can be pretty challenging, so it was a good example for how we can learn to deal with the thought "I can't do it!" by ignoring that thought, taking a break and coming back to the task refreshed, or talking back to that thought with "yes, I can do it!"

We began out unit on Energy by brainstorming all that we know already about energy. The kids knew a lot! As they gave their ideas, I wrote and drew them on chart paper. Then I asked them what they wanted to find out about energy. We came up with a list of questions to explore.

Lastly, I got a thermometer installed in the playground (thanks to Mr. Giovanelli, head caretaker!) so that we could record the temperature each morning. This task has been added to the moniteur/monitrice's duties.