November 7-11, 2016

Now that the kids are all fairly confident in carrying out scaffolded free writing, we have begun "writer's workshop." The workshop has the following structure: it starts with a mini-lesson on the carpet, then students do 10 minutes of silent writing, then they continue to write and discuss their writing for another 10-15 minutes, and then everyone comes back to the carpet for "author's chair." The students received writing folders this week, to keep their work organized and to allow them to return to work in progress. The folders also have quick reference information for letters and sight words.

The students finished giving their Life Timeline presentations.

Our words of the week contained the vowel sound "i".

They went onto our word wall, which is filling out as the words of the week keep getting added.

We also discussed a set of short words that we regularly encounter: le/la/les (the); ma/mon/mes (my); ta/ton/tes (your); and sa/son/ses (his/her). The reason there are so many variations in French compared to the English words is the distinction made between masculine, feminine and plural objects. Of course, in grade one the kids aren't expected to use the correct definite article or possessive pronoun, but they are beginning to be aware of masculine, feminine and plural as types of words.

In math, we looked at the graphs we made last week and learned about the likes and dislikes of our classmates. We also did a fun, quick poll using snap cubes. On the carpet, I asked the students to come up with a new question that they would like to ask everyone in our class. One suggestion was "what is your favourite word?" So I asked for 6 favourite words and jotted them down. Then I laid the words down on the tables, each one with a container. I gave each student a snap cube, and asked them to pick a favourite word from the six possibilities. They placed their snap cube into the container with their choice of word. Then we put the snap cubes together from each container, and voilà - instant bar graph!

We worked with teen numbers a lot this week, getting more automatic with their names in French. Kids worked in partners with ten frames, taking turns making a teen number and quizzing their partner for the name in French. 

The kids practised adding a single digit number to the number 10 (i.e. 4 + 10 = 14). Many did not yet know that counting the two amounts together is unnecessary, that there is a "trick" for this type of question of just putting the "1" before the single digit to make the teen number. So we did a number of these questions, using 10-sided dice to generate the single digit numbers and base 10 blocks for counting. Many kids started off by counting the amounts to find the answer, but then noticed a pattern to the answers and began using the "trick" as a shortcut. 

We finished the week with a problem-solving session in partners. I gave the kids a very challenging "Quadra's square" puzzle to try to solve (find more at this link https://www.google.ca/search?q=quadra%27s+square+puzzle&espv=2&biw=1276&bih=704&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiv0oTV96PQAhUsxoMKHdJPBQgQsAQIIQ).  On the grid, they had to place six numbers such that every side (the three numbers in a row) added up to 15 (two numbers were already given). I suggested they use snap cubes for easy adding of the numbers, and they had cut-out numbers that they could easily move around. Mostly through trial and error, they worked away at it and some did find the solution. Afterwards we talked about how to deal with hitting a road block in problem-solving (persevere and try again) and how to work productively in partners.

In preparation for Remembrance Day, each student made a tissue paper poppy. It was a multi-step process and quite a challenging project. They worked with amazing focus and persistence. The poppies were assembled to make our class wreath for the assembly on November 11.

First they drew a flower shape onto card stock.

They cut out the shape, which was their template.

Then they attached the template onto layers of tissue paper with a paper clip (they got a kick out of the French word for paper clip, which is "trombone"!). Then they cut the tissue paper with the template to guide them.

Then they removed the template and I stapled the layers of tissue paper together. Then they scrunched each layer to give the poppy volume. They finished by cutting out a little circle of black construction paper and gluing it into the inside. 

Our finished wreath is lovely! I told the kids that every flower on it was different and beautiful in it's own way, just like them.