April 24-28, 2017

We began the week with a practice session of speaking French to other students in the classroom. There was quite an increase in speaking French this week, and the students won the prize of a trip to the park for Friday's heure de jeux! Our French digraph was "-ien" which comes only at the end of words. The kids began telling the Fox and the Walking Stick story with me, correcting me when I made mistakes. They also enjoyed correcting the many mistakes I made in my morning messages. We had a message this week with no apostrophes, in which all the contractions were written in long form. They quickly caught on to the need for an apostrophe in French when the first word ends in a vowel and the second word begins with a vowel (i.e. je ai becomes j'ai).

We focussed on the silent consonants at the end of words, calling them "ghost letters." After reading a story about a sneaky ghost, we looked at several examples of these. Then each table group tried to collect as many words as they could with various final, silent consonants.

Then they counted up how many words they had found, and we made a bar graph to show the final tally.

The kids worked on patterning problems through worksheets.

And then, come Friday, we had a great time at Margaret Fairley Park!

April 18-21, 2017

Our French digraphs (with more than 2 letters) of focus this week were "elle" and "ette." I began telling a new story, The Fox and the Walking Stick. The kids helped me decide on gestures and began learning to tell it themselves. We continued to read books aloud with a puppet friend who models a comprehension strategy. The puppets are more visible now, and the kids are requesting particular puppets. A student can chose a puppet to animate and thus model making connections, asking questions, visualizing the story, predicting or retelling the story after reading it. Each puppet models one of these activities. Their names are Imogène Qui Imagine, Fleur Connecteur, Didi Qui Prédit, Rolande Qui Se Demande, and Le Compte Qui Raconte.

We also began to review all the words on our word. After a writing period, I asked students to tell the class what words they had looked for there and how they found them.

We continued to sing "Notre Planète" all week and we sang it for the Earth Day assembly. The kids kept the rhythm of the song by slapping their thighs.

In math, we began talking about and making patterns. We reviewed the idea (and vocabulary) that a pattern has a repeating core made up of specific elements. The students drew patterns and then circled the core of their neighbour's patterns.

Then with students working in pairs at stations around the classroom, I gave them various challenges: make a pattern with a core that has 3 elements, make a pattern where the elements change their position (not their colour), make a pattern and then show the core on a piece of paper...

We also returned to the subject of energy, reviewing the sources of energy for familiar processes.

April 10-13, 2017

We finished the vases we started to make last week. The kids started by drawing the profile of a vase on a folded piece of paper and then cutting it out. Then they used this cut-out as a stencil to cut out a vase from black construction paper. They applied their patterned strips to the black vase, and then glued it on to the back of the black background.

Then they made flowers out of feathers to fill their vases. The flowers were made by sandwiching the feathers between 2 paper circles. We went over the steps involved first.

Then they cut out stems and glued together all the components.

 They're up in the hall now!

We continued to tell the Rat Princess story, with the kids gradually taking over the telling. They help me remember the gestures! We also learned more new comptines. We talked about our goals in writing and I met with students to establish their personal writing goals. We also addressed the question again of what to do when you're writing and don't know a word in French but the teacher is busy conferencing with a student. We talked about using story ideas from various sources, from movies or books or even the stories of our classmates. Doing so is not "copying" but is a compliment to that other person. Ideas belong to everyone!

Our French digraph was "ai". We played the game again in 2 teams of reading fake French words, syllable by syllable.

We also observed the International day of Pink. The kids discussed and then each drew the things considered "boy" things and "girl" things. Then we came together and I drew 2 boxes with ideas from the kids. We found many exceptions, with boys protesting that they like rainbows and girls protesting that they like dogs. I don't think that denying the existence of gender roles is helpful with kids, because they do exist. But it helps to establish that they are invented by people (our ancestors), they are always changing, and many people don't fit into these boxes. In fact, some girls mostly like boy things and vice versa.

In math, we did another story problem with 2 steps in it, requiring a sequence of equations. They are starting to make good choices about which math tools to use to solve problems.

When the kids shared their solutions, we started using new sentence starters in French to encourage mathematical dialogue. I am teaching the kids to agree or disagree with each other's solutions, and then explain WHY. A bit of controversy in math really gets them engaged!

We also did an Easter math activity. I made a number line to 100 and cut it up into little pieces. I put the pieces into plastic eggs and hid them around the classroom. So we had a big Easter egg hunt, and then the kids had the group challenge of reconstructing the number line. They began by putting together small sections of it, and then the sections kept getting bigger until it was huge! They were very excited when it was done.

We also started learning a new song, Notre Planète, to sing next week at the Earth Day assembly.