We continued to tell the Fox and the Walking Stick story, but we put our own spin on it. The kids decided to change the setting to under the sea, and to change the fox to a shark. We had great fun pausing with each new character to decide which sea creature it would be, what gesture would represent them, and what kind of dwelling they would live in. Writer's workshop has excellent momentum, with kids engaged in writing more complex stories, editing them, getting feedback from me, and then writing up the good copy for publication.
The French "sons" this week was -tion which appears at the end of words and has an English equivalent. Kids searched for other words with this ending and we wrote them all down on the board. We also read through all the words on our word wall, all together out loud, over several days. Kids gave examples of words they had found there while writing, and I encouraged everyone to use this resource actively as they write.
We did some more work on patterning, translating patterns into different symbols while maintaining the same structure (i.e. **!&**!& becomes AABCAABC). I introduced a new set of numeracy centres, which we will do weekly until the end of the year. One centre has the kids taking a handful of pennies and estimating how many there are, then counting (by groups of 10) how many there are. Estimation is an important skill for grasping quantity. They are also counting out loud in French, to solidify their French number names.
Another centre has them roll a die twice to create a 2-digit number, and then locate it in the counting sequence by writing the numbers that come before and after it.
Another centre focusses on place value, the significance of the position of a digit in a multi-digit number. Many kids are still grappling with the understanding that the digit on the right represents single units while the digit on the left represents tens, in a 2-digit number. Here kids pull 2 number tiles, put them beside each other to make a 2-digit number, and then represent the amount using Base 10 cubes. Then they switch the position of the tiles and represent the number again.
There is a "Friendly 10" centre which I didn't manage to photograph because it is the most challenging activity and every time I approached I needed to help kids instead of take pictures! Kids add 2 single digit numbers, using 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. They have 2 10 frames which they use to represent each of the 2 numbers. Then they shift the counters on the 10 frame to "make a 10" and write a new addition problem with 10 in it. This gives them an easier addition problem to solve. For example, 7+8=10+5=15. This "Friendly 10" strategy gives their addition skills a boost.
The last centre challenges kids with a puzzle, matching the numeral with the amount represented in 10 frames with the name written in French. This was the most popular activity!
We began our new unit Science: Living Things. It is a very broad topic, but we will be finding out about the needs and characteristics first of plants, and then of animals. We began by linking the living world with the idea of energy by learning about the food chain. I asked the kids where we get our energy, and they responded that it came from food. Where does a fox get its energy? I asked a student to stand holding an illustrated card with the word "fox" on it, and another to hold a card with "lapin" (rabbit). Then I gave the 2 students a length of yarn to hold between them, to represent the flow of energy. As the discussion continued, another student came up to represent the grass the rabbit eats, and another came to be the sun that provides the grass with energy. So then we had 4 students representing the links in the food chain, connected by yarn, to make the connections clear.
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