We did a follow-up activity about "les lettres fantomes" (ghost letters), the silent consonants at the end of many French words. The kids searched the word wall and through books to find all the words they could with final ghost letters. They wrote each word they found on a separate piece of paper. Then we sorted the words according to what silent letter was at the end, and noticed some common final silent consonants (t, s, x...). The kids then wrote their own lists of words with ghost letters.

We returned to measurement, and I gave the kids 5 objects in the classroom to first estimate the length of in different "units". We talked about estimation and how we do it. They had to guess the length of the carpet in wooden skewers, the height of a chair in chain links, the width of another carpet in pencils, the circumference of a round table in dominoes, and the length of a green tape snake in popsicle sticks. They were given only 1 measuring unit each in order to estimate. The next day they had enough of each measuring unit to lay them along the different lengths being measured.

The hard work of estimating:

The satisfying work of measuring:

For Day of Pink, we read a funny book about the taboo of dressing up in the clothes of the opposite gender, and talked together about boys' clothes and girls' clothes. Many kids asserted that there was no such thing and that everyone can wear anything. I responded by saying that even if we think that, many people feel that there are certain ways for boys and girls to be that are different. I gave the kids a paper with 2 boxes on it, a girl box and a boy box. I asked them to draw girl things in the girl box and boy things in the boy box, from what they know of the world and what people think. 

Then I called the class back together and kids offered me things to draw in the 2 boxes I had put on the board. We talked about the fact that these were all just people's ideas and that really girls and boys can do all of it. We also talked about how life can be hard for a girl who likes boy things or a boy who likes girl things because people can be mean about that. I told the story behind Day of Pink and explained that it was an opportunity to support people who cross those gender lines and might be bullied for it.

We had a number of conflicts this week, and in response I held a circle in English in the classroom across the hall (our "English" room). We re-visited our agreements and our purpose at school (to learn together). I put on a little puppet show with a pesky monkey who teases a dragon and won't stop when the dragon says "Stop!". The dragon ends up hitting the monkey. I asked the kids what each character might be feeling and needing. I talked about how we can each be leaders and help other kids in our class learn to get along better. Then we went around the circle and each student said one thing they would do to make our classroom a safer and friendlier place.

The reward this week for speaking French was the chance to make Pokemon cards during "heure de jeux" (hour of play) on Friday. There was great enthusiasm for this activity, which the kids did online with the iPads. Here is the website we used in case anyone wants to try it again from home: http://www.mypokecard.com/en/  I only noticed now that the site works in French too...this might be a writing project in the future!