May 9-13

We finally made the video of our book, Le Tambour Magique, and I will soon make it available for you to view. The kids did a great job of reading their writing and keeping quiet for the recording. We had a lot of students read their writing this week (author's chair) in order to catch up a bit - so many kids want to read to the class and they can find the wait frustrating. We also continued to work on our "son" book and the other Daily 5 activities.

We spent the week exploring patterns. We talked about patterns in our lives, from daily routines to astronomical patterns to life cycles. In partners, each student created a pattern with various materials. When I gave the signal, they switched and began working on their partner's pattern, extending it. We had a couple of hands-on pattern building sessions like this.

Then we added a new wrinkle: one person made the pattern, then the other person had to label it with letters (A, B, C) to identify the structure of the pattern. Another task was to build a pattern from a given structure (eg. ABAC) and then have the partner figure out the structure.

We also spent a period outside on a warm day and made clapping patterns, and person patterns (eg. striped shirt, solid shirt) to repeat and guess. The important concepts for the kids to gain through all this experience are that a pattern has elements that repeat, and the core that repeats can be analyzed and labelled in order to identify families of patterns. 

We also did a story problem in math. It was a complex problem, but I provided the answer and just asked the kids to explain why. They have been doing these problems in pairs, and I provided them with a series of steps to the problem-solving process to help them collaborate better. I have been seeing math partners working in parallel, each doing their own thing and not interacting very much. So now my emphasis is on talking together, using math manipulatives to figure out a problem together, and communicating their thinking. 

Continuing our exploration of energy, we watched an episode of the Magic Schoolbus in French about energy. We discussed the events of the show and we will watch it again next week. The kids need to see it more than once to really understand what is being communicated. We will be having a full day focused on Energy on Monday, and that will wrap up our unit!

May 2-6

In Daily 5 we began a new activity on the carpet. It is a game for practicing decoding words. I wrote 19 "words" on the board, but none was actually a word in French. They were nonsense words like "tipoma", so that the kids would have to read them by decoding rather than as a sight word. The turn passed around the circle, with each student reading a word, then the whole class repeating the word with phonic gestures, and then everyone repeating the word and clapping the syllables. It turned out to be quite engaging - I told the kids that it was an Alien language that used French pronunciation!

We continued making pages for our book of French "sons", and we learned a new rhyme together with gestures.

We have been singing the tune "Nous sommes tous comme les fleurs" by Charlotte Diamond. There isn't a good free recording online that I can find (it is available on Itunes), but here is a link to a video of a kindergarten class performing it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGl_IqEpKGQ

In math, we continued to explore the measurement of area. I read the Ukrainian folk tale "The Mitten" in which a mitten is lost and becomes a home for more and more animals. The mitten gets stretched larger and larger, and then is found again by the boy who lost it.

Then the kids worked on a sheet, finding the area of the flat mitten at different sizes. At each table they used a different material to fill the area of the mittens, and then counted how many units it took to fill the area. They estimated each time before measuring. We talked again about how larger units produce a smaller number and smaller units produce a larger number in measurement. We also talked about how some units, because of their shape, could not be placed without gaps in between, and whether or not this allowed accuracy.

We moved on to patterning at the end of the week. After some practice drawing different kinds of patterns, we made strips of patterns to decorate cardboard vases for Mother's Day. The kids chose the coloured strips and I encouraged them to think about contrast when choosing the colour to draw with. They also drew the silhouette of a vase on a folded piece of paper, and cut it out to produce a symmetrical vase form. I cut these forms out of cardboard for them, and then they glued the strips onto the vase and I added a cardboard roll to hold dried flowers.

A special event we had this week was a presentation about the Syrian refugee family being sponsored by Lord Lansdowne.  Noura Kevorkian, a Lord Lansdowne parent, is a documentary filmmaker and has visited the family in their Refugee camp in Lebanon. She showed us footage of the mom, dad and 2 sisters, their home and the refugee camp environment. The kids asked lots of questions and saw close up how people live with so much less than what we have in Toronto. They are excited to meet the family when they get to Canada.

April 25-29

We began the week with a special event: we invited Mme Mills to our classroom to read her our Tambour Magique book. Each child read out their own page, and they were very proud to show off their beautiful book. Mme Mills was most complimentary! We also had a special program on Monday to celebrate Asian Heritage month. Storyteller Bernice Hume told Chinese folk tales as well as stories from her own life. It was a great start to the week!

We began playing a new game for Daily 5 word work, in addition to making words with letter tiles. It is a word sorting game, where 2 kids take turns pulling a word from an envelope. They need to both read the word and make the gestures for the sounds in the word. Then the person who picked the word puts it in a category, according to the vowel or "son" in the word. Their partner then picks a word, they both say it and make gestures, and the partner categorizes the word. The fun kicks in when someone gets a word with a vowel or "son" that their partner has already found a word for, because the player gets to steal their partner's word(s) in that category.

We also made thank-you cards for the caretakers and for a teacher who gave some costumes to our class. It's so important to remember to appreciate all that people do for us!

We tackled a story problem to do with measurement, in pairs, with the goal of increasing the collaboration level of the partners. I told the kids that both people had to understand the problem before they began to put anything on their page (more confident kids tend to blaze ahead and leave their partners in the dust). This resulted in more conversation about the problem, with room still for improvement. The kids can be very focused on getting the "right" answer, without taking the time to engage deeply with a math problem. We will keep working on these skills.

In measurement, we moved on to talk about area. In order to understand what area is, we worked with the tangram sets that are already very familiar. The tangram set has 2 large triangles, 1 medium triangle, 2 small triangles, a square and a parallelogram. 

We looked at some of the relationships among the tangram pieces. For example, the 2 small triangles cover the square exactly. They also cover the parallelogram. There are lots of combinations of shapes that cover another shape, and this means that they have the same area. I showed the kids how this could be expressed as a "math sentence" using plus signs and equal signs. I also showed how we could make "greater than/less than" math sentences with shapes that are bigger or smaller in comparison. 

Then the kids set to making their own math sentences with tangram pieces.

Then the kids did a lot of hands on measuring of classroom objects again, but this time using units such as playing cards to cover a surface. They measured a desk, a book, and a chair with playing cards, always estimating first before measuring. They also estimated and measured the area of shapes on a worksheet using interlocking cubes. 

We returned to our questions about energy. Each student chose which question they would like to focus on. Then in small groups they drew and wrote about their question. On another day I asked them to come up with an answer to their question, just their best guess, and we called these their "theories". The kids wrote their theories up on another piece of paper. I asked them to each keep their question in mind and try to find some answers when we were at the Kortright Center. 

Our field trip day was really fun and interesting for the kids. We learned about renewable and non-renewable energy sources - the Kortright Center is fully powered by wind and solar energy! We learned about solar panels and wind turbines, the need to store energy for cloudy days, and how most energy sources ultimately originate from the sun's energy. And we had a blast playing outside after lunch and exploring the wooded trails. The kids played tag on hay bales and rolled down hills until they were too dizzy to stand up!

At the end of the week, students were treated to "A (mini) History of Theatre for Kids",  a performance from Little Goat Theatre Company. 

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. 

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!