Bonjour tout le monde!
The weather was rainy, but that didn't seem to put a damper on the overall Grade One energy level this morning. :) We began by practicing our dance to "The Monster Mash" that we learned last week. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of students who remembered all of the dance moves! Maybe some have been practicing? We rehearsed the dance a total of 3 times before the first nutrition break, and after the students returned from recess, I videotaped the class performing together! We are going to begin Thursday's class by watching this video and discussing ways that we can improve how our dance looks to an audience. Following our rehearsal and taping, I introduced the song "Purple People-Eater," which I attempted to play on the guitar. :) The class caught on very quickly to the song, and was able to sing the whole first verse and chorus with actions faster than I had anticipated. Yay! We ended the class with a drama exercise in which students acted out various emotions and the class guessed what they were representing. It was quite funny to watch - especially the "excited" emotion, which many people mistook for "happy."
I will now proceed to blather on about yesterday's workshop! :) It was a really inspiring one for me. The presenters talked about how we can more effectively use guided reading in the classroom. They gave a bunch of wonderful examples of how read-alouds can be used as a springboard for showing students how to re-tell stories (which is an important skill to be learned in Kindergarten). They also talked quite extensively about assessment, and how the idea of assessment in Kindergarten is changing. They are now recommending 'at-a-glance' observation to be tracked throughout the day on corresponding sheets, as well as photos, videos, checklists and portfolios to be collected as evidence of student learning. I will have to revisit the papers that they gave us in this regard as it is all very interesting, and I hope that it can be applied within the classroom! A story that they read to us at the workshop that I would really love to read to the class was called "Big Al." It's sort of a character education book about acceptance... a great read!
Another thing that got me thinking yesterday was the lack of truly developmentally-appropriate French Immersion Kindergarten resources that seem to exist at the moment. It seems that books that you want to read in class, etc. just haven't been designed for beginning language learners. I think it would be great to have books and other materials that have been written so that children who are just beginning to learn French can understand them with the fluency intact (e.g., not always having to stop and translate from French back to English). Maybe this could be something of a side project?
:) Let me know if you're interested and maybe we could work on something together...
Enterprisingly dreamingly yours, ;)
Mlle Craig
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