Bonjour, les amis!
My, what a semaine it's been. I can hardly believe that the weekend is upon us already, and that c'est novembre!!! Where has the time gone, I ask you?
This week was certainly jam-packed, with l'halloween on lundi - un gros merci to all of the parent volunteers who showed up to help with the kids' costumes for our parade! - picture day, and the beginning of a brand new theme, l'ours (bears). I have been really enjoying helping out with the Primary Choir, and rather wish that the Kindergarten class could be there to listen to them sing the song "There Will be Peace" on the 11th! I am sure that our trip to the Children's Museum will be a wonderful experience, though. :) If you are interested in supervising this trip, please let me know as soon as you can, as we are looking for some additional support.
On lundi, we began the day with a selection of craft centres that I designed for l'halloween. The children could choose to create les fantomes wind socks using decorated white paper and crepe paper; les citrouilles from styrofoam balls covered with pieces of orange et vert tissue paper and une chauve-souris from folded plates painted black and construction paper accents (which they cut very well themselves); along with paintings of their choice. It seems like some of these crafts did not quite make their way home... but the students seemed to enjoy making them at the time! :) During our party, interested students played a game of Halloween charades and completed a Halloween colouring page. We learned a little dance routine to "The Monster Mash," which I think that the kids performed almost as well as the Grade Ones to whom I taught the same dance during their Arts block. We paraded through the halls and visited all of the classrooms in the school, to whom we showed off our costumes. :) Following the parade each student got a chance to hit our dinosaur pinata, and we enjoyed some delightful snacks (including one special treat that consisted of oranges beautifully 'carved' to resemble jack-o-lanterns! Merci for all of your tasty donations!). I had a very amusant Halloween at school, and I hope that your child did, too! (I was a little sad that I didn't get time to change into my Tinkerbell costume though!!! Maybe it will have to make a reappearance in later days... :) )
On Tuesday we learned the song "I've got Peace in my Heart." I also introduced 4/4 time and associated beat patterns to the class. I was happy to note that most students can now differentiate between quarter notes (ta) and eighth notes (ti-ti), and are beginning to recognize half notes (one, two), dotted half notes (one, two, three) and whole notes (one, two, three, four). I am learning that even Grade One students need to have play time, and I am trying to develop some good play-based drama, music and dance centres that they can visit independently to be exposed to some important concepts, instead of more presentation-based teaching.
Wednesday saw our new theme (les ours) being introduced in the classroom. The students completed a number of simple crafts and worksheets designed to get them thinking about the life cycle and features of bears. All seemed to really relate to the story that I read, titled "L'ours oublié dans la nuit," and I used this as a springboard for conversation about how we react when we accidentally forget objects that are important to us. We discussed the differences between living and non-living bears, and the students were given a number of pictures to sort with a friend to demonstrate their concept of living and non-living. We continued with our sorting centres in math. I am hoping to gather some more assessment data on sorting in the next week while simultaneously moving forward to cover our patterning unit.
On Thursday, we played "Arts Review Jeopardy." There was a tie for 900 points between the boys and the girls (much to their displeasure!). Our tie-breaker involved reviewing the song "There will be Peace," and then performing this, American Idol-style for the "judges" (there are two co-op students currently working in the Grade One class and so I recruited them to act as J-Lo and Randy... while trying on my faux English accent to pose as a female version of Simon Cowell!). It was quite fun, and again resulted in a tie. We went on to discuss the importance of peace in our world, and I shared the story of Sudako and the Thousand Paper Cranes with the class. There were some corresponding comics that I provided that had blanks that the students could use to express their thoughts, and we spent a good amount of time working on colouring those and attempting to record our thoughts. There is a great interest in creating our own paper cranes, and I have promised the class that we will do this next week. As the students worked on their comics, I played the song "Just one Candle," and we discussed the mood and the ideas that were raised by this song. It is a piece that we will revisit, and I'm hoping to make it into a drama activity by incorporating some kind of little skit about peace along with the song.
Aujourd'hui was a bit of a "catch-up day" for our class. I had a lot of fun play centres out for the kids to visit, and worked with small groups of students throughout the day. As a whole class we read the book "Bonjour, Bonsoir" and talked about the meaning of what the main character (un ours!) said and did. We sang the "Bonjour" song accompanied by my guitar, and proceeded to pass a stuffed bear around the circle and answer the question: "Comment ça va?" See if your child can answer this question using gestures and corresponding words. I like to teach French vocabulary using gestures, but I sometimes find that they do more gesturing than actually talking when this is the norm!!! Oops!
We ventured outside again for gym, where we did some stretching and basic exercises and then played some games with the parachute. We started a game called "Scream and Run," but we ran into some difficulties with the logistics of the game (e.g., there was a slight slip on the tarmac that resulted in some tears!), and so headed inside for snack a little early. Overall, I would say that we had a pretty good day today! I forgot to give the students the 3 pompoms that they so deserve for helping to keep the classroom clean and friendly today! I will reward them on lundi for sure.
I hope that you all have un bon week-end! Please don't forget to read your November newsletter, as it contains some important forms for those of you who have not received a Field Trip permission form and a page of Parent/Guardian-Teacher conference dates and times. I have also included a volunteer grid... if I have missed you somehow and you would like to volunteer this month, please feel free to let me know via phone or through a note in your child's communication book. I have also sent home your child's 'Sons et lettres' book. We have covered up until la lettre Cc, and we will be beginning with la lettre Dd next week. If you have a few minutes, please review l'alphabet and particularly the three letters that we have studied with your child. There will be home reading books being sent home soon with the SK students!
Merci et a bientot,
Mlle Craig
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