Happy Holidays

Well, we've made it to the holidays. It's been a pretty hectic week. Monday was our concert dress rehearsal. The show was pretty long and between practising getting on/off the stage, practising our song, and working out the kinks in the show, it was a pretty long day. Tuesday was the matinee and evening performances. Our class also went swimming. I think the students were pretty tired when it was all over. I know I was. We finished up our last "ateliers" in between all of that. Wednesday was definitely a "Ketchup" day, with a little yoga thrown into the mix in the afternoon. We even got a math test done on measurement. "Finally Thursday came. The week seemed so long, probably as everyone was looking forward to a break. We did a little more "Ketchup" in the morning. We had a block where the students made some seasonal crafts and worked on their art. By the end of the day, the students were so excited that even a story didn't really do its usual magic of calming them. 

I was at school for a while once the children left. With a little Christmas music playing, I prepared everything for when we get back in the new year: calendar, board, ateliers. We still need one more day of "Ketchup to get everything finished up but that will be a good thing to do on the first day back to get them back into the swing of things. Then it'll be back to the ateliers on the following day. Also, we're skating on the Tuesday back so hopefully everyone has skates ready. It'll be a busy start to the new year at school!

I HOPE EVERYONE ENJOYS A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAY WITH THEIR FAMILY!

Gearing Up For the Holidays

We're now into the third week of "ateliers" and they are going well. The students began to earn rewards this week as they reached 25 times that they worked well during centres. They were very excited to choose from the available rewards. Those who have not yet reached 25 are getting close. We will finish up this rotation of "ateliers" next week and then will start again after the break. I'm getting a little more organized and have made folders and bought boxes for all of their work during the centres. One side is for their reading activities and the other is for their writing activities. 

In language, the grade twos did the comptines "Maman" and "Les petits pois" reviewing the "an" and "oi" sounds. The grade threes read the story "Arthur visite Irma" with the "ir" and "ur" sounds. They aren't quite done all of the reading response activities but we will finish them up next week. 

A new activity from our writing "ateliers": secret messages

In math, we continued to work on measurement, both in guided groups with me, and in some of the activities at the math centres. All measurement activities should be complete by the end of next week. Hopefully we will be able to fit a short assessment into the middle of next week.

les ateliers de maths

We've been busy practising our song for next week's Holiday Concert. Our dress rehearsal is on Monday and we'll get to see what all of the other classes have prepared. On Tuesday, we will have a matinee performance but we will be working in our class until it's our turn to perform our song and flag dance. Immediately afterward, our class is going swimming. Wednesday will be a "Ketchup" day to finish up all unfinished work. Thursday we will be doing a holiday or winter craft in the morning. It will be an extremely busy week so hopefully the students will be well rested for all of our upcoming activities!

Flexibility

Well it's been another week where the flexibility and patience of the students have been called upon. It started out as a normal week. But then then on Tuesday, the power went out for awhile, limiting what we could do in class, especially with our "ateliers". The electricians chose that time to show up to run electricity to the projector for the SMARTBOARD. But with no power, they decided to come back on Wednesday morning. When we got the power back a little later, the installers from the SMARTBOARD company showed up to install the speakers that had been on backorder. It was a little noisy to work through but we managed. 

The electricians were already at work on Wednesday morning when I arrived. It was just a slight inconvenience to find somewhere to take my class for the morning compared to the water ban that had been put in place that morning. We weren't allowed to drink or even wash our hands in the water. It wasn't long, however until there were water coolers throughout the school and hand sanitizer in the halls and classrooms. By Thursday, a hand-washing station had been installed. The students loved going to the water coolers. They definitely drank more water than ever before. 

Luckily on Wednesday, Mme Deloughery was kind enough to allow us to come to her class for the morning while the electricians worked. The two classes practised our song for the Holiday Concert on December 17. We are doing the song "Ça sent la banane", which compares winter on a tropical island with winter here. It is a fast but catchy song and the children seem to be enjoying learning it. We then had reading buddies and some independent work before heading back to our own classroom. 

One of this week's poems projected onto the SMARTBOARD 

In language, the grade twos did the comptines "Le lutin" and "Poustache" to review the "in" and "ch" sounds. The grade threes finished up "Le concours des fourrures" on Monday and then did the booklet "Le voleur des choux-fleurs" with the "eur/oir" sounds the rest of the week. We did "ateliers" every day except Wednesday and Friday. The centres were mostly the same. There was a new game in the reading centres where they needed to match an image with the syllables that make up the word. There were new poems to complete in the writing centres and the students now have dictionaries to complete vocabulary activities. 

Syllable game

Partner reading and follow-up activity

In math, we continued to work on measurement activities. Some students are still finishing up some graphing activities as part of the guided math centre with me. They had a new game in a centre where they had to order a list of numbers from smallest to largest (review). There were also new problems in the group problem solving centre. Mrs. McLaren comes in everyday for 1/2 hour during our math centres. She usually works with the students who are doing the group problem while I am with the guided math group. 

While the SMARTBOARD still isn't set up to use, we can use the ELMO with the projector on it. I hope the guys from IT come back soon to finish setting it up. I would like to be able to play our song on it while we practise, instead of just playing it on my iPad, which is not ideal. Right now I can only project the words. 

Our song

I'm getting things much more organized now that we're getting used to the "ateliers", disruptions, and changes to the classroom. "Les buts d'apprentissage" board has been updated in its new location and there are more anchor charts and visuals up. I'm still preparing activities and games for the centres but I'm getting through it. The next big project is to organize the math games by strand as I'm starting to have quite a few. But that's next week's project...

More games

Snow Day and All

Despite being away on Monday at "Le Français en coeur" conference and Wednesday's snow day, it's been pretty busy. We began our second week of "ateliers". The grade twos did the "ou" and "on" sounds in the comptines "Tourlou" and "Gaston". The grade threes are working on the "ou" sound in the story "Le concours des fourrures". In guided reading, we began reading and working on non-fiction science booklets. We are continuing with descriptive writing in guided writing. Those who did not have any "Ketchup" work did a snowman retelling activity with a self-selected book at their level. 

I have been doing some more GB+ reading assessments to see how the students have been progressing since I first assessed them at the end of September/beginning of October. Although I have only gotten through about half the class so far, I'm very excited to see that mostly everyone has increased a couple of levels since then!

This week's shared poems

The students are still finishing up some graphing activities in guided math; however we began a unit on linear measurement this week. The grade twos will use various non-standard units and some standard units to measure, while the grade threes will use the standard units of cm, m, and km in the math activities. 

I'm very excited that our SMARTBOARD has finally arrived. It's halfway set up so we can't quite use it yet. The students were great and showed excellent flexibility when we had to move around from place to place in the school on Tuesday when they were installing it and we had to be out of the classroom. We still managed to complete our problems of the day and our math ateliers while moving from the gym, to Mme Anne's room, to Mme Judd's room. A little more installation was done today but it's still not quite ready. The projector is powerless until an electrician can come run power to it and the speakers are on backorder and will be installed sometime over the next few weeks. I've had to move a few things around, particularly the book case with the class library to make things a little more accessible. I'm really looking forward to learning how to use it and all the great things we'll be able to do with it. 

Have a great weekend!

Great First Week of Centres!

It's been such a great week getting the ball rolling with our "ateliers". The children really seemed to enjoy the new routines. The one thing I did find was that it was very intense in the mornings when we went through the three centre times. By Thursday, I found that I will need to take Fridays as regular days to finish up any language and math activities that we do in between our "ateliers". I really loved how much one on one time I really had to work with them, especially in writing and math as I already did guided reading with the class. Taking Friday for catching up will also give me the chance to complete GB+ assessments with the students from time to time as well as any other assessments we do.

For our "Ateliers de lecture", the students are rotating through centres with alphabetical order games, reading alone, listening to stories at the computer/stereo, reading with a partner, and guided reading with Mme. When reading with me, we worked on reading strategies and next steps in their reading as well as a comprehension activity. 

For our "Ateliers de l'écriture", the students are rotating through matching sentence games, writing alone with a roll a sentence dice game, making word wall words with play-doh, writing a poem as a group, and guided writing with Mme. In the guided groups, I have been doing mini-lessons on taking a simple sentence and continuing to add description to make a very detailed sentence. Then the students began to write a descriptive paragraph about their house. 

For our "Ateliers de maths", the students are rotating through centres on math fact practice, math games on the computer, math games to review base ten concepts, math problems as a group, and guided math with Mme. With me the students are completing activities on graphing and I've had a great opportunity to observe them and complete rubrics on how they problem solve for graphing. 

In between the ateliers, we continued with our regular activities. We did our usual two poems as shared reading, which are in next week's homework to read. The grade twos did the comptines "Le chariot" and "La campagne" with the "ch" and "gn" sounds. The grade threes looked at the "or" sound in the story "La sorcière Mirador". In math, the students also began a written assessment for the data management unit we have been doing. Next week the students will begin a unit on linear measurement. Our "buts d'apprentissage" wall is now pretty bare as I had to move it at the end of the day to make room for our SMARTBOARD which will be going in that location. I'm not sure when the SMARTBOARD will be installed but I am ver excited to get started with it. Our "buts d'apprentissage are now on the other side of the room near the sink. There will be no "ateliers" on Monday as I will be away at a French conference but we'll be back to it on Tuesday. 

Ready for the SMARTBOARD!

About to Embark on a Daily Five Adventure

And my centres are ready, or mostly ready! I don't remember the last time I relaxed during a nutrition break since it's been a mad rush to finish making all my games so I can get started with the Daily Five (Cinq au quotidien). I'm very excited and nervous too as this will be a very big change in my teaching. I've never really done centres except for the odd occasion in science. And I've planned centres for reading workshops, writing workshops, and math workshops. I really like the ideas presented in the Daily Five but will be adapting them to suit my teaching style and class needs. 

For Reading, the students will rotate through the following five centres: Reading with Mme, Reading with a partner, Reading Games and Activities, Listening to Reading (at the computer), and Independent Reading. For Writing, they will rotate through these centres: Writing with Mme, Writing Alone, Group Writing Activities, Writing Games, and Dictionary and Word Wall Activities. For Math, they will rotate through the following centres: Math with Mme, Group Problem Solving, Math Games, Fact Practice, and Math at the Computer. We have discussed how we will be doing "ateliers" for those three subjects. The centres will be about 20-25 minutes only and there will be our regular language and math activities as well. Each group will be made up of 4 students and one group will have just 3 students. The groups for Reading, Writing, and Math will all be different to give the students a chance to work with various classmates. 

All ready for Monday

I will be monitoring how the students work in groups. When they work well and are on-task, they will earn checkmark for the centre. When they have reached 25 checkmarks, they will be able to pick from a variety of individual rewards that I have available, such as bringing a stuffy to school for the day, or getting a no homework pass for the week. They seem very excited too as they have seen me preparing the games over the past few weeks. 

Rewards

Finished game folders (one each for Reading, Writing, and Math)

My almost finished game pile

This week in language, we did the comptines "Les oeufs" and "Les joueurs de soccer" with the "eu/eur" sounds. The grade threes finished up the story "Bernard le canard" with the "ar" sound. I read the story "Le castor qui travaillait trop fort" as a read aloud. This sparked a great discussion about the quality of one's work. The beaver rushed through his work so quickly that he ended up being negligent and careless. The students made some great comparisons to their own work and what they should be doing when they work, taking their time to do something properly and being considerate of others around them. They did a reading response after where they had to draw a picture for the beginning, the middle, and the end, and write a sentence to go with each picture. They then had to do the same reading response activity with a self-selected book at their own reading level. 

We continued to work on surveys and graphing in math. The grade threes have been working on problem-solving with Mme Jarvis. We will be doing a math assessment next week for data management and will then begin our new math unit. 

It's been such a busy week that I'm really looking forward to relaxing with my family this weekend before beginning my "Daily Five" adventure next week. I hope the students enjoy all the centres that I have been working so hard to prepare for them!