Getting to Know One Another Again

It's been a busy week so far. We haven't got as much work done as I had planned, but the dynamic of our class has changed with reorganizing and it's important to get to know one another again within our new class makeup. Also, class rules and expectations need to be gone over again, so for most of the class, it's been like starting over again from a new first day. For those who have been in the class for the past few weeks, it's been a great opportunity to show some leadership skills as they are the "experts" on the routines. They have all been spread out in each table group so that they get the chance to use those skills in a small group setting. Everyone seems to be adjusting well to the changes and it shouldn't take long for everyone to comfortably settle into our class. 

In our language block, the grade twos have been working on the two spellings for the "f" sound, "f" and "ph", hard and soft "g", and will continue with "i" tomorrow. The grade threes have been working on the story "Rintintin le lapin" which focuses on the "in" sound with the following three spellings, "in", "im" and "ain". The students are also working on posters about themselves, which is why they were asked to bring a photo of themselves to class. 

We have continued to look at non-numerical patterning, focusing mostly on explaining our patterns. We will have a small assessment on this on Friday, however, patterning is something that we will visit regularly throughout the year. We began doing "Les mathématiques pour tous les jours" this week. It it a set of daily math questions from each of the five math strands. On Monday, it's patterning and algebra. On Tuesday, it's number sense and numeration. On Wednesday, it's geometry. On Thursday, it's measurement. On Friday, it's data management. Also, we have started "Nombre du jour" which is representational activities for a daily number. We are at 13, as we are going with the number of school days that have been attended (the photo is of yesterday's number). Check it out at our Open House next week!

In visual arts, the students are using their names to create patterns. Our self-portraits are done along with the poems. They are up on the wall to be seen at Open House. We began social studies this week. The grade twos will be looking at their communities within Canada. They will be doing activities that will allow them to compare how they live in Canada with those who live in other countries. The grade threes will be completing activities about the communities in which they live. Given that we have students from both Kingston and Amherstview, we will be able to see the differences between an urban community and a rural community through our follow-up discussions to the activities. Also, learning goals for each subject are now posted on a bulletin board for students to review regularly. These will change as we change units/topics. The background colour matches the colour of the duo tang for that subject, red - le français, yellow - la phonétique, green - les études sociales, black - les maths, blue - les mathématiques pour tous les jours, and orange - les sciences. This will help students match the expectation to what they are working on. I'm really enjoying trying to implement new ideas such as this in the classroom this year. 

Les mathématiques pour tous les jours

Nombre du jour

Our self-portraits and poems

Learning goals

Matching duo tangs