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...

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