Reading Week and More

It's been a very busy short week. There was so much going on in the school with photo days on Monday and Tuesday and Reading Week. There were so many great activities. On Monday, the entire school stopped everything in the afternoon to all read together for twenty minutes. On Tuesday, the students were each given a book. We had reading buddies with Mme Adanson's class in the afternoon and we visited the book fair. Wednesday was Pyjama Day. We also had a guest author who shared her book with the primary students. I was very impressed with all the thoughtful questions and comments the students had for her when she presented to the grade two classes. Thursday was Dress as a Book Character Day. The students who dressed up seemed to really enjoy it, I know I really liked spending the day as Fifi Brindacier (Pippi Longstocking).

We also did a little mini unit in the class on the Audrey Penn Kissing Hand series. Each day this week we read one of the stories. Some of the books we just discussed and for some we did follow-up reading response activities. There is still one more story from the series to read next week. We read the poem "Les lettres écolières" for a shared reading and did the é/è sounds in "La poupée" and "Les beignets".

In math, we continued to work on place value, and in particular grouping objects together to make counting easier. For our daily math problems, we now use a timer on the SMARTBOARD and the students are getting better at staying on task and completing the few daily questions in a timely manner. They love when the buzzer beeps. I was hoping to get a bit more accomplished in math this week, but wasn't able to with all the school-wide activities.

In social studies, we continued to learn about continents and some of the major oceans. We read the book " Le loup qui voulait faire le tour du monde". It's about a wolf who is bored so decides to travel around the world. The class really enjoyed it and it tied in very well with what we have been doing as the wolf ends up visiting six of the seven continents. The children particularly enjoyed the yeti from Nepal who falls in love with him and follows him around for the remainder of his journey. We will be doing many follow-up activities to this book to learn about how people live in cities/countries on the various continents. The students also began some mapping activities after learning about legends and symbols in maps. 

I will be posting a new page on the blog a bit later with the dates that our class will be swimming and skating. Look for the page link at the top of the blog once I have added it. The form will be going home on Monday and is due back on Friday. Any parents with a current CPIC on file at the office are more than welcome to join us when we go skating. The school board requires any parents skating with us to be wearing a helmet. Monday will also be the Open House from 5-7pm, along with the book fair. I look forward to meeting everyone who can make it. If you are unable to make it, I am more than happy to have a brief meeting with you another day after school. The weather is supposed to be lovely all weekend so hopefully you all get a chance to enjoy it! 😀

New Friends, Applesauce and Terry Fox

It's been a week of getting to know one another better with the two boys who are now part of our class. It was a quick adjustment for all, with only a little reorganizing of desks to make all the groups more productive during independent work. In language, we looked at the d/e sounds in "Dix dragons" and "Le cheval". Our shared reading for the week was a poem called "Les couleurs". Not only are we looking at sounds and vocabulary devopment, we spend a lot of time discussing what the poems and comptines mean. We read a funny read aloud "Qui sera mon professeur?". It would have been great the first day but I only just got it from the Scholastic order. Next year! I've also started doing GB+ reading assessments. It will take a little while to get all 21 students done but I'm looking forward to getting my guided reading groups set up. We looked at procedural writing this week and on Thursday, the class made applesauce, following the recipe they wrote out in their writing journals. It was fun and the applesauce was delicious. The class have asked for the recipe so I will add it at the end of this post. 

In math we have been looking at the value of numbers, how to represent them with base 10 blocks, and how to write number words. We also spent a couple of days working on strategies to count large numbers, such as making groups of ten. We will continue to work on this next week. Reviewing numbers to 100 at home will help the students do this more easily in class. The students also began completing activities from "Les mathématiques pour tous les jours". Each day's questions are from a different math strand so they see all five strands each week. It usually only takes 5-10 minutes at the beginning of math and is a great warm-up. 

In Social Studies, we have been learning the cardinal directions, the 7 continents, and about the Equator, the Greenwich line, and the hemispheres. We will be doing more work on the continents next week. 

We completed the Terry Fox walk on Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful day for it. It was a great finish to the week. If anyone forgot their Toonie for Terry, we will still be collecting on Monday. There will be lots coming up over the next few weeks. Please check agendas to stay on top of it all. 😄 Next week is Reading Week and we have lots of fun activities for it. Tuesday is our Picture Day. Wednesday will be Pyjama Day. Thursday is Dress as Your Favourite Book Character Day. The school book fair is going on this week and the Open House is coming up on Monday, September 29. Don't forget, this upcoming Friday is a PA Day so there is no school for students. 

Mme Jacques's Class Applesauce

21 apples (peeled, cored, and diced)

2 cups water

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

Place diced apples and water in large slow cooker. Cook on high for about 3 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Add sugar and cinnamon and stir. Serve warm and enjoy!

The Craziness of Reorganizing a School

It's been such a busy week with all the planning, rescheduling, getting ready to reorganize, especially a school the size of Amherstview. I was lucky this year not to be affected too much, while other classes went through the difficulty of more drastic changes. Next week we'll have two new students joining our class. I've had a bit of extra work getting notebooks, work, etc. ready for our new friends. We also have a few changes to our class schedule. While most things will be the same, M. Choquette will still be doing Health and M. Manolakas will continue to do Phys. Ed. and Science, some of the timings have changed. I will update the class timetable on the blog to reflect these changes. 

In Language this week, we read "C'est la rentrée" as our shared reading each morning. We looked at the soft and hard "c" in "Le garçon" and "Les quatre clés". We spent some more time on our lap books and should be finished early next week. The class enjoyed sharing so much interesting information about themselves while creating them. Last week Mme Panet began reading "As-tu rempli un seau aujourd'hui" with the class. I finished it with them and then made a bucket wall with tickets where we can all enjoy filling someone's bucket by sharing a positive message with him or her. We had some other fun read alouds this week. "Pat le chat J'adore aller à l'école" was a fun read so close to the start of school. I also really enjoyed reading "Gros poulet" to the class as it has a great message about not judging someone by how they look and about accepting everyone for who they are, even if they seem different. 

The students now each have a label on a bucket. 

In math we continued to look at geometric patterns. In addition to identifying changing attributes, the students looked at different ways of explaining patterns using words, letters, and numbers each time the pattern changes. We had a test on Friday. I was so impressed by how well everyone worked during the test. They were amazingly quiet and on task! I stopped them after a while to take a body break. After a little dancing it was back to finishing up. As they finished, they also started doing a short hands-on test with manipulatives one-on-one with me so that different styles of learners could have several types of opportunities to show me what they know. We will finish that up on Monday. We will begin a unit on representing numbers next week. We will practice writing the numbers in words and representing them in ones, tens and hundreds. We will also be looking at grouping objects in groups of two, five and ten, and counting up to 200. 

Today's colder weather was a reminder that fall is just around the corner. Apple season is upon us! The students made some beautiful apple trees which are now on display in the hall. Take a look the next time you are in the school. We had our two new class members join us at afternoon nutrition break and for art and a little free time/Ketchup time. It was a nice relaxing way to get to know one another for next week. I'm hoping to get out apple picking this week or next, especially after seeing such wonderful art! Have a great weekend!

A Wonderful First Week

I had a great week with my new class. They are all so sweet and kind. (And yes, I do feel this way every year with each new group! 😄) I just love getting to know all of them as they get past the initial shyness /nervousness of the first couple of days. This was an activity we did on Tuesday morning to get to know one another better. It took quite a while but we took it up together and learned so much about each other!

I began using poetry last year as shared readings each week. It was a great way to learn new vocabulary, reinforce sight words, and learn more about rhymes and expression when reading aloud. We read the poem "En Septembre" this week. It was great that several students were willing to try it independently today, even though it's only the first week of school. It will be in their homework next week to practice at home. 

In language, we will usually learn two "comptines" each week, working through the sounds of the alphabet, followed by blended sounds. This week we did the "a" and "b" sounds in "Le lama" and "Le bébé". Our word wall words that we practised saying, reading, chanting, and writing all contained the "a" sound. Some weeks will have more or less words, depending on what sound we are doing. Towards the end of the week, we began making an interactive lap book. These will be on display at the upcoming open house. 

In math, we are working on geometric patterns. The students need to be able to identify the pattern and describe which attributes change (shape, colour, size, number, direction/position). They also need to create and describe their own patterns. They have really enjoyed creating patterns on the SMARTBOARD and getting their classmates to describe them. We did some paper and pencil activities, experimented with various manipulatives and how to use them to create patterns, and made patterns with manipulatives when given a patterning rule. 

We finished the week with drawing some summer activities in Visual Arts and watching some songs, comptines, and short stories on "Le monde des petits" on the SMARTBOARD since it was far too hot to do much by this afternoon. It was a nice relaxing end to our first week together!

Have a great weekend! 😀