Friday 31 October 2014

Halloween and More

After Monday's P.A. Day, it was a short week. I decided that with everything that was going on in such a short time, and with Halloween, that there wouldn't be any homework. 

In Language, our shared reading was the poem "Trois escargots". They worked on the "m" and "n" sounds in "Les mitaines" and "Nina". We had another cycle of language centres and were able to do two rotations most days. The students are now rotating through six activities instead of five as I made 6 guided reading groups instead of five. I began doing GB+ assessments again to see the progress made to date in reading levels. I will continue to do more next week before beginning centres again, in case I need to change the guided reading groups as well as to update reading levels for the Book-in-a-bag program. 


In Math, we continued to do data management activities in guided groups as well as other math centres. Mlle Carmichael taught a short unit on measuring (length, width, and height) using both non-standard and standard units that I helped her to plan. She began a one-on-one hands-on assessment with some students and will complete this next week with rest of the class. 

In Social Studies, the students learned about Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, which took place last Sunday.  They also learned about where the celebration of Halloween originated and why we have certain Halloween traditions today. 



On Wednesday, the class participated in "Take Your Child Outside" Day. We did a short walk through the neighbourhood, looking door various colours in the environment. Students were in partner groups and each had three paint swatches of colour to look for and point out to their partners. 

Today for Halloween, the students completed activity pages on Halloween vocabulary that they will be adding go their personal dictionaries. They enjoyed dressing in Orange and black and attending the Halloween dance this afternoon. For this special day, every student was able to buy some sort of Halloween treat in our dollar auction. I have these special days several times a year to ensure that everyone gets the opportunity to buy. We finished the day practising our Remembrance Day song as well as some Halloween songs with Mme Judd and the other grade twos. 



Thank you very much to Mrs. Longfield for the fun and healthy treats today. The veggie platter looked great and the class enjoyed it and the cookies very much!


I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween! Don't forget, our class will be swimming next Tuesday (November 4) and will need to have a bathing suit and towel in a plastic bag. 



Friday 24 October 2014

New Teaching Styles

This week in language, we read the poem "Le bel automne est revenu" for our shared reading. By the end of the week, when the students knew the poem well, we were able to focus on the use of punctuation and reading with expression using punctuation as a guide. The students practised the "k" and "l" sounds in "Le kangourou" and "Le lapin". I read a new book "Pluie de souhaits" as a read aloud and we focused on making predictions based on the title, cover page, and illustrations. On Monday, we finished up the latest cycle of literacy centres. I will be switching from five to six centres next week to make the groups smaller. This will allow the students to rotate through 6 centres, proving a greater variety of activities over six days. The new centre will be a centre focused on writing. 







On Tuesday, Mlle Carmichael moved from working with small groups to doing whole class lessons. She prepared read alouds and activity centres over four days that the class rotated through. The books that she chose linked nicely with what we are doing in Social Studies as they were stories/legends from different countries and/or cultures. Mlle Carmichael did guided groups while the other students rotated through independent activities that required limited direct supervision, very similar to what I have them do in my literacy centres. Next week, she will teach a short math unit on measurement to the students. 


In math, we continued to work on activities related to graphing. We looked at doing surveys, as well as completing Venn diagrams and bar graphs. We will continue to look at these, and in particular labelling graphs appropriately. We will also continue to practise addition and subtraction facts, numbers to 100, and representing numbers in our math centres. 





In Social Studies, the students completed an activity on the continent of Africa. Today they began completing activities about the country of Madagascar. Also, linking Social Studies to Music, we began to learn a Remembrance Day song. The class will be singing it along with Mme Lavoie's class during the school Remembrance Day Assembly. Hopefully some parents will be able to make it on that morning. 

Have a great weekend!

Friday 17 October 2014

Thanksgiving and Nature Walk

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday! It's been a busy, short week, after Monday's holiday. This week in Language, we looked at the poem "L'automne" for our shared reading. We practised the "I" and "j" sounds in "Les wapitis" and "Une girafe". Our word wall words for the week were for the "é" sound and its various spellings (é, er, ez...). We continued with our second cycle of literacy centres which are going very well. 

In math, we started a new unit this week. We are doing graphing in data management. The class will be classifying, sorting and completing several types of graphs (pictographs, tally charts, t-charts, Venn diagrams, and bar graphs). They will also be conducting short surveys and organizing the information they collect. We also started our first cycle of math centres. There are centres for guided math with me, a group problem solving centre, a math facts practice centre, a math games centre related to the unit/strand we are covering, and math activities on the class computers. We continued to practise hundreds chart activities and other counting activities. I have added a hundreds chart to the front of the homework duotang for the students to refer to when doing their math homework. 


We have been looking at warm and cool colours in Visual Arts. Their leaf art contrasting the two types of colours are turning out well. Most students still have a bit of finishing up to do on this art piece.




I also started using a new classroom management system this week. The children start in the middle at "ready to learn" and move their clothes pins up or down based on how they are behaving/working. If they are on orange and haven't moved off, they will stay at recess to discuss/problem solve what they need to do to improve. If they are on red, it is for more serious or recurring behaviour and a note or phone call home will follow. The class has responded very well to this system. I have given them less reminders about behaviour or work since this visual system was implemented and they have been taking more responsibility for their actions. 


Today we went on a short nature walk, close to the school to do a scavenger hunt. This activity incorporated fall vocabulary, working/cooperating in groups, and using French outside the classroom setting. The class really enjoyed our time outside. Afterwards, we discussed how to improve group work when completing activities. 








Friday 10 October 2014

Leading Up to Thanksgiving

This week in Language we looked at the hard and soft "g" sounds in the comptines "La girafe" and "La grenouille". Our shared reading was the poem "Le cartable rêveur". We continue to practise our word wall words using various ways of chanting. This was the first week that we began doing Daily 5 Language Centres (les ateliers). There are five centres that they rotate through in small groups over a five day period. The centres are: Guided Reading with Mme, Read to Self, Read With a Partner, Listen to Reading, and Word Work, which is usually some type of word game or writing activity. When the students work well in a centre, they receive a checkmark on our Class Reward poster. Once they reach 25 checkmarks, they can pick from various rewards. Next week we will be beginning Math centres so they will be able to accumulate checkmarks even faster. In Writing, we did activities on "Les règles de la classe" and "J'aime ou je n'aime pas".






In Math, we continued working on representing numbers. We are focusing a lot on counting accurately and how to use a hundreds chart to help us. We were doing hundreds chart puzzles on the Smartboard where students have to figure out the missing numbers from a hundreds chart. We will begin a unit on graphing next week. 


In Social Studies, the students completed a map of the seven continents and labeled them. We also looked at three different religious or cultural celebrations, Ramadan/Eid, which occurred over the summer, Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur which took place at the end of September/beginning of October, and Thanksgiving. We looked at the reasons for celebrating and some traditions that families might have during those celebrations. 






Next week we will be welcoming Adrienne Carmichael to our class. She is a teaching candidate from Queen's University who will be doing a six week placement with me in the class.  

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with your families! 😃🍗🌽🍅

Friday 3 October 2014

Open House and Green and Gold

This week, we have been working on the f sound in "La fourmi" and "Le phoque". We read the poem "Les crayons de couleurs" as our shared reading. We finished "The Kissing Hand" series with the book "Courage, Antonin!" And completed a character study on Antonin together. We had some other great read alouds too. As you can see in the following pictures. In writing, we worked on "Une invitation" and "Qui, quoi, quand" which was about writing complete sentences. We did a great interactive phonics activity where the students mixed up animal heads and bodies on the SMARTBOARD and then had to read the name of the new creature they created. 







In math, we focused on taking a number and showing it with base 10 blocks in several different ways. For example, 26 can be shown as 2 tens and 6 ones, 1 ten and 16 ones, or as 26 ones. We have also been working on skip counting forward and back by 1, 2, 5, and 10, beginning at different starting points. This week we began having a daily number on the SMARTBOARD and doing several different activities with it. (Write it, number before/after, tallies, and base 10)


We've taken lots of brain breaks and DPA breaks this week, using the website "gonoodle.com". It has many great activities and will track the class activity time and level. It's been a bit chatty this week so we will be trying a new seating arrangement over the next little while. We did some great artwork to follow up our book series on Antonin. Our Antonin portraits are now on display in the hall outside the class. I loved seeing all the green and gold for today's spirit day. 





The October newsletter will be posted to the blog later this weekend. 
Have a great weekend!