Literacy Week at Amherstview

It's was a bit of a chaotic week at school. I was away Monday afternoon working on a Professional Development project. By Thursday and Friday, there was a shortage of occasional teachers across the board so classes did not go as planned. Unfortunately my youngest was sick on Friday and I had to stay home with him. Amidst the chaos, we had some great activities for Family Literacy Week. 

In Language, we read "Le loup qui voulait changer de couleur" and "Le loup qui ne voulait plus marcher". They students completed follow up comprehension activities after we read each text twice. This week's vocabulary list were words from the story of Pinnochio. In our Guided Writing, students were working on a description of a person. They practised the dictionary skills we learned about last week to check the gender of nouns. 

In Math, the students have finished up 2-D shapes and we will begin centres next week on 3-D solids. 

In Social Studies, the students looked at the different regions of Ontario. In Science, they finished up the unit on strong and stable structures. We will start a new Science Unit next week. 

Except for one student who was away, everyone finished up their snowflake art. They then began colouring a wolf for Friday's door decorating contest. We chose the theme of our Loup books, particularly the one on him changing colour. I started to cover the door Thursday in preparation of all of the students' wolves. As I was away Friday, I look forward to seeing how they finished it when I get to school tomorrow. 

This week will be another busy week. We are skating Tuesday afternoon. Parents are welcome to join us at the arena. The school board requires every person on the ice to wear helmets. Thursday is a PA Day. 

On Friday morning, weather permitting, we will be having a Primary Winter Play Day. Please ensure your child is dressed warmly to spend the morning outside. An extra set of clothes and socks would be great too. I will be running a hot chocolate station from my classroom as my planned activity. If there are any parents who are available to come help make hot chocolate for part or all of the morning, all help is greatly appreciated. Just let me know in the agenda if you are able to help. The Play Day will run from 9-12.   

Bridges and Symbols

This week in Language, we read "Le concours de fourrures" with the "our" sound for our shared reading. We continued to finish up another cycle of reading and writing centres. The class practiced inventing and sharing stories. They continue to enjoy listening to stories, despite regularly visiting the same French sites. This week, they also learned how to look up words in French dictionaries in order to find out if a word is masculine or feminine, and then choose the correct article to put in front of the word. We looked at both paper dictionaries and digital ones on the iPads. 

In Math, we are finishing up the unit on 2-D shapes. The class just has a few more activities to finish up next week before we look at 3-D solids. The activities focused on congruent shapes, tangrams, and classifying shapes into Venn diagrams. 

In Science, the students learned about different types of bridges. I then showed them a variety of images of bridges. They had to identify the type of bridge and explain why they thought it was that type, using the correct terminology that they had learned. (Pont à poutre: les piliers, la poutre; Pont en arc: l'arc, la clé en voûte; Pont à suspension: les pylônes, les câbles, la poutre, les piliers) they finished up by designing their own playground equipment using the shapes that aided in stability and solidity. 

In Social Studies, they finished up looking at the flag of Ontario. We then looked at the different official symbols of Ontario. Today, they began identifying the Great Lakes in a map. 

In Visual Arts, the students finished up drawing their snowflakes and began painting watercolours around each snowflake. They will finish up next week and I will post some photos of the art wall. 

I got a nice surprise the other morning when I came back after English. The class was learning about letter writing format and had written me a nice letter. 

Please check the letter that came home last week and agendas to keep up with all of the Reading Week activities. I'm looking forward to taking the class to see all the photos of the staff as children and to see if they can identify anyone. It should be a great week!

Recycling to Start and Dancing to Finish

We started the week with a presentation on the proper way to recycle. We have revamped our recycling program at Amherstview and all the classes have new bins. Each student is responsible for recycling properly within the class. 

Monday afternoon was a break from routine when M. Choquette's entire class joined us for the last 100 minutes of the day. His wife was in labour and he needed to leave in a hurry. The class enjoyed showing his students how to play Prodigy. Many of them went home and signed up that evening as they enjoyed playing it so much. 

In Language, we read "La sorcière Mirador" for our shared reading. We continued our Reading and Writing Daily 5 centres. I also began doing GB+ Reading Assessments with the class. 

In Math, we continued to look at 2-D shapes. The students practised using Miras and completing symmetrical drawings using grids. 

In Science, the students completed the write-ups about their solid and stable structures. They were able to see their projects on the blog in order to draw and describe them since they had already taken them home. It was great review of "schémas" which they had learned in writing back in the fall. 

In Social Studies, the students continued to learn about Ontario. We had a great discussion about resources and the connection between provinces, countries, and continents based on climate and availability of resources.  

We finished the week with the school Dance-a-thon. Bellica won a Tim Hortons gift card in a draw during the dance. Our class did not win any of the big prizes for collecting the most money but we definitely helped contribute to the great total that the school council collected of around $3600. Way to go, Amherstview! The students danced to several songs, would take a scheduled break by watching a video, then repeat. 

Have a great weekend!