Colour House Spirit, Road Races and Fire Safety, and a Trip!

Last week in language, the students reviewed the "us" sound and spelling in "Le virus". They also read "Une histoire à suivre" for the week's shared reading.

This week we reviewed the "euse" sound and spelling in "La berceuse". The poem "Joie du printemps" was our other shared reading.

We looked at two reading strategies to improve reading fluency: adjusting speed when reading difficult text and using punctuation to make reading more fluid.

Our read aloud this week was "Les 4 saisons". It was a story about a girl's life throughout four seasons in China.

In guided reading, most groups are working on comprehension of informational text. In guided writing, most groups have started activities on writing short narratives.

In math, the students are working on the unit on multiplication and division. The grade twos are looking at multiplication as repeated addition and division as sharing equally. In addition to those two concepts, the grade threes need to know their multiplication tables to 7 x 7 and division to 49 ÷ 7.

Last week in social studies, the entire class did activities for Earth Day. Last Friday we went outside at the end of the day to help with the school yard cleanup.

This week the grade twos are completing activities on South America, and learning about communities in Brazil in particular.

The grade threes are learning about how pioneers established colonies in North America. We have discussed why they set up communities together and how they helped one another, and were helped by First Nations people who were living here.

On Wednesday, the grade twos attended a presentation on Fire Safety by the Amherstview Fire Department. Most of the grade threes were at the Bayridge Road Race at that time.

On Friday, we went to see the play "La chasse galerie". It is based on a French Canadian Legend from the Ottawa Valley area. In the winter, farmers left their homes and went north to become woodcutters for 5 months to earn money for their families. In the play, the devil tries to tempt the woodcutters by offering them the chance to return to see their families on Christmas Eve in a flying canoe.

Respect Assembly and Easter Break

As I was away at two different conferences last week, this week's blog post covers both last week and this week.

Last week we read "Gros Poulet" for our read aloud. We reviewed the "is" sound/spelling in the poem "Mathis" and we also read the poems "Printemps" and "Le poisson d'Avril" for our shared readings.

This week we have been reading "Dexter Superchien" for our read aloud. It's a long story so we will finish it up next week. We reviewed the "osse" sound/spelling in "Le carosse" and we also read the poem "Avril" for our shared readings.

This week we focused on three reading strategies. Our comprehension strategy was to make connections between your own knowledge and the text. Our two fluency strategies were to look for sight words and to reread, reread, reread.

In reading, most students have finished up their activities on descriptive texts. We will be moving on to comprehension of informational text. In writing, most of the students have finished writing their descriptions of an animal and a favourite toy. We spend quite a bit of time going over paragraphs. We will begin our next writing genre "short narratives" next week.

Descriptive writing

Understanding descriptive text

Some students are now reading easy chapter books in French!

In math, we finished up all of our activities on time and began our new unit on multiplication and division.

Using stopwatches and timers on the iPads to measure how long it takes for different actions

Working on elapsed time

Prodigy focusing on time

Time bingo

Using tables to figure out elapsed time

We started with looking at how arrays allow us to count easily. Then the students had a chance to create their own arrays with manipulatives when given a number. We also went over how multiplication is just repeated addition.

Last week in social studies, the grade twos learned about "Poisson d'avril" and how it's different in France, England, Ireland, and Scotland. This week they learned about the celebration of Easter and why eggs, chicks, and bunnies are symbols for this celebration. The grade threes have been reading about a girl's journey across the Atlantic as a pioneer.

In science, both grades finished up a summative table about their science units. We also looked at some slide shows about types of wind, friction, natural forces, gravity, flotation (grade 3) and different examples of solids, liquids, and gases. (grade 2)

We are working hard on our latest visual arts project but no pictures as they are working on a Mother's Day surprise!

Evelyn shared the video of her cheerleading group at the National Championships with the class at the end of the week.

 We are still collecting old cell phones and chargers if you have some lying around. It is a school fundraiser and we earn an amount for each cell phone collected.

Also, if you haven't yet sent in the forms/payment for our zoo trip, please do so before May 15th. If we don't have enough students attending, we will need to cancel the coach bus by that date.

Have a great long weekend!