Gould Lake and Newcomers

This week we welcomed someone new to our class. Mme Robyn Misener is a Queen's University Bach. of Education student who will be doing a 6-week placement with me in the classroom. The students were very welcoming and we hope she will enjoy her time with us.

This week in Language, we looked at another CAFE lesson, this time to work on decoding skills. We used this strategy with our comptine and poem and will continue to practise this skill over the coming weeks.

We reviewed the "oi" sound in "Les petits pois". We also looked at how some poems are formatted when we read "L'automne" and we discussed the creative license that poets have with spelling in poems.

Listening to reading

Working on words activities

Reading with someone

In Math, we continued to begin our lessons with daily math work, followed by a math talk at the carpet. This activity gives the students the opportunity to practise explaining their thinking orally, both with a partner and with the class. We discuss what strategies will work with a problem and why. When we work out the answer/answers, we discuss the reasonableness of an answer, something they are not used to doing at this point of the year.

Math talk example

Another Math Talk example

Discussing strategies during a Math Talk

Working on math problems in a guided group

Looking at different ways to represent a number (place value) in a guided group

Working with tens and ones to figure out a number

Math by themselves

Evelyn brought in a turtle shell that she had found to show the class. This tied in well with the grade 2 Science unit on Growth and Changes in Animals.

In Social Studies, the grade 2s learned about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippour, the celebrations of the Jewish New Year which took place recently. The grade 3s began to look at differences between life in a city and life in a rural setting.

In Dance, we began to look at some examples of African tribal dancing.

On Thursday, we spent the day at Gould Lake. Despite getting a bit lost on the way there, a bit of rain, and some chilly weather, the class had a great time. Due to a staff shortage at Gould Lake, we did all activities with Ms. Ambury's Grade 2/3 class, sometimes together, sometimes doing alternate activities due to space limitations.

Mme Misener is sharing beaver facts with the students while the other class visits the beaver dam. They had done the same while we visited it.

The underwater beaver lodge was across the water, only slightly visible by the pile of sticks in the distance

An above ground beaver lodge hidden in the bushes jutting out into the water

Dan, our outdoor educator, shares information about the characteristics of beavers

The sun came out briefly in the afternoon

A little playing during lunch

The beach is ready for some beaver dam exploration

Beaver dam materials ready to go

Making beaver dams in small groups

Testing the dam with water

Next week is Safety Week. We had a surprise fire drill this week but next week we will be practising other drills such as Lock Down and Shelter in Place. On Tuesday, the students will be practising bus evacuation procedures. The students will be attending the Buster the Bus Presentation on Wednesday.

Please check agendas regularly for information that may not have been sent out on Bloomz. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Daily 5 Literacy and Daily 3 Math in Full Swing

It was another busy week, cut a little bit short today when I suddenly had to leave this afternoon to pick up one of my sons from school when he was sick.

In Language, we read "Maman" to review the "an" sound and it's many spellings. We also read "Crayons de couleur" where we focused on fluency and new vocabulary.

After weeks of building stamina and practising the various components of the Daily 5 (Les 5 au quotidian), we finally began doing all 5. We do three cycles a day with time for our weekly words/sentences and read aloud poems before, a brain/body break after the first cycle, and a reading or writing lesson before the last cycle. My guided groups have started and each day I see a group for reading and a group for writing. The last cycle allows me to work one-on-one with anyone who needs extra help or to do GB+ assessments.

This week's focused lesson in reading was on Comprehension. We looked at checking our understanding by using the key questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? We began reading "Le loop qui voulait faire le tour du monde". Not only is this from a great series of books with a funny and interesting main character, but I also use this book as a starting point for what we will be doing in Social Studies in Grade 2, where the students look at communities around the world. We have only read a few pages so far, where "le loup" has visited Paris, France, and London, England. We will begin looking at Europe in Social Studies and travel along with "le loup" to all of the places he visits.

In our guided reading groups, we are focusing on comprehension and how to pick out information from texts. The students read short paragraphs of a few sentences and then have to answer a question or two before moving on to the next part of the text. We are working on finding the sentence that provides the answer, then underlining that sentence before answering the question.

In our guided writing groups, we finished our activity on making complete sentences that included who, what, and when. Then we did activities using known vocabulary to answer questions but focusing on correctly writing the sounds using what they know about French sounds, our sound posters, and our class word wall.

Lots of writing during "Work on Writing"

While guided reading groups were with me, the others were all reading to self. When I met with guided writing groups, everyone else was doing work on writing. During the third cycle, one group listened to reading, two groups read to someone, and two groups did work on words activities.

We also began our Daily 3 Math Centres this week. When the students begin our math time, they continue to complete "Les maths pour tous les jours" focusing on a few questions from each math strand each day. Afterwards, they come to the carpet for a short "Math Talk" session. They have a question that they need to think about for a couple of minutes. They then share with an elbow partner. We finish by sharing with the entire group. Sometimes the questions will be about the process of solving the problem and sometimes they will need to figure out an answer and explain their strategy to the partner or group.

After our "Math Talk", we are doing two cycles of centres. This allows me to meet with every group twice in a five day cycle. While the guided group is doing writing in math with me, one group is playing Prodigy on the iPads. During the first cycle, the other three groups are doing math alone. During the second cycle, I again see a guided group, one group is playing Prodigy, and the other three groups are playing math games with their group. The math they do alone or in the games ties in with our math units. The math questions on Prodigy are set up by me at the beginning of each new unit and align with what we are doing in class also.

In gym, we continued to work on our soccer skills on Monday. On Tuesday, the students played in centres to work on balance and other fundamental movement skills.

In Science, the grade twos looked at the characteristics of birds and reptiles. The grade threes did an oral assessment with me where they explained the plant life cycle.

Unfortunately I had to leave today before we got to Social Studies. Hopefully I'll have some photos and an update on what we are doing next week.

In Visual Arts, the students are working on "Name Art". They drew the letters of their names so that they overlapped. They are working on colouring them in by changing colour every time they touch a line.

I hope everyone has a lovely long weekend with their family!

Open House and a Short Week

It was a busy week even though it was short. We had the Scholastic Book Fair which we visited on Wednesday afternoon and the Open House on Thursday after school. It was a pleasure meeting all of the parents who came. It was busy and it was difficult getting around to everyone at times. If I missed out on talking to you and you would like a quick meeting or phone call just to see how things are going, please let me know in the agenda.

This week in Language, we read "Poustoche" and "Les lettres écolières". We reviewed the "ch" sound in "Poustoche" and the letters of the alphabet in French in "Les lettres écolières". Some students are still having difficulty pronouncing "g" and "j" correctly in French as they are the exact opposite of what they are in English. The class has been asked to read these carefully when they practise their poems at home this week. We also continued to review the silent "ent" at the end of plural verbs.

I spent some time this week getting our bulletin board ready for the Daily 5 and C.A.F.E.  The Daily 5 posters remind students of what they need to do during each of the centres. The C.A.F.E. board will contain strategies for each area of reading as we work on them in small groups. C - Comprehension, A - Accuracy, F - Fluency, and E - Enriching Vocabulary.

I began working with small writing groups this week as I'm still organizing reading groups based on reading level and which areas/strategies they need to work on. While I worked with guided groups on writing complete sentences, the others continued to work on Read to Self and Work on Writing. They also had some opportunities to practise Read to Someone although this is not a regular part of our Daily 5 cycle yet.

I also introduced the second last Daily 5 Centre, Listen to Reading. On the iPads, I have organized a folder with various sites where the students can listen to stories being read. This is one of the reasons they were asked to bring in headphones, along with using them while playing Prodigy Math. We practised Listen to Reading as a whole class. I hooked the iPad up to the Smartboard and we all listened to a story together from one of the websites.  Over the next couple of weeks, I will be introducing the final Daily 5 Centre, Working on Words.

In Math this week, we continued to work on creating patterns and on describing what changes in the pattern. We also tried out Prodigy on the laptops on Wednesday afternoon after visiting the Book Fair.  I prefer the iPads as the students don't have to go through the very slow process of logging into the laptops. Once we get going with our Daily 3 Math centres, playing Prodigy on the iPads will be one of the math centres while I'm working with a Guided Math group.

In gym, we continued to practise soccer skills. First the class played a mini-game where the students were not allowed to move if they had control of the ball. They could only move around when someone else had it. This forced them to really on passing and allowed them to focus on practising that skill while still in a game-like setting. Then they played a game of regular soccer. We continued to focus on movement skills and centres when we went with the kindergarten class. The students are getting great opportunities at that time to build leadership skills and be role models for the younger students.

We finished up our Minion self-portraits on Thursday. They are now on display in the hall on our artwork bulletin board. They look great. Please check them out the next time you are in the school if you were unable to make it to the Open House.

Just a quick reminder, if you are sending in money, please label what it is for. There are lots of things going on and often the students will all give their money to me at once. In order for me to keep track of it all, it should be labeled with your child's name and what it is for. Thanks again!

I will be adding a page with the Swim/Skate schedule next week (I don't have it at home.) I will also add it to Bloomz in the Calendar. If you did not sign up for Bloomz, I can send the information home again for you. Just let me know in the agenda. The original letter said the cost was $4.00 but it has been corrected to $10 in a new letter. This covers the cost of the bus to and from the events. If your child does not have skates/helmet, please let me know ahead of time and I can try to borrow skates. The school does have some helmets available.

Have a great first weekend of October!