Assessments and Lost Snowmen!

The students were quite disappointed this week that we didn't do our ateliers. But with report cards looming, I had a lot of assessments to finish up. The grade twos did the comptines "Charlemagne" to review the "gn" sound and "Le telephone" with the "ph" sound. The grade threes worked on the story "Léa en compétition" with the "tion" sound. We did a reading assessment over three days to ensure that they had plenty of opportunity to read and re-read the stories to ensure better comprehension as they did the follow-up questions. On Thursday and Friday, they took turns reading the story from their assessment aloud to me. I'm definitely noticing an improvement in their knowledge of French sounds/spelling as shown in the decoding and attempts at unfamiliar words. I still have a few more students to read with but I'm hoping to get the assessments marked and sent home later next week. 

In math, we spent a couple of days finishing up the two geometry booklets that each student had in our ateliers, a regular work booklet and a problem-solving booklet. We started the 2-d/3-d geometry test on Thursday but a few students still need to finish a few questions on Monday. Once all booklets and tests have been marked, a rubric will be sent home for this unit. 

We finished up our visual arts/language "Lost Snowmen". They are posted on the bulletins on both sides of our classroom. If you are in the school over the next little while, check them out and try to match the students' snowmen descriptions with with the corresponding snowman. 

During some catch-up work, students who were done enjoyed working in small groups to write something of their choice. I was pleasantly surprised at how enthusiastic they were about this and of the quality and quantity of writing that they did in a short time. Even some of my reluctant writers were very engaged in this activity where they could write about what they chose. It was also good to see them using their personal dictionaries and our box of "mots outils" when they wrote independently and not just when they were in a guided writing group with me. 

We kicked off our Amherstview Olympics on Wednesday with Red and White Day in support of Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Each class has a country and there will be several Olympic activities over the next couple of weeks. Belgium is the country for our class. I wanted to pick a French-speaking country and of course Canada and France went quickly. We will be looking at some facts about Belgium (la Belgique) next week. 

Have a great weekend!