A Crazy Week

It's been such a hectic week. When we first looked at reorganization early Monday morning, my class seemed to be okay with no changes required. Unfortunately with the loss of just a few more students by Tuesday afternoon, my class was then required to reorganize along with the other French Immersion classes. It is always very difficult for staff and students and it is something we try to avoid if at all possible. I was very sad to lose the 10 lovely grade two students who have been with me for the past two weeks. I'm sure they will have a great year with Mme Lavoie and I will continue to teach them art in her class for the remainder of the year. Mrs. Hilton will continue to be our English to Immersion teacher and Mrs. Bernert will continue to do health with the class. 

So it's been crazy trying to finish up work started as much as possible with the grade twos, while at the same time, not going too far ahead with the grade threes before the 10 other grade threes join us on Monday. At the same time, I was trying to get everything ready to send to Mme Lavoie and receive my new students. I didn't get as many photos taken as I would have liked of the variety of activities we did this week. 

In Language, we read the poem "Dans mon potager" as a shared reading. We focused on appropriate pauses, looking carefully at punctuation, and reading with expression. We read a short story "Lou et Trouloulou" which focused on the "ou" sound and then completed follow-up activities over several days. We will be focusing on writing complete sentences in reading response questions over the next little while. The students completed a flag about themselves, a school vocabulary crossword, and several readings/responses on safety. They also began our words/sentences of the week. Each week they will get a list of words on the first day and then a sentence to copy each following day, using those words. They also had some fun doing group story writing on chart paper. 

In Math, we continued with non-numerical patterns. The grade twos focused on accurately identifying which attributes change in a given pattern as well as creating their own patterns. The grade threes focused on identifying changing attributes in a pattern but also had to describe them in detail. I will be going over this again next week with our new students and we will begin looking at some numerical patterns as well. We also started doing our daily math. Each day, the students do several short questions from one of the five math curriculum strands at the start of our math period. It is a great way to review concepts regularly and to get them in a math frame of mind after recess. Prodigy Math has been set up for all the grade three students and I have input grade three level questions on patterning for them. For those who were in my class last year, logins/passwords remain the same. New students will also be given logins and passwords which they will also be able to use at home. 

I didn't continue in Science or Social Studies in anticipation of the changes in classes. In art, the class made the Lego figurine self-portraits that I did with Mme Lavoie's class. 

Sadly, I am going to have to take a an indefinite break from posting my blog. Our union will be escalating work to rule protocols as of Monday, September 21. Blogs, Newsletters, any outgoing classroom information, will no longer be possible. I will post the September Newsletter and other information outside of the classroom door as this is information that I have sent previously to the escalation. I continue to be available by phone during school hours, notes in agendas and quick drop-ins for questions/concerns just before or just after school. I hope for a quick resolution to the bargaining situation so that things can return to normal. 

Have a great weekend!