Castles and shapes

Home Reading

The snow definitely slowed down the momentum over the past week. Thanks to everyone who read the home reading books and returned the bags so that your children could bring home new books to share with you. Our exchange day is Wednesday, but if your child has read the books several times they can exchange any day at reading time. 
We talked at school about always keeping the books in the cloth bag and keeping them in the same place so they can be easily located and brought back to school. The backpack is not the best storage location as sometimes water bottles spill etc. The books can only be ordered as a set and the sets are very pricey (in the hundreds of dollars) so I thank you for helping me to preserve the books for as long as possible. 
If home reading is not something that fits with your busy schedule and you prefer not to have extra books at home to keep track of, please just let me know. At this point I would rather your child enjoy school and have the books in their book bin here, than add any pressure at home especially after busy days. 

Math- 2D and 3D shapes

We are continuing with our geometry unit. We learned the names of the 3D shapes this week and we are beginning to talk about the attributes of the shapes (les faces, les arrets et les sommets). The children are also building 3D shapes, using tanagrams to create animals and making their own pictures with shapes. 



Castles and more

We are beginning a unit about castles and life in a castle. Before the snow we read several fairy tales. Today we watched a video of the oldest castles in the world. Tomorrow we will begin to talk about life in a castle. 
Next week the children will begin a research project about life in a castle and write a non-fiction book that includes the facts that they have learned. We will also read a simplified booklet of "Beauty and Beast".
The last week before the break if we have time we will talk about knights and design our own shield.

Carnaval

  1. We will be outside first thing to play and have "la tire" (maple syrup on snow)so please send your child dressed in snow gear to play outside.
  2. At snack time we will be having hot chocolate as a treat. Please send a cup or small mug for your child if you would like them to have some of the hot chocolate. 
  3. At this point there is a tenative plan to have poutine at lunch time. Please send a small bowl and a fork if your child would like some. Please send a full lunch as you usually do, as this will be just a taste. 
  4. Dress clothes in a bag for the ball in the afternoon. We will get changed after lunch when we have finished our Carnaval centres.
  5.  Please send fancy clothes. We are telling the girls to bring the dresses they don't usually get to wear to school and the boys can wear a full suit, a tie or dress as a prince or a knight. Please no swords for the Ball!

What you can do at home:

  1. Listen to your child read their home reading books a several times over the week.
  2. Look through the house and places you go to see if you can identify cubes, pyramids, cones, cylinders etc in objects and buildings.
  3. Ask your child about les faces, les arrets et les sommets

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