Les aventures des jeunes

Countdown and upcoming events We have been busy in class with our unit on reindeer and caribou. This week we began to practice Christmas vocabulary and read a book about Hannukkah. We will talk more about Hannukkah early next week.  As part of our non-fiction writing, the children wrote a book about the decorations that they have at their homes at this time of year. The book was to have 4 decorations and at least 1 sentence completed. At the back of the books the children coloured faces to represent their self-evaluation. I have circle the face I feel is the most accurate with purple highlighter. Look for the books in the folders today.  I have copied the link to the December calendar. As a reminder we have our Santa Hat day tomorrow. Please check for other upcoming events as well as timings and costume for the concert on Thursday. December Calendar Being Healthy at this time of year We have lots of cold and flu at this time of year. As a class, we read a book about germ

Reindeer and Caribou We have been learning about Caribou, who are also known as reindeer. We have been reading non-fiction books and learning where they live, as well as their body parts and characteristics. We learned an interesting scientific fact that the blood vessels in the nose can make their noses appear red! As part of sharing what we know, the children wrote as a scientists in their journals. They labelled the body parts of a reindeer then some students continued to write a sentence about what a reindeer has for example "A reindeer has hooves." Math Baskets Our morning math baskets are a variety of Christmas games. Most of them include rolling dice. We are working on recognizing the numbers on the dice at a glance as well as counting on. Counting on is when have 2 dice (5 and 4) you say one number such as 5 and keep counting from 5 saying 6, 7, 8, 9 to find the answer.  Building community We invited the grade 2 classes to come and spend time with us. Frida

December is such a busy month for everyone with so many things to remember. I have put together a calendar with upcoming events as they pertain to the class. I will send home a paper copy in the agendas this week as well. We have several special days planned starting with this coming Friday. In celebration of our story telling unit, the children have an opportunity to dress up as their favourite story character. We will watch Hoodwinked  in the afternoons on both Thursday and Friday. As you will see on the calendar I have set aside a day for the children to where their Santa hats and other special head gear. I try to keep it to one day when we all wear Santa hats to help keep the excitement down in the class. Thanks for your support in this endeavour. December Calendar

Le petit chaperon rouge We have been reading "Little Red Riding Hood" stories in class. It is a familiar story which helps the kids to build their French vocabulary by listening to a familiar story. They link the new words they hear to what they already know in the story which lends itself to greater understanding.  We have read different versions of the story from the library here at school. You may see some of those versions come home tonight in the book bags. Also coming home tonight is a version of the story that most of the children can read. I hope you enjoy listening as your child shares the story.  The story maps The children had a chance to write their own story about the forest or a version of "Little Red Riding Hood" using the vocabulary up in the classroom. We also made story maps of the story and they retold the story to a partner using the maps.  They are experimenting with logic and coding. They are using a board set up as the forest,

Math- Patterns Our selection of Loose parts for sorting and patterning Our chart of sorting rules This week we started by practicing sorting assorted objects in the class. We then brainstormed all the ways to sort objects. We discovered that we can sort by colour, length, weight, by shape, by using our 5 senses and by how many. We recorded our ideas on a chart in the class. We will explore these ideas further as we begin to get more creative making patterns.  Our ideas for "What makes a pattern?" The next step was to figure out "What is a pattern?". At first as an answer to this question, the students just listed a lot of different patterns. We wrote them down, talked about them and made corrections to a few. But the patterns that we had up on the chart paper did not answer the question. After lots of partner talking and building on everyone's ideas, we came to the conclusion that all patterns include a core part that repeats. In French we

Halloween We had a wonderful week together. For our Halloween celebrations we drew a haunted house. We added several Halloween characters as well as fall things that we have been practicing as French vocabulary. The kids then wrote about the picture they drew. On Monday we made trees out of paper bags. The children used what we have been learning about fall to add leaves to the trees. On Tuesday for Halloween, we brainstormed a list of Halloween words. The children used plasticine, felt and pipe cleaners to make their paper tree haunted. They had a lot of fun with this activity.  Tuesday afternoon, we changed into our costumes and the children drew a picture of themselves in their costume. Then we went to the gym for the Halloween parade. It was a fabulous celebration! Fall The class as a whole really enjoys writing stories and has a good stamina for drawing and writing. So in the next week we are going to spend time talking about what makes a good story. We will d

Fall leaves We have started a new unit about fall and leaves. The goal of this unit is to notice how our environment is changing and to explore how the reason the plants are changing. We started this week by asking questions. The students each had a post-it note on which they drew what they were wondering about fall. Some of the questions were things like "Why do the leaves fall?" "What happens to rabbits during fall?" and "Why do mice and squirrels both gather food in the fall?" To answer the questions about leaves falling, we have read some non-fiction books about the seasons, we have also gone on walks around the school and into the forest to look at the signs of fall. We have also examined leaves to note the change if colour and the absence of the chlorophyll in the leaves.  We have been using our 5 senses to observe leaves and share our descriptions of leaves.  Next week we will write about fall and learn more about the leaves.  Math- Pat

Social Studies In the last 2 weeks, we have been talking about ourselves, our families and our school community.  Ipad project We have had a very busy 2 weeks. We have been talking about the roles and responsibilities at school. The children brainstormed their roles at school which included being kind, respecting others, listening and following directions. I added that we are also here to "grow our brains". The summary of these ideas is the first picture below.  We then brainstormed what Lisa does at school. These are the ideas from the grade 1 perspective; Lisa works, helps others, and gives people things. The kids also said that she talks to others in the hall a lot.  Susan (the librarian) and I then introduced the iPads and the children were to make a video of Lisa and 1 other staff member. Lisa was to help the other person and the children were to use as much French as possible. The end result was really fun. I will try and put the videos up on Ed Inform for yo

Class Allergies I thought I would send an update about allergies as I now know more about the people in our class.  There is a tree nut allergy in the class. This does not include peanuts so we are a class that welcomes peanuts, and peanut butter. Please no hazelnuts (Nutella), walnuts, almonds, pistachios, pecans etc. While coconut has "nut" in the name, I have recently learned that it is a fruit! School! In class this week we have been sharing fiction and non-fiction books about school to build vocabulary and also to share ideas about different schools. Out of one class discussion about classes we decided to try a new seating arrangement that gives the children more space. This came from the kids themselves and I am happy to work with them to make our space more comfortable.  During the week we read a book called "The Way to School". Each child used objects in the class to make the route they would walk to school if we did not have cars or busses

We are having a great school start! Thank you for your patience as we started a new routine of buying school supplies from other vendors and not through our office. I know there were bumps and catches. I am hoping that as a staff and parents we can streamline the process for next year.  Thank you to all who were able to come to the picnic, it was a joy to meet each of you and have you see the class that your child is in. I hope to see you again soon! Friendship and Kindness During our first 8 days together, we have been focussing on building and reestablishing friendships in class. In order to get to know each other, we have been playing many games including "Poor Cat" which seems to be popular. One child is a cat and has to crawl to a classmate and "meow" 3 times. The classmate then responds saying "Poor (child's name)" 3 times without laughing. When a child laughs or smiles, they are the new cat! We have made a drawing of a new frien

We have had a very busy 6 weeks or so since the concert! I thought I would share all the things we have been doing over the last few weeks. We have had a focus on reading and writing. You may have noticed fewer posts on Fresh grade as some of the writing has been coming home as a hard copy. We have also spent a lot of time finishing the garden project pictured below. The growing garden We have been working on representing a garden in the school. You may remember we went to the forest to see what was in "dirt".  The children also brought home the bean seeds that they planted. From that point we continued to create a full garden and to talk about biodiversity.  Our garden includes seeds, roots, leaves, flowers and ladybugs (to eat the aphids). It also includes the water cycle. We labelled the garden so that others could learn from our work. It was a combined effort between our class and Erin's grade 1/2 class.  If you are in the school, please take time to t

We have had a busy few weeks since the return from March break. Before the break we spent time with the story "The little Red Hen". Since our return we have picked up the theme of planting and seeds. Planting and seeds Jack and the Beanstalk- Story writing, Art and Engineering As a connection to spring and "The Little Read Hen" we read several versions of Jack and the beanstalk. We compared the characters that we included in the various versions. We made note of the common elements. We played the game telephone and talked about how oral messages change over time and how this happened to Fairy Tales and other stories that come from an oral tradition.  We talked about who were the characters in the stories, where the events took place and what were the key events. The children brainstormed what they would do if they found a large beanstalk outside their bedroom window. The then took the ideas they had drawn and wrote a story. I hope you enjoyed the stories

Hello everyone! We have a very busy week planned for next week. Next week we will be focusing on Friends and Friendship. Valentine's day The grade 6/7's have a fundraiser that will come home in the agenda's Tuesday February 7th. They are offering to prepare a class set of Valentine's for your child to hand out on February 14th. The cost is $10.  For those families who would like to make their own cards, I have attached a link to a class list. Please send a card for each member of the class. Also this year we have many allergies and sensitivities including children who are sensitive to sugar. Please do not attach a candy, chocolate or lollipop to the cards. Thank you. Link to class list 100th day I will send home a "cape" with your child later this week. The cape is in a ziploc bag that includes instructions, a 10 frame and a rectangle of plastic. The goal is for your child to attach 100 items to the cape for our celebration of 100 days at

Loose parts We have been using the loose parts (see pictures) for many projects over the last several weeks. We have made many winter scenes. The children have then told stories about their winter scenes practicing telling beginnings, middles and ends of stories.  This week we looked at pictures of snowflakes as they were seen under microscopes. The students then used the loose parts to make symmetrical snowflakes with a pattern around the centre core.  Also this week they used the loose parts to build a shelter for a penguin during an antarctic storm. The shelter had to be big enough for the penguin and be able to withstand substantial wind (blowing on the shelter). These activities promote creativity and critical thinking. They are also related to many of the subjects of the curriculum, including Applied design, skills and technologies.  Science Challenge On Friday we participated in the science challenge. The student were to build a ping pong ball launcher

Welcome back to each of you! We have had a wonderful start to the new year. I have really enjoyed the snow and the cold (yes, you may call me crazy!) Our icy field- it was inspiring.  Last week we read stories about snowmen. We talked about the water cycle in terms of water melting and freezing. We studied the ice in the field and wondered how the bubbles got into the ice. We did a few art projects. We made snow scenes with loose parts (there are pictures on Fresh Grade), snowmen out of plasticine and a paper art project of a melted snowman. We used the paper art project as inspiration to write about what snowmen should not do to prevent melting. There were so many good ideas in the class such as visit the desert, have a bath or drink hot chocolate. The world at the poles While the cold weather is here, we have started a unit on life at the poles. We will look specifically at penguins and polar bears. The class seems really interested in penguins right now. We are going to