Everything's a little strange right now. Including this post, which is going to be written in the first person, rather than from the perspective of the students. For most of us, yesterday's announcement from Rob Fleming, the Education Minister, left us with a mixed bag of feelings. I've been wanting to reach out to parents, but wasn't quite sure how to do it. I trust that behind the scenes, there's a flurry of district personnel communicating and planning, but most of us teachers haven't had a lot of trickle-down information just yet. (I keep having to remind myself that it's only been just over 24 hours since the announcement). And it is Spring Break. Students, teachers and administrators alike are actually all supposed to be taking a breather from all things school-related right now. But since we are mostly constrained to our houses at the moment, time seems to be ticking at a much slower rate, giving us more time to think...to worry...to stress... Or maybe that's just me. I don't do well with the unknown. I'm a planner. Not being able to plan drives me just slightly batty, God bless my husband. So for the worriers out there like me, let's agree to STOP. Take a breath. And remember these words of wisdom... As for my family, our quarantined Spring Break so far has looked like bike rides (my son's skills have improved so much already!)... ...and adventures in Nature's playground... We've kept ourselves and the kids busy by transforming the "baby room" into a "big girl" room, and putting together bunk beds for the boys. Mom and Dad are playing games with them, building LEGO sets, practicing our complete lack of drawing skills, having dance parties, and just trying to enjoy and keep them calm amidst a world turned slightly upside-down. Despite having two parents for teachers, these kids have been doing almost nothing that would be seen as traditionally "academic", with the exception of our 5 to 10 minutes of reading before bed. Miles does his alphabet cards (in English since he's in preschool) and Ella practices a French book that she's been working on for a while. It doesn't seem to matter how tired they are, they never want to skip this. It's just become a part of what we do every day. Of note: Normally I try to really minimize my verbal corrections when my daughter is reading, choosing instead to just keep pointing at a word until she says it correctly, or helping her parse difficult words into syllables by covering and revealing little bits at a time. But that's hard to do while video-ing. ;-) Right now the weather outside is amazing but when the rainy days come, or when the kids need some more down time, here are some interesting links and ideas to keep them busy until we, at the school level, provide you with more information: School's cancelled - what now? 200+ activities you can do with kids at homeMo Willems (author of the Elephant & Piggie books) is hosting a livestream doodle every dayArt for Kids Hub - watch a dad teach his daughter to draw (easy enough for Kindergarten/Grade 1)Non-techy ideas:Teach kids to...
- tie their shoes - follow a recipe - count change (and for an extra challenge, even write down what the total amount looks like) - do chores around the house (because as a family, we are a team and we work together) - how to say their French letter names/sounds - how to read French vocabulary words (you can use the flashcards that I've sent and the pronunciation guide) - how to write their name with the first letter being an uppercase letter and the rest in lowercase letters (a great DAILY activity) - how to write phonetically (have them practice writing a sentence in English or French, dragging the sounds out to make words. You may need to help them with blends: "Which two letters make the 'CH' sound"?) Then they can even draw a picture to go with their sentence! - count to 20 in French - count backwards from 10 (Kindergarten) or 20 (Grade 1) in French - improve physical skills (bike riding, kicking a soccer ball, skipping, jumping...) - improve fine motor skills (draw, colour, play with Play-Doh, sew...) - think outside of the box (use recycled materials or random objects from around the house to create something) - research things that they're interested in (they'll need your help on the Internet or with books) - lose well AND win graciously while playing a game - express gratitude for the simple things ("Thank you for making dinner", "Thank you for sharing your toy"...) Sing with me now... "School's out for the...[Spring Break]"! Ok, not Alice Cooper's original song. But let's not get hung up on details. Happy Spring Break to all of you! Spring was definitely in the air this week with some more glorious sunshine! We enjoyed time outside with our Big Buddies again, we built "campfires" and forts and searched for bugs at Hoffman Park, and we finally got outside to play again with our friends from other K/1 classes! With everything that's been going on in the world lately, we decided that it was really important that we wash our hands well. Thank you to Heather Rhodes for introducing Madame to a sneaky hand-washing strategy. Madame stamped our hands every morning and the goal was to make sure that the stamp was gone by the end of the day. Hand sanitizer alone wouldn't cut it. We needed to actually WASH our hands to get the stamp off. Anyone whose stamp was gone (or almost gone) by the end of the day received some extra nickels for their hygienic efforts. In Math, we've been having fun lately with a video that Madame introduced to us about "subitizing" - identifying the number of things in a set quickly, without counting them one by one. For example, when you look at dice, do you have to count how many dots are on each side or do you just know by looking at the set? (The video below is in English, but students call out the numbered sets in French. Some of us are getting really quick at identifying our sets! It's great reinforcement of our random French numbers, as well.) We've also been playing some fun subitizing and addition games to reinforce our skills! And on the theme of subitizing, Madame introduced us to a new system for tracking our French-speaking efforts. The gumball pages that we were using before just weren't cutting it for her anymore since they were causing a lot of disruption during class time. They have been replaced with a mathematical tool called "rekenreks", which are a variation on the traditional abacus. Every time we speak in French, Madame can just reach behind her during a lesson and move a bead to the left on our rekenrek. Each bead to the left earns us a nickel. At the end of the day, we should be able to look at our personal set of beads and, without counting, tell Madame how many beads are in the set. Madame will then pay us out for the nickels. We had a lot of beads moving already today! We were also very enthusiastic about the new "magasin" set-up that Madame introduced this week. No more flimsy cardboard boxes! We are fully pro around here now! Setting the prices at 25 cents, 50 cents, 75 cents and $1 is no accident, either. Madame is intentionally trying to prepare us for the Grade 2 mathematical concept of the numerical "benchmarks" of 25, 50 and 100. Ok, ok, ok... enough of the boring curriculum talk. Let's move on to some shout-outs! The first shout-out goes to Meya who was caught being kind without expecting anything in return. Another student dropped some food on the ground and Meya grabbed the broom without being asked and swept up the mess. C'est gentil, Meya! The next shout-out goes to Max who is such an eager participant in... well, everything! His enthusiasm for learning and his curiosity about the world around him are definitely contagious! And last but not least, a special birthday shout-out to these two cool kids who won't get to have a musical serenade in the morning line-up because their birthdays are happening over Spring Break! Bonne fête, nos amis!
Madame taught us a weird but fun new game this week, stolen from her time living with two young boys in France. In the game, we had to find a partner and sit facing them, each holding the other's chin. Then we said the French equivalent of: "I hold you, you hold me by the beard. The first one who laughs gets a swat." (It sounds so much more melodic in French. And Madame eliminated the swatting for safety reasons.) ;-) Most of us laughed at how ridiculous we felt but we had some super strong giggle-resisters! It was a great week overall for French cultural activities since Tuesday was crêpe truck day! Mmmm...! Photo credits: Mrs. Bateson (our wonderful secretary). Madame was absent this day. We also saw some more sun this week! It really does exist! So we took full advantage with our Big Buddies on Wednesday. And now, time for some shout-outs! Little Miss Hailey invested her hard-earned money this week in the purchase of her classroom home. No more pesky rent payments for this girl! Time to start picking out paint colours! ;-) And then there's Kai, who resisted the allure of giant sour keys and jelly beans in order to save all of his money for something more expensive next week. Hooray for delaying gratification! And last but certainly not least, we have Rosie... the wheels are turning constantly in this girl's head! She came up to the classroom store with her money box in hand and declared that she had 35 cents, which she had counted all on her own. Then without an ounce of help, she divided her money up and showed Madame that she could buy one thing from the 25 cent box and two things from the 5 cent box. Ummm... who are you?! Are we certain she's not a Grade 1 student masquerading as a Kindergartener?? The investigation is pending...
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