Well, it's been a wet one... Madame ended up stringing up a make-shift clothesline on Wednesday because we were so "trempés" (soaked). Obviously, Madame is out of practice for rainy days. Most of us actually had the appropriate gear (Merci, Maman et Papa!), but we quickly learned that unless we pull our rain pants OVER our boots, we will still end up with small lakes between our toes. And then those lakes end up on the floor. And then the rest of our clothes fall in the lakes on the floor. But, school is a place for learning lessons and by Thursday we were all masters. We've got this! The rain also didn't stop us from doing some outdoor Math. But thankfully the weather wasn't all bad this week. We did have some moments of sunshine where we were able to practice learning our colours and numbers outdoors with songs and games. Sometimes we even had some free time after we finished our work to go on bug hunts. Madame told us that we can keep the bugs for one day so that we can observe them, but that we had to let them go wild and free at dismissal. We have been focusing on one colour of the rainbow every day, using stories to reinforce what we've been learning. One of our stories this week was from the website "Je lis", which all of the parents have access to. (Check in the colourful flip books that were sent home for your unique username and password). We followed the step-by-step colour directions to create our own versions of the art from the book. We love playing with Play-Doh in class, which is an amazing way to work our little finger muscles to help with fine motor tasks (writing, doing up buttons, doing up zippers, etc.) We've also been practicing our cutting skills by chopping up leaves with our scissors, and our writing skills by taking time every day to practice writing our name and the letters we've been learning. In French, we've been learning our letter sounds with fun actions. We think it's HILARIOUS when Madame pronounces each of our names with the letter of the day. We do some colouring and some letter-writing practice to help reinforce each letter and the silly gestures that go with it. We also spent some time this week learning about Terry Fox. We talked about who he is and how he "persevered" (persévéré). Then we discussed some things that WE do that are hard, but that we keep doing anyway, just like Terry! Anything worth learning and doing is worth the hard work that it takes to get there. But one of our favourite parts of the day is "centre time" where we get to read and play with toys that build our STEM skills, our imagination, and our teamwork abilities.
“It’s safer outside! No, wait! It’s safer inside!” Our week started out in an interesting way with all of the smoke in the air. All of our best laid plans to be outside were put on pause. Thankfully by Wednesday the smoke had cleared enough and we were able to begin our outdoor learning! We have been spending lots of time outside doing games and activities that are meant to train us to listen and know the outdoor boundaries, as well as build a sense of camaraderie. We have explored a different area of the school grounds each day, including going just outside the fence to Spirit Square on one occasion. After our initial outdoor games, we begin outdoor Math. Nature is a perfect Math teacher because there are so many different shapes and things to count! We have been working on our French counting with a funny song about bicycles, chairs, and birthday parties that helps us to learn our numbers to 20. Then we hone in on one number per day, learning how to represent it with dice, tallies, pictures and on a ten-frame. Much of this is review for those of us in Grade 1, but it is setting us up to be able to use the same numeracy strategies with higher numbers which will in turn lead to addition and subtraction. We practice counting with jumping, clapping, stomping, and doing running races... always ending with some written work and number identification practice. We've also had lots of fun outside during free time and at recess, too! We even made some really neat discoveries - ladybugs and inch worms hanging from the trees! But the most exciting thing this week was that our Ks and 1s finally got to join together! We were thrilled to meet our little buddies/big buddies! The Grade 1s made special pictures for their Kindergarten friends to show them something that they love at school. They've also been great leaders, always willing to jump up and help walk their younger peers to the bathroom. In French, we have been practicing many of our most common French phrases through song. We are getting used to "silly Madame" breaking into song at all kinds of random moments. The songs are meant to get stuck in our heads so that the phrases also get embedded in our memories. We thought it was pretty funny when Madame almost fell on the floor in surprise after a couple of Kindergarten students spontaneously said, "Est-ce que tu peux m'aider, Madame?" (Can you help me, Madame?) We have also begun working on our letter sounds, starting with "S" and "A". We even learned to read our first French word!... "sa" means his or her. Every letter has a gesture to go with it to trigger our memories. In class, we colour a picture to represent each gesture that we learn. And for every day that we practice our letter sounds at home, we get to colour a little image on our "Home Reading" sheets. When all 30 little images are coloured (representing 30 days of reading), Madame says we can bring our sheets back to school to redeem them for a prize! She will then give us a new sheet and we can continue the routine. In the mornings when we arrive and then again in the afternoons, just before the Kindergarteners leave for the day, we've been playing with some toys in the classroom. The toys are divided into coloured sections so that each small table group plays with just one set of toys for the week. Then the following week the toys get rotated to the next group. Even after a week, we are still discovering some new things within our toy sections.
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