Joyeux Noël! It was a fun-filled last day of school today, with some great Christmas games in the gym, some special presents from our friends, and a class party in the afternoon! Mrs. Claus (mère Noël) decided to give Mme Van Sickle the day off today because she heard what a great class we were and she wanted to come see for herself. However we were CONVINCED that it was all a ruse and that it was really Mme Van Sickle dressed up. We spent the day drilling mère Noël with questions to try to prove our case. In Math this week, we continued to work on our number sense and began adding in some new games. We've been keeping track of how many days we're at school by using pennies and dimes. We actually use the English terms "penny" and "dime" rather than the term "une pièce de dix sous" because... well... for one thing, it's WAY easier to say, and for another thing, this is one area where Madame really wants us to get to know the terminology that we will hear all around us. (All of our counting is done in French, but we say "un penny" and "un dime"). We are becoming really adept at breaking down large numbers into 10s and 1s since we have been doing this daily. Even our Kindergarten students are beginning to write out the equations independently. In the New Year, all of this money counting will eventually lead us into using a mini classroom economy where we can earn money and purchase things. And... Science! We have continued our exploration of light this week, talking about objects in the sky. We looked at how it can be daytime on one side of the world while it's night on the other side, based on how the Earth spins. One of Madame's best friends lives in Finland and he sent us some pictures of what it looks like there right now at 3:00 in the afternoon. We were fascinated with how dark it is! Here are Elliott and Olivia after school... An even crazier thought is that in the summer time, they could go have a picnic in the sun in the middle of the night! We have also been talking about the MOON!... and how it doesn't actually give us light - it's the sunlight bouncing off the moon and hitting the Earth that makes it appear to light up. We used a mirror to represent the moon and show how the light of a flashlight can bounce off of the mirror and still light up the globe. There have also been letters to "le père Noël" this week... ...lots of art... ...and some more cultural explorations of the season. As we were watching some French Christmas videos, the song "Silent Night" came on. We began asking questions about who the baby was. Lucas was able to explain to us that it was the Baby Jesus and that He is God's son. We talked about how "Christians" celebrate Christmas because they believe that it's the day that God sent His son, Jesus, to Earth. Madame brought in a little Nativity scene and we've been enjoying playing with it all week. In the forest this week, we enjoyed using a make-shift teeter-totter, examining the trees that had lost their leaves, and finding secret "tunnels". We ended the week with a candy cane science experiment. Which liquid will dissolve the candy cane the most after 5 minutes - cold water, hot water, vinegar, or oil? We made hypotheses and then tested our theories. Joyeux Noël et bonne année!
Happy Hannukah! In an effort to broaden our understanding of the people and cultures around us, we have been learning all about Hannukah this week. We read a French story about the history of Hannukah, and then got to colour our own simplified versions of the story. We also enjoyed making dreidels out of clay and learning the classic song. Traditionally, dreidels are supposed to be made out of clay that you can bake in an oven or a kiln. But Madame only had modelling clay on hand, so that's what we used. Unfortunately forming the correct shape out of clay was difficult enough for many little hands, without adding in the Hebrew letters that they were supposed to copy. We had fun with the process, but if Madame is being totally honest, it was a bit of a flop. But, then!... ...a MITZVAH!... In Madame's desperate quest to find "real" dreidels for the kids to use the next day, she quickly consulted the source for all important and accurate information - Facebook! It turns out that there's quite a vibrant Jewish community in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge who were eager to help her find some real dreidels. In the end, a neighbour drove out to Langley for Madame, purchased a class set of wooden dreidels, and dropped them on Madame's doorstep, insisting that she keep the dreidels free of charge. 'Twas a Hannukah miracle. We had so much fun with this game and it didn't take us long to become experts on the Hebrew letters and their meaning. The other focus of this week was, of course, our Christmas concert. We really enjoyed posing in front of the background, leant to us by Capture Photography Studio (in Osprey Village), and acting out all of the little silent clips to go with our song. Unfortunately the other background Madame incorporated was not nearly this beautiful (she is still kicking herself for not thinking to iron it before filming day!) so... don't set expectations *too* high for professionalism... but the kids did a wonderful job! ;-)
Final product coming soon! We've started learning about LIGHT! We brainstormed all the different places that we could think of where we would find light. There were lots of great student-generated answers, including all kinds of natural and artificial sources of light. And then... Madame let us PLAY with light. We made our classroom as dark as possible and got to walk around with flashlights. We held them up to coloured cellophane to make new colours, bounced the light off mirrors, shone it through crystals to make fun patterns, held it up to pieces of cardstock to make it "look like a moon", and discovered the cool effect of shining it through ball pit balls to make them glow. We even discovered that when we shine a light on our eyes, our pupils change in size! Today we took some time to learn more about 2 different categories of light - natural and artificial. Those were some big words for us to learn, but we caught on quickly! Madame designated the flagpoles as our "lumière artificielle" base and the trees as our "lumière naturelle" post. Then she held up different pictures and we had to run to either the poles or the trees, depending on whether we thought the light source was artificial or natural. We had a lot of fun with this game! And we couldn't resist a roll down the hill on this fine day on our way back to class... In French, we spent a day learning about an important and sneaky letter - "H". It's sneaky because it's usually silent in French. It's more of a "decoration", than anything. When it was "H" day, Madame met us outside after recess and we discussed where we thought the quietest place on the school grounds would be. Then we challenged ourselves to walk to the quietest place while being as quiet as possible, just like an "H". Once there, we silently went on a letter hunt in our books to find as many "H" as we could count! And then... we'd had enough of the silence! It was time for some games!... we played a rousing version of "Go, go, go...stop!", except that we all sang the alphabet while running around, and when we got to "H", we had to freeze in silence. If Madame caught us moving or talking, we were "éliminés"! We also got our exercise in by playing an alphabet version of "duck, duck, goose". "J" is another tricky letter because in French it's pronounced "jee", while "G" is pronounced "jay"... the opposite of English. Gah!! How ever are we going to remember that?! We talked about how the shape of the letter "J" looks like a slide. When we go down a slide, we might say "jeeeeeeeee"! We tried acting this out while holding a "J" to help us remember. In Math, we've been playing BINGO to reinforce our recognition of French numbers. Some of us who already have strong number recognition are doing the tricky version with words that we have to read. We've also been continuing to work on doubles in addition through various games and activities. We've been watching a silly video that Madame made with her kids to highlight the importance of doubles. Any Backstreet Boys fans in the house??? (Madame definitely doesn't sing like one, but we enjoyed making this parody, anyway!) And... what is December without some major crafting mojo? "Merci" to Mallorie's dad, Damien, for his contributions to the French poem on our advent calendar! "Santa's beard is naked! Usually, it's very hairy! Every day, add a piece of cotton and once it's all filled, it will be the day of his arrival!" or... the original English version before translation: "Santa's beard is very bare. On his chin there is no hair. So each day add a puff of white. When it's full, he will come that night!" And finally, la forêt... somehow it became a major group challenge to move this log. Madame couldn't handle watching the struggle anymore and she got in there, too. Not gonna lie... it was h-e-a-v-y. We needed all hands on deck! This is "a vending machine". "We have to charge it!" Sometimes we get lucky and find abandoned "treasures" in the forest! And some extra photos, just because they're cute...
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