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!
|
Archives
June 2024
Categories |