Friday

Thank you everyone for coming to the concert last night! It was so sweet to see the kids perform their own choreography! And they did such a good job!!

Everyone was definitely tired today but we did a lot of work! We did a new favourote writing project of mine about what makes a grinch grin, or comment faire sourire le Grinch. They are in the hallway if you would like to take a look at them. 

The students won another full puzzle for our classroom prize system, and they voted for another pajama and film day. On Friday, students can wear pajamas, bring one stuffy, and can bring a snack to share with the class. Please make sure it is nut free. 

Merci!

Concert info

I hope everyone is looking forward to tomorrow's concert! I love seeing the kids practicing and singing in their free time! Here is what you need to know for tomorrow:

Be at school at 6:45. Our class will meet in the library. There will be another concert going on. Ours starts at 7. 

Costume is: shorts, tshirt (as tropical as you have), sandals, sunglasses, toque and mittens! I know it sounds mishmashed but it will make sense! Please don't feel that you have to wear this outfit to get to school. Students can change once they are here! 

Our concert should last about an hour. 

Let me know if you have any questions! 

See you tomorrow night!

Div 1 updates

Hi everyone, here are a bunch of updates for our class!

- remember to stay healthy! Lots of us have been sick (myself included). Remember to make sure children get enough to sleep and eat lots of healthy fruits and vegetables to keep immune systems up! 

- Tomorrow we are skating!! Please remember the following:

Skates (if you have them)

CSA approved helmet (hockey helmets not bike helmets)

Warm clothes (jacket, mittens, snow pants) 

Booster seats!! I cannot allow someone else to drive your child if they do not have a booster seat. 

- winter concert

The concert will be the night of Tuesday december 16th. A note was sent home about it today in agendas. The students have been working hard practicing their dances that they choreographed! If you won't be here for the concert, please let me know!

I will give you more information on our costume tomorrow! 

I apologize the blog was quiet last week. We had lots going on! Students worked hard on their snowman writing projects and on finishing up some reading assessments! We did lots of math and started on holiday art! 

Just a reminder, our winter concert is on Tuesday December 16th.

Here are a series of pictures from last week, as well as this week's dictée. 

This week's dictée

I hope everyone had a good weekend! Here is this week's dictée 'paragraph'. 

Weekend homework

I hope everyone had a good week despite all the rain! 

We did a lot of writing this week. I am working on report cards, so we did our sample writing. This took a lot of works and students put a lot of effort into their work. 

We also started a writing project today about our snowmen. We read the book 'l'année magique des bonshommes' which is part of our homework this weekend. 

In the book, there is a magic snowman that stays with the kid all year. The author talks about what he does with his snowman every season. For homework, students need to write 5 sentences for each season explaining what they would do with their snowman. The verbs in the sentences should be, for example, 'je vais manger' instead of je mangerais since we haven't studied the future tense of verbs yet. 

We wrote one page together about our snow man's interests and likes. Students can refer back to this to inspire what they would do with their snow man each season. 

I am asking that students do the writing at home so that next week, starting Tuesday, we can work on peer editing next week. The writing is due on Tuesday, so if students do one page a day starting tomorrow, it shouldn't be too much! 

Our classroom was taken over by snow people and snowflakes today!!

This week's dictée

I hope everyone had a wonderful day today. I was at a workshop about integrating technology in math learning. It was fascinating! 

Here is this week's dictée. The last dictées didn't get stapled in since I wasn't there today. Happy studying! Remember that Friday is a pro d day so we will be doing our dictée on Thursday. Don't forget the red dictée books!

More Space!!

I know lots of people have been enjoying all the space links here. The internet can be such a wonderful resource! Here are a bunch of other interesting space things I've found:

Here is a video tour of the ISS

Click here to see all the planets to scale. This is another great infographic that shows planets to scale

Here is an infographic we looked at today that explains the difference between all the different rocks that fly around in space. In case you were wondering, the French translations from top to bottom are: une comète, un astéroïde, une météoride, un météore, et un météorite.

Here is the ever-popular Bill Nye talking about space explorations. We got to listen to a bit in class today but didn't have a chance to finish.

Here are some pictures from the Hubble Telescope that, as one student so eloquently put it, may 'make your brain explode'.

Here is a funny picture about the different planets' moons

I love this website from NASA. There is lots to explore here.

Here is a slightly repetitive but still informative song in English.

Finally here are two more inforgraphics that got quite a bit of laughs today. You can find them here, and here.

Space facts

Here are some cool space facts we looked at in class. They do a great job of putting our universe into perspective. I still feel like my brain is going to explode while reading these!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-universe-is-scary?s=mobile

Exciting new way to stay updated!

If you are looking for this week's dictee, please see the post below

Thanks to a lovely bit of help from a class parent, I now have a new way you can stay updated on what I post here (yay!!!). To the right of this text, you should see a box that says 'follow by email'. You can enter your email address here to get an email when something new is posted! Yay for technology!

Dictée

I apologize for the delay in getting this up. This week's dictée is 8 words and 2 sentences. It is a lot! The two sentences are an extra challenge for students who want the challenge! 

Election results

I hope everyone had a restful weekend and got to enjoy the sun. Before I announce our class' election results, hopefully everyone saw that a paper plate clock came home in the agenda. Last week we did a quick time telling unit, and the clocks are to practice telling time at home. Please let me know if you have any questions or want some ideas about how to use them. 

Now, here are our class' elections results: 

Mayor: 

Gregor Robertson

Councillors: 

Sid Chow Tan (COPE)

Heather Deal (VV)

Raymond Louie (VV)

Geoff Meggs (VV)

Kerry Jang (VV)

Andrea Reimer (VV)

Lisa Barrett (COPE)

Tony Tang (VV)

Cleta Brown (Green)

Tie for the 10th spot between:

Adrienne Carr (Green)

Melissa De Genova (NPA)

Tim Stevenson (VV)

School Board:

Joy Alexander (VV)

Cherie Payne (VV)

Allen Wong (VV)

Ken Clement (VV)

Mike Lombardi (VV)

Rob Wynen (VV)

Nanjalah Kombi (COPE)

Patti Bacchus (VV)

Tie for 9th spot between:

Fraser Ballantyne (VV)

Ralph Fraatz (COPE)

Mischa Oak (Green)

Parks Board:

Coree Tull (VV)

Catherine Evans (VV)

Trevor Loke (VV)

Naveen Gim (VV)

Sammie Jo Rumbaua (VV)

Cease Wyss (COPE)

Tie for 7th spot between:

Brent Granby (VV)

Ezra Bloom (VV)

Here are some interesting things about our election:

We had 100% voter turnout!

Every candidate running for School Board received at least one vote. 

Votes were quite spread out in every category.

There were 3 spoiled ballots (all because too many candidates were chosen on the ballots)

Voting

I have now officially tallied the results of our vote, and submitted it to Student Vote BC. I am not allowed to disclose the results of the vote until tomorrow night after 8 pm. You can find more about the program, and province-wide results from student votes at their website.

Don't forget to go vote tomorrow!

Tomorrow's vote

We had lots of little excited voters in class today! Lots said they had already decided who to vote for, but we spent the afternoon looking at the platforms of the three major parties. There were some wonderful chants of 'kid power' as we talked about the issues discussed in this election. Be sure to ask them about it tonight!! 

If you volunteered to come help with the election, please come around 845 tomorrow am!

Home reading, elections, and dictée

Bear with me as there is a lot of information in this post. 

I have attached the notice about LAQ (lecture au quotidien, translated to reading every day). I have tried to simplify it so it isn't a burden. I believe strongly in reading for pleasure, and making sure reading at home is as easy (on both parents and students) as possible!! Let me know if you have any questions about LAQ. 

This week's dictée is only two sentences since we have only 3 days of school this week! This morning we did a if lesson on 'anglicismes' which are sentences in English, that students translate directly into french, but that don't quite work in French. We will be making a 'cemetery' for these expressions soon so keep an eye open for it!

Next, elections! As you hopefully know, BC has municipal elections this Saturday, November 15. I was lucky enough to be able to register in a Student Vote program. We will be having our own elections on Friday November 15th. I have copies of the official Vancouver ballots for mayor and city councillor (I will make some so we can vote for parks board and (most importantly) school board trustees. We will hold elections in our class on Friday morning. I would love the help of two or three parents, so if you have 30 min on Friday morning please let me know via a note in the agenda or a comment on here. Parent volunteers will be 'election officials' giving out ballots and scrutinizing the voting. We are doing all our elections in English so no worries if you don't speak French. 

What I am asking for homework, is for you talk to your child about the different candidates and political parties in Vancouver. I have told them it is ok to ask trusted adults for whom and why they are voting, but that they are not obligated to divulge this information. 

Sometimes, election topics can be quite 'over the heads' of children. My suggestion, and what I will be doing in class tomorrow, is reading the profiles together, and explaining it a second time in a way that would be easy for young brains to understand. For example, if a candidate is talking about the issue of affordable housing, you might want to explain that affordable housing is making sure that the cost of a house or apartment in the city is something that most people would be able to afford, not only rich people. You can also talk about how rent prices are included in affordable housing, and making sure there are enough homes with low enough rent for people who are considered low income. 

You can find candidate profiles here: http://vancouver.ca/your-government/candidate-profiles.aspx

Thank you for taking the time to do this! With so many young people not voting, it is important that we educate our young ones now about how to. Inform yourself, and why it is so important to vote!!

I apologize that the home reading post did not show up last Friday. We had some technical problems. While I have a blog...I'm not a tech savvy person! I will be sure to post that later today!

Also, I will have all the materials for goals ready to go home tomorrow. Look for them in the agenda!

Wednesday update

I have to start by saying, the stidents had an amazing day today! Every single student worked so hard today and did an amazing art and writing project. There are some pictures attached. If you are in the school, be sure to check them out. 

Just a reminder that TOMORROW will be our class' pajama day. Students can bring a stuffy and we will watch a movie in the afternoon. The students earned a reward for great work (the earned all the pieces of a puzzle) and they voted on the prize they wanted. 

Just FYI we will be starting our home reading program this weekend. I will send detailed instructions home and post them on the blog. Also FYI, I will be posting some videos and app ideas for space! Keep an eye out for it in the next few days!

Dictée

I hope everyone had an enjoyable and safe halloween weekend! How lucky that the rain held off for the trick or treaters! 

Attached, you will find this week's dictée. For those who forgot their dictée books today, please remember to bring them on Friday so I can staple their dictée 'celebrations' (tests) in their books. If the red book didn't come to school today, the dictée words are in the agenda. I also realized I forgot to post our Halloween pumpkins that we made! 

Today we started talking about rememberabce day. We will be talking a lot about peace this week. 

Les citrouilles!!

We had such a fun day yesterday with our pumpkins. We spent all day with them! We did our mindful drawing, measuring, and helped the kindergartens with their pumpkins. Here are a bunch of photos from the day:

Dictée

Here is this week's new dictée. We didn't make it to do last week's sentences but it's not the end of the world!

Also, today was our pumpkin patch! How fun! We will be doing activities with our pumpkins this week then I will send them home! 

Thank you everyone for coming to our goal setting conferences last week. I loved getting to sit down with you all to hear about the students' goals and make a plan for how we all can help them. I will be able to start implementing the plans this week coming up.

I have a bunch of tidbits of information for you, so please make sure to read everything.

- Next Friday, on Halloween, we will be visiting Holy Family Hospital to sing and do some other Halloween activities. We will be visiting with our buddy class (Mme Nadja's K/1 class). I would love to have a few parents that can walk with us to the hospital. We would be leaving school at 11:05am and returning before 12 noon. If you can walk with us, please write a note in your child's agenda.

- This weekend's homework for students is to familiarize themselves with some songs we may sing on Friday. We spoke about how we will sing songs that are an appropriate level for our buddy class, so they may seem a little "bébé". The songs are: C'est l'Halloween and La Chanson des Squelettes. There is also a song package that you can find here. This is a package of songs and poems that I have put together. Please take the time to read them through to familiarize your child with them.

*In the package, when it says 'air de', that means 'to the tune of' and 'bis' means 'repeat'.

- We will be starting our listening centre soon. I ask that you please send a set of headphones in a labeled, ziplock bag to school with your child, so that each has their own headphones to use (I do this to eliminate any sharing of bugs that might be in hair). If you don't have a pair at home, headphones can be bought at the dollar store for quite cheap!

Have a wonderful long weekend!

This week's dictée plus library information.

Bonjour! I hope everyone enjoyed the warm weekend we had. 

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the goal setting conférences this week. Remember to bring your child with you as this is a conference with them. We will be discussing their goals for this term and how we can support them in that. 

This week's dictée is 3 sentences. I will switch between sentences and words some weeks. In case you need it, here are this week's sentences 

Also, FYI book exchanges will always be on Mondays, even though we have library on both Monday and Friday. Please remember, Fridays are the days that dictée books need to come back to school too! 

Shake Out BC

Today was Shake Out BC where, theoretically, everyone in BC practiced what to do in an earthquake. We spoke quite a bit about earthquakes and the science behind it. There was a question about what causes earthquakes, and I did my degree in geography, so I couldn't help but go on a bit of a tangent. If you have questions about earthquakes, tectonic plates, Pangea, etc...that's where they came from. 

This can also be a great time to make sure you know your family earthquake preparedness plan at home. If you are looking for more information, check out this site: http://embc.gov.bc.ca/em/hazard_preparedness/earthquake_preparedness.html

Dictée

As you hopefully saw, dictée books came home today! This week is 10 words. These are grade 2 sight words but I find they have been mis spelled in lots of writing this year so far. 

Here is what you need to know about dictée:

On Monday, we will do a 'pré-célébration', which is like a pre test. This gives us all a starting point. The students will then copy all the words correctly from the board. I checked all the books today to make sure they were copied correctly. 

You have the week to study. Please use the words written in the book to study, but do not use the book it's self to practice in. 

On Fridays we will do our 'célébration' and will staple it in our dictée books. Then, the books will stay at school over the weekend to be ready for next week's dictée!

Happy studying!

So much to be thankful for

Check out everything we have to be thankful for! They did a wonderful job today with their turkeys and pumpkins!

Je dis merci pour...

Yesterday, we spent a lot of time talking about what we were thankful for in our lives. I was absolutely AMAZED at all of the things the kids came up with. They were so insightful, and most impressively, so respectful while others were sharing their ideas. While I was recording their ideas on the board, all I could hear were sounds of 'Ohhhh yeah' and 'moi aussi' which means me too! 

I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend! 

Bake Sale Reminder

something got lost in the paperwork shuffle, and you may not have received the message that this week is div 1's turn to provide goodies for the bake sale this Friday!

Classroom help

Hello everyone,

If you happen to have 20 minutes to spare in the morning, I'd love some help with a quick organizing job. If you can help, just come to the portable! 

Also, don't forget tomorrow is picture day!

Fall projects

This week, we will be starting some fall projects. Today we started a fall tree mosaic (yay for fine motor skills!). This week we will also be talking about everything we are thankful for in our lives. This is always one of my favourite projects in the year, as I feel that it is such an important practice to take the time to be thankful for what we have! 

As you may have seen in today's agenda, we will be starting LAQ (home reading) and dictée next week!

'Meet the Teacher Night' Handout

Here is the handout that I usually give for 'Meet the Teacher Night'. It covers a lot of information, that will help the school year so smoothly. Please take the time to read through it. If you have any questions, you can comment on the blog, or you can write a note in your child's agenda.

You can find the handout here (click on the word here!)

If you have any problems finding it, please let me know!

Bienvenue!

Hello division 1 of 2014-2015. Be sure to check back often of updates of what we have been doing in class! Later today, I will post the document I usually hand out at meet the teacher night that will give you more information on this year's program.

Dictée

As you probably noticed, we haven't had dictée for a few weeks. As the year winds down, I finish dictée for the year. We will do one last one next week. I still have many dictée tests that belong to students who often forgot their books at home. Please make sure the book comes to school next week so we can put them in, and I can take one last look at them. 

We have been quite busy in the class the past two weeks working on our plant and canada units. We are learning lots about Canada by working through bags of information that I have, as well as watching some tourism videos from each province or territory. We also have plenty of plant experiments going on in our room! Here are a few pictures!