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.