New writing project

Today we started a new writing project, where we are inventing our own 'sweet treat' recipes!

Tonight's homework will consist of finishing the ingredients and steps sections. We worked on this in class this afternoon, and because there was only one of me and 24 enthusiastic recipie creators, I didn't get to help everyone with the ingredients or steps they needed help finding in French. If you could help them translate any left-overs that would be great. A dictionary, iPhone app, or even google translate are all appropriate sources for this!

Class needs

Now that we are back at school, I am thinking about the units we will be studying for the rest if the year. There are a few things we will be needing, so if you have any of the following kicking around your house, and don't mind donating it to our class, please bring it in before this Friday, April 5th. This weekend, I will be shopping for whatever we still need.

We are looking for the following:

- 4 inch pots for plants (the kind plants come in from the store are perfect)

- potting soil

- small watering cans

- one large dust pan

Merci!

Welcome back!

Welcome back to school! It was great seeing all the kids today, and they had lots to share!! I'm looking forward to reading the writing they did today about their breaks.

FYI there will be no dictée this week, as its short and the first week back.

This afternoon, we had free art time. Here are some pictures of the creations.

Spring break homework!

As you may have noticed, I sent some homework home for spring break! We need to keep our brains awake! Recently we did a review of all the sounds they should have learned in school up until now. The kids are familiar with the sheet, and should know that they need to write any words they can think of in French with that sound. Some places they can look are in a dictionary, or in books!

Also, I sent a math sheet home to get out brains thinking about geometry. There are places for 10 3-d shapes. Students need to find examples of these shapes in their everyday lives. There are pictures of 9 attached to this post, and students can pick another that they see in their lives if they want a challenge!

Also, please remember to keep reading in French everyday!

I hope everyone has a restful and relaxing break!!

Tiny Turtle

Yesterday, we did a run writing project in partners. I showed the student this picture, which we decided is a tiny turtle giving a very important speech. Students shared ideas in partners, and wrote the speech the turtle is giving. It's great reading what they wrote. Be sure to ask what your child thought the turtle was saying! One of my favourites, is  that the turtle is saying 'parle en francais!', which I can only assume came from me saying that so many times in class. I just hope I don't look like the tiny turtle!!

Dictée postponed

First off, I wanted to thank everyone for their help with skating this spring. We appreciate all your help!

Also, incase you didn't hear, our dictée this week was postponed. There was just too much to get done on Friday! So, this Monday, we will be doing the celebration from Friday, and practicing the new dictée.

This last week before spring break will end our unit on division in math! We will be finishing this up and doing lots of mental math practice incorporating everything we have learned in math so far - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division!

With spring break coming up, please let me know if your child will be missing any days of school so I can plan accordingly b

What great discussions!

I wanted to share with you two great discussions we had today.

First, we spoke about a campaign that is close to my heart. Today is 'stop the r-word day'. We made a pledge in class to not use the 'r-word'. You can find more information about it here: www.r-word.org

Also, we started working on our 3-step write. We are writing a persuasive text about wether children or parents should decide a child's bed time. We had a chance to brainstorm some ideas and will be continuing our discussion tomorrow!

I know often children come home and have little to say about school (I remember pulling this stunt when I was a child) but hopefully this gives you some arsenal for your dinner time conversations!

Word practice

Often in class, like this morning, we play a personal version of 'boggle' to practice our French vocabulary. I just came across this online version of scrabble in French, which can be another great way to practice vocab. While this isn't particularly aimed at grade 3s, you can still use this online game to practice French words!

You can find the game here!

Also, here are some great ideas about how to make reading more interactive! I love some of these and intend to trying some for myself!

This week's dictée

Here are the sentences for this week's dictée. Yes, it is 13 sentences. I know that sounds like a lot but they all have the same structure and words that we have practiced before.

Happy writing!

Thank you!

I wanted to say thank you on behalf of all the students for coming and seeing all of our hard work. We really enjoyed hosting!!

Also, I've been gathering a few thoughts to post them all at once. We still talk about space in our class often and still have many questions about it. If you have twitter, Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut who is on the ISS right now! He has been tweeting about his experience and posting lots of pictures of what he does as well as of the view of the earth that he has! I highly recommend checking him out!

Also, if you ever visit Starbucks, you may have seen their 'pick of the week' which is a code for a free app or song on iTunes. This week, they have a code for an app that is a 3D tour of the cosmos, which could be very interesting if your child wants to learn more about space!

Finally, here are a few pictures from last week, when we were working with maps of Canada!