I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Here is what we are working on this week:

Reminders: Library lending starts this week on Wednesday. I will be sending home a letter from the librarian (Mrs. Stretch). Please pack a large, labelled ziplock bag in your child’s backpack for the use of transporting the library book. This helps protect the books from all sorts of wet or messy mishaps.

French Language: Continuous review of phonological understanding, with a focus on the vowel i this week. The children start their day working with sound combination and reviewing simple texts. Examples of activities including the following; reading books with a partner, with the teacher, reading projected books as a class, playing language based games in large and small groups, structured lessons with iPad apps that highlight the reading and writing process, practising correct letter formation, flash card review, and lots more!

Here are a couple of screen shots of iPad apps that I use on a regular basis in case you would like to have a look at them at home. Note that while the screen shot shows cursive writing, you can easily switch to printing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I encourage and reinforce proper pencil grip and letter formation. Here is the pencil grip that is recommended:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two strategies I use include the “sky, grass, dirt” approach, and the commercial program, “handwriting without tears”. The correct pencil grip is called a tripod grip.

In the sky, grass, dirt strategy, we discuss tall letters that go up to the sky (capital letters, and the letters, b, d, f, h, k, l, t, are all sky letters), grass letters that sit in the grass such as a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z), and dirt letters that start in the grass and go down to the dirt (g, j, p, q, y). Here’s a picture of what I mean to help you see the letter placement. To start children off, I colour the grass, sky and dirt on their page and challenge them to keep their letters in the correct place.

Correct letter placement.

 

 

 

 

Lastly, here’s a link to the handwriting without tears instruction (I use for printing). Even though this is a commercial site, there’s some great information for parents here which is free to use. If your child comes home talking about “c magique” or magic c, you will know that is an important printing strategy I use in class and one that is recommended by many occupational therapists; http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/parents     

In Science, we are continuing with our read aloud books about animals. We have learned about the shelter of écureuils, oiseaux, castors, (squirrels, birds, beavers), and will continue this week to learn about the needs of moose, bears, and fish. This is part of the grade one science curriculum on the needs and characteristics of living things.

There’s lots more happening, these are just the highlights. Have a great week everyone. Check out the song below for a fun way to practise the days of the week.