Parents often ask what they can do to support their child’s French learning, especially if they don’t speak French themselves. This video may be more relevant for older children, however there are lots of tips for parents from parents.
http://canadianparentsforfrenchontario.cmail20.com/t/i-l-jiakrt-thttairu-yh/
Thanks for stopping by! I hope that you find this blog a useful resource to keep up-to-date with what is happening in our class and a place where you can find information and resources about what and how your children are learning. In addition to sending out two weekly emails that outline our learning goals and reminders for the week, I will use the blog to post videos of songs, short science videos, links to interesting websites, ideas for working at home, and lots more. I’ve been keeping this blog since 2013, so there is a lot of material in the archives you may find of interest.
Here’s a super blog link for a French teacher in Toronto. Her video organization is excellent and well worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCanpcsWKWiP-1rl9lTx1I1A
Reminder: Meet The Teacher, Thursday, September 27, 4:30-6:30
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.
Greetings! I’m so pleased with the start we have made to grade one and very proud of the children as they adjust to a new school year. Here are some of the main learning goals we will be working on this week:
In language, we will be starting our working with words activities. Each Monday we focus on a sound pattern in French and build our understanding through different hands on, individual, partner, and group activities. The children make and keep word sort containers which we add to each week. I do not have dictées (spelling tests) in grade one, however I encourage the children to consistently apply the sound patterns we have learned to daily work. I’ll talk more about this strategy as a building block for reading and writing development in the weeks to follow. I also introduce a short pattern book every other day and these books will become our take home reading program for the first half of this term- you can look for them at the beginning of October. Our daily read aloud typically draws upon one of the themes we are studying in class and is used as a discussion point to support that learning, develop vocabulary and comprehension skills, and to help the children learn how to connect to different texts
. This week we are continuing our Pat le Chat book study and will be making our own Pat le Chat felt puppet and writing about one of his adventures at South March before he goes home for the weekend!
Our integrated social studies and language theme this month will focus on Rules and Responsibilities. We will read some great books on the subject as well as build our own books on the important rules we have at home and school and the different responsibilities we have.
This term, I also go over proper pencil grip and introduce and reinforce proper letter formation. Here is some information on the tripod grip, the sky grass dirt printing strategy, and the handwriting without tears program that I find very helpful for children as they learn to correctly form letters and eliminate mixing capitals and lower case letters and reversals (common challenges in grade one).
I believe it is important that children learn how to hold a pencil properly and form letters properly and efficiently- mastering these skills makes the true writing process of forming and expressing thoughts less laborious.
Correct way to hold a pencil.
Correct way to hold a pencil.
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
There’s lots more happening as well- but these are just some of the main points. I have some great iPad apps that I use in the class for writing and reading development. You can search those on the blog and I will post information about them in the weeks to come. I also introduce a lot of vocabulary and themes through music and will post links to that on a weekly basis (you can search my blog for the ones that were a hit last year with the class).
Feel free to contact me (email usually works best) if you have any questions or concerns. Have a great week everyone!
Reminders: Students may exchange their homework reading books during the week if they wish. Homework bags and library books are due on Thursday. Report cards for term one will be going home on Thursday, Feb. 4th. The reports will have marks and comments.
In French this week we will be working on our usual word studies and will be focusing on the dr and tr sounds in words. Each week we review the sounds we have learned to date to help with our reading and writing skills. We will also be using online media to read and view short French books as a way to discuss and write about the main ideas in books. I’m including a link to a website that has simple books with both the text and oral presentation. Make sure you click French as language of choice.
Here’s a CBC website that has a very cool dog entertainer/rock star who introduces French celebrities who then read a picture book to the audience. Entertaining.
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/jeunesse/videos/webepisode.aspx?showid=4232&pageid=1&mediaid=6707217
In Science, we are finishing up our unit on matter and materials. The children completed their penguins, penguin beds, and penguin covers, as well as their presentation posters. They will be presenting their projects to their peers this week.
In Math, we will be starting a unit on 2 and 3D shapes. This is also a popular learning unit for the children as they build, manipulate, draw, and recreate shapes around them.
Here’s a fun song to move to, French disco!
There’s lots more going on, but those are just the highlights. Have a great week everyone.
Orma
You will find important information regarding the drop off lanes and the first day procedures at the school web page…follow the link below and click on Principal Shirley’s message.
Thanks!
https://sites.google.com/a/cloud.ocdsb.ca/southmarch/
Greetings…here is an easy to use site that will convert your text to spoken French. Click here to access the site (or check the links).
Once at the site, ensure you select Canada French and I recommend the speaker Louise. She does a great job helping with the pronunciation of words.
Let me know if you have any questions about using the site.
This week, we will be reading, writing about and discussing the needs of living things such as spiders, bats, and owls (les araignées, chauve-souris, and hibou). All great creatures for the week of Hallowe’en. 
We will discuss how animals need food, water, shelter and the sun as a source of energy. Our vowel study will be the letter Y. We are also sorting words based on our understanding of vowel and letter patterns and I’m pleased to see the children apply their knowledge to daily work! Wonderful.
The apple sauce went over well last week. We used the apples for a math lesson and this week we will be talking about the cycle of an apple from seed to fruit.
In math, I would like each child to build a 10 frame with an egg carton. If you have an egg carton you can send in that would be super! We will wrap up our unit this week by taking a closer look at number lines, 5/10 frames, and counting skills. I’m adding a new math link to my blog. You can find the link under the link column on the left, or here. There are some things I don’t like (the advertising for one), but I do like the variety of activities to support our learning. Many are in English, but since most of the games I use are not language based it is easy to use them to reinforce math learning.
Please let me know if you would like to send in a little nutritious snack to share with the class on Thursday for Hallowe’en. 
Children may bring their costumes for some afternoon fun. Please, no weapon props and no masks. Thanks!
Remember to take a moment to look at the choir post if your child has chosen to join the choir. The children sound wonderful together.