Category Archives: writing development

Week of October 2nd- week 5!

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Happy October greetings. What a wonderful fall weekend we had.

Reminders: Friday, Oct. 6 is a P.A. day and there is no school for the children.

Monday, Oct. 9 is the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thursday, Oct. 12 is photo day, and our evening open house (5-7 p.m.)

This week’s learning goals:

We will be taking a closer look in science at the fall harvest and plants around us, as well as learning about the parts of a plant and what plants need to live. I was very pleased with the work the children completed about animals.

In French, we continue to look at consonant/vowel combinations and I will be introducing and reviewing the sounds u and y. It’s important for the children to be able to quickly identify the sound each letter of the alphabet makes at this point in grade one. In printing, it is still somewhat common for children to have letter reversals when printing, and the letters b and d can be particularly difficult for children. It can also be a challenge for children to leave a space in between words. We are working on this. I am also working to remind children to write in lower case letters (no more capitals, except to start a sentence or a proper noun). When printing, most tall letters start at the top and go down, and many rounded letters start with the c shape. I go over proper printing on a regular basis in class and have the children keep a letter reference card in front of them whenever they are printing. The “handwriting without tears” program is a wonderful resource and can be easily googled if you are interested in reading about it.

Each day we practise writing. In addition to modeled writing (where I model a sentence and the writing process), the children are expected to recognize and record the sounds they hear in words. We do this in many ways including activities such as:

iPad apps

fill in the blanks

short, daily sound practice and write up activities

flashcards

class games

…and lots more. At this point in grade one, my focus is on learning how to make simple sounds (consonant and vowel sounds such as ba, ca, da, le, de, me); how to record beginning sounds in words; how to record ending sounds in words; and how to record middle sounds in words.

Our book study will be based on books that celebrate the season, including Thanksgiving (l’Action de Grâce).

Have a wonderful week everyone! Here are a couple of seasonal songs to enjoy.

 

Week of September 18th- Week 3!

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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:

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.

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.

Le 9 janvier

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Bonne Année! Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a relaxing and happy holiday. It will be good to greet the children and hear about all their adventures as we get back to our routines and learning.

This week reminders:

We will restart library visits on Thursday (books were returned before the break). I will also send home the homework folders and books on Friday. I will be including a new list of sight words that we are working on during this last month of term one. Please remember to send an extra pair of mittens and socks with your children in their backpacks. These extra items help your children stay warm and dry. 

During our language studies, I will be completing reading assessments throughout the month of January. If you have any questions about your child’s reading progress, please feel free to contact me and I would be happy to give you feedback. Term one report cards will be sent home Wednesday, Feb. 15th.

A main language focus this month will continue to include building sight words and reading strategies, in addition to building writing skills. Students will be keeping daily writing journals and crafting responses to books we are reading in class. At this point, my goal is to help the children write three sentences independently using the language conventions we have studied to date (I’ve written about this in previous blog entries). I talk a lot about what strategies writers use to help them (such as word lists, rhyming words, model sentences, personal dictionaries, etc.).  Our read aloud this week will be books by Barbara Reid with a focus on “La neige parfaite”.

In Science, we will be starting a new unit on materials and structures. This week we will be touring the school to create a photo journal of the different materials used to build structures in our environment. We will also experiment with building strong structures and what shapes and materials help build a strong structure. These activities are always popular with the children.

Here are a couple of songs we will move to this week. Have a great week everyone~

Week of Feb. 16

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I hope everyone had a great family weekend.

Reminders for the week:

Thursday is homework and library returns day.  Friday is our Winter Carnival Day- (Weather permitting).  If any changes need to be made I will email you as soon as I know. Volunteers are needed, so if you are available for all or part of the day, please respond to Brad Dillabaugh (email sent to you with address).

Unknown-8Remember to dress warmly, pack extra socks and waterproof mittens, lib balm(if that’s important to your child), warm clothes, hats, neck warmer, snow pants.  We will serve hot chocolate at one of the rest stations.

This week we will be wrapping up a number of activities.  The children enjoyed the 100 day activities and we have a few loose ends to tie up from that day.  We are also finishing our book study on “J’ai perdu mon chat”.  The children will be making puppets and reading their stories on video (that is if we are able to keep track of the sneaky cat!).  We will be taking a close look at 3D nets and shapes, and one of our activities will be taking apart small boxes to observe their nets (or the faces and folds that make up the box).  If you have a few small boxes you could send in for this activity that would add to my collection.  Thanks!

I’ll be sending home the journals the children worked on during January.  Let’s talk about French Grammar!  Beginning writing is challenging, beginning writing in a second or third language can be super challenging.  I model sentence structure and basic grammar as much as possible and I try to keep my focus quite simple as I don’t want to overwhelm the children.  At first we talk about my top 3 rules, as follows-

  1. Majuscule (capital at the beginning of the sentence.)
  2. Minuscule (lower case for the rest of the sentence- children often mix upper and lower case in grade one).
  3. Espaces (spaces between words)

Once these goals are practised, I introduce my next three goals.

  1. Sons – au debut- (write the sound you hear at the beginning of the word)
  2. Sons – au milieu (write the sound you hear in the middle of the word)
  3. Sons- à la fin (write the sound you hear at the end of the word)

In combination with this, I introduce standard spelling of high frequency words

  1. Les Petits Mots- (did you use a strategy to spell the little words correctly?)

We talk about action words.

  1. Verbes- Is there an action word in your sentence?

Editing- We decide if others can read our writing.

  1. Lire- (can you reread your writing? Does it make sense?)

As appropriate, I also model how we can express our ideas and build longer sentences in French.   I’ll write more about strategies to encourage the writing process another time.

In Science, we are learning about the sun this week and its place in the solar system.  This is always a popular topic with the children and integral to the grade one science curriculum as the sun as the source of our energy.

Have a great week and stay warm!