Le Monde Newsletter 10-10-14

We LOVE Monsieur Alexi!!

From:  Alexis Bidou 

Bonjour,

I hope all the students enjoyed a much needed day off today and that you will all have amazing things to tell us about your weekend on Monday.

We had a great time at the farmer's market last Wednesday and have been learning a great deal about foods in school too. We have sorted foods into our 5 main categories (fruits, veggies, grains, proteins and dairy), looked for different foods in newspapers and we even made a balanced meal by gluing one of each food group on a paper plate (which can go home by the way and I forgot to send them home yesterday). This is a unit rich in vocabulary and although we have seen a lot over the course of the last 2 weeks, it being so close to the beginning of the year, remembering vocabulary is still difficult. You can always spend some time looking words up and trying to say them at home or at the store, etc. Having conversations about which food groups you are eating from at any given meal is a fun way to go deeper also.

We have learned some new songs which you should have in the cahier de vie.  When you sing them together, a great thing to do is to follow along on the paper just like when you are reading. It helps build the alphabetic principle of texts being made of sentences, sentences being made of words, words made of sounds, sounds made of letters. 

We have continued our diligent work on letters, getting familiar with their names in French, the sounds they make, what letters are in some words (especially our names and the days of the week (something else you can do at home: have them tell you the letters in a word as you write it out; in French and in English).

We looked at syllables and sorted food names and our own names in groups according to number of syllables. 

In math, we have been working on… (you guessed it!) sorting! We have looked at different ways to sort a collection of objects, looking at a variety of attributes and changing our groups as we change the attribute we are sorting by. We have looked at shape, color, size, thickness, but also number of syllables, food groups… the options are limitless.

We have been looking at numbers 1-4 very carefully as well. We have started making math bracelets with beads on them. Our number 3 bracelet has 3 beads and with it as a tool, we can look at the different combinations to make 3. The basic sentence structure I use for this is : "What do I need with (2) to make (3)?" We hide 2 beads and see how many are left. This is something we will keep working on though out 10 to build a very strong understanding of number conservancy and being able to do mental math to help us eventually with additions and subtractions. This is a process and still very new so if the students haven't figured it completely out yet, I am not going to be worried about it yet.

In terms of class life (social studies) we have been practicing getting in line, walking in line, sitting on the carpet and a variety of other routines that are paramount for the remainder of the school year. Please make sure to speak with your children about these procedures and help them realize the importance for themselves and their learning. Having the message come from both us at school and you at home helps reinforce these positive behaviors.

Coming up…

We will continue to work on our numbers 1-10 with the emphasis on combinations and writing numbers out.

In French we will start putting sounds together to make small words or syllables, looking at a specific syllable in different words (such as the syllable "ra" in girafe, raton, déraper, etc…

We are working on a name book for each students with a variety of activities related to their name. It should be done this coming week.

We will continue learning new songs.

We will wrap up our unit on healthy eating.

We are working on our monthly library trips. They are set to start in November. More info to come.

And many other things!

Thanks for the contributions towards the collection of books for our class and thank you to those who have volunteered for our field trip and recesses at Lincoln High.

Have a great weekend!

Alexis