A shot in the dark?

We had the immense pleasure of being visited by the School Nurse today, as well as an entourage of other Community Health workers. Students were given their needles, which generally went quite well. There were a few tears and a bit of anxiety, but in general it went just fine. There may be a few sore arms tonight, as I heard a bit of moaning today. I scheduled a lesson on Terry Fox immediately after the ordeal, which seemed to help put things in perspective.

I have sent home a letter outlining the expectations I have for an upcoming math test. Our test on Unit 1 (Chapter 2 in the book) will go ahead later on next week, so I wanted to be clear on the expectations. This letter is in their Yellow Math DuoTang, third from the back. It details everything they will need to know. We also reviewed how to write numbers in French, and practiced by writing cheques. There are 2 blank cheque templates in each child's DuoTang as well, which you can do with them if you would like to.

On today's date in the students' agendas, I stapled a list of questions to use as test review. These are not to be done immediately. I think that doing a few per night would be good, as a way of getting them used to answering questions independently. If they have issues translating questions, remembering techniques or finding an answer I would first encourage them to look at examples on the previous sheets in their DuoTang. Then, rather than making it a stressful situation, I would leave it be and write a note in their Agenda so I can review it with them in class.

In other news, we are moving ahead with our Class Pet research. Tomorrow we will use some reference books to do fill in some trouble areas, then begin putting the information together. The students are very engaged in this activity, and would likely be more than happy to tell you about it. Some have mentioned that they want to look up more things tonight, which I would always encourage.

On that topic, I've been really happy with the response to my "Personal Question" that I have been writing in students' Agendas. All students presented a part of their information to the class, something that I have really been trying to encourage. The more they are interested in exploring and finding out at this stage, the faster we will be able to move along and the more detail we will be able to go into. I have given each a question tonight as well; some are specific to their interests, and others are more general. Any document, pictures or lists they make in response to these questions will be great class resources and useful as an ongoing record in their portfolios.

We discussed toy etiquette today as well, since there have been a few arguments and general rudeness when playing with toys and games that get brought in. I restated that I don't mind games coming in, but people have to be respectful, careful and polite when playing with them. The class is generally all of these things, but it bears mentioning every now and then I think...

We began writing our stories today, using the template of 5 elements from yesterday (Character, Place, Time, Action, Theme). The students are going to write a story in French first, then a different story in English that uses the same parameters. I want to focus on the process and structure of good writing, something which will be served well by limiting the distractions that usually arise from trying to think up these 5 elements. The class will be starting group reading soon as well, in an effort to help promote critical literacy. For those unfamiliar, critical literacy refers to reading for content, understanding and posing questions rather than just focusing on the literal text.

In a final note, I gave about 40 minutes today to finish up any leftover work. This was quite fruitful, as most students are now up to speed. Some will have a bit of work to do at home or during lunchtime (their choice) over the next couple of days, but nothing overwhelming. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we are getting a lot of things accomplished and seem to be on schedule.

Today's link gives practice math tests. Not all questions will be 100% relevant, but I would impress on your child that getting them all right is not the crucial thing. They are more useful as a diagnostic tool, to give them ideas of what to work on. I would also suggest that you look through previous math-related posts for some of the other ideas, activities and games I posted (search "math")

http://www.thatquiz.org/tq/practice.html?placevalue

Who's been caffeinating the children?

Having an energetic class is a double-edged sword, as I am finding out more and more each day. Today the students were humming like the air exchange unit at Value Village, which made it necessary to rein them in fairly often. On the flip side, it also meant that we were able to get an awful lot of work done. We had Choir, an optional book exchange, our first look at the new Social Studies text and an extended discussion about the relative merits of newts, not to mention a great deal of actual coursework!

We began touching on verb formation today, specifically the passé composé. This is a form that allows them to describe things they did in the past, and is something we use frequently when recounting stories, writing journal entries and conducting our "Saviez-Vous que..?" exercise. I won't worry too much about rote learning for the time being, but I am starting to correct them more as they go along. I am getting them to write and talk a lot during the day, which is helping me determine their comfort levels so I can move them along at the right speed.

In math we covered numbers up to and including 10,000. The class discussed what exactly 10,000 is, in relation to such variables as population, money and other relatable concepts. We discovered that $10,000 can by a Chevrolet Aveo, 1000 miniature hockey sticks, 20 XBoxes, 2000 blocks of cheese or even 200 LEGO kits if you were so inclined. We have 2 lessons left in this chapter, which will put our first test early next week. Tomorrow I will be assigning a set of review questions to be completed over the next week at your convenience, as well as some optional review questions. As I mentioned at curriculum night, I will also send home a rubric that outlines what students will be expected to know instead of a specific study guide.

The students also participated in an activity that had them brainstorm the elements of a story. They wrote ideas for characters, themes, settings, actions and time periods on slips of paper and picked them randomly to form a framework for a story. This caused some hilarity, and should be a good exercise for the rest of the week. Therefore, if your child comes home today talking about how Bob is visiting Pluto to play his DS in the year 2020 while eating chocolate cake, please do not worry about their sanity.

We discussed class pets again as well today, going into more detail about living requirements, logistics, specific habitat needs and limitations we face. The students were extremely engaged in this discussion, so much that I am altering my plans slightly to center this weeks activities around a research and presentation project. Students will evaluate the suitability of a wide array of animals in groups, then use what they find to help determine which (if any) would be the best fit for our class. Today, the discussion broadened to include stick insects, starfish, newts, plankton and spiders. Never a dull moment.

I have started incorporating technology more into the classroom, specifically giving research tasks and game/activity privileges to those who finish their work quickly. I will expand this in the next few weeks to get them more familiar with useful skills like editing documents and web pages, manipulating audio and video, and searching for/filtering information. Not only is this a major component of their required learning in our new curriculum documents, but it is a great way to engage the class and help them teach each other. This week's "Student of the week" will be using their spare time for the rest of the week to create their own entry for this blog! I hope to make this a recurring, more frequent feature.

A couple of housekeeping notes:

• Check out the links from Friday and Sunday; you will find a number of resources that may be useful.
• Vaccination time is coming up soon
• There will be a permission slip going home in the next couple of days with regards to a field trip next week.
• When time permits, I am going to write a question in each child's Agenda for them to try to answer. They can write or type the answer if they wish, or just remember it. I am targeting these questions at the individual student's area of interest, and would encourage you to help them out and push them to think about the answers.

Going Once, Going Twice...

Gone! We had our first auction today with our "French Money", which was a fairly resounding success. Everyone who wanted to get something did, and others bankrolled their money for the next auction 2 weeks from now. It was a great lesson in problem solving, basic math and French as we worked our way through prizes. Some overpaid, others waited it out and got a great deal, and everyone had a good laugh.

After the auction, we had a very constructive discussion about the value (real and figurative) of speaking a second language. We talked about the immediate returns we were seeing in class, such as the money they were making, the time we are saving, the activities we are able to do, and the priveleges I am giving. We also spoke about the larger ramifications, including wider employment opportunities, travel and making friends.

Today we also gave out new jobs for next week, named a new "Etudiant de la Semaine" and created a drawing that summed up what students had learned and enjoyed during the week. Safe to say, there were a lot of hurricanes involved. I also showed the class the games I posted on this blog yesterday, and left them going for students who finished early. This was a big hit, especially the manatee featured in the "Create a Habitat" game.

We also discussed homework at length, trying to figure out what issues we were having and how best to correct them. I sent home a letter outlining what we discussed, and would welcome your feedback. The general idea was that students are responsible for knowing what they have to do, and to ask for clarification if they do not.

I also provided abundant details on what to do if you aren't sure about something at home, and talked about the idea of setting priorities. For example, if the exercise is to answer a question about a passage we read in class, it is more important to get your ideas down than to spend half an hour looking up words on Google Translator. As you can see below, the results are not always ideal.

On that note, I would prefer that students guess at a word or look it up in an online or paper dictionary than use a translator. The results are often wrong or out of context when using the latter method, and it tends to undermine the intent of immersive language learning. I would suggest using a translator if you are trying to understand something your child has brought home, but only to get a general idea. In the end of things, your child is the expert.

We discussed class pets today, much as we have every day so far. I floated the idea of getting a class fish (sorry for the terrible pun), which was met with a great response. However, we spent the next 10 minutes discussing it in Science class, in the context of habitat requirements, personal responsibility and other less exciting elements of pet ownership. Before long we had a list of more than a dozen issues we would have to reconcile, something we will begin to talk about next week using what we have learned about Scientific Discourse.

Today's link is just for fun! In all the talk about class pets I remembered a very funny Minute Maid commercial.



Hope everyone has a great weekend, and don't hesitate to be in touch if you or your child have any questions about homework, fish, juggling, hurricanes, base 10 blocks, jump ropes, fake money or any other issues.