Moving right along!

I'm happy to say we had another great day today; we delved into Science, Health, French and English Language Arts with some good general discussions. We conducted some simple Science experiments as a way of exploring "What Science Is", and they conducted interviews with a classmate.

In Science, we focused on methods of questioning. I am encouraging them to approach their projects with an eye to the "big picture", and keep their questioning open. By this, I mean that rather than asking a question with a specific, narrow answer they should try to ask and answer broad questions that cut to the heart of what they would like to know. I would encourage you to do the same, as many of their projects and units will be structured as such.

In English Language Arts, we focused specifically on what genres they prefer and I had them describe some characteristics of literature they enjoy. We started a Language Arts journal that I will send home for you to take a look at periodically. I have sent home the schedule for September, which contains as much information as I have at the moment. If I get a lot of new information, I will send home another.

My link for the day concerns writing, and provides some useful guidelines for helping your child with writing projects as they come up this year. It gives general ideas, not rules, but can act as a helpful guide for encouraging writing of different types and developing higher-level skills. It is a rubric that someone else has created, and doesn't correspond exactly to the templates I will be using, but you might find it useful nonetheless. Rest assured that I will always provide the class with an evaluation rubric for "serious" work that they will be formally evaluated on.

http://mrshawley.org/Documents/Grade%204-6%20Writing%20Rubric.pdf

One last note is that I have introduced a token system for good class behaviour and speaking French. They pool the tokens they receive through this system, and will receive a group prize when they fill a container.

Talk to you soon!

We made it to lunchtime!

It was great to meet some parents and all the kids this morning, and we're having a great time so far. We've done a few familiarity exercises, gone over things like rules and protocol in class, and learned a new math game.

I have also sent home a number of sheets to sign/complete and return, ranging from volunteer applications to emergency contacts. Each student borrowed a book or two from our class library, which they can keep for up to a week. If you are ever wondering which book they have out, we have a log in class of who has taken what.

A lot of the students have told me that they read at home, which is great. It is a great idea (as I'm sure you all know) to read with them as much as possible and encourage them to read their French books as well.
Throughout the course of the week, we will be developing a manual that will outline the rules, expectations, routines and other protocol we are working through right now. My hope is that they will use it as a reference and take ownership of our class.

I went a bit easy on speaking exclusively French today, since there is always a lag after summer. However, we will be bringing in a positive-reinforcement token system of some sort in the next couple of days. 

Thanks,

Sam Paterson