Le mois de mai

MAY 2015
dimanche	lundi	mardi	mercredi	jeudi	vendredi	samedi
Cercles de lecture	Annika Benjamin Elsa Brayden	Sinead Joel Makayla Joseph	Sophie David Madeleine Ian	Chrisitian Marjorie Brendan Zoe	Valerie Elliot Caite
31					1 Day1 STEM Musique	2
3	4   Day 2 STEM Bibliotheque	5   Day 3 Musique Piscine Spring Concert	6   Day 4 Gym	7   Day 5 Gym	8   Day1 STEM Musique	9
10	11   Day 2 STEM Bibliotheque	12   Day 3 Musique Piscine Pizza Lunch	13   Day 4 Gym	14   Day 5 Gym	15  Day1 STEM Musique Scholastic Orders Due	16
17	18 Victoria Day	19   Day 2 STEM Bibliotheque	20   Day 3 Musique Piscine	21   Day 4 Gym	22   Day 5 Gym Recognition Assembly	23
24	25   Day1 STEM Musique	26   Day 2 STEM Bibliotheque	27   Day 3 Musique Piscine	28   Day 4 Gym	29   Day 5 Gym	30

May News Letter from Room 20

Dear Parents/Guardians,                                                            May 4, 2015

Welcome to May!

It is hard to believe but it is already our 9^th month of school. We are getting ready to move on to Grade 2. How time flies!

Please check our class calendar for the important dates in May.  One of the dates to mark on your calendar is May 5th: The Spring Concert will take place at our school. Thank you to all of you who responded to my email about your child's attendance of the concert. Students have been practicing very hard and will be proud to perform the song  to the audience.

On the day of the concert, please bring your child to Room 20 at 6:30 p.m. As soon as we get together, we will start walking to the gym as we are the first class to present. If your child participates in multiple performances (e.g., choir, folk dance), I will send them to their groups after our performance. Please stay in the audience and enjoy the concert. As for the dress code, there is just one thing: no jeans please. The rest I am leaving to your imagination. See you at the concert!

This month Grades 1s and 2s participate in the challenge "Clean Air Champions".

The challenge consists of increasing each student's level of active transportation to school and from school over a two week period. All students or their "grown ups" are asked to do is to complete the easy to use online travel calculator once. Through this calculator they can learn how many calories they will burn if they increase their active transportation, how much money their "grown ups" could save on gas and how many greenhouse gas emissions they'll avoid generating. This activity ties in with science, math, DPA and more.

The challenge will take place among the 8 participating schools across Canada. The school with the highest participation levels will win the challenge and have the honour to welcome two Olympians for a celebrity event.

http://www.ischooltravel.org/tools/calculator/index.html?code=ALEX929321

You can go on there right now and test it. You will see that it is quite simple and easy to use. Do not forget, it is the school with the most participants that will win! Go Duke Go!

Academic Focus in May

This month, in Language, we will be finishing the study of sounds and passing to some grammar and syntax learning. In Reading, I will be testing my students for their reading levels. It is a standard procedure at TDSB. In Grade 1 it happens at the end of the school year. The highest level for grade 1s will be level 8-10. I will inform you of the level your child reads at after I do the testing. In Writing, we will continue mastering recount of events, using orientation ( who, what, where, when, why) and transition (first, to begin  with, then, afterwards, at the end, etc.) words, and concluding it with a personnel comment. Also, a story retell will be under focus, that will transition into story writing towards the end of the month. Students will be learning about characters, setting, problem and its resolution in the story and retelling it by referring to all these elements. Besides, retelling a story allows to develop vocabulary, which is very important at this age, does not matter what language a child is learning. that is why please ask your child about the story and its elements (see above) when he or she reads in French or English or any other language.

In Math, we will study the last unit on Measurement covering mass and volume. As well, we will be working on addition and subtraction, which will be applied to problem solving.

In Science, Life Cycles of Living Things will be capturing our curiosity through the month of May. Characteristics and needs, life cycles, living things and environment will be under our investigation. We will be talking specifically about bees and their role in human life and how the pollution of the environment can impact their lives. What could human beings do to prevent it? Creating a poster to attract people's attention to the problem and encourage them to act, will be the final project for the unit.

As well, students will continue to use iPads to perform different literacy tasks in class. Explain Everything is the app used the most. It helps to develop speaking, reading comprehension, writing skills. E.g., students take a picture of a page in the book that we read in class and, using the tools of the app, they can highlight the words and images that help understand the problem in the story. Later, using the speech feature, students explain orally their thinking.

By the end of May, we plan to use Story Creator app to create our own stories. Feel free to explore the apps at home.

If there any changes to the said above or any additions , I will inform you via email. Meanwhile, I would like to thank you for the support of our programme and your child's education. As usual, if you have questions and suggestions, please feel free to contact me via agendas, email or at school.

To conclude, you might want to check the Canadian Parents for French (Ontario) site  www.cpfont.on.ca that contains much information related to French Immersion Program in Ontario and how parents of French Immersion children may help them to succeed in their academic endeavours.

Happy month of May.

Mme Volokhova

Le jour de rose

Scholastic Orders

For April's Scholastic orders, feel free to choose any book that is at Level 1 or 2 (Niveau 1, Niveau 2).

Le calendrier d'avril

Avril 2015
dimanche	lundi	mardi	mercredi	jeudi	vendredi	samedi
Cercles de lecture	Annika Benjamin Elsa Brayden	Sinead Joel Makayla Joseph	Sophie David Madeleine Ian	Chrisitian Marjorie Brendan Zoe	Valerie Elliot Caite
			1 Day 1 Musique STEM	2 Day 2 STEM Bibliotheque	3     Joyeuses	4   Paques!
5   Joyeuses	6   Paques!	7 Day 3     MusiquePiscine	8 Day 4   Gym	9 Day 5 Gym   Math Night	10 Day 1Musique STEM	11
12	13 Day 2STEM Bibliotheque	14 Day 3   MusiquePiscine	15 Day 4   Gym Pizza Lunch	16 Day 5 Gym	17 Day 1Musique STEM	18
19	20 Day 2STEM Bibliotheque	21 Day 3   MusiquePiscine	22 Day 4   GymScholastic orders due	23 Day 5 Gym	24 Day 1Musique STEM	25
26	27 Day 2STEM Bibliotheque	28 Day 3   MusiquePiscine 8	29 Day 4   Gym	30 Day 5 Gym	1	2

 

April Newsletter

 

Welcome to April!

Right after March Break the students and I speak ONLY French in class and any time when we are together. They get tickets for using French as much as possible. The tickets are collected in individual pockets for each students. I encourage them to try their best to speak French at all times in order to earn

more tickets. In June during our final class celebration, there will be a variety of things (books, crayons, games, etc) that students will be able to buy with the earned tickets. Please encourage your child to speak in French at school and at home.

 

In April we will continue our programme of Guided Reading. The children keep working on developing decoding and comprehension skills in reading.

They enjoy working in a small group setting with me. Students look for the clues to reveal the point of the author, to comprehend what the author wanted to say and what the story is about.They love to demonstrate their decoding skills. They learn how to check if they read right by asking themselves: ‘Does it sound good?’, ‘Does it make sense?’, ‘Is it written like I read?’.The Guided Reading sessions started  in March and will continue into June, when the students will be tested for the level of reading that they achieved through this school year. As well, we will be working on Retelling. This will involve learning about characters, setting of the story, its problem and how it is solved. What students learn during Guided Reading sessions, will be applied in this unit. 

In Writing, our focus will continue to be on capitals, periods, space between the words, using dictionaries, anchor charts to spell some words correctly. Besides, students will continue learning how to organize their ideas in writing, to insure that their writing makes sense. In class I encourage them to reread what they wrote in order to check their work every time they finish it. Feel free to ask your child what the check points are. 

 

In Math, the unit on 2D and 3D shapes will be wrapped up during the first week of April.Afterwards, we will work on fractions and number operations: addition and subtraction. As usual, a big chunk of our time will be given to solving word problems.

 

As the nature wakes up in spring and the world around us becomes green, we are planning to investigate needs and characteristics of living things, which will be under focus in Science.Some ‘gardening’ activities have already happened and will continue in our classroom. The children planted tomato seeds last Friday. The students were divided into two groups. One group got natural, untreated seeds of tomatoes. The  other group got the seeds that were treated in simulated space conditions (at -80*C in a vacuum) at the University of Guelph. During the month of April, the children will be observing how the tomatoes grow and if there is a difference between the two groups. Meanwhile, during the first week of April, we will be finishing our Social Studies unit My Community. Thank you to our parents who volunteered for the Community Walk last Friday: Ms. Mansworth, Ms. Yang, Ms. Browne, and Ms. Hung. With their help, students were able to use iPads and take pictures of the community in order to discuss its features and what they would do to improve the community they leave in. It was amazing to witness their critical thinking at work! Besides, the Walk material allowed us to wrap up the unit on recount as the children wrote about the walk. Great work!

 

We continue to work with iPads in class. Students record themselves when they work at morning stations.

They use iPads to organise their ideas, to prepare to produce a hard copy writing. They started to learn how to find a word meaning, using Google Image.

 

To conclude, I am encouraging you to pursue more activily the opportunuty to buy Scolasticbooks. Two reasons for that. One is that it is the good time to start creating  your child's "Frenchlibrary" for the summer months. Another one is that the more books we buy, the more points weearn, which will allow me to buy some things (to validate the tickets earned for speakingFrench) from Scholastic for the class final celebration at the end of the school year. 

Thank you for all your support and co-operation.  

As usual, please do not hesitate to contact me in person and via the agenda/email with yourquestio ns, suggestions, and ideas.

 

Amicably,

 

Mme Volokhova