Dear
Parents/Guardians,
May 4, 2015
Welcome to May!
It is hard to believe but
it is already our 9th 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
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