We are so happy to begin our school year with such amazing students, families, and a very experienced and exceptionally friendly ECE, Kim Townsend. Kim will be here while Theresa continues to live and explore beautiful Australia.
Routines are being established and we have been able to take a couple of small groups to the forest and through the "trou magique" (magic hole) to the conservation area. When we go through this "magical" hole, we can turn into anything that we want (e.g., superhero, butterfly, etc...).
The SK's have been great leaders showing the JK's each check point we stop at before we can move on further into the forest. At each stop, one student will count to ensure that everyone is here (this is a fun way to promote numeracy skills).
On one of our walks we came across milkweed (du laitron) and talked about how this is an important plant for monarch butterflies, since this is where they eat and lay their eggs. Next we talked about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly (oeuf, chenille, chrysalide, papillon). We also came across a prickly plant and talked about how the seeds in both of these plants are transported around the forest to grow more plants. Authentic, student-centred learning is so much more meaningful and the children are more likely to retain a lot more information through their experiences!
Mme Nibaruta and I found a praying mantis on one of our own lunch hour walks. We brought it back to class and put it in a teapot for the children to look at. They had a hard time finding it at first and this gave way to a group discussion about camouflage. We then asked Siri what a praying mantis eats. We thought for sure plants, but learned that they are carnivores and eat insects, frogs, lizards, and even rodents. This lead to a small talk about parts of an insect (head, thorax, abdomen, 6 legs, and 2 antennas) and what a carnivore is. Again, so much authentic learning from things we can find in the forest!
We have been playing a fun game on the playground to learn different shapes in French (e.g., cercle, triangle, carré, étoile, coeur).
We have begun our literacy learning through songs, poems, reading the morning message, spelling our name, and learning a letter of the week. This week we will be concentrating on the letter "Aa"! We have also had a couple of visits from our Learning Buddies (Mr. Devenny's Grade 5/6 class) and they have been reading many books together.
To build our social and emotional skills, we have been learning about different states of mind (e.g., happy, sad, scared, surprised, etc...) as well as kind things we can say and do to help fill each other's imaginary bucket. We also have a real bucket in our classroom that we fill by doing great things in the classroom. Once we fill up our green bucket we dump it into the white basket. It takes three green buckets to fill the white bucket (math - capacity). Once our white bucket is filled, we get to have a popcorn party! We are already onto filling our second green bucket!
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We do our very best to ensure that our blog is edited and free of errors; however, at times we will make some typos. Thank you for your understanding!
Thank you for respecting the school's policy of reporting to the office and signing in. Together we can work together to ensure the safety of our school. Also, thank you so much for saying good bye in the playground and allowing your child to enter the school with their peers and waiting outside at the end of the day.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time. Sometimes we are able to meet and chat at the end of the day; however, at times we do have prior commitments and we will certainly schedule a good time for both of us right away.
We love to have volunteers in the classroom! We do though like to wait until all of the children are settled in to ensure our students will not have separation anxiety, therefore, we generally wait until October or November. Thank you to those who have agreed to make us play dough. We go through a lot of it and it is always nice to recycle it before it before full of germs! Merci !
Recycled items - Got 'em? We want 'em! Please send in cleaned recyclables! We use them in our maker's space. A place where the children can be as creative as they would like! Having said that, please avoid sending your child to school in beautiful clothing that you do not want to get dirty. We like to get messy and dirty in our classroom and we would not want to worry about ruining clothing while we are learning!
Reminders:
Thursday, September, 21st - Curriculum Night! Come and meet the teachers and see your child's classroom!
Tuesday, September, 26th - Picture Day