Check out this page every Sunday evening for an update on what's coming up in our classroom.

Week at a glance

February 2nd-6th

Classroom Books!

*UPDATED*

A reminder that students are now bringing home French books. These will be exchanged once per week on Wednesdays. If you don’t speak French, don’t worry! Just encourage your child to look for letter combinations and to cut the words into syllables (always after a vowel of a combo), then to sound out the words. French is a very phonetic language, so if your child knows their sounds, they should be able to sound out most words fairly easily. At the end of the day, you can simply listen to them read and then ask questions about what they have read. Your child will enjoy having the opportunity to teach you some French! Please view the Reading tab on our website for additional details. 

Je Lis, Je lis!

In addition to the French books that your child has brought home, please check out the additional books through the Je Lis, Je Lis Littératie website. Your child has glued their login information for this site on the front page of their agenda. This site allows your child to read a variety of different leveled books in French. They can also have the books read to them or just have certain pages read to them if they are stuck. Students can even record themselves reading the books if they'd like.

Je Lis, Je Lis Littératie website link: http://jelis.rkpublishing.com/student

BRRRRRRR!

The division’s Administrative Procedures for Outside Activities During Inclement Weather outline the following temperature limits for recess: students are expected to remain indoors when the temperature is –25°C or colder, or when the temperature combined with wind chill is –25°C or colder. The source used to determine local temperature is Environment Canada via the WeatherCAN app.

Our learning plan for this week:

Health: Students have been participating in the Incredible, Flexible You program, which is being facilitated by our school counselor, Mme Jurick.  They have learned about thinking thoughts, group plan, and listening with their eyes. This week, they will learn about keeping their bodies in the group.

Social Studies: This week, we will shift our focus to the idea of belonging by exploring the different groups students are part of (family, class, school, and community). Students will learn that while our backgrounds may differ, we all belong to many shared groups.

French: (NO CHANGES) Clothing vocabulary is now being wrapped up (although it remains an ongoing theme in Grade 1 classrooms—you wouldn’t believe how often we have to ask students, “Whose ___ is this?”). Flashcards will be sent home early this week. A kind reminder that our French Language Arts webpage contains helpful links to support learning at home.

In other news, we will be starting our winter-related vocabulary unit, beginning with the creation of a whole-group French winter story.

This week, we will continue to review all of our French letter combinations and practice decoding unfamiliar French words. Learning the /er/, /ez/, and /ai/ French sound combinations will certainly help—these are pronounced like the “ay” sound in the word say. We are also increasing the amount of spoken French used in class.

Mathematics: (NO CHANGES) We continue to practise counting orally in French from 0–70! Please use the following songs to help practise at home:

• Les chiffres et les nombres de 1 à 100 alain le lait French numbers song

• French Numbers Song 1-100 | Nombres en Français Chanson: Compter jusqu'à 100

Please STOP the songs at the number 80

We will also be working on spatial relationships, which involves making connections and building relationships between visual patterns and numbers. For example, I may ask students questions such as: “How are these two visual patterns (a die showing four dots versus a die showing three dots) the same? How are they different?”

Some students may simply say that one has more, but by asking “How much more?” we emphasize the relationship between amounts (the difference and the total). This helps students develop a deeper understanding of the abstract concepts of addition and subtraction. What does 1 + 3 mean? What does it look like? How is 1 + 3 the same as 2 + 2? How can we use 1 + 3 to help solve 4 − 3?

We will use these spatial relationships to help us read, represent, write, and solve math word problems. We will also discuss how knowing the combinations that make 5 and 10 can help us solve equations more efficiently.

Sciences: No sciences this week.

English: Students have learned about open and closed syllables, the FLOSS spelling rule, -all,-oll & -ull word families, the /ck/, /sh/, /th/ (voiced-like in the), /th/ (unvoiced-like in throw), /ch/, /wh/, /ph/ as well as the /ng/  consonant digraphs.

This week, students will be learning about the /nk/ consonant digraph. We will also take the time to review all learned digraphs, and practice using them in both reading and writing.

The irregular words we’ve learned and mapped out are: a, am, and, as, are, be, book, could, do, for, from, go, goes, have, he, I, is, look, me, no, of, or, said, says, see, she, should, so, talk, to, the, they, their, walk, was, want, we, were, what,  would & you! This week, we’ll be learning the words: there & where. 

Please be sure to practice all new reading skills and letters at home using your child’s blue duo-tang. New decodable texts typically come home on Wednesdays.Spark Reading also includes decodable books that are a good fit for your child. As a reminder, our Sightwords Rethought WebPage provides additional ways you can support your child’s reading at home.

Note that you can also support your child in their English reading journey by getting them to do some writing, as this applies learned skills in a different way. 

Religion:  Check out the Religion Tab on our website to connect what we are learning at school with your home.  Last week, we completed UNIT 3, Week 20: “The Wedding at Cana.”. Due to time constraints, we will not be doing religion this week.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me at elemoine@gsacrd.ab.ca

Mme Élodie Lemoine