Being a good neighbour

This week was Anti-Bullying week. To help students understand what this means, we talked about what it means to be a good neighbour. We discussed how a neighbour doesn't just mean someone who lives next door to us - a neighbour is another word for someone who is our friend. We talked about how the students in the Puffin and Chickadee classes are our neighbours, but also our friends. The students then helped create an anchor chart that describes what good neighbours do. They came up with things such as sharing with others, saying kind things, not fighting or hitting, and treating others with respect. This was a good tie-in to our WITS assembly this morning.

The WITS program is anti-bullying program that encourages students to Walk away, Ignore problem behaviours, Talk it out, and Seek help (from a teacher or adult). To help reinforce this message, we watched a Howard B. Wigglebottom story about what to do when you encounter a bully.

The arrival of winter has meant some exciting discussions have popped up. Mme Natalie introduced the concept of hibernation to the students the other day, and they have come up with some great questions about what kinds of animals hibernate for the winter.

The students made caves and animals out of clay to "hibernate". 

Snow also means the arrival of winter clothing! We talked about what order we put on our winter clothes to help students understand the concept of sequencing. To help students remember the steps, we came up with this little rhyme: 

Snowpants, boots, jacket, hat

Mittens go on after that!

We also worked together to co-create an anchor chart to describe the steps we take when getting dressed to go outside. 

Tijs sounds out the word "snowpants" to add to our chart. 

Just a reminder that tomorrow is a PD Day. Have a wonderful weekend, and see you on Monday!

Ms. Quinn

WEAR PINK DAY!!

A reminder to wear pink tomorrow, Wednesday November 19th, as part of our planned activities during anti-bullying week!

LES CHANSONS

Bonjour les parents!!

At the request of some parents during interviews, I will post many of my more generic French songs here,  As the year continues, I will post songs that are relevant to a specific theme or time of year.  Enjoy watching and singing with your child!!

Assis / Debout

Les mois de l'année

Les chiffres et les nombres

L'alphabet

Les jours de la semaine

Les couleurs

Les parties du corps

Bonjour!

La boogie woogie des chiffres

Please keep in mind that we have not yet learned all of these songs and will continue to work with them throughout the year.  ENJOY!!!

What we have been up to...

Thanks to all of the parents who came to our Parent-Teacher interviews on Thursday night. It was a pleasure meeting all of you, and I look forward to an exciting year ahead in the Hummingbird class!

We have been busy talking about Remembrance Day and the significance of this special day. Students have been busy writing postcards to soldiers and veterans. We talked about some of the things we would like to say to the soldiers, and the students wrote those messages on the postcards.

We have been singing the song, "I've Got Peace In My Fingers" together as a class - ask your child to show you the actions that go along with the song: Peace in my Fingers song

Finally, many parents have asked what they could do to help support their child's learning at home. Alphabet knowledge is a hallmark of early literacy - practice identifying letters with your child. As children begin to identify specific letters of the alphabet, they can begin working on identifying letter sounds. Learning letter sounds is one of the first steps in learning to read. Here is a cute song we like to practice to help us remember the different letter sounds: Phonics Song

Everyday we practice reading and writing our popcorn words. Here are the ones we have been working on since the beginning of the year: I    can    am    see    look    at    a    the  As we learn new popcorn words, I will update the blog.

Have a great weekend!
Ms. Quinn

SLIME!!

What better way than to compare solids and liquids than to play with SLIME!!  At carpet time, the children were asked if they think slime is a solid, a liquid or both.  This was done in French and with a few props, the children easily understood the concept of "Est-ce que de la slime est une solide, un liquide ou les 2"?    They then got to play with the slime and record their decision.

Here are some of the verbal observations made while palying with the slime:  

"I can make a ball"  - Makayla

"It's bouncy" - Mackaelyn

"It's slippery" - Rosemary

"It stretches!" - Maverick

"It's hard to cut" - Makayla

After some discussion, the majority agreed that the slime was in fact both solid and liquid.  Here are some observations made during the discussion:

"C'est liquide because it's wiggly." -Faith

"C'est liquide because it's slippery." - Makayla

"Les 2 because it's really gooey." - Rosemary

"It's both because it's gooey" - Andrea

Those a direct quotes from the kids. I was so pleased that they made an effort to use one of our French popcorn words "c'est" and the word being studied to express themselves!!