Word on the street is...

If you've talked to your child already today, you probably know that "The Letter" has gone home!  Lots if information about personal electronic devices coming to school to read...and this is important to read for everyone, even if no device is coming to school.  Everyone will be doing a digital portfolio so all parents need to sign that consent form.  As well, ALL students need to be aware of our personal device guidelines with respect to personal property, so EVERY student needs to sign the contract.  And please do load devices with apps as needed at home since sometimes here at school the network doesn't allow students to upload things from the AppStore etc...

Yes tomorrow is one of those long-awaited GREAT days at school!  Please note that students change into their costumes from 12H45 to 13H00 with the festivities to follow.

And YES! we made our 500 point goal (and then some), so we will be watching a film tomorrow in French :)  People keep walking into our classroom to compliment the students working well in the hallway or the library, speaking French even when no adult is around and showing undeniable evidence of the 7 Habits (being proactive, synergizing, putting first things first).  We can't help it...we just keep stacking up the ClassDojo points!

Tomorrow we will be working on setting a personal, more specific mid-term goal, especially trying to set an action plan in place...that is if the festivities don't get the better of us!  

On the note of climate and weather

When you hear "climate change", what do you think about?  We had a very thoughtful and respectful conversation about climate change and our environment at the end of the day today.  I was impressed with the level of reflection that students put into their comments and how they were able to transition their comments into a real group discussion.  Great thinking!  Students are encouraged to take their reflections home and continue to think about this in discussions this evening.

We are still finishing up our climate projects and students need to continue working on them at home. There will be a period or so of work time tomorrow with oral presentations (hopefully) starting on Monday.  That means they can take the weekend to finish up and practice their oral presentation.

With brisker weather and frost on the ground, we need to be a little more conscious of tracking mud and dirt into the school.  Some of us are not as vigilant as we need to be when changing our shoes coming into school and we need to make sure that we are respectful of our school building.  Students should make sure to have appropriate indoor shoes at school.  And let's not forget to watch the weather when getting dressed and bringing the right outside-wear to school.  We've been spoiled up until now, but it IS getting cooler these days!

We have set up the ground rules concerning bringing student personal electronic devices BUT students need to wait to bring them to school until they have brought home information letters and permission forms to sign.  So a little more waiting is in order!  Hopefully letters can go out tomorrow, but as soon as they are available, they will be sent home and we can start our digital portfolio journey...among other things!  Thanks for your patience!

The advantages of conference-going

This last weekend I was at ACPI2015, the conference for French Immersion teachers.  It is always inspiring, and this year was no exception.  Perhaps one of the most exciting things that I took away was actually a great answer to many of our conversations last week during parent-teacher interviews.  Yes, we know it is a great idea to be reading in French, but where do we find books?

Well, to my great delight, one of my sessions introduced me to La bibliothèque des amériques...a veritable resource for all French readers!  It is an online library of digital books put together by the Centre de la francophonie.  Books can be borrowed up to 21 days and taken out again when the time is up if there is no one waiting to read that book.   It is free and while you do need to download the appropriate apps to be able to read the books, it is fairly simple to do and can be accessed on pretty much any device you would wish to use.  I've spent some time browsing and there is a broad collection from adult to children's books in a large variety of categories.  Personally speaking, I am thrilled to have access to such a range of books...now I just need the time to read!!

So check out this possibility!  It really is a great opportunity to find some of those great Francophone books!

What's the climate like?

Today we started a pretty big project researching the climate of another region or country in the world. We're going to be looking at what that climate is like over a long period of time, preparing a document of some sort, like a presentation or a written document and then presenting our findings to the rest of the class.  As of right now we have decided which part of the world we want to study, created a document in google drive and shared it with the teacher.  Tomorrow we will analyze some examples and do some more research.  Hopefully by the end of the week we will be practicing for our presentations!  It is interesting to see how the choices we make in our research at often influenced by our experiences or interests; in this case, where we have travelled or people we know.  What a wonderful way to make learning meaningful!

Hip Hip Hooray!

We've been working on goal-setting both as a class and as individuals since the beginning of the school year.  Two weeks ago we set a goal to achieve at least 550 points as a class by today.  A free period outside would be the reward for all our hard work.  We got points for being proactive, being on task, helping others, working together, using the right volume in class, and getting our homework done and in.  It is amazing to see what we are able to do when we are motivated...students started adding the totals in their heads with every ding of ClassDojo! How is that for math in your life!!?   I am happy to report that the last period of the day we were out enjoying the sunshine with 12 extra points to boot!  And you guessed it...next week we hit the reset button and set some new goals.  :)

In Math we're going to be turning our attention to decimal numbers and fractions in the next week, but we'll need to keep our adding and subtracting skills dusted off because it all gets mixed into the pot and stirred up.  As much as you can talk about parts of a whole in our world around us the better as it is always a benefit if students see that what they're learning in school has a connection to what happens in life.

Wow!  Almost all of you are signed up to come in to parent teacher interviews!  Wonderful :)  Looking forward to seeing all of you then.  There are still a few spots open on both days if you haven't had a chance to book a time.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to make a homework plan with your child!  This is a great step towards each student beginning with the end in mind and becoming more responsible.

Have a great weekend all!

A note about homework

So far this year, we haven't had a lot of homework so we haven't worried too much about the hows and the whys of homework in our class discussions.  In grade 4/5R there are two main categories of homework so far: 1) work that needs to be finished up at home and 2) a small task that needs to be done by everyone (usually something that takes no more than 10 minutes).  We will have bigger project and week-long tasks that will likely be added into the mix when the time is right, but for now we don't have those types of homework.

Homework of the first type is usually a result of mismanaged time, but could also just be that the student needs a little more time to complete the work.  This could also be catch-up work in the case of an absence.  The timelines for this type of work can generally be negotiated unless the success of the next day depends on it being completed.  Generally if this is the case, I try to notify the specific parents, especially if the student expresses concern about his extra-curricular engagements getting in the way that day.

Homework of the second type is generally related to the instruction of the next day and is necessary to be completed in order to further the work at school.  Usually this type of "unplanned universal task" is not very long and can be quite flexible as to when and maybe in what way, or with what materials it is completed.  For example, yesterday's task was to write down 5 topics that would be good writing subjects for their writing time and to bring it to school.  We could have done this at school, but sometimes being in our own environment sparks a different type of creativity.

As there were a considerable number of people who did not finish this task last night, tonight everyone has another "universal task".  This is to sit down with their respective parent(s) and map out a plan in the case of homework.  Maybe homework is done in a special spot.  Or maybe there is a little homework bag in the car (with a pad of paper and a couple pencils).  Maybe it is done before dinner or maybe it is on the way to piano lessons.  Or in between dance classes.  Each person's schedule dictates how that is going to look and it needs to be something that both the parents and the student are aware of.   Please do have this conversation.  Students have been asked to bring their agendas signed to show that they have indeed made this plan with their parents.

If homework is not mentioned in the blog, it will be written in the agenda.  Remember that homework is specific to each person and the agendas are their place to record things to do, goals, plans and events.  While they do get help with this, they are also expected to become increasingly independent as time goes on :)

Hope this clarifies this aspect of school life.  If you have any questions or concerns, please do contact me!  I have found that students often need some help from the "home front" to identify "openings" in their after-school schedule which could be used for homework.  Part of becoming older and more responsible is putting first things first and planning with the end in mind.  Yep, you saw it coming...Habit 2 and 3 of the 7 Habits!

Le jour de l'Action de Grâce

It's already Thanksgiving!  Today we took a little minute to think about things we were thankful for and write them down.  While we are thankful for many things, sometimes we forget to think about them.  For some of us we had to think quite a while to find 5 different ones, but we did it!  The result is rather festive and now hanging outside our door in the hall if you'd like to come admire it.

We're working on building our stamina when writing and reading independently, getting ready to move into Daily 5 in our Literacy Block.  The minutes on the graph are increasing with each practice so we're moving in the right direction!  It is very exciting to see students taking their learning seriously!

Have you noticed that from time to time students are writing their goals in their agendas?  These goals are related to our class mission statement and remind us to keep working on being the best that we can be in the area that we might need to work on.  These are always great conversation starters.  This month we are working especially on the habit of being "Proactive" and we make really good decisions when keeping this habit in mind.

Have a great weekend everyone!  Looking forward to seeing you back on Tuesday!

Storms a-brewing!

Well actually not REAL storms! But today we started talking about hot and cold air masses talked about the "front" and saw an visual analogy with water and oil...get them to explain it to you. It was an interesting experiment! It would be a great idea to start watching the weather reports at home and discussing what the meteorologists are explaining in the next few days.  We're going to start talking about what happens when weather systems move in and out.

 Even though our whole class did not attend the running meet at Red Deer Lake School today, a good number from our class did and everyone ran really well! Congratulations to everyone in Run Club who gave their all today! It was fun to show some "Bronco pride" out and about! We have one more race next week and I'm sure it will be exciting as well.

 Those students who did attend the Running Meet today will want to catch up on the video that we finished watching in class this afternoon. The link is here and also on the Science links page (if you click on the tab at the top).  It is a great video on weather that is worth a second and third viewing to really grab all that vocabulary and those ideas that could be a little tricky to understand.  Anyone in class would benefit from watching a second time too!  There are also some links for practicing cloud vocabulary and other Science information.  Check it out!

In math we wrote our math "Big Number" tests today and will be starting to talk about adding and subtracting with regrouping next.  Practicing number facts regularly at home can help with these larger calculations.  Students all have their mathletics passwords and are strongly encouraged to use them at home regularly if at all possible.

Just a little note about library today: because there were pictures going on in the Library today, students returned their books but were not able to take out new ones today.  They will be doing so tomorrow and then everything should return to normal in the weeks to come.

Terry Fox Day

Our Terry Fox run was a great success.  We ran or walked around at least one of the lakes.  I was proud of so many of our class that made the effort to do both.  And what a beautiful day for such an event!  Thanks to all of you who made a donation to the Cancer Foundation and supported our Terry Fox run!

Lately we've been working hard to finish our "Big Number" poster projects.  They are looking great and most of us have finished and have them up already.  Great job, everyone! To finish up our big numbers study we can anticipate a test either the end of this week or the beginning of next.  As long as they know all the different ways to show a number like they have shown on their poster, the test should be a breeze!  We just need to look at some problems with big numbers to wrap up.

Thanks to all of you who have donated magazines to our class collection.  We do appreciate it.  Tomorrow we will start a page in our visuel journals about clouds using pictures we find in magazines so this is a great help.  This is the time when we WANT our heads in the clouds!

Another weekend!

It feels like we just started this week and here we are at the end!

We've had a week of lots of writing...two stories, one in English and one in French.  We want to see where we're starting so we have something to look back on as we make goals for the year and think about our progress.  It's important to have these "benchmarks" so we know what we're celebrating as we improve.  :)

We've also had a week of a lot of running.  Today I was a little stiff from sprinting alongside the students in gym class (...or were we racing?)  And then we have running club after school for those of us that participate.  Ah...'tis the season, both for upcoming cross-country races (for those in running club) and for the Terry Fox run this next week.  It's a great way to run for a cause and enjoy our lovely fall weather!

A very important letter went home with grade 5 students today.  In it is a permission form that needs to be filled out and returned by Monday.  You are all very prompt about these things, so I probably don't even need to encourage you to remember to take a look at that this weekend...but oops!--there I just did!

Have a great long weekend everyone.  See you on Monday ready to take more temperatures and do more running!

Lots of little tidbits

The beginning of the year events aren't quite over yet.  And there are some important dates to pay attention to.  Here is a list to keep in mind:
1) September 24: Magazine sale ends
2) September 29: the first deadline for Hot Lunch ordering.  Check the yellow sheet in your child's planner for details.
3) September 30: Scholastic orders due (beforehand is fine!) The flyers came home today.  :)
4) September 30: Terry Fox Run in the afternoon.  Please remember to send good running attire to school that day!
5) October 5: Picture day.  There are two dates marked, but our class sees the photographer Monday.  Yes, I know.  Monday.  I have to set my alarm too!  I usually forget the morning of...which means I get a candid!

Today we started thinking about our class mission statement and made a personal plan of how we were going to do one part of it.  At the end of the day, we each reflected on how well we did.  The yellow post-it note should be in your child's agenda and is a great discussion starter!  We'll be paying regular attention to our mission statement and that will form one aspect of the goals we set throughout the year.

Mathletics passwords are coming out soon, along with yearbook notices.  Keep an eye out for them in agendas :)  

I haven't take the time to mention how much I enjoyed visiting with all of you who were able to come out to our Meet the Teacher Barbecue last week.  Thanks for taking the time to fit that into your schedule and for those of you I haven't met yet, feel free to stop by to say hi or set up a time when you're sure to catch me.  It is always such a pleasure to see you all :)

Our class mission statement

In the last few days we've been thinking about the 7 Habits that make us great leaders in our school and our world.  We've especially been thinking about how that applies to our classroom community and it has been great to see how it has become a little easier to talk about being proactive or putting first things first or even beginning with the end in mind.  Perhaps the one we keep coming back to the most is "synergy".  We're working together to create lots of new things: class climate, science projects, a way to organize our activities and our classroom.  It takes a lot of energy and a lot of reflecting.

Then yesterday we set to work creating our class mission statement.  We had a lot of ideas so it is very long.  It will give us lots to talk about and consider as the year goes on.  It will also a good jumping-off point as we start to set personal goals each day.

This afternoon there was a lot of synergy flowing (not to mention paint!) as we created the poster to put up in the classroom.  But true to our mission, we also did an excellent job of cleaning up afterward!

Grade 5 patrollers: this work is our gift to you as you were working on another way to be a great leader in our school this afternoon.

Our finished work is still drying, but here are a couple snapshots:

And because you're all going to wonder what it means, here's a loose translation:

Our class will take care of others, encouraging them and helping them

both inside and outside our school.

We will listen to the person who is speaking

and be proactive, being prepared and keeping our classroom neat.

We will speak French

synergizing with others in our activities.

We will do the right thing even if no one's watching

 and remember to take time for ourselves.

We will begin with the end in mind.

P.S. It would probably be a great idea to send a paint shirt to school for this year.  We could be getting our fingers colourful pretty often :)

Welcome to Boot Camp!

Today was day one of Boot Camp.  Learning to work as a team and get closer to our goals is sometimes a tricky job.  We spent a lot of time talking about how to make the 7 Habits more visible in our classroom and put together our class mission statement for the year.  We also spoke a LOT more French today.  Funny, we're we're really very good at it when we put our mind to it! We keep getting compliments from our French monitor about how much French we can speak.  :)  Here is our student blogger to tell a little more:

We are working together to get as many points as possible in class dojo! We have started a new thing all-day all the time, it is when we get little 3 gadgets [tokens] we have to try to keep them all day [by speaking French during class time and eating times]

Today was day one of recording our weather observations.  We are almost hoping for a nice gale soon so we can measure the wind speed, but we won't complain about having a nice day for our Meet the Teacher Barbecue!  

Presentations are all wrapped up.  The bulletin board is such a fabulous collection of who we are!  And everyone was very brave to share in front of the class.  Great job!

Some news!

We are beginning to have students add things to our blog.  Here is our first student blog addition-Hip! hip! Hooray!

We are going to start on the daily 5!  That is when we have different stations some are reading, some are writing and some are listening. I think that we are going to have lots of fun with them. We also are testing wind and rain by doing projects in science.

Thanks to all of you who are sending in those little things to add to our learning: magazines, pop bottles, kleenexboxes and bandaids.  We are thankful to all of you!  

Tomorrow is the day our big numbers are due in.  Lots are in already!  What a class!  Looking great!

Hope to see you tomorrow at our Meet the Teacher evening!  

Let it rain!

Our rain gauges are in place...and just in time for the evening rain. Thanks to Mr. Reboullet, handy-man extraordinaire!

So now we'll be starting to record weather as it happens: wind speed and direction, the temperature, rainfall.  We're on our way!

So much happening at once!

Today we had the pleasure of two visits!  One of last year's teacher popped in to say hello.  I know the students appreciated seeing her and her new daughter.  Later in the same period our new "moniteur de français" came by!  Marc-André is from Québec and will be with us for quite some time.  He will be working alongside ECJC French Immersion students to support their French learning.  We had some questions for him right off the bat and I'm sure we'll learn more about him in the upcoming months. :)

Today we introduced the project to find two "big numbers" around us.  Students came home with a little form to help them gather the information they need to complete the project when they return with their numbers Thursday.  Feel free to talk about where we can find numbers in the thousands and tens of thousands.  These numbers can be talked about on the radio, spotted on advertisements (cars and other larger purchases), they can even interview someone who owns a business to gather figures (with the permission of that person, of course!!)  They are encouraged to be creative and to remember to indicate where they found them and what those numbers are associated with.  The idea is to attach meaning to a big number :)

Tomorrow is LIBRARY day!  It is a great opportunity to exchange any books and take out new ones.

Tomorrow is also a big presentation day.  With all the business of these visits, we didn't get a chance to present today.  So we've got lots of people presenting tomorrow!  Our class bulletin board is looking awesome!

THANKS to all of you who sent in empty 2L pop bottles.  If you still have some kicking around, we could use a few more to build our "pluviomètres" (rain gages)!

Practice-up!

Today we're working through the class, getting everyone up and running with the logins and passwords.  That means that students will soon be receiving emails from me with links and info related to work we're doing in the classroom.  Sometimes I will send parents a copy, but certainly not each time.  They are also welcome to send me emails regarding questions they have about homework or projects that we're working on.  There are a couple of technological projects brewing for them here at school and while I don't yet have all the information for them (or you!) and we need to start flexing our techie muscles to get ready to hit the ground running!  These projects are very exciting for everyone involved (even parents!) and I can hardly wait to let everyone in on the secret...but all in good time :)

We're currently working on place value and big numbers in Math and next week we will start thinking about a project involving searching around in the students' world for big numbers.  They may need a spark or two of creativity from home to have an idea of where to look for numbers in the thousands and ten thousands.  We'll start talking more about this early next week so keep tuned.

I'm going to start putting up some links that students can use to help practice these numbers in various ways as well as practicing their basic number facts so when we get into addition/subtraction (and later multiplication and division) these facts are right at their fingertips.  Check them out here or go to the link for the page.

Magazine sales information is coming home today so watch for an envelope and lots of stories about prizes to be won.  Speaking of prizes, one of our own class won the game during the assembly.  Ask your child about "Minute-to-Win-it"!

And if there is no wind...

Note to self: order wind on the day you make weathervanes next year!  Yes we made these great "girouettes" but of course today was a nice, warm, CALM day so we didn't have a lot of success using them.  It's okay because we will soon have lots of weather instruments to use and we'll be collecting data over a period of time so we'll be using them again :)

Just a friendly reminder to finish up getting all those forms in.  Most are in, there are just a few who still need to be taken care of.  Thanks so much.

We had a big sharing circle today about speaking French in the classroom today.  I am happy to report that each student expressed that either they enjoy speaking French, they feel proud to be able to speak two languages or they are think it is a great idea.  Where we start to have problems is in the choices we make in the classroom to actually speak it continually.  Of course some are making more of an effort than others and those have a positive effect on those around them in encouraging others to do so.  There is, however, not even one person that speaks solely French throughout the day.  We are presently in the reflection stage of this challenge, but the long and the short of it is that in French Immersion we speak French in class.  Please do speak to your son or daughter about this to encourage them in their learning journey.  And we'll continue to work on a solution here that is meaningful and motivating.  The more we speak French, the more we encourage others to speak French and the easier those French vocabulary words come back (or grow).

Other things on the reminder list: cushions, ClassDojo, ongoing presentations, checking agendas :)

Wednesday

Already the middle of the week!  We're busy learning routines and settling into what we've already learned.  In science today we took the room's temperature in several different places and found it different depending on where the thermometer had been placed.  Sometimes it was even different from one person's reading to another's.  That was food for thought!  Here's the Tagxedo that we made in class today with the words that we already associate with the weather!

Thanks to all of you who are steadily returning forms, filling in surveys and signing up for Class Dojo.  Isn't the beginning of the year great!?

In case your son or daughter is interested in patrolling this year, forms have been sent home today and are due back Friday.  If he or she didn't get a form and would like to participate in this great leadership opportunity, forms are still available tomorrow :)

Presentations start tomorrow!  Check the date written in agendas to know when your child presents.  Should be good. :)

P.S. Don't forget that students are welcome to bring cushions in.  Please do make sure that the cover can be removed to be washed so we can keep those clean!  Your child thanks you, as I do :)

It's presentation time!

Today we went home with a project!  We are going to present ourselves using an object that has some sort of personal significance, a story or a meaning attached to it.  Each student has 1 to 2 minutes to share the story or significance orally with the class.  Students have a different presentation day within the next week and a half so please consult their agenda for the specific date.  They should have that date written in.  :)
This object needs to be something which:

• Can stay at school for a couple weeks
• Can be displayed on a bulletin board
• Has a story attached to it 

If an object cannot come/stay at school or be attached to the bulletin board, a picture of that item would be great.  

Personal information forms also went home today.  They are PINK and need to return to school as quickly as possible.  But seeing how fast the other forms came back, that shouldn't be a problem!  Y'all are super-quick on the turn around!

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to sign up for ClassDojo and filled in the survey.  I know that takes time, but it really does help me to get our class up and running quickly!  I am hoping to transition our blog to ClassDojo, so please do get that detail finished up soon!  Thanks again!

Bon weekend!

Lots of great leadership happening in the class today: great listening and encouraging others to listen in assembly and a beautiful synergy on our first visual journal page of the year!  We are also doing a good job at learning our routines and figuring out where to be when and how to do what.  :)

Look for lots of mail and forms coming home to be signed today.  The faster those can be signed and returned, the easier it is to get things rolling as they need to here at ÉJCS!

Thanks for all of you who have filled in the survey--already, wow!-- and for all those how have tried and run into technical difficulties--sorry--technology is a weird thing sometimes.  I have sent home new addresses in planners.  If that still doesn't work, email me and I can send you a link digitally...that might eliminate some difficulties! 

Do have a wonderful long weekend!  Looking forward to seeing everyone back on Tuesday!

P.S.  When you sign into ClassDojo next (or for the first time), please make sure you have the newest version of the app!  This way you'll be able to see the new section "Our Class Story" which is like our own private class blog :)  Check it out!

C'est la rentrée! It's our first day!

What a busy first day we had!  Lots of information about what we do and how...with more to come!

To begin, please do READ the letter that came home with your child today.  If no letter has arrived, you can click here to read it!! Lettre aux parents 

The students are invited to bring a cushion (with a removable, washable cover) to school for their own use during class time. There are baskets provided to store them in.  Watch for these covers coming home as we will be taking the cases home to wash them periodically.  These cushions are the responsibility and property of the person who brings them. :)

ClassDojo codes went home today.  For those of you unfamiliar with ClassDojo, it is a great app for communication as well as for reinforcement of class routines and expectations.  Both the student and the parent have separate codes which allow everyone to track the student's progress.  Students can personalize their little Dojo when they have created their accounts.  :)

Please also check out the student survey link which is in your letter.  Sooner is always better as this questionnaire is very helpful to a good start-up for everyone. If you need the link or a paper copy, don't hesitate to get in touch!

Bienvenue! Welcome!

This is where you're going to find all the updates and goings-on for our class throughout the year!  We are so glad that you've stopped in to see us and we hope that you come back regularly to check in on things that are happening.

Tout se passe ici!  C'est ici que vous allez trouver les nouveautés et les découvertes quotidiennes de notre classe que nous voulons partager avec vous!  Merci pour venir nous visiter et nous souhaitons que vous reviendriez souvent!