Ours burn, dis-moi. . .

We have been hard at work getting comfortable with the Eric Carle story 'Ours brun, dis-moi...' (Brown Bear, Brown Bear).

We have read and re-read the story quite a few times as it is a great story for practising the names of many common animals and colours in French.  You can use the photo below (of our sentence strips) at home to practise with your child and see how many of the animals and colours they remember in French.

We also made a graph of the favourite animals from the story.  As you can see there was a strong preference for the purple cat!

To finish things up, the seniors made a class book of their own version of the story that we read at carpet time.

Snowsuit Fund

Stonecrest is once again fundraising to support the purchase of new snowsuits for local children.  This fundraiser is being held from Monday November 28th to Friday, December 2nd.

During this time period, “elves” from Mrs. Storms’ and Mme Vandal’s Grade 3 classes, and Mrs. Wilker’s and Mme Reddick’s grade 6 classes will visit all classrooms every day.  They will accept any donations of money, new or gently used “ready to wear” winter clothing.  If you choose to write a cheque for your donation, please address it to “Stonecrest E.S.”.

In keeping with the spirit of the season, the staff at Stonecrest would prefer that families, who wish to purchase teacher gifts during this festive season, redirect their generosity towards this fundraiser.  Therefore, if you choose to make purchases, may we suggest hats and mitts, or other winter wear, which we will donate to less fortunate families on behalf of our “Stonecrest Family.”  Should you choose to make a donation on behalf of a teacher/staff member, please feel free to use the tear-off tag to indicate this on your donation.

Sincerely,

Stonecrest Staff

Vocabulary Review

This week we are reviewing the words from the last three letters we've worked on: F, M & N.

Shapes

We have been talking a lot about shapes in class lately.  A copy of the French names of some common shapes went home with the green class today (and will go home with the blue class tomorrow) should you wish to practise them at home.  Here is a link to the document. . .
     French Shape Vocabulary Words

French Questions

Students have been working on learning how to ask for certain things in French at school.  Here are some of the things we have been using if you would like to practice at home . . .

Est-ce que je peux aller boire de l'eau? (Can I go get a drink of water?)
Est-ce que je peux manger une collation? (Can I go have a snack?)
Est-ce que je peux aller dehors? (Can I go outside?) (We will be adding this one soon.)
Aidez-moi s’il vous plaît? (Can you please help me?)
Je choisis. . . (I choose . . .)

Letters, Letters, Letters!

The junior kindergarten students have been busy working on their letters at school.  They have been playing with letters, writing their letters, building letters and more!  We are teaching uppercase and lowercase letters, and when they are writing their names we encourage one uppercase for the first letter, followed by all lowercase for the rest of the letters.

Letter bingo in French.

They are counting in French on a number hunt.

Following instructions to build letters on the carpet.

Printing letters on mini chalkboards.

We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather with the green class and went on a leaf hunt.  Since we've been talking about size lately, students were encouraged to keep an eye out for leaves of varying sizes, as well as different colours and shapes.  The senior kindergarten students were instructed to bring their five favourite leaves back to class.  Once back on the carpet we worked on sorting our leaves by size, from biggest to smallest, then by colour and finally by shape.  In the end they had to pick three leaves, to represent small, medium and large, which they glued on a sheet and labelled with the appropriate words in French.

We discussed what we were looking for on our leaf hunt.

Sorting by size.

Sorting by colour.

Small, medium and large.

Junior kindergarten students performed a similar activity but sorted by small and large.

Halloween Vocabulary

The students are starting to get excited for Halloween and have begun to talk about their costumes (the teachers have been planning their costumes too!).  A copy of the Halloween vocabulary words we will be working on went home with the blue class today for families that would like to practice at home.  The green class will get their copies next week.

French Halloween Vocabulary Words

Students have had fun this week learning this little poem about Ramunoir, a handsome black cat who likes to go out only at night.  They act out the actions as we say the poem together and then hunt for different words.

What's the Weather?

We've added a look at the weather to our morning routine in French.  Every morning the students are asked to take a look at the sky and we are working at learning how to describe the weather in French.
Here are the most common types of weather we look for. . .

• Il fait soleil. (It is sunny.)
• Il vent. (It's windy)
• C'est nuageux. (It's cloudy.)
• Il pleut. (It's raining.)
• Il fait froid. (It's cold.)
• Il fait chaud. (It's hot)
• Il neige. (It's snowing.) Hopefully we wont be needing this one for a while!!

Sizing Things Up

We have been talking about classifying objects by size in class lately, using the terms 'petit', 'moyen' and 'grand'.  We started out by sorting a bag full of stuffed animals I brought in from home and the senior kindergarten students moved onto shoes today.

Counting how many shoes there were in each category.

The seniors found extra objects around the room that they could classify as petit, moyen or grand.

The junior kindergarten students worked together to sort buttons by size.

La lettre 'T'

This week we are working on the letter T, it's sounds, how it is formed and of course, vocabulary words that start with T in French.  Here are our words if you wish to practice at home. . .

Uppercase & Lowercase

Today we added learning centers to our flow of the day.  Most days students will have a short period of time where they have a 'must do' job (their 'travail').  Usually these jobs are hands-on activities that can be differentiated for students depending on their abilities.  We have been talking a lot about how there are uppercase letters (les lettres majuscules) and lowercase letters (les lettres minuscules) for each sound in the alphabet and some of our centers focused on getting students more familiar with this concept.

Drawing letters in salt.

Drawing letters in salt.

Making letters out of playdough.

Matching uppercase and lowercase letters.

Sorting uppercase and lowercase letters.

Sorting uppercase and lowercase letters.

Carp Fair

We have Carp Fair fever going on at Stonecrest right now!  Be sure to check out the craft barn at the fair for our paper bag pumpkins, noodle & acorn necklaces and beautiful JK portraits.  Thank you to everyone who sent back their Carp Fair attendance sheets.  If you are going to the fair tomorrow or sometime on the weekend have fun and maybe we will see you there!