Mmmmmm……..Nos sapins de noël

         

 

 

 

 

Inspiration for the edible "sapin de noël" comes from:   360FamilyNutrition found on Pinterest.

There are many more edible ideas on Pinterest.   Here's one I hope to try out with my kiddos during the Christmas holidays.   Note the pattern,  "regularité".

Concert de Noël

Because of the large and talented student body at École Dugald School our amazing music teacher, Madame Craigen and her support team, will be hosting 2 days of Christmas concerts.


For the students in my, Madame Esther's (deGroot) Maternelle, our concerts will be on December 15th at:


1 PM


&


7 PM  (Please help your child arrive no later than 6:45 PM to get into position.)


Students are asked bring themselves and their beautiful voices to both concerts.  


If your child is breaking into song at home and you want to sing with them, here are the 2 songs:


1. Farandole (to the melody of Deck the Halls)




Tombe, tourne et tourbillonne   
Falala lala lala lala                 2x






Belle neige de Noël
Falala lala lala lala                  2x






Bienvenue au temps de fêtes
Falala lalala la la la                 2x






Tombe, tourne et tourbillonne
Falala lala lala lala                  2x

2. Quatre semaines

Noël, Noël, la la la la la

Quatre semaines,

Trois semaines,

Deux semaines,

Une semaine,

C’est Noël,

(La, la la)

 

Noël, Noël, la la la la la

La la la, (Frappe les mains)

Trois semaines,

Deux semaines,

Une semaine,

C’est Noël,

(La, la la)

 

Noël, Noël, la la la la la

La la la, (Frappe les mains)

La la la, (Frappe les mains)

Deux semaines,

Une semaine,

C’est Noël,

(La, la la)

December calendar is COMING !

Thank you for your patience with me.   The power cord of my seasoned laptop does not always work and as a result my posting has been less frequent and perhaps less interesting.   I am halfway to finding a solution : ) 

Thank you for coming!

          

Hello there students and parents of Maternelle,   

A BIG THANK YOU to you all for:

-Coming to Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences the other day.   Everyone came! While at conferences THANK YOU for being really focused on your child.   They really appreciated that.   (I appreciated it too because they were my first kindergarten Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences ever and I was more nervous than I have been in years : ).

-THANK YOU also for bringing alphabet plates and alphabet sound books and other supplies to share : )

-While I am thanking you for conferences, a bigger THANK YOU for sending your child to school (with complete lunches and snacks and layers and layers of clothing) and on the right days!!!

What I noticed at conferences is your children act a bit differently when they are with the ones they are most attached to...their parents.   Some students were shy when I didn't know they could be, more than a few were speechless, some giggly, many blushing as they shared their classroom explorations with you.   My observations the students with you, their parents, affirmed for me the value of providing a space that children can explore on their own, like little bird's first trips away from the nest.   It takes courage both to leave and to watch them leave. 
THANK YOU for sharing your little birds with me/us.
 

Inside and Out

Lots of fresh new energy moving around the classroom yesterday and flurrying around outside too.   We look forward to seeing you at Student-Parent-Teacher Interviews coming up November 26th (evening) and 27th (morning) and showing you what we made next...

Our "coquelicots" pour le Jour de souvenir

Nous avons 20 dents.

This afternoon, we had GOÛTER ENSEMBLE featuring pear people.   The students really enjoyed putting them together and eating them.   Thank you to Stephanie for this creative and delicious snack.

Calendar: C'est novembre

Hello out there, it's Madame Moustique...

This week, as you may have discovered in your child's communication folder, these last few days of October we tackled letters
  J j,   L l and M m (thus the teacher-dressed-as-a-Mmmmm-osquito, I concluded after trying to figure out how to dress for Halloween that "moustique" would be a relevant word for us second-language learners here in Manitoba : )

A big           Thank-you! to 2 Halloween elves who helped us celebrate Halloween with the mummy wrap game and some really beautifully presented and tasty snacks.   Thank you also to parents who sent Halloween pencils for us to share...not required but a nice way for us to practice giving and receiving!


Please note calendars for "novembre" in your child's communication folder.   

Also if you have not sent back photo consent or non-consent form from the back of the student handbook, please do so ASAP and send back to school in your child's COMMUNCATION FOLDER.

Parent-Teacher Conferences will take place the evening of November 26th and morning of November 27th.   You will recieve information on how to sign up for your interview spot.   THERE IS NO SCHOOL FOR YOUR CHILD ON NOVEMBER 27th.   For Maternelle, this first report card reflects an assessment of your child's learning behaviours.   (Subsequent report cards will include specific academic criteria and assessment reflecting foundational pieces for second-language acquisition.

The main goal for Maternelle is that your child has an overall positive experience while listening and singing, running, counting, writing, doing actions, and crafting in French.

Merci beacoup!    Madame Moustique for Madame Esther

HALLOWEEN mini-fête THURSDAY Oct 29th

We will be hosting a Halloween mini-fête in MATERNELLE on after lunch on         October 29th.   This means will be doing a Halloween craft, educational games, and other vocabulary-building activities with a Halloween theme.  

costumes: 
*Please SEND your child's COSTUME in a SEPARATE BAG and NOT WEARING the costume as we will be putting them on after lunch. 
*Your child must be able to GET INTO and OUT OF their costume more or less BY THEMSELVES.
*If your child DOES NOT WANT TO WEAR a costume, that's okay.   We will have some craft supplies on hand for children who want to make a decoration to wear.

food: 
*If you have a fun idea for a Halloween or Autumn-themed snack, PLEASE COME IN and SHOW us how to make it.   Ours is a class of students who LOVE to do things with their HANDS and their BRAINS.   Please do not BRING US A PREPARED SNACK.   But COME IN WITH THE SUPPLIES AND MODEL HOW TO MAKE IT.   Then WE CAN MAKE IT OURSELVES.   It is a MORE VALUABLE LEARNING EXPERIENCE if we DO IT OURSELVES.        

source: pinterest

Paper Plates and Numeracy cont.

For anyone to REALLY learn something, the chance to play and the chance to make mistakes are essential.   For our paper plates and numeracy, it's important that especially in the home environment, your child can play with the numeracy plates as they wish.   This is because we do not always have enough time to play and really integrate new concepts at school.  (That sounds somewhat ironic but I do believe that equal amounts of learning happens at school and outside of school : )

Playing means that we are not always correcting them or saying, do it this way, or like this.   If they ask for help we can certainly make A SUGGESTION or asking them a leading question.   

So…when your child brings the set of plates home, you can ask them to show you what to do with them.   

At school, we will be: 

1. putting them in order

2. corresponding the number with the same number of objects 

3. using them to count objects (so if you want to know how many leaves you have, you can put one on each plate and see how many numbers are used)   

Offer some objects to your child to use at home with the plate.  

After a bit of play, encourage your child to COUNT IN FRENCH if they are not already.   At school we are practicing counting exclusively in FRENCH.  

Taking it a step further: 

- mixing objects (like photo or mixing objects on each plate)
- if your child needs more of a challenge, encourage them to set up the plates in reverse, from 8-1 and to count backwards also in FRENCH 

Paper plates and numeracy…

Hello parents and students, on Thursday we each made our own set of plates number 1-8:

  

These sets of plates will be traveling back and forth to school in the next weeks and will eventually be evolving to represent higher numbers.   One of the LEARNING OBJECTIVES for Maternelle is counting 1-30 in FRENCH.   As a first step, your child can put the plates in order.   Ideally since they are in school to learn French, if they are saying the numbers out loud, encourage them to say them in French as well as English if they start in English.  

If want to help your child but are concerned about your French pronunciation, just try anyway and your child, being the brilliant young language-learner that they are will correct your accent if it doesn't sound right.   If you really aspire for them to learn to speak French, attempting a few words yourself is ABSOLUTELY THE BEST THINGS you can do towards that goal.   And being corrected by your child is evidence of their learning and prepares us adults for things to come….: )   I am a parent too : } 

Madame Esther's focus (a disclaimer)

Before too many more posts, I just wanted to mention that although I've posted twice this week on the our Maternelle blog, my main focus of teaching is on providing an engaging, positive, and structured learning environment for your children while they are in our classroom with me.   As reminder to myself also, the blog is here secondarily to the classroom as a communication tool with written and visual mediums.    So please excuse the occasional typos, cases of poor grammar, or less than beautiful posts on the blog due to me rushing to post something so I can get back to the other tasks of being a teacher : )  

And feel free to provide comments in the comment section below with awareness that all the other parents will also view your comment…I expect this will be in most cases an advantage because your children and I are all in this together.    My goal is for all of us to learn together.

Mme Esther

Supplies needed...

If you have these items and do not have a use for them.   Please send them in your child's backpack in a plastic bag.   We'll know it's a "supply" if it's in a plastic bag.    THANK YOU !

1.  Embroiderly hoops (JUST THE HOOP).   If you have one and are okay with your child using it, LABEL (with tape ?) with your CHILD'S NAME  and send it, if you have extras that you want back, just label them all your child's name or if you don't want them back, just send them unlabelled.  

3. coloured balls (big or small) of yarn or wool

2. dinky cars: the ones that have a long hood or at least some 1"x1" surface area.   (Please do not send them if you want them back : )  

3. empty toilet paper rolls  (ALWAYS USEFUL HERE)

4. cereal boxes (ALWAYS USEFUL HERE)- Please just send boxes that aren't specifically geared to kids so we don't get distracted.   We are using these for an alphabet game.   

Annuals last days, send them to school...

Dear Parents,  I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving.   I asked the students yesterday how we say "Thank you" in French and they impressed me by responding with "Merci !"  

We have had such a gorgeous late summer and early fall, haven't we?

We have been thrilled to bring objects from nature into the classroom for making the alphabet letters and numeracy activities.  

On Tuesday afternoon, we went into the narrow strip of forest on the east side of the schoolyard to collect leaves for sorting, counting, and science and art activities.   Some of the comments I heard were:  "Is this a forest?" "How do we get out of here?" "I love school!" "Are there alligators in here Madame Esther?"

The students went home with their own "sacs d'automne" for collecting artifacts from nature wherever there are.  

They are predicting a frost for tonight so I asked students to pick some flowers to help us make our letter I's (and i's) on Thursday.   Send your child with the flowers fresh picked or press them in between a book overnight.   I'll have extras also.