This week in grade 1 and 2...

This week in grade 1:

This week we practised our weather vocabulary! I pulled small groups and we played "bug in a rug" at my guided reading table. The kids love spending time in a small group with me, and get a lot out of the ten minutes we spend together. I can make sure they are using the correct pronunciation when they are with me, and give them lots of chances to practise speaking. 

In grade 2:

This week we practised our fall vocabulary. We played "bang", "bug in a rug", dominoes, and matching puzzles (word to picture) in centres. Then in small groups, they sequenced 4 fall pictures and came up with a short story to match it. 

Next week I will be adding another centre activity - a sight word hunt! Students use a magnifying glass to hunt for sight words in the pumpkins. They can record the words they find on the tracker sheet, and then read them to a partner! 

What are you working on right now? What are your students loving? I'd love to hear about it! 

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Le vent

Here is the poem we are doing for grade 2 this week about wind:

Monsieur le vent

Soufflez, Monsieur le vent

Faites danser les nuages

Et les cheveux des enfants sages.

Soufflez, Monsieur le vent

Emportez les papiers

Et le chapeau du jardinier. 

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This week in grade 1 and 2...

Grade 1:

This week we continued to practise our colours, numbers, and basic weather/calendar vocabulary. My students practised the colour mini books that they made last week, and are now starting to play our colour games in small groups. It's so great to hear them using the colours in French! We have also been playing "Simon dit" to introduce some basic body part vocabulary. 

We have also been learning our classroom objects! I made a book to read with them (because I could not find a book with classroom objects!) and some word wall cards that match. Once they are comfortable with the classroom objects, they will be making their own version of the book. 

Grade 2:

This week we worked on our fall vocabulary. We practised reading with the matching games:

And dominos!

In art, my students traced their hands and made line patterns. They turned out really well! 

We are starting our "Air and Water" unit this week as well! 

What are you working on in your classroom??

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Primary "superhero" art!

Since we were focusing on colours this week in grade 1, our students made primary "superhero" art! 

They made their superhero with primary coloured construction paper, and then drew and coloured the background. We talked about foreground and background, and looked at ways that they could add details to their art. They also got to name their superhero (another opportunity to practice "je m'appelle")!

Here are some examples of their work:

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Colours and more!

This week in grade 1:

Our focus has been on learning the colours! 

I found this song on youtube, but changed the lyrics and added more colours (we keep the general tune though). My kids love it! 

Here's the version we sing: 

Bleu, jaune, rouge et vert, rouge et vert!

Bleu, jaune, rouge et vert, rouge et vert!

Des couleurs pour créer un petit monde coloré, 

Bleu, jaune, rouge et vert, rouge et vert!

Orange, violet, rose et brun, rose et brun!

Orange, violet, rose et brun, rose et brun!

Des couleurs pour créer un petit monde coloré, 

Orange, violet, rose et brun, rose et brun!

Gris, turquoise, noir et blanc, noir et blanc!

Gris, turquoise, noir et blanc, noir et blanc!

Des couleurs pour créer un petit monde coloré, 

Gris, turquoise, noir et blanc, noir et blanc!

My grade 1s started playing colour "bug in a rug". One student hides the bug under one of the cards, and the others try to guess where it is (saying the word in French). 

And a different version of the same game: 

Here is the "bang!" game that they started playing this week. They pull a card from the container, and if they can say it in French then they can keep the card. If they pull a "bang!" card then they get a second turn. When my grade 2s play "bang", we sometimes play that they put all their cards back in. 

Then we started to work our way through our colour books! Here are two examples below:

With my grade 2s, we continued to review the colours and basic vocabulary from grade 1. 

They played colour dominoes, and had to match the colour square to the name of the colour: 

I also asked them different questions in French, and they drew and discussed their answers with me. I let them draw on their desks (they were STUNNED) and then we washed them after with a bit of soap and water. 

We practiced a longer version of the "septembre" poem that they learned in grade 1:

And we reviewed different sentence starters:

My grade 2s have also been playing colour "bang", but they have to use the word in a sentence. I am trying to break them of the habit of starting their sentences with "je vois", so we will slowly be adding in different options for sentence starters on our bulletin board. 

It was a busy week! Hope you're all settling in and enjoying getting to know your classes :)

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Name monsters and introducing "rouge"

Hey team! 

I hope you all enjoyed your first week back! I had a really fun week getting to know my 40 new students :) 

We practiced a lot of routines and did all that fun back to school stuff, and played a lot of name games. 

My students told me that their favourite part of the week was making name monsters! I got this idea from one of my very creative team partners. 

Steps: 
- Fold a piece of paper in half 
- Write your name along the fold (letters can be all different sizes) **This is an important step, otherwise your students will end up with two half-monsters! 
- Cut around the edges of the letters (I traced around them first for my grade 1s)
- Open it up to see your monster! 
- Draw details and decorate your monster :)

Here are some of our monsters hanging up in my classroom: 

We started out with some basic French vocabulary:

- Bonjour, je m'appelle ______ 

- Comment ça va (bien, mal, comme ci comme ça)

- #1-5

- Some basic weather (because it rained!! we had indoor recess twice.. a great time to introduce "il pleut") 

- J'aime ____ 

- Days of the week and months of the year songs (they already know the tunes from the English version they learned in kindergarten) 

I also introduced primary colours. They did a brainstorm in groups of 2-3 of all the things they could think of that are "rouge". I chose one of them to hang up on our wall, and will add the other colours as we do them! 

Was there anything that you did this week that stood out for your students? I'd love to hear about it! 

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