Letters to Santa

This week, we wrote letters to Santa. There were some cute things the students asked for! Canada post will send them to the North Pole for free, and I wrote to Santa asking if he could send the originals back. Our fingers are crossed he isn't too busy to respond before the winter break ;)

Le Pere Noel - Santa Claus

Noel - Christmas

a cat, a mushroom in a bowl

an ipad, a cat

to be famous

a star, lipstick, a telephone

a christmas tree, an airplane, a teddy bear

yoda, bobafet, lego

a soft blanket

They are off to the North Pole!

Art Gallery and Public Library Field Trip

We had such a great time on our field trip today. The students were extremely well behaved and the day just flew right by! A big thank you to all the parents who were able to volunteer. I could not have done it without you.

The part the kids were most excited about!

Story time at the library

We got to go behind the scenes where they sort all the returned books

The conveyor belt that sorts all the books 

Each student got a turn to scan the book and put it on the conveyor belt

A carving by Shawn Hunt

The students did a great job identifying all the details in this piece of art from Indonesia

We did a print making workshop. The students sketched their ideas, then transferred it onto a board that made an imprint of their drawing. 

Then they rolled paint onto their board,

pressed it onto a piece of colored paper,

gently peeled it off, 

and voila! Art!

The art had to stay at the gallery to dry but Mme Louise, who lives close by, will pick it up within the week and bring it back so the kids can bring it home.

Making butter

This afternoon, we made butter! We poured cream into a jar and passed it around the circle, taking turns shaking it. It took awhile but eventually we got butter. The students said it was sooo good :)

Les vaches

BC Dairy Farms came to our school today and brought a cow! The farmers talked about what cows eat, their age compared to humans, how it is milked, and what they can do with the milk (make yogurt, cheese, ice cream, etc). It was such a great experience.

This mama cow was 6 years old. 60 years old in cow years. She has about one calf a year.

This was the machine they used to milk the cow. It takes about 4-5 mins from start to finish.

The milk was filling up the glass container you see on the right.

This was the baby cow. She was about 4 weeks old.

She will start having babies of her own when she is 2 (20 human years)

Letter of the week

This week, we are learning all about the letter 'r'. Ask your child to teach you the sound it makes and the action to go along with it. The students had fun trying to roll the r 'en francais!' and it was quite cute listening to them practice!

Getting back into the green zone

The students have been doing a wonderful job at identifying and naming their feelings. This is the first step in learning self regulation and emotion management strategies. Lately, we have been learning how to get ourselves back into the green zone (the optimal zone) if we are feeling sad, frustrated, angry or silly. Below are some pictures of fidget toys and calm down areas in the class. I've also introduced 'break cards' with pictures on them that the students can refer to.

fidget toys (les outils)

calm down tent

suction balls to balance on when we are feeling wiggly

lava lamp to help us regain focus

strategies to help us get out of the blue zone

strategies to help us get out of the yellow zone

strategies to help us get out of the red zone

Je suis pret pour les montagnes

Here is a link to one of the winter songs we are learning. Ask your child to teach you the actions. This is a class favorite and might be one of the songs we sing at our winter concert in December (info to come soon once we finalize the details).

Charlotte Diamond - Je suis pret pour les montagnes

Mes yeux sont...

Today we graphed our eye color to see which color was the most/least common. Ask your child to teach you how to say 'mes yeux sont...' (my eyes are...). You'll notice some students got creative when coloring their eyes, but at least they glued them in the right column!

Voici mes mitaines

The students are learning the vocabulary for winter clothing and today they designed and painted mittens. We learned how to say 'voici mes mitaines' (these are my mittens) and then created the sentences using cut up words.