Dictée #1 and Oral comprehension #2 sent home

Dictée #1 & Compréhension Orale 2 will be sent home on Monday, 24th. Please sign and return.


Dictée #1
Please note that this will not be reflected directly in students' report card grade for French as it has more to do with students' learning skills and work habits. These words are essential words for grade 3 students to understand, write and use correctly and practicing them will help students' future writing activities. Please encourage students to keep practicing them throughout the year.


Compréhension Orale #2
In this quick listening activity, students listen to a passage and use simple drawings to show their comprehension of a short text.

Students are encouraged to read the feedback given on the back to help themselves for the next time,

Some suggestions given include:
- Review certain vocabulary
- Take note while listening (they listen to the same text 3 times).
- Listen for the key words.

So far, it has been identified that students have particular difficulties with directional & place words (gauche, droite, supérieur, sur etc.)

Using feedback to improve future work will help students develop very important learning skills such as initiative and organization!

A fun way to practice for this weekly activity would be writing a simple descriptive paragraph of 5-6 sentences and read it to their friends over the phone or via Skype and having the listener draw what s/he understands. After, they can bring their work to school to compare. As we've been working on adjectives, encourage them to include a lot of descriptive adjectives in their writing.

Math Number Sense and Numeration Unit Quiz #1 Assessment sent home.

First math unit (number sense and numeration) quiz will be sent home on Monday 24th.

Please go over the quiz with your child and use the evaluation rubric for which area of achievement s/he should work more on. As homework, students were asked to correct their mistakes or add more with a colour pencil.

You will notice that there is no points given to each question. Their work is assessed more holistically in four different areas of achievement (Knowledge and Understanding / Thinking / Communication / Application) using an assessment rubric following the ministry guidelines.

Some mistake are circled. If there is no circles but they achieved lower than it seems, some possible reasons are:
a. They did not use math vocabulary learned in class to explain their thinking.
b. They showed only one aspect of the number pattern.
c. Their explanation is not clear.

Here are some tips to better understand the evaluation rubric (la grille d'évaluation). Click on the image to view it bigger.

If you have any questions about this assessment, please feel free to send me a message or give me a call at Ext. 127. I will be happy to further explain how this assessment was done.

Please note that Level 3 means students are meeting the Ministry expectations.

Thank you.

First Math Quiz on October 20th.

An upcoming math quiz has been scheduled on October 20th. (Thursday - it was previously posted as 18th! My apologies.)

We have been learning to count from 1 to 1000 using a variety of tools.

We have been learning to communicate our problem solving using math vocabulary.

To succeed in this quiz, students are expected to:

1. Use 100 chart and number lines to show their skip-counting by 2, 5, and 10 forward and backward with in the range given (from # to # - à partir de # jusqu'à #).

2. Find out the number before and after the series of numbers and explain how they found them.

3. Explain the number pattern using math vocabulary (by how much the numbers are increasing and descreasing, what type of number - odd or even- appears in the pattern, how the 100's, 10's and units change)

4. Represent a three-digit number in a variety of ways, using words, decomposition, place value chart, and drawing.

5. Apply their knowledge to solve a word problem involving skip-counting

How to study for this quiz:

- Follow the next steps given on the feedback rubric (green slip of paper now kept in their math binder).

- Use the skip-counting games to practice (links on the first blog post).

- Try math workbook questions again.

- Make up your own questions.

- Review math vocabulary sheet - in their math binder.

Thank you for reading and your support. Any questions, I'm only a text message away!

More on weekly dictation.

Every Monday, a list of essential vocabulary will be sent home. These words will be tested on the following Friday. The dictation will be given in a format of fill-in-the-blank so that students practice the vocabulary in context and in a form of writing while practicing their attentive listening skills as they follow along the text at the same time as the teacher's read-aloud.

Click here for the list 1 of the vocabulary and its rough translation for parents. Click on the speaker icon for the pronunciation. Here are some corrections:

date - date
tomber pile - happens at a perfect timing
tour - tower or tour
son - his her or its
sorte - sort or kind

The dictation words will be "recycled" throughout the school year for mastery!

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a Remind App message for clarification.
Thank you for your support.

September : Welcome to Grade 3!

We had a great beginning of the 2016-2017 school year. Here are some snapshots of what we have done.

1. Our Classroom Agreement

Here is our classroom agreement. On the first day of school, we created what we agree to do during this school year together and signed it to show our commitment. It roughly translates as follows:

Our Class, Our Agreement

1. Respect yourself, others and their property and personal space, and the environment.

2. Help each other when asked and work as a team.

3. Put forth your best effort to complete all work.

4. Make positive choices when you work and play.

Celebrate successes.

2. Terry Fox Activities

For literacy, we are leaning to write in French in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes

and audiences, using knowledge of vocabulary and stylistic elements to communicate clearly and

effectively, and to use the stages of the writing process – including pre-writing, producing

drafts, revising, editing, and publishing – to develop and organize content, clarify ideas and

expression, correct errors, and present their written work effectively.

As part of our poetry unit, we have a couple of Terry Fox poems before our annual Terry Fox Run around our school. We also learned a song about him and his perseverance by Gregg LeRock.

We identified adjectives in the poems and came up with our own ideas to describe what Terry Fox did and his character, and then discussed how these adjectives can turn into nouns.

Gentil > Gentillesse

Positif > Positivité

Persévérant > Persévérance

Héroïque > Héroïsme

etc.

And then we used the writing process with drafts and revisions to write our own poem using these words and a template to praise Terry and his achievement on a shoe shaped sheet that decorated our classroom door for the whole month of September, reminding students of the importance of perseverance.

3. Visit from Rick Hansen Foundation

A speaker from Rick Hansen Foundation spoke to us about accessibility and inclusion. Learn more about Rick Hansen, his foundation, and his trip around the world on a wheelchair at  http://www.rickhansen.com/ Great chance to talk about and reinforce the importance of perseverance and always doing our best.

4. In Science...

We are learning about structure, solidity and stability. We started this unit by taking a walk around the school field and observe structures around us. Students were particularly intrigued by the exercise machines and playground equipment on the other side of the fence.

After learning some fundamental concepts and definitions, we jumped into our first science experiment where we built a structure with different materials that can support most weight. Students found it very challenging, however, they enjoyed it a lot and showed lots of collaboration.

We followed the scientific method to carry out this experiment which consists of

1. Problem 2. Hypothesis 3. Experiment 4. Conclusion

Students first tried with a weak material - straws

Some creativity here!

Some students remembered that the best base to support a structure usually takes a triangular shape as we saw in some examples including the world's tallest building Burj Khalifa.

4. In Math...

We have been working very hard on our number sense and numeration unit learning to count from 1 to 1000 in a variety of ways, using different tools. We are using 100 chart and number lines to practice skip-counting forward and backward, noticing different number patterns.

Students tried to figure out how many beads and buttons they were given as a group by collaboratively deciding on a strategy to do it in the most efficient way. This group decided on counting by 5 and then grouped them into 10's.

Another group decided to count by 10 and some students explained how they used skip-counting by 2 to make each group of 10.

We made connections to the real word and discussed how useful skip-counting is in many different everyday situations. We also talked about why counting by 7 or 9 is not a good idea.

5. Assessment sent home on the 7th of October

I have sent two assessments. Here is some explanation of what this is about.

A. Compréhension Orale

In this activity, students were to practice their attentive listening skills to listen to the teacher's sentences and draw what they understood on a piece of paper. They were supposed to draw:

A red car on the left side with two people inside.

A blue bicycle in the middle with no person on it.

A black motorcycle with a man wearing a black helmet and a red jacket.

These ideas were presented in a form of a paragraph. We will be doing this type of activity regularly to practice listening. For many students, figuring out left and right was a challenge!

B. Math feedback rubric

Combined with in-class observations, I have put together a feedback rubric to show where students are in their learning. This has no grade because it is to suggest next steps for success in an upcoming quiz that WILL be graded for reporting.

Our focus as a class is to communicate our thinking. When asked to describe the number pattern, students are encouraged to use their math vocabulary and the concepts we learned in class. Click here for the vocabulary list and (rough) English translation. Click on the speaker icon to hear the pronunciation, long click to play it slowly (long click only available on a computer).

Here are some French skip-counting games online that can be used to practice at home.

http://therese.eveilleau.pagesperso-orange.fr/pages/jeux_mat/textes/points_rel_c2.html

http://www.gomaths.ch/progres_.php

Please note that this blog is not to be used as a parent-teacher communication tool. Any comment or e-mail sent through this blog will not be read or answered. Please use the Remind App or call extension 127 to communicate with me.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more updates!

M. Jung