Orange shirt day

Sept. 27th, 2019

Hello everyone!

Happy Friday! It's the end of our Fall Fundraiser week and it's been crazy around here, a lot of fun and excitement! Some students got the chance to decorate Mr. Oliver's face with make-up, style a teacher's hair, sit in a teacher's chair and pie a teacher in THE FACE! And everyone enjoyed a dance party or an electronics hour.

In French however, we still got to get most of our work done!

In Grade2:
-We learned about more occupation (les métiers).
-We learned to use the new words in full sentences along with their actions (verbs).
-We learned to use similar sentence structures with different nouns (places, objects...).
-Weekly reading.

In Grade 3:

-We started to inquire about Canada's first nations in French (les autochtones).

-We learned some of the actions they used to live (chasser, parler, manger, porter, récolter).

-We learned to conjugate these verbs and use them in sentences related to the unit.

-Weekly reading.

In Grade 4:

-We learned new words for the spelling test.

-We identified the articles (définis et indéfinis et possessifs) : un/une, le/la, mon/ma. And learned how to use them.

-We completed and corrected together our first spelling test and our weekly reading.

This time grade 4 students were asked to work on the reading cards in pairs, every pair of students read together a different text, explained it to each other and answered a comprehension question together.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Mme. Rawan

Sept. 20th, 2019

Hello St. Jude's Fam!

Just as we think summer's come to an end, the skies turn blue again and the sun shines bright bringing back some beautiful warm weather; I hope you're all enjoying it before it actually ends! 

It was great meeting some of you at the annual welcome back BBQ and I hope to meet everyone else very soon. 

This week was very productive in our French classes.

In Grade 2:

-We started to identify and learn the names of some occupations and their roles in the community (action).

-We learned to distinguish nouns and action words.

-We started our in-class reading lessons. (I will be explaining a little bit more about that at the end of this post).

In Grade 3:

-We reviewed the numbers and their number-words.

-We learned how to change words and sentences from singular to plural forms.

-We started our in-class reading lessons.

In Grade 4:

-We continued our practice and revisions about gender distinguishing articles (un/une/mon/ma) and how with which pronouns they may be replaced (il/elle).

-We learned about "heroes" in our lives and used adjectives to describes them in full sentences.

-We reviewed some basic important irregular verbs and how to conjugate them.

-We started our in-class reading lessons.

Note to all: We've started to include more reading in our French classes. This is something I am planning on doing in class every week on Fridays mainly, where we use different short texts from reading cards of different difficulties. We read the text as a class, write it down in the journals (if possible), we discuss the text and make sure everyone understands it. We define new words and highlight important sounds that come up in the text and how they are pronounced. We also read and understand the comprehension question(s) related to the text and find the answer together in the text and write it down. 

I do not expect the students to be able to read them all by themselves or understand everything on their own at this point, however slowly but surely they will achieve better reading and comprehension skills as we advance in the year. This practice will definitely help all the students read better French, enrich their vocabulary, improve their pronunciation, fluency and comprehension skills. 

Students who are able to read independently will be given a different text to read, understand and answer the questions on their own. 

For Grade 4: We will start spelling tests next week which usually take place on Fridays as well. The words will be introduced and defined in class on Monday to give time for the students to study for Friday. Since now we have 50 minutes of French instead of 40, we should be able to do the reading after the spelling test on Friday; otherwise, I will work around the lessons during the other days of the week to include the reading practice. 

On a separate note, FALL FUNDRAISER is happening next week!! The fun and excitement are taking place in Fall this year instead of Spring! Make sure not to miss out on the daily events and join in the exciting and super fun trips!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mme. Rawan

Sept. 7th, 2019

Hello everyone!

Happy Friday! We made it through the first full week at school and everyone is doing great!
This week was quite exciting, we enjoyed learning about Terry Fox and ended up with the much anticipated Terry Fox run on Friday.

In Grade 2:
-We learned about Terry Fox, we described him using some adjectives.
-We learned (or reviewed for returning students) the Terry Fox song in French.
-We learned to use the correct pronoun (Elle ou Il) to differentiate between a girl and a boy.

In Grade 3:
-We learned about Terry Fox and the French song.
-We reviewed the numbers up till 100 and how to read the number words.
-We reviewed how to transform sentences from the singular form to the plural form.

In Grade 4:
-We learned about Terry Fox using adjectives read a book about his life.
-We learned to introduce ourselves using correct full sentences and "le gérondif" tense (e.i: "Je me présente en chantant").
-We practice conversational skills by asking our classmates about their bith dates and their autographs.

Wishing everyone a very happy weekend!
Mme. Rawan

September 6th, 2019

Hello everyone!

Neophyte week was a short but very exciting week at St. Jude's! We had so much fun cheering on our houses and dressing up in our house colors, competition was tight and everyone did their best to help their house win.
I finally got to meet all of my students in grades 2, 3 and 4, and I am positive that we're going to have a great year together! In French classes we introduced ourselves in French and played some fun ice breaking games while reviewing some basic things in French to refresh our memories!

Next week will be our first full school week, get a good rest over the weekend and come to school ready! 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mme. Rawan