This past week, we've been talking a lot about clothing because of the changing weather. Since it's getting colder, there are more clothes we need to wear when we go outside. The students have made some great collages of different clothing that they like and have been writing about what we wear in the fall in their journals.
There are some great artists in our class! We've been seeing lots of beautiful paintings and we've been talking about how we can mix different colours to make new ones! The students learned this week that rouge and jaune makes orange, rouge and bleu makes violet, jaune and bleu makes vert, noir and blanc makes gris, and rouge and blanc makes rose!
We've also been talking a lot about germs - how they spread, why they're dangerous, and how to properly wash our hands. We even had a nursing student come into our class to teach us how to make sure we get rid of all the germs when we wash our hands and how to avoid spreading germs by covering our mouths when we cough and sneeze or by washing our hands regularly. We also did an experiment with bread to show that even when our hands look clean, they can be very dirty. We took two pieces of bread - one we passed around and let all of the children touch with their hands before we washed them and placed it in a ziplock bag, and the other we put right into a ziplock bag without touching it. Now, we are observing that the 'pas lavee' (unwashed hands) bread is growing mold because of all of our germs!
Before:
Clean Touched by dirty hands
After:
Clean Touched by dirty hands
Another big part of our week has been trying to reach our goal of having all of the students stay in 'la maison verte' (the green house).
This is a system that we have created to try to remind the students to be on their best behaviour when they are at school. Each day, all of the children start their day in the green house. We give them one chance and remind them of proper behaviour, and if they continue to do something they shouldn't be (i.e. talk when someone else is talking, don't keep their hands to themselves, act too silly with their friends, etc.) they get moved to 'la maison jaune' (the yellow house) and if the behaviour continues, they move on to 'la maison rouge' (the red house). The children in la maison verte get to choose which centre they would like to play at first and the children in the les maisons jaune and rouge must take a few extra minutes on the carpet to think about how they can behave better next time and show us that they are ready to learn. At the end of the day, the children who have stayed in la maison verte receive a star on our chart. So far, this process seems to be working quite well and we'd encourage you to challenge your child to stay in la maison verte everyday :)
Here's some of the vocabulary we've been learning:
Les vêtements Clothes
Le coton Cotton
La laine Wool
Le cuir Leather
La chemise Shirt
Le chandail Sweater
Le pantalon Pants
Les shorts Shorts
Le t-shirt T-shirt
Le chapeau Hat
La tuque Tuque
La robe Dress
La jupe Skirt
Les souliers/chaussures Shoes
Les chaussettes Socks
Le pyjama Pyjamas
Le manteau Coat
Les mitaines Mittens
Les lunettes de soleil Sunglasses
L’imperméable Rain coat
Le foulard Scarf
La fermeture Zipper
Here's a look at some fun we had this week:
