June 15, 2013.
Dear parents,
This coming Tuesday several students will perform "Les trois petits cochons". Receiving certificates for perseverance are Emilia, Fatima, Joshua and Lucie. Congratulations! If you have any free time this week or next, please let me know. I would be most appreciative of some parent volunteers. This could be a very short time commitment. I would like to take the children both weeks to the park. I really need the help walking them there and back. I could have one parent help me walk the students there and another parent on the way back to school. Ideally I would have some help at the park but this is not essential. In the next couple of weeks I would like to play games in math. If you have a cribbage board that we could borrow for 2 weeks, that would be greatly appreciated.
Last Wednesday, the students performed two great plays. Thank you to Gaby and all the parents who attended. Congratulations Lillian, Rufus, Charlie, Ilyas and Owen who won certificates for honesty and co-operation and who, along with Kai, performed beautifully in "Le lièvre et la tortue" Bravo also to Lia, Petra, Alice and Ava who wrote their own adaptation for their incredible performance of "Hansel and Gretel". Wednesday morning with Gaby, we went to Dufferin Grove Park for fun, science and art. EQAO is completed and the students were all very proud of themselves! I have uploaded some new pictures. Please check them out on the class portraits.
I am looking forward to the ongoing student plant experiments/presentations. I would prefer that students present this week if possible. Excellent presentations so far from Simon, Lia, Harper, Daisy, Alejandro and Fatima! The students have also been working on storytelling. They are to choose a favourite French story at an advanced level and practice it individually and with partners so as to be able to tell the story. To date we have had several AMAZING stories from Emilia, Harper, Daisy and Lia. Again these should be ready to present this week. We will spend the rest of June exploring more deeply life in Canada In the 1800's. In June I would encourage each child in their best writing. I will be "publishing" their stories.
The previous Friday afternoon Lucie's mom introduced the students to design. The children looked at floor plans and elevations and then they thoroughly enjoyed creating their own school designs. I could have heard a pin drop as they created. Some of their interesting ideas included sea water pools for fish and swimming, a panda breeding room and a tropical forest for oxygen, plants and natural climbing! A huge thank you to Susan Roman.
We had a wonderful trip to High Park. The children thoroughly enjoyed our exploration of plants in the park and their visit to Colborne Lodge where the importance of plants to early settlers was highlighted. This week we received our second extraordinary class newsletter, "l'officiel". Excellent contributions by many students. Bravo! A wonderful glimpse of class life! A huge thank you to Kai's dad!!! Thursday several students competed at the Track Meet. Congratulations to Alejandro, Charles, Lia, Emilia and Harper! The children are brimming with ideas from the election. We will look at these after EQAO.
The previous Friday was our trip to Millwood School in west Etobicoke to visit with our penpals. What a great trip! The students had a wonderful time connecting with new friends who entertained them with a wonderful play, taught them to finger knit and create comic strips together. Despite the rain we had a wonderful time in the forest looking at plants, insects and logs in the process of decomposing. The students are becoming increasingly familiar with the subway, urban, rural and suburban communities, mapping skills and directions. It was all fun and good learning.
The last few weeks have also been full of many exciting learning activities. The children have done many hands on experiments with soil and measurement in their math and science studies with Gaby. We took a neighbourhood walk to observe and draw plants. We had a marvellous time creating butter in our class the previous Friday afternoon. We looked at ancient ways of making butter and the churn that would have been used in pioneer times. Our method involved shaking a container of 1/2 cup organic cream with 2 marbles for about 15 minutes. I hope you are enjoying your delicious fresh organic butter! Thank you so much to Liza, mother of Alice. We had our second elections. Congratulations to all who made such great efforts with your speeches and election materials. Bravo to Lia, our new president. Congratulations to Lucas and Emilia, our vice presidents. Kudos to Georgia, our secretary and also to Harper! A huge congratulations for the outgoing elected: Kai, Ava, Petra and Alice. Their interviews along with the newly elected speeches will appear in the next edition of our newsletter, "L'Officiel". I have uploaded some new pictures. Look for them at the bottom of the "portraits" gallery.
I hope you had the chance to see the beautiful mosaics created by your children. The students also learned to work with charcoal drawings and acrylic paint. They were invited to closely observe still life. The final project- paintings of tulips are simply gorgeous. (your mother's day gift) I have uploaded pictures of the paintings. See the new gallery: "still life: tulips". Thanks again to Ava's mom.
Here's a bonus math problem for Monday:
Mme Morgenstern is thinking yet again of the holidays. She will spend 2 weeks and 2 days with her daughter in Calgary. How many days is this?
Previous week's problems:
Mme Morgenstern is thinking of summer and her bathing suit. What measure would I use to weigh myself? mm, cm, km, ml, l, g, kg?
Estimate the width of your fridge. Now measure it. Let Madame know how wide it is. Have fun estimating and measuring other things in you home.
According to Kai's currency, 100 "poids" equals $0.25. 400 "poids" equals $1.00 How many "poids" would equal $5.00?
Madame Morgenstern saw 15 trout jump over the waterfall at the Humber River in 5 minutes. How many trout jumped each minute?
Madame Morgenstern baked 30 cookies. If I divide them evenly, giving each child in the class the same number of cookies, how many cookies will each child have?
There are 20 students in our class. How many different equal groups of students can you have?
What is the probability that it will be so hot and sunny Monday that we would want to swim in Lake Ontario?
How many weeks and school days until March break? Don't forget we have a 4 day week this week.
How many Toblerone chocolate bars (triangular prisms) could one fit inside a hexagonal prism?
What possible combination of shapes could one lay on top of a hexagon?
Where in your environment do you see an octagon? (hint - a sign)
Let's say Dewson has 450 students. 212 are boys. How many are girls? (You might want to encourage your child to estimate the answer first)
We have 20 students in our class. Over the holidays 1/2 of the class went skating, 3/4 went out to eat and 1/4 went to a movie. How many children did each activity?
Please see my other sites for information on homework, links etc. I will be updating this site weekly and this will be a primary mode of communication.
Sincerely,
Mme. Morgenstern