As the school year progresses, there will be growing expectations of students to demonstrate their knowledge of letter sounds, and increasingly basic sight words and short phrases. Students are required to produce more written work, including the use of appropriately “sized” letters (lower case versus upper case). Please reinforce an awareness of this in the world outside school as much as you can, such as on street signs, games, websites, recipes, etc.
* Please continue to practise ‘popcorn’ (sight) words whenever possible.
Home suggestions to support classroom learning:
- Use pictures on the cover and/or the book’s title to predict what the story will be about. Check back during the story to see if they want to change their predictions as they are given more information through print and pictures (…be a story ‘detective’). * Search for “popcorn” words in any text whenever.
- Review the number of syllables in words (also described as ‘chunks of sound’ - e.g. rain/bow = 2).
- Practice printing lower case letters at all times (- except when a capital letter is called for). Encourage more printing practice by labeling their drawings or items around the house (e.g. “bed” / “door” / “lamp”).
- Practice counting to 50 & beyond. They also love to count moves like jumping-jacks, bunny hops, etc.
- Use small items (e.g. marbles, lego) to practice adding & subtracting; start with 5 and work up to 10.
- Count in French how many steps it takes to get from your front door to the bedroom/ kitchen/ sofa/ etc.
- Have your child identify (or teach you) colours, the weather, or other common words in French.
- Enjoy a ‘treasure hunt’ for shapes or patterns (e.g. dinner plate =circle; table = square; floor tiles = pattern).
French vocabulary for 'Janvier':
winter/ hiver snow/ neige ice / glace cold/ froid slide/ glisser ski / skier skate/ patiner snowman/ bonhomme de neige coat/ manteau hat/ chapeau mittens/ mitaines boots/ bottes snow pants/ pantalon de neige sled / traineau snowflake/ flocon de neige
The SKs are learning to complete simple phrases, such as:
Je veux _____. / Je peux _____. / J'aime ______.
(glisser / patiner / skier / jouer)
Report cards will be sent home
February 18th. JK's will not have any formal mark, only anecdotal comments. SK's will have developmentally appropriate marks where a 'DE' indicates that your child is "Developing as Expected", which means they are meeting the Kindergarten program expectations as outlined by the Ministry of Education. Children who are actively demonstrating skills (in class) that are significantly above ministry standards would merit a ‘WD’, which signifies “Well Developed” or beyond expectations. A 'BD' indicates that a child is “Beginning to Develop” the skill and requires further reinforcement. A 'NT' signifies "Needs more Time and experience", as the skill or expectation has not yet begun to develop or is not demonstrated at school.
