We have been busy. We’ve moved out of our class to have it painted, moved back into our class, had fun in our classroom kitchen learning about science, and started new projects back in class. What have we been learning?

Math

• We add and subtract to 100.
• We explore 2D and 3D shapes.
• We use mental math strategies and solve word problems and shape puzzles (tangram puzzles).

French

• We listen to both traditional and modern fairy tales.
• We read fairy tales in our book bin.
• We are rehearsing for our performance of Blanche Neige. Presentation will be Friday, March 6 at 9:30am in the library.
• We are authors of our own fairy tales. We are writing stories and making books.
• We edit our work: capitals, punctuation, commonly spelled & plural words.
• We have been learning about the sound c that can make s, k and sh.

C can make the sounds s, k and ch.

Science

• We categorized real-world items as solid, liquid and gas.
• We explored physical and chemical changes of matter in the kitchen. We made steam, froze water, melted ice and condensed water. We made muffins in the oven- a chemical change.

Social Studies

• We are exploring Canadian communities, Quebec, and Atlantic provinces.
• We learned about the Quebec Carnaval, a winter festival held annually in Quebec City. You can click the “resources” tab of this blog to explore videos and songs about Carnaval. At school, students ate “la tire”, maple taffy. We will also be having a pancake breakfast on Friday! French culture is fun:)
• We recognized Pink Shirt Day, a day to encourage us to be kind and respect diversity.

Gym

• We play tag and stretch our bodies.
• We completed a badminton unit, and play some days for fun.
• We throw and catch a ball through dodgeball games.
• We play on Fridays with Mme Stafford’s class.
• We had fun skating at the Memorial Arena.

Art

• We used multimedia to create snowmen at night, inspired by a book suggesting what snowmen do at night.
• We will be illustrating our fairy tale books.
• We decorated pink shirts with a kind word and symbol in recognition of anti-bullying day.

Health

• We have been learning about hygeine: brushing and caring for our teeth, eating well for our bones, exercising, brushing our hair, washing our bodies and faces, and not wearing stinky socks! We have read non-fiction books and fun books, like books by Robert Munsch and fairy tales about Cinderella who attracts the prince with clean teeth, and Prince Olivier who doesn’t wash or keep anything clean, affecting the whole kingdom.

ADST

• We can use chromebooks, logging in independently, using a safe password, and accessing links from our google classroom.

Core Competencies

• We reflect on our goals through the grandfather teaching of the swan. Reflection journals will be coming home Friday for parents to review and send back to school.

Learning Updates

• Teachers are currently writing learning updates which will be published before Spring Break.

February/March Show & Tell

A Canadian Community

Our next focus will be on the many diverse communities in Canada! Each student will choose a community in Canada to research at home. The information will be shared with the class so that we can build our communal knowledge of Canada and appreciate its diversity. Show and Tell is also an opportunity to develop French speaking skills.

Step 1:

Choose a community outside of B.C. but in Canada. Locate it on a map of Canada. Say the name of the community and its province or territory in French. (We have learned them).

Step 2:

Find out some interesting facts about the community. (Culture, landscape, activities).

Share a few sentences with us.

Step 3:

Bring in an image that represents the community. For example:

-a photo

-a postcard

-a drawing

Write the name of the community on or beside the image.

If a student wishes to also bring in an object or souvenir, visual aids are welcome!

It is nice to have a variety of communities: capital cities, small towns, Indigenous communities, tourist destinations and faraway communities where your relatives may live!

Please share your first and second choice with Madame so that we can avoid repetition AND learn about communities in all of our provinces and territories.

Canadian Communities in the past shared for Show and Tell.

It’s Unplug and Play week at school and in Kamloops, Débranche et joue!

Pamphlets have been sent home, with activities in the community. On the back page, students can reflect on how they had fun playing at the end of the week. Monday, Feb,.2, please send any completed pamphlets back to class. Your child can participate in a prize draw after completing it.

This week’s activities include:

Monday: DEAR- Drop Everything and Read! A whole school reading time.

Tuesday: Poem in my pocket. Students can come to school with a poem or rhyme, in English or in French.

Wednesday: Dress as a book character OR read my t-shirt. Your child is encouraged to choose a positive message to read or sports team, rather than a brand logo.

Thursday: Reading socks. Wear fun socks to school!

Friday: Children will colour their own bookmark in class.

Happy reading!

Today is Black Excellence Day, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. We read a picture book, and learned ways in history that black people did not share equal rights. We discussed how we can strive to respect all people and all cultures. Students asked: What is culture? We thought about our classroom culture, and made a connection to many groups of people having languages, songs, routines, foods, and ways of thinking that people in a culture share.

If you would like to listen to the story we read with your child, it is called Black is a Rainbow Color.

French

• Our sound this week is in in lapin. It makes the sound e in red, but say it while pinching your nose! Next week will be ein, then ain the week after that. All 3 make the same sound.
• Sometimes even though we see the letters i-n, the i can make the sound “ee” that the i says on its own.
  • intelligent, requin, singe
  • colline, rhinoceros
• We are studying the genre of Fairy Tales, Les contes de fées

Gym

• We had our first badminton lesson.
  • How to hold a racket
  • Naming racket and birdie/shuttle in French

Welcome back to school!

With the New Year, comes new learning themes. We will also build on our skills from first term.

French

• Our sound this week is et in filet, the same sound as maison.  It makes the short e sound in bed.
• We are reading and writing vocabulary words about winter and winter clothing.
• We are listening to stories about winter.
• We are listening to fiction and non-fiction stories about teeth, as we learn in Health how to support having healthy teeth.

Math

• We are working with numbers to 100.
• We add to 100: I have 23. I want 100. How many do I need?
• We understand 2-digit numbers: We represent numbers with 10s and 1s. We know that 53 is bigger than 49. We can say numbers to 100 in French.
• We continue to use our mental math strategies: Making 10, doubling, number families.

Gym

• We exercise vigorously to work our muscles and increase our heart rate.
• We use our throwing and catching skills in dodgeball games.

Social Studies

• We are learning about Quebec.

Science

• We learned about the life cycle of different living creatures. We categorized creatures based on if they are born live or hatch from an egg.

ADST

• We continue to use chromebooks. We can access Google Classroom, log into a chromebook, and click and drag objects to learn about functions of the chromebook.
• We used our headphones and worked in the Lalilo French Program.

Last blog post of 2025!

We have had SO much fun this week AND continued learning! We had a wonderful winter concert, fun activities at winter fun day, and our French film at the Paramount Theatre, La course des tuques. The film also exists in an English version, Racetrack. The French songs in the film were a hilight the children said. This could be a fun film to watch over the holidays!

We are wrapping up some themes:

• Nutrition and Food in Health
• Measurement in Math
• Ball skills in Gym

We will build on these skills and refer to our learning throughout the year, as well as introduce some new themes in January:

• Hygeine in Health
• Shapes in Math
• Whole class dodgeball games in Gym
• Badminton and Skating in Gym
• Chromebooks in the classroom

January Back to School Checklist:

• Indoor Shoes
• Bag of extra clothes, socks and underwear
• Labelled computer headphones
• Pochette de lecture (reading folder for Tuesdays)
• Biblio (library books for Wednesdays)

In January I will hand out January calendars and skating permission forms.

Thank-you to all the students and families for the warm holiday wishes, beautiful cards and messages, delicious food and drink to savour, cozy items for my home during the holidays and thanks cards for sushi, coffee, books and plants, all such great joys in life! I feel so appreciated and love teaching your children:)

Enjoy the break!

Mme Harmatuk

Music

• Singing for our winter concert in French and in English has been a big job!

French

• We write holiday words.
• We sing songs.
• We wrote our first story which was sent home. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• We have wrapped up guided reading books in small groups. We will work in new groups with new books in January.

Math

• We are completing our measurement book by the holidays.
• We are adding tens to numbers.
• We work with 2-digit numbers daily during calendar.

Science

• We will explore the life cycles of creatures other than salmon this week.

Social Studies

• We learned about Hannukah.
• We learned about Ontario.

Gym

• We move around the gym in different ways.
• We applied our ball skills (throwing at a target, throwing and catching) to a dodgeball game.

Holidays

• Children can continue home reading during the holidays if they wish.
• Lockers will be cleaned out for the holidays. Extra shoes and extra clothes will come home.
• Think about January Show and Tell: something I did over the holiday break!

What we are learning this week:

French

• Our sound is the au in auto, which makes the long o sound in nose.
• We are writing holiday and winter words as they are written in a book.
• We are writing in our journal and writing vocabulary words on worksheets.
• We are singing seasonal songs- click the “songs-chansons” tab and your child can sing at home!

Math

• We can measure with centimetres and metres.
• We can take 10 away from a 2-digit number.
• We are adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers, such as 42-3… start at 43 and count backwards on the number line when subtracting a small number. Also, you can take away 2 (42-2=40) then think of ‘ami dix’ when we take away 1 more… 40-1= (we know 9+1=10, so 40-1=39). We are introducing these ideas.

Science

• How can we protect salmon? We explore environmental stewardship. We watched a video of First Nations in Chilliwack who were saddened by young salmonids dying in their stream.

Gym

• We went sledding! Send snow pants daily.

Art

• We used markers and rulers to make trees in a stained glass style.
• Winter cozy cats were sent home today. What food is your child’s cat holding?

Keep up the home reading! December is underway.

Here are some upcoming dates and activities for your calendars:

December

• Food bank donations- Mon.Dec 8th is the last day to donate!
• Dec. 12 Learning Updates Published
• Concert Dec.16
• Film Dec. 18
• Holiday Spirit Week Dec.15-19
  • Monday-Dress as Santa’s helper (reindeer, elf…)
  • Tuesday-Fancy Day
  • Wednesday- Pyjama Day
  • Thursday- Whoville Day
  • Friday- Holiday sweater and/or socks

January & February

• Skating at Memorial Arena Jan. 14 & Feb.5, both in the morning.