Things are getting a bit spooky...

I hope everybody had a great day yesterday! The kids certainly had a few stories to tell about what they had gotten up to, and seemed quite....shall we say... energized after their day off. I had a great professional development day, guided by two French program directors from Eastern School District. They introduced us to and familiarized us with two programs that I know plan to use at some point this year. One of them takes our KidBlog projects to a next level (voice recording), and the other allows students to create their own storybooks online. Both are easy-to-use, secure sites that will offer plenty of opportunity for students to share their ideas and knowledge in a fun, interactive way.

I will not be introducing these sites just yet, but here are the addresses if you are interested in checking them out:

http://voicethread.com

http://www.storyjumper.com

A couple of notes went home today, so please check you children's bookbags just in case things got forgotten. There is a reminder about the Halloween Fair on Friday, specifically the Sock Hop in the afternoon.

We are moving along with decimals in Math, specifically using money to communicate and practice some core  concepts. I sent home a sheet at the beginning of the year with ideas for helping support math learning at home, and one of them was to involve your child in discussions about money and prompting them to help calculate, count, estimate and handle money. I would suggest this as a technique now more than ever, since it will help familiarize them with what we are doing in class. This can include shopping excursions, ordering things online, counting out lunch money, etc.

Mrs. Fillier gave a presentation to the students in my class today. She spoke about a a trip she took to Boyd's Cove, and shared a number of slides, artifacts and pieces of information about the Beothuk people and her experiences there. Students took notes, and will be expected to post a few sentences tonight on KidBlog about what they found to be interesting. As always, writing it down in their Question du Jour books is also an option.

Tonight I have asked students to read aloud to somebody else. We had a read-aloud exercise today in class that went very well, so I want students to reflect on what we learned today and practice their read-aloud skills at home. They can read in English or in French, and can read to a parent, their cat, the stove, whoever! The important thing is that they practice their reading strategies (pronunciation, voice, volume, etc.). We will be going over their experiences tomorrow.

If there are any parents who would like to volunteer for the Halloween Fair on Friday, please let me know. Have a great evening and try not to get too wet tomorrow!