Fynn's Christmas Play

Fynn's Kindergarten class had a little Christmas play this morning. Vic and I were both able to attned, and honestly it was the cutest thing we had seen in a long time.

Here are some photos:

Sophie's presentation

Today Vic and I visited Sophie's school for about 20 minutes or so.
She did her "All About Me" presentation for her Grade 3 class. She picked a photo from a trip to Montreal she took at age 3, a picture of her family, her American Girl doll catalogue clipping, a tiny dog and a ballet dancer card. Fun to hear her speak in French and for the kids to ask her questions en Francais!

In other news, it was Fynn's first day of skating lessons. Vic took him and he was prepared to do battle with Fynn, but he surprised us by being very agreeable to the whole thing! Fynn seems to have really good balance naturally, so we are hoping this transfers over well to skating. So far, so good.

Fynn's first day of Kindergarten

Fynn's first day of Kindergarten was today. It was actually his first hour, since the school does a gradual entry. By next Tuesday he will be up to full days.

He did great. He seemed happy, calm and proud of himself.

Way to go, Fynn!

Sophie and back to school

She loves her teacher Madame Weir.
She is happy Hunter is in her class.
She got a Slurpee from mom after school.
She played with Maggie tonight.

It's all good. Thank you back to school fairies.

French Immersion

Sophie is really enjoying Grade 2. The difference in her level of anxiety this year is so much lower. I drop her off in the morning and she easily wanders over to the playground to play and wait for friends to arrive.

We have started her tutoring again this year, but only once per week since I don't think anymore than that is necessary at this time. We can assess it again after the first report card.

I asked her Vice Principal, Madame Gervais (who is bilingual) to address the issue of when Sophie's reading in English will start to move up.

Isabelle, responded in an email to me, that I thought would be worth sharing in case anyone who happens to read this is curious about French Immersion. It helps reaffirm what Vic and I have been told about FI. The research states that:

"... a 1991 review of student outcomes research showed that
although French-immersion students sometimes lag behind at Grade 3, they
match and often surpass English program students' performance in
English-language skills by Grade 4 or 5."

This is what I have found to be true in my experience as a grade 4/5
teacher. At Bastion we have made a decision to start English at the
grade 4 level. (In some school districts they introduce English
instruction at grade3). This decision was made based on research. By
doing this, it allows students to develop a greater proficiency in their
second language before they are introduced to formal English
instruction.

More can be found through this link:

In an immersion program a great deal of time is spent in the earlier
grades to develop vocabulary and some oral fluency. This is the first
step. Some students develop reading fluency earlier then others. Each
child is unique. The skills and strategies that students learn in French
concerning decoding and comprenhension are transferred to the English
language when the child is ready. For most students this happens on
average from grades two to grade four.

The best ways for us to support Sophie are to share our love of reading by
listening to her read in French and then reading to her in English until
she is ready to assume some of the reading. This can be done by sharing
reading of easy reading material or simply by choosing and reading to
her books from the wealth of good English children's litterature. It is
important to remember that reading should be a fun activity and that it
is especially important that children maintain a love of learning and a
desire to learn.

As my blog header photo indicates, books are big in this house, so there is no shortage of reading opportunities!

Sophie's tutor

Just after Christmas break, Vic and I decided that it would be a benefit for Sophie to have a tutor to help her with her French. French Immersion is not an easy program. Sophie was doing okay prior to her tutor, but we wanted her to feel comfortable and enjoy her class. Her Grade 1 teacher recommended Susie and it was a plus that Vic and I knew about Susie because she swam in my lane during the one year I participated in Masters Swimming. Susie is a francophone so her French is great and she has a teaching background.

Twice a week Sophie spends about 30 minutes with Susie working on her reading, sounds, dictee and numbers in French. The comments on her last report card attest to the positive impact that Susie has had on Sophie. She has really blossomed!

homework

Not a great photo of Sophie but it captures what she is up to each evening.

She is responsible for reading her daily reader plus working on her 5 dictee (spelling words) each evening.

We have also hired a tutor, Madame Susie, to help Sophie on Tuesday and Wednesdays after school for 30 minutes. Susie is a wonderful tutor and Sophie is all smiles when she is with her. Both her teachers have remarked that they have noticed the improvement in Sophie's confidence in class since the tutoring began last month. I can't say French Immersion is "easy" and I do think both parents have to support it (which in our case we do). It does take effort, but we think it will be worth it.

Her higher scores on her dictee each Friday also support that the tutoring is working. Both Vic and I place a high value on school so we want her experience to get off to a positive start in Grade 1.

go, go, go

I'm tired. The days are going like this right now: wake up, give Sophie her breakfast, get her to school, work, work, work. Go to the gym, come home get Sophie into her homework, baths, stories and bed. On Tuesday and Wednesdays I've been picking Sophie up at about 3pm from school after her 30 minutes with her french tutor Susie. Susie is sweet and a good fit with Sophie. Sophie is doing okay with her French, but we thought a tutor would boost her confidence and help her out. We don't want her to struggle. It seems to be going well so far.

Fynn is keeping me laughing. So silly and cute.

We are going skiing again this Sunday - 3rd weekend in a row! Yeah for season's passes.

Day 17

My little Fynn had his daycare Christmas concert. It was so cute watching the 3 and 4 year olds sing Christmas songs. Fynn was so happy to see me arrive at 10am in the morning to daycare - I don't think he could believe it!

Other news:
- Sophie scored 5/5 on her french weekly dictee!! This is the equivalent of a spelling test. We worked very hard this week on her words and it is so nice when it all pays off. She got a special drink treat at Boston Pizza tonight. Her words are not easy: le soir, j'ai soif, voila leroi, c'est froid. (I know them too now).

- I had a nice lunch with my coworker Barb today. We spend so much of our workdays in a maze of meetings, report writing and general day to day stuff that we never get 30 minutes of non office time.

- Vic and I got a walk in together before we picked the kids up tonight. Nice to get some exercise in after a workday.

- watching this with Sophie (love this movie)

- Happy 44 years to my mom and dad!

Day 15

Today was au concert de Noel de l'ecole Bastion.

Sophie had her Bastion School Christmas Concert today.

It was nice to see all the kids in their dark bottoms/light coloured tops (I remember my mom having to get us ready for concerts dressed this way).

Only 2 more days of school!

Plus, this letter came today. A hush fell over the house :)

Day 10

Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Sophie was in her little French play today. The kids each had a little speaking part and then they sang two songs in French. It is quite amazing what they are able to do.

The classroom was packed with parents and after the play concluded the parents were invited to play a game with mom or dad.

living with a perfectionist child

1. I dropped Sophie off at Kindergarten this morning and she broke down at the classroom entrance. Following our plan with the teacher, I said my good byes and left. Madame Styles extricated Sophie from me. As of late, she is finding Mondays very hard.

2. One of the parents who was watching this little drama told me her son did the same and found that it was easier if someone else took him to school. Bingo.

3. Drove to my office and called the daycare and said that going forward I will be dropping Sophie off at daycare at 7:50am (ugh) each day and she can ride the daycare van into school. Our experience has been that this is a much easier transition.

4. Deal with work, a staffing issue at the daycare (a long story), and go to yoga (ahhhhh....).

5. Come home and once dinner and playtime is wrapped up, ask Sophie if she wants to review her little french readers. So far so good. However, since I took French many years ago my pronounciation is gawd-awful and seems to annoy and upset Sophie. I can't tell her how to pronounce "coeur" which is heart in French. I end up saying a bastardized version that sounds like "sewer".

6. Needing a little help, I call her teacher at home. Emily helps me with the pronouciation and I put Sophie on the phone with her, so we can move on. Emily also clarifies for me that the children aren't expected to know how to read this particular reader as it is definitely one of the more challenging ones. She reassures me that I'm doing fine by just encouraging the reading.

7. Spend 15 minutes finding a 'etoile' (star) for Sophie to bring to school for "e" words. Much debating back and forth from Sophie about what would make for an appropriate picture to bring to school.

8. Spend another 15 minutes penning our letter to Santa. And another few minutes decorating the letter. Sophie takes issue with the Christmas note paper I'm using for the letter.

9. A quick chapter in our book that we've been reading where sadly I was so exhausted I deleted sections (bad mommy). Sophie complains that there are not enough pictures but promptly perks up when we hit some drama in the story.

I'm not sure if I'll surive until she's 18.

updates

Sophie update:
This morning I had an early morning meeting so it was impossible for me to take Sophie to Kindergarten and wait with her until the classroom opened at 8:10am. So, I took her to her daycare and then she boarded the daycare van and was dropped off. She walked in to school with her little friend Hunter. Interestingly enough it went very smoothly today and there were no emotional outbursts.

I got a nice email from her teacher today saying that Sophie is doing well in Kindgertan -- she's happy, relaxed, easy going and a bright little bulb. That makes me feel good and puts the other day in perspective.

On another note, a French tutor is going to be going to Sophie's daycare once a week for an hour and spending some time with the French Immersion kids to help with any homework and go over their reading. I am happy to pay the $21 per month for this service. It takes a load off of me, as Sophie and I would be practicing her reading at night and she would get frustrated with me when I got my pronounciation "wrong" in her mind.

Fynn:
That little boy is stringing some amazing sentences together. Everyday he is saying something new and interesting. He is going through that quirky stage of when he must do things a certain way. For instance, he must sleep with his stuffies, his tractor and one book. His bed is loaded with stuff when he goes to sleep but it seems to give him comfort and he settles down pretty quickly. He wakes up happy and wants to watch is favourite breakfast show

skirt #5...the go to pattern

I picked up some very cute fabric at Fabricland on Friday. I had intended to attach some grosgrain ribbon on the bottom, but forgot and finshed the hem before I could attach it. Oh well - I think Sophie will really like it.

I stitched this up to tonight after I got Sophie and Fynn tucked in. Sophie had a little French practice. Not official homework, but they are encouraged to practice their reading from these little booklets they get every 2 weeks. I think she is recognizing the words at this point (not sure if she is actually reading the words), but it's all good with us and she still seems to be happy with her class.

coming up for air

Life is very full right now.

This past Wednesday I had my first meeting as secretary of our local chapter of Parents for French (it is a national organization that encourages French activities/support for French in the school system). Since Sophie starts Kindergarten French Immersion in September, I thought it would be a good way to be involved. The President is really happy I joined up because they needed a secretary who could type! So, I packed up my laptop and took minutes at this past Wednesday's meeting. All went well and it was interesting to meet some of the parents / teachers who have kids in the older grades in French Immersion.

Soccer also wrapped up today for Sophie. While I can't say she loved it, she did persevere (and so did Vic and I), so it was worth it.

My friend Paula and I did a little shopping for our house after soccer today. I needed to replace my living room lamps (Fynn broke one of them and the other one is moving on to a different room). We found some lamps on sales, plus we found some really inexpensive artwork for our ensutie. A successful trip!

Sophie's little friend Eva turned 6 and she had her party out at Sunnybrae beach so that is where we headed to this afternnon. Whew!!

#11

This morning at 5:45am Vic was picked up by our friend Doris (in the photo with Vic) to line up at our District Education Centre for Kindergarten French Immersion registration.

Actual registration doesn't happen until 7am April 1, but because there are only so many spots for Kindergarten (16 spaces this year), it means that there won't be enough spots for everyone who wants one. We are number 11 out of 16 so we have a spot!

The first person to line up was there at about 2:3am...a little crazy if you ask me. Vic seemed to be in pretty good spirits all day. The parents only had to wait outside until about 9:30am until they opened the building so they could wait inside.

The scene there tonight was one of parents reading, watching movies, eating dinner, chatting, knitting...I visited Vic at 7pm with his dinner and he was hoping that he would get a somewhat decent night's sleep (on his air mattress). At least the parents didn't have to camp outside as in previous years.

Registration happens first thing tomorrow and then we are done. Definitely a team effort.