letter names and sounds - self-tracking

In French immersion kindergarten classes students track their knowledge of letter NAMES, then letter SOUNDS (grade 1) and SOUND BLENDS (grade 1).  


Students select a car (printables included), and we race to get to the green light on the poster in class!


There is so much at school that easily engages girls that I look for the boy factor in everything I do to engage them too.


A folder with the same graphic is sent home explaining the challenge to parents & the difference/importance of letter sounds vs. simply letter names (although we start with letter names to build success and start from what they know). 


The back of the folder gives parents the phonetic spelling of letter sounds in French.

To encourage parents new to our school (kindergarten parents especially) to get in the habit of visiting my teacher page I sent students home with black and white photocopied car choices.  If their parents visited my teacher page they could download additional "cool car choices". 

Letter sounds and names that are the same in French and English are highlighted for parents as a starting point.


Letters are moved from one side of the folder to the other as they are mastered at home.


The file includes lower case and upper case letters.  We learn to print upper case first - what do you think?  Should they be taught to recognize lower case first?





Resolving the confusion of 'i' and 'e' and 'j' and 'g' for young French second language learners.

me voici - activité en septembre

In the first week of school brown bags are sent home with each student.  Students fill them with items representing each criteria.  Once at school we share some of our contents all together.

It's difficult to have time and patience for young one in Sept. to share everything.  We do some of the sharing all together.

 As always I post my example to my teacher page to give parents an idea of the expectation and to let them know more about myself.  I present my bag along with the students (I show them a favourite French and English book as the keeners will panic if I show a French book and they only have an English one!).

In a circle I ask students take out the item that represents a favourite.  Do you see someone with something similar to yours?  Is there something no one else has?

Hold up what you would like to do better?  Use this opportunity to talk about goals for the year.

Photograph the contents, post at a centre with names, students try to match the students in the class with the photos of the items and practice writing friends names (K).  In grade 1 students can use the photos as writing prompts as they draw themselves and other students and what they like or don't like.

Voici Madame Wiebe.  Elle aime courir.  Elle n'aime pas avoir des bébites dans son lit!  Dans sa famille on joue le basketball.




I love the Scaredy Squirrel books for the beginning of the year and we read this story together on brown bag day.  Thanks to my awesome teaching partner Madame Hamilton who introduced me to this way of getting to know students.

Happy Canada Day Sicamous!

All my love to the residents of Sicamous today.  These are my photos from Canada Day 2011 - hope to celebrate in your beautiful town again soon.

- Shannon Wiebe