Picture Orders due Thursday, February 24

Assalamu Alaikum Dear Parents,

Please be reminded that all picture order forms are due tomorrow, February 24, insha Allah.  If you do not wish to order the pictures but would like your child to have a retake, please put a check in the box for retakes and submit it on the same deadline.

Thanks!
Tr. Salma

French Update from Tr. Said

Assalam alaikoum Dear parent, 

            This unit of Histoires en action! builds upon the foundation that is established throughout the previous units.The play for this unit is based on an original story, Le bistro des animaux. In this story, the animals are constantly arguing because each believes that s/he is the best.  Louis la grenouille, a character that appeared in a previous story, sees the animals and wants to help. He visits his friend, Alice, to ask her opinion about this dilemma and she suggests that they design a common goal for all the animals.  They decide to invite the animals to be part of a project to build a café where eventually all of them will be able to eat, sing,  and have fun together. Each animal is approached by either Louis or Alice and all think that this is a wonderful idea. Initially, they are not told that the other animals are participating in the project. When they later realize that they are actually working together, the animals begin to consider the important qualities that each has to offer and, instead of fighting over their differences, they begin to appreciate them.

          In this unit, students continue to expand their knowledge of vocabulary through the Gesture Approach, which provides students with different learning styles and intelligences a variety of ways to learn the language.  Scripted plays continue to provide an important context for new and previously introduced vocabulary to be learned and further consolidated. Students will be provided with greater opportunity to use the language creatively and further develop their oral storytelling skills. They will have the opportunity for poetry writing in this unit as well as creative story writing. Learning refinements of the language (focus on grammar) continues to take an increasingly larger role at this stage of the program, and the students will be expected to improve in their ability to identify and self-correct targeted grammatical elements.  We continue to balance large-group work with small-group, partner, and individual activities.  Students are expected to participate in whole-class and partner cooperative poetry and story writing activities. French is the language used in all classroom interactions.

In this unit, students will:

·         view, listen to, and read the play, Le bistro des animaux;

·         memorize lines from the story;

·         recognize words and their meanings within the context of the play;

·         dramatize the play, responding in a personal way;

·         read the text to the teacher and each other;

·         extract specific information to ask and respond to knowledge and comprehension-based questions orally and in writing;

·         manipulate the language in written form through a variety of structured and       creative written activities;

·         manipulate the language in oral form in structured and creative activities as well as spontaneously with teacher and peers;

·         learn to write in rhyme and ensure that rhyming sentences scan correctly;

·         compare/contrast and describe characters, settings, and events in the play;

·         identify words and sentences through gesture activities and produce the gestures for the words from vocabulary levels .

·         learn to to identfify and produce, orally and in writing, the correct form of          double verb constructions (verb plus infinitive) of verbs introduced so far;

·         develop an awareness of and be able to identify and produce le passé composé form  of verbs introduced so far as well asl’imparfait forms of verbs used with high frequency in this tense;

·         learn to identify the correct form of verbs that have irregular plural forms in the present tense;

·         begin to be able to identify other grammatical concepts such as contractions (au, des, and du);

·         demonstrate an awareness of and ability to apply spelling rules in French and to spell high-frequency words correctly.

Assessment will take a variety of ways, including anecdotal, performance, and products:

·         observation of participation in large- and small-group oral language activities;

·         summative assessment of final production of play for an audience;

·         ongoing assessment of choral reading and individual reading in small-group play rehearsal;

·         ongoing assesssment of the ability to demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of the story;

·         assessment of structured written language manipulation activities

·         assessment of the ability to use the language creatively and with increasing correctness in spontaneous speech,  as well as creative oral and written activities based on the story for the unit;

·         assessment in large- and small-group sessions, of students’ vocabulary knowledge through their ability to identify individual words and their associations as well as full sentences, by gesturing and/or naming the word;

·         ongoing observation of the developemnt of spontaneous fluency through daily interactions in French among peers and with the teacher.

Homework

Students will be expected to spend five to ten minutes a night reviewing lines for rehearsal and performance, reviewing gestured vocabulary introduced during previous lessons .

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me. Sfqih@abraarschool.com

Jazakoum Allah khairan

Tr.Said

French teacher

French Projects

Reading/ writing French project for GR6.

Assalamu-Alaykum .

Parents/Guardians, I hope my email finds you in a good health and Iman.

We will be preparing a reading French project.  We will start it on Tuesday, February16, 2016, Insha’Allah. Your child will write five paragraphs using his/her own words . Since we studied a lot of things about characters and events, they will find useful resources in many activities we did in class, such as (questions totals, questions partial etc…). Your child should write a story extension by using creative and imaginative ideas as they wish. Let's begin with the following example as the student's choice as the alternative story continuation.

( Aisha va à l'entraînement de basket-ball après l'école et elle joue tellement bien , ses amis sont là aussi et ils sont très fiers d'elle….. )

  I will require your full support, in order for this project to be a successful one.

I would ask you to help your child understand the criteria in the rubric for reading / writing, and encourage him/her to read the story I gave them. 

For those who might find the project challenging, I need your help in encouraging them to constantly seek my assistance. I will give them more help if required.

        Please feel free to contact me by email or directly if you have any questions or concerns. sfqih@abraarschool.com

You will find  the rubrics (reading and writing) also on the blog.

Jazakum Allah Kheir,

Teacher Said

French teacher

French Story Writing Rubric

Dear Parents, 

Story Writing  / Grade : Teacher Name: Teacher said                                               Date:        /         / 2016 Student Name:     ________________________________________

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Title	Title is creative, sparks interest and is related to the story and topic.	Title is related to the story and topic.	Title is present, but does not appear to be related to the story and topic.	No title.
Neatness	The story is readable, clean, neat and attractive. It is free of erasures and crossed-out words. took great pride in it.	The story is readable, neat and attractive. It may have one or two erasures, but they are not distracting.	The story is readable and some of the pages are attractive. It looks like parts of it might have been done in a hurry.	The story is not neat or attractive. It looks like the student just wanted to get it done and didn't care what it looked like.
Creativity	The story contains many creative details and/or descriptions that contribute to the reader's enjoyment. The author has really used his imagination.	The story contains a few creative details and/or descriptions that contribute to the reader's enjoyment. The author has used his imagination.	The story contains a few creative details and/or descriptions, but they distract from the story. The author has tried to use his imagination.	There is little evidence of creativity in the story. The author does not seem to have used much imagination.
Spelling and Punctuation	There are no spelling or punctuation errors . Character and place names that the author invented are spelled consistently throughout.	There is one spelling or punctuation error in the final draft.	There are 2-3 spelling and punctuation errors in the final draft.	The story has more than 3 spelling and punctuation errors.

Rubric for French Comprehension Story

Assalamu alaikum Dear Parents,

Rubric for the reading comprehension of the story.

Teacher Name:  Said                                               Date:        /         / 2016

Student Name:                                                     Grade:  

Strand/Criteria	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Communication Student explains the main event and supports it with relevant details from the story	With limited effectiveness	With some effectiveness	With considerable effectiveness	With a high degree of effectiveness
Knowledge and Understanding Student  identifies the topic of the story  and names of characters	With limited effectiveness	With some effectiveness	With considerable effectiveness	With a high degree of effectiveness
Thinking : Student identifies the problem/major events /the solution	With limited effectiveness	With some effectiveness	With considerable effectiveness	With a high degree of effectiveness
Application Student reads aloud using conventions ,vocabulary and terminology taught in this unit .	With limited effectiveness	With some effectiveness	With considerable effectiveness	With a high degree of effectiveness