Markham Public Library Camps

Bonjour! We can't believe its the second last day of camp! Such a busy but fun day as usual!  The day started with campers working on their activity relating to "la famille" in which they would take time to copy the notes into their "dossier" and then for their craft they would draw their family members and label them then link them to make them a family necklace-ring. After this we let campers continue working in their cahiers (workbooks) finishing the worksheets accompanying lessons of yesterday and today;s family lesson. Because we were already sitting for so long, we decided it was a good time to practice for their BIG presentations tomorrow and separated campers into groups for the songs they would be doing since they got a taste of all songs yesterday.  Our surprise finale song was the most fun as it was one they would all be doing together! Special note to parents: We told campers that the secret camp word that they could not reveal to parents was "orange" which was their signal to stand as  soldiers: play along and act as if you do not know it! After lunch we had a nice lesson on vocabulary for emotions and school supplies.  Campers raced to copy all the words into their notebooks and then complete the corresponding workbook pages.  They were great at helping their peers out too! After all that hard work we took a break by taking them to the library area and read a book in french with our corresponding translation "Un jour comme mouche" While we read the story, volunteers and one counselor prepared a scavenger hunt so that when we returned to the classroom the vocabulary words of the day from the three lessons in French were hidden around the room and they would work in teams not just to find them, but would have to stick it on the corresponding english word to get the team points.  Team Pizza won! The campers not only love the songs but are super eager to make their family proud at presentations tomorrow so we did one final run through of the songs: We're very excited! Au revoir! We're so excited about tomorrow but sad that it'll be our last day with our little campers! REMINDERS: 1) Tomorrow is pizza day, you can still order if you haven't in the morning! 2) Make sure your child wears BLUE RED OR WHITE tops tomorrow for our France Theme day! 3) Presentations at 3:30PM Please don't be late!

ENJOY :)

Today in Ready for School the campers completed some super awesome colour worksheets.The campers then made beautiful, colourful butterflies out of coffee filters! The campers then went outside and played games and once they came back inside we learned about the days of the week.

Today in Adventures in Math and Science the campers had  another adventurous, exciting, fun filled day! When Campers arrived we first read Oh, Say Can You Say Di-no-saur? by Dr.Seuss. We then learned about different types of Dinosaurs and completed a worksheet where the campers were able to create their very own dinosaur, followed by the campers completing a craft where they created their very own Dinosaur feet! The Campers then played a game of sleeping dinosaurs and then went outside and played more fun games! Once the campers came in they got to create their very own fossils using flour, water and salt.

We can't believe it's already the third day of Public Speaking! Today was so much fun and the campers have made a lot of progress on their speeches! All campers have finished the research process on their topics and are now either writing their speeches, or already making their poster! Our lesson today was on presentation visuals. Campers received advice for how to properly use their visuals. We will be using posters on Friday and campers now have an idea of how theirs should look. One of the activities we had today was writing mini biographies. Campers stated 5 fun facts about themselves that no one else knew. After this, they handed in their papers and each one was read aloud for the rest of the class to guess. Campers were amazing at making these guesses, they must really know each other! After this, we had a special visit from the "Big Boss" (as campers call him) Ryan! We had a game of trivia to test what the campers learned and everyone went home with either dental kits or oversized MPL tshirts! Our game for outside today was mix of Capture the Flag and Dodgeball (a creation of Ryan's.) This game was a lot of fun and campers definitely used all their energy after so much running! We then came inside, ate lunch, and listened to a story from Ryan! Campers did the activity to test their presentation and visual skills. In groups of 5, they were given a country as a destination. Campers had to convince everyone else to take a trip to France, Greece, Jamaica, and Australia, as if they were making a commercial! This activity was a lot of fun, and a good experience to practice persuasive speeches. The remainder of the day was spent working on their speeches. Reminder for parents that the campers will present their speeches in the Program Room at 3pm on Friday. Friday is also Pizza Lunch and we ask all forms to be returned by Friday morning!

Bonjour! Today we had another FUN FILLED day with new lessons. We started off the morning by working in our work books. The campers (including our youngest campers) are super speedy and are understanding the terms very quickly! The older campers worked on work sheets of "personne, lieu et chose" which is "people, place, thing". Once all the campers had arrived, we did a lesson on "le corps", which is the body. We learned all the terms to complete our song "Tete et Epaules" which is "Head and Shoulders!". We learned la tete (head), les épaules (shoulders), les genoux (knees), les pieds (feet), la bouche (mouth), les oreilles (ears), les yeux (eyes) et le nez (nose)! The campers sang the song super well! After our lesson and song, the campers had snack time! After snack, our camera man counselor arrived to film our little French campers! We practiced our songs such as Frère Jacques, and the campers said hello and introduced themselves on camera! We are super excited to see the final video on Friday. We then went outside with the campers to give them some fresh air! Campers played "singe dans le milieu" (monkey in the middle), badminton, and various other activities! We have been lucky to avoid the rain so far this week! Before lunch, we played "I spy with my little oeil (eye)", and the campers would name a French colour. For example, they would say "I spy with my little oeil.... something jaune!" and the other campers would try to figure out an object in the room that was yellow! This helped campers practice the colours. Then it was LUNCH time! After lunch, campers participated in a lesson on SPORTS! Since the campers were very antsy, we had the campers imitate all the sports while repeating the name. We had campers "skating" around saying PATINAGE, PATINAGE, while others played basketball, saying BALLON-PANIER, BALLON-PANIER! Although many of the sports sound similar in French, patinage (skating), basket-ball (ballon-panier), and natation (swimming) are very different, so we focused on those sports. Once they knew the names of the sports, they returned to their seats to complete the sports work sheet in their work book! Campers were experts with sports very quickly! Next, campers had a lesson on "la famille" (the family). Campers repeated after the counselor to learn the various family members such as maman, papa, grand-maman, grand-papa, soeur, frère, bébé, cousin, oncle et tante. Tomorrow, they will use what they learned to complete a family banner! Campers then had their last snack of the day, and many chose to make bracelets during free time/recess. After recess, we practiced our SUPER Héroes song!! The campers know the chorus very well, but need to keep practicing the line "toujours serviable", as it is the only line they struggle with! To calm all the campers down after our song, we read the story "Ours brun, dit-moi", which is a great story to learn the colours in French! Tomorrow we will be in super-practice mode for our presentations on Fridays! The campers are excited to show off their French skills! Au revoir et à demain!

Today in Get ready for School the campers had another exciting, fun filled day! In the morning when campers arrived they finished up decorating their trees from yesterday. They were then  taught about the colour wheel and the difference between primary and secondary colours. After that we read The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, followed by a craft where the campers created their very own beautiful rainbow fish! The campers then went outside and played fun games such as The great wind blows, and then the campers came back inside and played indoor circle games followed by another story.

Day 2 of Public Speaking was definitely an eventful day! We had so much to do and everyone had a lot of fun working on it. We started off the day making some folders so that all of the work we do this week can be kept in there for parents to see at the end of the week. Our first activity was making inventions and writing a persuasive speech to convince the rest of the campers to buy their inventions. We saw some amazing creativity from all of our campers, and the two winners had 17 people who wanted to purchase their inventions! Our lessons today were on posture, mannerisms, eye contact, and engaging the audience. These tips will come in handy once we have our presentations! Later on in the day we played two truths and a lie and learned some really interesting facts about the campers. The skies cleared up in the afternoon and we were able to go outside to play capture the flag! We finished off the day with looking in the library for books and beginning the research process for their speeches! We can't wait to see what campers come up with! :)

Bonjour! Its just the second day of french immersion camp, and we are so impressed and happy with our little campers! Everyone has become so comfortable not only with each other but a lot of the French we learned just yesterday!- Very smart bunch! The day started with reviewing our lessons from yesterday and giving them time to work on their work book.  We also went over how to ask basic questions in french and saying basic sentences and had them copy that in their dossier.  The lesson of the morning were the seasons. After this we thought we would lighten the mood with a craft of making their own "petit homme francais" little french men to decorate the room and discussed the color of the flag, how to say hat, the french lifestyle basics, baguette etc.  (They were so creative in their colouring!) We thought it would be nice to get some fresh air and to put some words in to play so we took the campers outside for recess and tried to say commands and some words in French just so they could get accustomed to it (like walk fast = marche rapidement ) and other terms. When we came back in, all campers were exhausted, but we wanted to prepare them for the musical presentation Friday--what a better way to learn a language than through some fun music! The first music choice is a song on superheroes so we spent some time going over words, actions, tone and volume.  We then decided to relax after for story time, reading "On partage Tout" (We share everything) by Robert Munsch, with our usual style of reading in French and translating as we go along. After lunch, the campers had a lesson on colours and worked in their workbooks.  We then decided to make learning fun by playing our version of musical chairs in which each seat would have flashcards of the various vocabulary we've covered over these past two days, and campers would dance around and would have to answer our questions on the flashcard once landed.  They had so much fun and were such great team players that they even got points for all their spirit! We thought we would get them into the musical french spirit and treat them with a real version of musical chairs! Next we thought it was time to do some more catching up in their workbooks since we've already covered two more lessons (couleurs and saisons) The day ended with another classic story, "L'arbre genereux" (The Giving Tree). Tomorrow is Wednesday, the middle of the week! We hope campers are settled and look forward to seeing them again! à bientot! Au revoir!

The second day of Adventures in Math and Science was a blast! Today we learned about animal habitats, specifically the ocean, rainforest, desert, pond, grasslands, and arctic. Dr. Seuss helped us learn more about deserts when we read, “Why Oh Why Are Deserts So Dry?” We went on an animal scavenger hunt, helping to place the animals back into their habitats. We also had fun singing If You Want to be a Penguin and playing Freeze Dance and Sleeping Bunnies! We completed our Animal Habitat booklets and had a lot of fun drawing our pictures. We can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Today in Get Ready for School the campers had an amazing, fun filled day! We started off the day with a story about seasons and then the campers were introduced to the four seasons and created a beautiful craft using their own hands as tree branches! We played The Pirate keys game and also sang the bumblebee and jelly fish song. At end of the day, the campers practiced their letters by going on an alphabet scavenger hunt followed by worksheets on the alphabet!

What a great first day of Public Speaking! We started off the day with Name Bingo, a great way to meet new friends and learn names! We continued playing more ice breaker games such as Splash, Non-Verbal, The Frog and The Fly, and The Number Game! After that we went through some rules to make sure everyone has a fun AND safe week! :) Our lessons today were on Pace, Pitch, and Tone, as well as the three types of speeches (persuasive, informative, and entertaining.) This information will be very valuable when they write, and present their speeches on Friday! Later on in the day we went outside to play games such as Over Under, Octopus, and some free time at the park! Campers also made invitations for their presentations which will be at 3:00pm on Friday in the program room! Reminder that the library closes at 5 on Friday so all campers will need to be picked up before then. Friday is also Pizza Lunch and forms have been given out, please have them filled out and returned by Friday morning.

Making name tags!

** Caregivers, please remember to pack sunscreen, hat, water bottle, and snack. Thank you!**

**Caregivers, please remember to pack sunscreen, hat, water bottle, and snack. Thank you!**

The second play "The Runaways"

Have a great summer everyone!