Mme Zenowich

Mme Zenowich's Homework Rules:

- You are responsible for remembering to get your homework from the teacher, put it in your binder (in your homework folder), and take it home.

- If homework is not completed or left at home, you will have to stay in for the entire recess.

- If you forget a parent signature, you will have to stay in for 10 minutes of recess.

- A note form a parent excusing you from homework will not be accepted.*

- After Thanksgiving, you will not be able to call home to have a parent bring in homework assignments.  Any assignments dropped off at the office after Thanksgiving will be considered late.

* Exceptions may be made for illnesses, family emergencies, etc.  A note from a parent will not be accepted for extra-curricular activities. In addition, homework will not be given in advance.

*******************************************************************************************

  ONLINE FRENCH DICTIONARY HELP

Un peu d'aide (a little helpful hint)...

Parents, is your child stumped when it comes to finding definitions in French for his/her book report words? 

If so, try directing your child to the following website :

http://dictionnaire.tv5.org/

Then follow these easy steps:

1. You will know that you are at the correct site if the word: TV5MONDE shows up at the top of the page, and you see: Le dictionnaire multifonctions.

2. Here, your child can simply type the French word that he/she is looking for in the white text box that appears next to the words: "Saisissez un terme," then click OK.

3. Clicking OK should bring your child to the word's definition (with it's part of speech in parentheses) in French.

4. Your child can then continue using this window to type in other French words in the white text box at the top of the page. Each time he/she clicks on OK or Définitions, the French definition will appear.

5. Your child should see that there is also the option to look up synonyms and conjugations, and to the far right of the page, there is a French-English dictionary option. Your child can simply type a word (in French or English) in the white text box, and then click on FRANÇAIS/ANGLAIS or ANGLAIS/FRANÇAIS to get a French-English or English-French definition.


Try it together and feel free to let me know how it worked for you!

********************************************************************************************
INSPIRING TEACHING QUOTES OF THE MOMENT:

"Nine-tenths of education is encouragement."
- Anatole France

"To know another language is to have a second soul. "
— Charlemagne

 

In this case, I was given (by a student's parent) a short excerpt from a wonderful article called, "Why French Helps You Think Creatively," by Claude Duneton. The article was originally published in Le Figaro and then was translated into English for the June 26, 2009 edition of The Week Magazine. I found it so interesting and inspiring for accomplished and budding French learners alike, that I couldn't help but share it with you all here:

 

            "Grammarians love to criticize French, said Claude Duneton. They say it is a "horribly difficult language, full of complicated knots that only a lace maker could pick apart." It's true that "our beloved Gallic tongue" is complicated. French is "a tissue of nutty expressions, replete with irregular verbs, rebellious participles that refuse to agree," and the byzantine subjunctive tense. But therein lies its strength. French is so intricate and so subtle that if you can master it, you can perform feats of intellectual brillance unrivaled by speakers of other tongues. French mathematicians, for example, are the acknowledged world leaders in advanced mathematical theory. I submit that this is because "the complexity of our language - with its endless uncertainties and vacillations, and its fundamentally unstable and grammatically irrational tangle of masculine and feminine genders - actually nurtures mathematical ability." Linear, logical languages are all very well for describing some scientific endeavors, such as engineering. "But a mind nurtured by an irrational language is better able to cope with the absurd madness of research in a field in which two plus two does not necessarily equal four. Oh là là!"