Saturday 30 June 2012

Summer Vacation

We are now on summer vacation until Tuesday, September 4th. This blog will probably remain quiet as we are all busy enjoying our summer vacations.  However this blog will remain open for anyone to check out some of the learning we've done this year.  If curious please  snoop around. It has been a great year of learning.




Dear Boys and Girls of Division 16,

I want to thank you for such a wonderful year.  I am so proud of how hard you have worked,  how kind you have been to one another, and how keen you've been to explore technology with me.   Your desire to learn inspired me every single day.  I wish you  the very best as you move on to grade two.  I also look forward to reading your blog posts all summer long.

Please don't be strangers, and keep in touch.

Love always,

Ms. Lirenman



Skyping with Miss Dunsiger's Class in Ontario

On Wednesday just before lunch we had the privilege of skyping with Miss Dunsiger's 1/2 class in Ancaster, Ontario.  Through out the year we have been checking in on her class blog, and seeing what her students were up to. Not sure if you remember or not but we even learned how to draw a cartoon character from one of her former students.  Ms. Lirenman has learned a lot from Ms. Dunsiger too so she was excited to talk with her for the first time.  On Wednesday that finally happened.  We shared some of our frog jokes with them.  Are you curious about some of the jokes we shared? Here are a few of them.

What did the frog say when he walked into the library? Read it! Read it! Read it!
What is a frog's favourite recess snack? Cheese and Croakers.
What is a frog's favourite game to play at recess? Jump jacks and leap frog.
Why are frogs good at playing baseball?  They catch a lot of flies.
What did the frog say after he told his joke? Get it! Get it! Get it!

Do you know any other frog jokes? Have you had a special experience skyping with a class in another part of the world? We'd love to hear from you.

Sidewalk Chalk Tradition


Ms. Lirenman has a tradition with her grade one classes that in the last week or so of school instead of writing on paper or on a computer or an iPad she encourages her students to write on the sidewalk in front of the classroom using sidewalk chalk.  Because of the lousy weather we've been having we couldn't actually do this until the very last day of grade one.  Here are some of the messages we left for the rest of our school community.  If you look closely at the pictures you will notice our Principal, Mrs. MacFarlane getting in on the fun too. If you look really closely at the pictures you will notice that our school murals are not on the wall. Don't worry though, our school is being painted in the summer and the murals WILL be back after that.




















School Yard Clean Up


During the last week of school it was our classes responsibility to do school yard clean up.  We did it once before back in February, and we were excited to do it again.  It is incredible, and a little sad, how much garbage we picked up as we went around our school grounds.  Here are a few pictures of us hard at work.








Tuesday 26 June 2012

Mirror, Pulse, and Grocery Game - Having Fun with Drama

Today we learned three new drama games.  The first was called Mirror.  In Mirror you face a partner. One partner moves slowly and the other partner has to mirror the moves.  We played while sitting down and our movements were limited to mainly our hands and heads.  After a few minutes we switched roles. Here are some photos of us playing Mirror.







The second game we played was called Pulse. In Pulse we sat in the same formation in two long teams.  Ms. Lirenman shook a coin in her hand while we all held hands with our eyes closed - well each team held hands in their long lines.  The two people closest to Ms. Lirenman got to keep their eyes open because they were looking to see if the coin was on heads or on tails.  If it was on heads the line leader (the person with their eyes open) squeezed the hand of  the person beside them. That set off a 'pulse" down the line as each student would squeeze the person beside them when their hand was squeezed.  When the squeeze made it all the way down to the person furthest from Ms. Lirenman there was a race to grab the role of tape on the back counter. The team whose pulse moved quickest got the role of tape, and won that round. When you win a round the person furthest away (the one who grabbed the tape) moves to the spot closest to Ms. Lirenman and the rest of the team shifts down one chair.  But, if the coin lands on tails then no pulse is sent down the line.  If a person grabs the tape when there isn't a pulse then the team that doesn't grab the tape wins that round and moves chairs as required.  In order to "win" the game the player that started closest to Ms. Lirenman has to make it down the chairs and back to Ms. Lirenman.  In case you're curious the team you can see in the above photo won this game.

The third game we played is called Grocery Game.  Each child is given a number and the person across from them has the same number.  Then Ms. Lirenman randomly calls out one of our numbers and says a letter.  So for example she would say number 4, m .  The two number 4s would have to think of an item found in a grocery store that beings with the letter m. The first one to think of an item stands up and shouts out their item - in this case it might be mushrooms, or milk or...  The team that shouts out a correct answer first gets a point for their team.

All three games were a lot of fun.  Do you have special Drama games in your class?  We would love to hear about them too.  Maybe you can try to play ours?  We have others too but we don't know if we'll have time to play them again.  Hopefully we will.

Playing With Skitch

This week we've been playing with Skitch iPad creating posters about ourselves.  Ms. Lirenman is hoping we will all get finished before the school year is finished so you can see our personal posters. In the mean time here are a couple of posters that are finished.



Monday 25 June 2012

Meeting Mrs. Cassidy's Class Over the Internet

We're not sure if you've noticed or not but one of the grade one blogs that we've been following and visiting a lot belongs to a class in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. This is Mrs. Cassidy's Grade One Class.  Ms. Lirenman and Mrs. Cassidy have been talking and they thought it would be great if we could finally meet one another. So guess what, today we did!

At first we tried to use FaceTime. It was really awesome and very clear but after a few minutes it started to crash on us and we couldn't use it any more.  So then we moved to Skype.  After a few technical difficulties there we were finally able to get it working.  Mrs. Cassidy's class read us an Elephant and Piggie story by Mo Willems. We love hearing stories so it was nice to have some one different read it to us.  We loved how Mrs. Cassidy would show us the pictures and how her students would read us the words.

After the story was over it was our turn to share with them.  We shared some of the frog jokes we have learned.  We can't tell you what they are yet though because we have another Skype call planned for Wednesday before lunch and we will be sharing our jokes then too.  We can't tell you who we will be skyping with either but it is another class that we follow closely.  Are you curious? We hope so but you'll have to wait and see.

End of Year Clean Up

Today we spent some time cleaning all the math tools we used this year so that next years grade ones in Ms. Lirenman's class will start their year with clean tools like we did. It was actually a lot of fun too. We made groups of three and Ms. Lirenman assigned each group their own "sink" and "drying rack". The sink was just a bowl with soapy water and the drying rack was a piece of paper laid out in the sunshine.  Thankfully where we were cleaning was in the shade and away from the sun's harmful rays. While we worked really hard, and cleaned all the math tools Ms. Lirenman tells us that we still have the literacy tools, games (like Lego, Marble Works etc.) , and plastic house centre items to clean.  Thankfully we had a lot of fun cleaning.  Here are some photos of us hard at work.