Being Responsible at School

Division 18 has had many discussions about what it means to be responsible at school.  Here are some of the ideas we have talked about.




What other ways can you show  being responsible at school?

The Oops Game

Today during word work time we did not have access to iPads so we chose other ways to do our word work.  One of us started playing the Oops Game and soon most of the class joined in.  If you've never played the Opps Game before here is how we play.

Each week two copies of  our word wall words are added to the oops bag.  We also add two copies of a card that says "oops".   To  play the game each person has to draw, one at a time, three cards from the bag.  As he/she pulls out a card he/she has to read it in order to keep it.  So if he/she reads each card drawn, then they get to keep them and if he/she can't read them they have to ask a friend to read them for them.  If a friend has to help the person  read the words on the cards the cards go back into the bag and no one gets to keep them.   However, if he/she draws a card that says "oops" his/her turn is over right away and he/she has to put back any cards they've read that turn back into the bag and pass the bag to the next person.

Here are some photos of us playing the game today too.

New Ways to Say Nice

Today at the beginning of writing we used the website Wordle to create a word cloud that showed different ways to write the word nice.  Here is what we created.

Can you think of other ways to say "nice"?

Global Read Aloud - Our Final Project

For the past few weeks we have been working on a collaborative Voice Thread with Mrs. Fisher's grade two class in Northern Manitoba.  Both of our classes drew pictures of our favourite characters in Charlotte's Web and then we added voice comments to our own pictures, and to other pictures.  Please feel free to listen to our Voice Thread and maybe you can add some comments too?

We hope to Skype with Mrs. Fisher's class soon so we can see the students we've been working with.

Where We Learn

A few weeks back, with iPads in hand, we went around the school taking photos of places that we learn at our school.  On that same day we met with our big buddies and they helped us begin a book using the Book Creator app on the iPads.  After a few buddy sessions we have finally finished those books.  Unfortunately they are ePub books so they require a device that reads an ePub.  This means that we can't share them here on our blog but we can share some screen shots from some of our books. Enjoy.

We Love to Skype

On Friday before our skype call to Ontario we did some personal writing.  Ms. Lirenman was so excited to see this journal entry.  Can you guess why?

In case you're having trouble reading it it says, "Today we have a Skype call and it is going to be fun". Division 18 loves connecting with others.  Maybe we'll learn with your class next?

*By the way Skype saw this post too and here's what they had to say.

Healthy Living - Showing Our Learning Our Own Way

Today between P.E. and music we had 30 minutes to review what we know about what we need for healthy living.  We sat in our weekly community square and came up with a list of things we need to be healthy.  Here's what we came up with.

Then Ms. Lirenman told us that we needed to show her that we knew ways to be healthy and that we could do it any any way we wanted.  We came up with some ways - with iPads using with Doodle Buddy App to draw/write about  healthy things; with iPads using the Show and Tell App to draw/write and speak to our drawings/writing; with iPads to record a podcast using the Audio Boo App; with iPads to use Educreations to make a mini lesson about being healthy; with iPads to interview our friends and create a movie about being healthy; and of course using felt pens and paper to draw ways to be healthy.

Here are some of us preparing to show ways we know how to be healthy.

You'll have to check out some of these blog  links to see how they turned out.

Eldon

Jaydan

Steven

Elma

Yaksh

Nicky

What do you do to live a healthy life? We'd love to know.

Skyping with Ontario - Ms. Horst's Grade Ones

On Friday morning about 20 minutes after our day began, we were invited to Skype with Ms. Horst's grade one students from Burlington, Ontario. Ms. Horst's class has been working on a data collection/graphing unit in math and they wanted a larger sample size.  We were happy to oblige.

They asked as many different survey questions and we had to choose our answers from the choices they gave us.  For example we were asked our favourite colour and we were given a list of choices to choose from.  We had a lot of fun helping them out with their math learning, and getting to know them a little bit too.

When they were finished collecting data from us, we had a few questions for them.  Well actually we had more than a few questions but they only had time for a couple as it was their lunch time.  Feeling like we still had more to ask them after the call was over we decided to use our class twitter account to ask them.   We tweetedfour more questions that we had  for them (Ms. Lirenman LOVES it when we are curious) and they answered our questions.

It was another very successful skype experience.  Now if you're curious, here is a map of where we live, and where they live.  We are certainly getting to know a little bit more about Canadian geography through these skype calls.

Skyping with Mrs. Tomassetti's Class

About 10 days ago we Skyped with Mrs. Tomassetti's class in Toledo, Ohio.

During this interaction we shared some of our favourite parts from the book Charlotte's Web as part of the Global Read Aloud projects we've been involved in.  That same morning we had a very special big eared soft and cuddly visitor ( a rabbit) and so Ms. Lirenman forgot to take photos and we forgot to ask if we could take photos.  Thankfully Mrs. Tomassetti didn't forget and she said it's okay for us to share her photos on our blog.  This is what it looks like when we are Skyping from the other classroom.  Now we can see what we look like on their big screen.

Our School Yard

Mrs. Harrison's kindergarten class in Ontario produced a video that showed the world what their school grounds looked like. Then they invited other classes to make their own videos and share what their school yard looked like.  Obviously we like to take on a challenge so with our iPads in hand we wandered our school yard snapping photos galore. In the end we narrowed it down to those you will see in this movie. Ms. Lirenman helped add the words (with our input of course).  Here is our final product.  Enjoy.




*Now in all honesty we have to tell you that the photo of our school with the wonderful murals is not how our school looks at the moment because our building was repainted this past summer and they haven't put the murals back up yet. But please trust us that soon our building will look like that again.

Addition Math Rotations

This past week we started working on our first set of addition math rotations.  There are five different stations that all look at addition in different ways.  The goal of these rotations is to help us learn the basic concepts behind addition. We use manipulatives such as candy stars, raisins, and counters to explore addition. We also use iPad apps such as Adding Apples, Find Sums, and Pop Math to practice math facts.  In addition we are illustrating our own copy of the book Ten Tiny Ants.  We are looking at addition questions that are written up and down (vertical), and some that are side by side (horizontal). Most of our activities are open ended too so we can choose where we are most comfortable working.  This is the first of several times we will look at addition this year.  Here are some photos of us hard at work.

 Addition Story - Ten Tiny Ants

iPad Drill and Practice

Ice Cream Math

Raisin Bread Math

Hand Math

A Message from Our Global Read Aloud Friends in NYC

Ever since hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the USA we have been worried about our Global Read Aloud friends from Leman Manhattan Prep School.  Last week Ms. Lirenman received an e-mail from their teacher Mrs. Madonna saying that their school was closed for a week but she was hoping it would re open this past week.

Yesterday Ms. Lirenman received another update from Mrs. Madonna about what they have been going through at their school  With her permission Ms. Lirenman is sharing it here for everyone to see.

Hello Ms.Lirenman and Division 18,
We are so thankful for your note and care. We are doing well. Yesterday was the first day that everyone came to school.  It has been hard to get to school because some of the children have gone to live with relatives far from school. We finally have our cafeteria back. It was under water. Everything had to be cleaned. We still do not have heat and today was the coldest day of all. We are trying to wear layers. We had snow yesterday so it was particularly cold for this time of year. We are almost done with Charlotte's Web. On election day when President Obama won we voted too. We voted for our favorite character in Charlotte's Web. Charlotte won in our class but Wilbur won in the other two classes. We hope to be able to talk with you again.
Love,
Class 515

We here at Division 18 are really glad they are doing okay all things considered. They have been through quite a lot, and when things get a back to being a little more normal for them we hope that we can skype with them again to hear their stories. In the meantime we will continue to think about them often and hope that they get their heat and power back soon.

Do you know anyone that was affected by hurricane Sandy?

Skyping with Fort St John, BC

Yesterday we skyped with Mr. Nowell's class in Fort St. John, BC.  A few of us shared what peace means to us and a few of them did the same.  Then we had some questions for them which they happily answered.  They also had questions for us which we happily answered too.

We were really surprised that even though they live in British Columbia just like us, they already have snow.  Yesterday it was a beautiful sunny day for us but it was snowing for them.  In addition we learned that even though they live in British Columbia just like us, they have a different time than us.  They are one  hour a head of us, just like the people that live in Alberta.

It is very cool to learn from other kids our own age in different parts of the world.  We know Ms. Lirenman has more skype calls arranged.  Maybe you want to skype into our classroom too? It's fun for us to learn this way.

Do you skype with your class? Who have you had in to learn and share with?

We Are Bloggers!

Ms. Lirenman is very impressed with us right now because we really love to blog, even in our own time.  So far almost every night, including weekends, some one in our class has blogged from home. Many nights it is three to five children and not usually the same children.  Sometimes we are getting help from our families (even though we need to tell them that we are suppose to do it on our own) and sometimes we are doing the writing all by ourselves.  Ms. Lirenman keeps telling us that it makes her smile right down to her heart when we blog from home.  She loves that we are self motivated to write all by ourselves.  We really do like to blog.

If you haven't checked our our blogs lately we think you should.  You'll be impressed by what we are writing and that some of us are even commenting on each others blogs.  We are trying to work on telling our story in words (and pictures too). We are working hard to remember to spell our word wall words correctly, to put capital letters in the right places, and to add punctuation marks.  It's still a work in progress for many of us but we know you'll be impressed by how much we continue to improve as the year goes on.

Here are a few samples of blogs we've written.

If you want to see all of our blogs you can find them here, or click the tab at the top of the page that says Individual Student Blogs.  We love it when people read our writing, and love it even more when the leave us comments.

Ways to Make 10

Last week in math we looked extra closely at the number ten, and the different ways that we could make ten.  Here are a few of the things we did.

Nicky used the 100s chart to highlight different ways to make ten. Then she took a screen shot of her work and brought it into Draw and Tell where she talked about what she knew.

Roc showed different ways to make ten using a 10s placemat and dinosaur counters.  Then he took a photo of his picture using Skitch and labelled it.

This student played Find Sums while learning different combinations of ten as he added apples to a tens frame.

We played some other games to learn more about the number ten too.  We are curious, have you looked at the number ten? And if so, what did you do to get to know ten a little bit better?

A Voice Message from India

Today we received a voice message from India from a man named Mr. Panakal.  It's very cool to be getting so many voice messages from so many far away places.

listen to ‘Mr. Panakal’ on Audioboo

Skyping with SOUTH AFRICA!

Today we were super lucky as Mr. S. from Cape Town South Africa stayed up really really late so that he could skype into our classroom.  Mr. S loves math and he loves sharing math lessons with children around the world.  Ms. Lirenman met Mr. S through a group she is part of on Skype called Hello Little World Skypers.  Anyhow today after Run Across Canada Mr. S skyped in all the way from Cape Town, South Africa!

Unfortunately we didn't get to meet any of his students because it was almost midnight his time when we met but he did show us a few magic tricks.  After he  played a game with us.   He asked us questions but we couldn't answer with a yes, no, or maybe. We couldn't even nod our heads. It was tricky though because he'd ask us a question which we would answer, and then he would quickly ask us another one that we would typically answer with a yes or a no.  For example he may have said, "What is your favourite fruit?" and then as soon as you answered - say you said bananas -  he would say, "Do you like bananas?"  The obvious answer was yes, but we couldn't say the word yes.  He tricked a lot of us into saying yes, or no, or maybe. The lesson behind the game was that we need to think before we speak and not just speak with out thinking first.  How many of you really think about what you are saying before you say it?

Mr. S. also challenged us to determine if the circumference of an empty toilet roll was bigger or smaller than the height of an empty toilet role. He taught us about circumference.  We were fooled again but  learned something in the process.  He told us to try and trick our families at home.

It was very cool to be taught by someone other than our own teacher, and especially by someone that lives so far away from us.  Ms. Lirenman keeps saying she needs to get a world map into our classroom so that we can put a pin in to represent everyone we have connected with and where they live in relation to us.  We better hold her to that.

Here are some more photos of the skype call.  The cool thing is the photos above were taken by Ms. Lirenman and the photos below were taken by Mr. S.  Now we know what we look like on the other side of the skype call.  Enjoy.

A Special Guest!

Last Friday we had a special guest spend the day with us. Can you see who it is? And no, it's not the student, he is in our class every day. :-)

More Global Read Aloud Projects

Even though we finished Charlotte's Web last week we are still finishing up projects that we started regarding the global read aloud.  Back at the beginning of October we received two voice messages on our blog, one from Mrs. Fisher' Class  in Manitoba, and one from Mrs. Tomessetti's Class in Ohio.  You can find their voice messages here.

For the past week or so we have been working on a collaborative project with Mrs. Fisher's class which should be ready to share with the world in the next few days.  Unfortunately in the mean time you'll have to wait. :-)

This past Friday we were lucky enough to Skype with Mrs. Tomessetti's class. We shared our favourite parts of Charlotte's Web and we learned a little bit about their part of the world. They learned a little bit about us too.  It was a great Skype session and as usual we learned a lot.

If you've been following our blog closely you'll see that we have had a lot of connections because of this  Global Read Aloud.  We have connected with Mrs. Sarchet, Mrs. Leech, and Mrs. Wideen's classes once a week to read a chapter of the story together over a Google Hang Out.  We  connected with Mrs. Madonna's grade one class in NYC where we made and sent flat Wilburs to them and then met them over a skype call.  We also worried about them all last week as their school was affected by the storm that came with hurricane Sandy. Thankfully we have heard that they are safe and there school was set to reopen this morning with some water damage that still needs to be cleaned up.  In addition we skyped with Mrs. Tomessetti's class as mentioned above, and we are working on a secret project with Mrs. Fisher's class.  It's been an exciting time to be learning in our grade one class.

Did you participate in the Global Read Aloud? If so what did you for it?

Learning to Read

Last week Ms. Lirenman was finally able to start reading with us in small groups after spending a lot of time reading with us one on one and getting us ready to read and work independently.  Here are a few of us working with her at the rainbow table.  You'll notice some of us are gluing our newest reading strategy into our literacy conference books.  This group was learning about using pictures to help solve unknown words.  They were also reinforcing the strategy of checking for  understanding.

Here's what we sound like in action.  You're probably wondering where the rest of our students are.  Believe it or not they are in the classroom too, they are just in secret spots reading on their own.

How do you learn to read in your classroom?