Fit Kids

Here are some of us being active during Fit Kids.

Wacky Hair Day

Today is Wacky Hair Day. Some of us have wacky hair.

One of Roc's Goals for 2013

In 2013 Roc would like to get better at adding more details to his writing and by writing more at home. Don't give up Roc. We know you can do it.

One of Hannah's Goals for 2013

In 2013 Hannah would like to get better at making new friends.  She will do this by saying "Hello" and introducing herself to new people. Don't give up Hannah.  We know you can do it!

One of Eldon's Goals

In 2013 Eldon would like to get better at remembering to put capital letters in the right spots. He will do this by rereading his work, double checking where capital letters go. Don't give up Eldon. We know you can do it.

One of Elma's Goals

In 2013 Elma would like to get better at remembering to add periods to her writing. She will do this by paying close attention to where periods are in the books she reads.  She will also reread her own writing.  Don't give up Elma. We know you can do it.

Making Butter

At the beginning of last week, Ms. Lirenman put up our class Wonder Wall.  We have since been slowly adding our wonders to the paper.  Ms. Lirenman noticed that there were three wonders  about butter so she thought it would be a good idea if we made butter as a class so that some of those wonders could be answered.

Today, although 1/3 of our class was home sick, we made butter. Do you know how to make butter?

First we put whipping cream into a container.

Then we started to shake. As you can tell from this video we sang a little song as we shook.

The container of whipping cream was passed around our circle three times. It was shaken A LOT! But with all that shaking it changed from pure liquid, to something pretty fluffy, to butter and milk!  Yes, you read correctly. The whipping cream produced real butter AND milk!

We poured out the milk and we were left with just plain butter. Ms. Lirenman put the butter on crackers for us and we all got to taste it. Many of us wanted a second cracker. The butter was really good!

So now we wonder less about butter because we know where it comes from. We wonder which of our wonders we will explore tomorrow.

BOY + BOT by Ame Dyckman illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

During the first week back Ms. Lirenman read us a fabulous book called BOY + BOT by Ame Dyckman illustrated by Dan Yaccarino. We liked the book. No we loved the book. Any how Ms. Lirenman tweeted her friend to thank her for the book recommendation. Her friend smiled and let the author know that we liked her book via twitter. The author got a hold of Ms. Lirenman through twitter and asked if she could send us a little something. Obviously Ms. Lirenman said YES and didn't tell us this until today, when our little something arrived.  Ms.  Dyckman sent us a wonderful letter.

She also sent each and every one of us our own bracelet, bookmark, and sticker. She even sent more to be shared through our library.

Of course we are a polite bunch in Division 18 so after recess we decided we should send Ms.  Dyckman personal thank you tweets.

Do you know what? By the end of the day she replied to them too. It just goes to show you how incredible the internet is and how much we can gain by being active on twitter.

And of course Amy Dyckman's book is really fabulous too, just like her. If you haven't read it, we highly recommend that you do.

School Yard Clean Up

This week we've been on school yard clean up. Because of a few days of a lot of rain we weren't able to get out and do our job. But this afternoon things were different. The sun was shining brightly so we grabbed our garbage bags and garbage clippers and headed out. We travelled all around our school picking up all the garbage we could find. Here are some photos of us hard at work.

Learning with Friends

Today we were lucky to Skype into Ms. Horst's class and watch them present a Little Red Riding Hood Reader's Theatre. We were impressed by how well they read all their words, and their great costumes too. Here's what it looked like from our side of the camera.

Exploring with Magnets

This week we started our exploration with magnets. Here are photos of some of the things they stuck too.

One of Maryam's Goals

In 2013 Maryam would like to get better at remembering to put her periods at the end of her sentences. She will do this by rereading her writing to find where they go and by looking for complete ideas. Don't give up Maryam. We know you can do it.

Acting Out Winter Scenes

In drama we came up with different things that can happen during the winter time. Each group choose one, practiced, and acted them out for the rest of us.  We then filmed them and together we made a video. Well, it took us a while to get it finished but it finally is.  Now it's time for you to enjoy it.

A Published Children's Author Read Our Tweets

Every time we get a voice mail we are curious to find out who it is from.  Today we received one from  Robin Stevenson, a children's author from Victoria.  Listen to what she had to say to us.

listen to ‘Robin Stevenson’ on Audioboo

We Used Twitter!

Today after recess we all used our iPads to tweet from the voice of one of the characters in Little Red Riding Hood. We tweeted from our class twitter account @MsLsClass. We tweeted to the hashtag #lrrh13.

With Mrs. Cassidy's help Ms. Lirenman was able to capture our tweets here. Enjoy.

Mind Up

Since the start of the school year we have been using our classroom chime for mindful breathing. It helps us get calm and better focussed on our learning. Ms. Lirenman learned about the chime through a program called MindUp.

Today we started working through the official program and we talked about our brain and how it works. We learned about the Prefrontal Cortex, the Amygdala, and the Hippocampus and we can say all those words too. Here is a poster that we now have hanging in our classroom to help us remember.

Jobs in Our Community

This morning Ms. Lirenman sent out a tweet on twitter looking for people who are interested in sharing their jobs with us over a video conference call (Skype, Google Hangout, or Facetime).  We also invited our parents to come in to our class to share their jobs. So far there have been a few parents that are interested and will be joining us.

This afternoon Ms. Brown's class wrote a blog post sharing their parents jobs with us.  If you have a moment you should check it out. They have a lot of jobs that are unique to ours.

You can find their blog post here.

They also took the time to leave us a voice message.  You can listen to it right here.

listen to ‘Port Hardy’ on Audioboo

Our Wonder Wall

Since school began in September Ms. Lirenman has been encouraging us to wonder about things. Today she put up a blank wonder wall as a place where we could record our wonders. Here's what it looked like by lunch time today.

Ms. Lirenman is hoping that slowly we'll be able to find answers to most if not all of our wonders. Do you have any wonders?

One of Kylie's Goals

In 2013 Kylie would like to get better at speaking loudly in class.  She will do this by trying to be less shy and by sharing her ideas more.  Don't give up Kylie. We know you can do it.

Learning About Fairy Tales

Today we began learning about Fairy Tales. Ms. Lirenman loves to teach through fairy tales because they provide great examples of characters, setting, plot etc. We are learning about all these features as we read different versions of the same fairy tale, and we read different fairy tales too.

Today we began looking at Little Red Riding Hood. By the time the week is over we will have shared 20+ versions of this story including books, songs, and movies. If you have another version in your home we would love to borrow it.

We ended our day watching a DVD movie of the story. It was a great way to end the day.