A Special Crystal

This past weekend Keeghan found a special crystal and wants to share it with the world. If you get a chance check out his blog post and listen to him talk about it.  If you're able leave him a comment too.  Keeghan is just one of many of the curious children in Division 19.

Here's a picture of his crystal.

Learn more about it on his  blog.

Community Read Success in All Languages

Did you know that during community read you don't  have to read only English books, especially if English isn't your first language? Community read is for all families no matter what language they read in.  It's all about the joy of reading with loved ones.

A Day of Inquiry - Exploring Force and Motion

Today after gym we met as a group and talked about our wonders around force and motion.  Ms. Lirenman set up a Padlet for us to add our wonders too.  For those of us who could do it independently we tried to use a QR code to get into the Padlet.  Unfortunately we had some internet troubles.   In the end we were able to create this Padlet with our wonders.  

Created with Padlet

Many of us were curious how a Bey Blades worked and so Ms. Lirenman brought out her Hanukkah Driedels. We made them spin and figured out that we had to push the "handle" at the  top to make them spin.

We then talked about pushing vs pulling. We looked at a cool force and motion book and we tried to figure out what we could push or pull.

After recess we headed outside to discover a bit more about push and pull.  We explored our playground equipment a bit looking for places where we push, and where we pull.  Can you see where we are pushing and where we are pulling?

From the playground we moved over to the gravel field to explore some more.  We tried out a few activities to see what else we could discover about push and pull forces.  We experimented with light, medium, and strong forces and how those changes affected things.  Here are some of the things we experimented with.  Do you know if they required a push force or a pull force or both?

While eating lunch many of us noticed that we push and pull things when we eat.  This student figured out that when she brings her spoon of food to her mouth that she's pulling on the spoon.  Many other students had similar discoveries.

Once lunch was over we talked  more about push and pull forces and we looked closely at friction.  We learned that friction can cause heat (try rubbing your hands together really quickly) and that some times we want friction (like when we need to stop quickly) and other times we don't want friction (like when we are trying to get to the net quickly to score a goal in ice hockey).  We experimented with cars on different surfaces.

Once we had a better understanding of friction we used a ramp with a variety of surfaces on it to see if it made a difference.  We learned a few new things in the process.

We ended our day of inquiry by creating another Padlet.  As you can see by the Padlet below we learned a lot today.  

Created with Padlet

Have you ever spent a day looking at just one topic? Ms. Lirenman says we get to do it again next Wednesday too.  What a wonderful way for us to learn.

It is Hanukkah!

Today we learned a little more about Hanukkah from Ms. Lirenman.  We learned how to play the dreidel game with our big buddies.  Have you ever played the dreidel game?

A Gymnastics Expert

Today we had our first expert present to the class.  This person is an expert on gymnastics.  She taught us many things.  She made a poster and shared pictures and videos with us.  Now when we have a question about gymnastics we can ask her.

Here are some photos from her presentation.

Our New Addition

Two weeks ago one of us received a new baby brother.  Today he came to visit us.  

We had so many questions for him.  He sure was cute.

Taking a Line for a Walk

Today during Art we took a line for a walk.  First we practiced on our white boards, then we moved to our iPads.  We will be doing it with paint too.

Here are a few samples from our individual blogs.

Jaslehna took her line for a walk.

Yvonne took her line for a walk.

Arun took his line for a walk.

Camron took his line for a walk.

There are many more walking lines on our individual blogs under the category Art.  Have you ever taken a line for a walk?

Making Connections Through Drawings

If you've been looking at our individual blogs you'll notice that we have been using iPad drawing apps to help us better understand the books Ms. Lirenman has been sharing with us.  Today she read Betty Bunny Didn't Do It written by Michael B. Kaplan, illustrated by Stephane Jorisch.  We listened closely to the story and looking for all the connections we had to it.  There were many.  After the story was over we each drew one of our connections.  Here are a couple.

Brayden connected when she coloured on the wall.

Brenda connected when she wore her muddy boots in the house.

Many more can be found on our individual blogs under the Comprehension Drawing category.  You must check them out.

The Book Fair is Coming!

The book fair is coming to our library really soon. Drop by before or after school if you can. 

Learning Intentions

We are being very focussed with our learning.  To help us do that we have been talking about our learning intentions.  We are making them very clear.  Here are some of our learning intentions for today.  At home you can help us by talking about our intentions. We are all learning.

The Apple Store

This morning we were very lucky because we spent it at the Apple Store at Guildford Mall.  Our Apple genuises were fantastic and helped us learn  about Garage Band.  We all created our own music and listened to each others.  Apple gave us a special bracelet with our music on it too so we could take it home.  We owe a big thank you to our parents for drivng us there.  Here are some pictures of us at the Apple Store.

We are still here!

This has been another week of great learning but some how Ms Lirenman never took any pictures.  We had a wonderful Mystery Number Skype with a class in Richmond Virginia.  Their class was made up of all boys. They had the same number of boys as us except we have nine girls too.  We thought about what it would be like to be in a class with no girls. The boys liked it, the girls didn't.  Ms. Lirenman loves having boys and girls in her class.

We also have been working with the iPad app Explain Everything and our iPad cameras.  We have been taking photos of things up real close, and the same item from far away. We are putting these photos into Explain Everything as we try to create out own versions of Looking Closely Through The Classroom, inspired by Frank Serafini's Looking Closely books.

Some of us played a bit with our class green screen and Ms. Lirenman's new green screen technology app on her iPad.  Stay tuned as soon enough we will independently be making our own movies using green screen technology.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and don't forget on Monday we're off on an adventure.

Ball Skills

This week in PE we  have been practicing our ball skills.  Sorry our pictures are a bit blurry but we move a lot in the gym.

Running!

At the end of the day on most Mondays we head outside to run. Sometimes we run on the gravel field, sometimes we run on the grass field, and sometimes we do loops around the playground. This week we were lucky enough to run around the grass field. 

Daily Physical Activity

We are required to make sure we move our bodies every day.  On the days we go to to gym that makes it pretty easy.  Plus once a week we run outside rain or shine.  But on other days we don't always get outside or into the gym. Some days we do have big kids come and work with us, and other times we do things on our own.  On Friday (and yes it was PJ day and the day after Halloween) we had some fun dancing.  Ms. Lirenman is very thankful of her friends from Kinderchat who have compiled some excellent dance videos.  You can find them under the tab learning links for children.  Here are some photos of us dancing away.

Mystery Number Skype

 We are still working on our numbers to 20 with children around the world through Mystery Number Skype calls.  Last week we added a new tool to our problem solving strategy by using the number chart on an iPad.  Of course a few of us prefer to use a white board.  Here we are learning with children in Iowa.