Voice Messages Including a Christmas Greeting from Jaslehna

About one month ago we received a voice message from a teacher in England but Ms. Lirenman never got it onto our blog for the world to hear.  It's here now so please take a listen.  Can you hear her accent? Does her voice sound like one of our classmates?

listen to ‘Karen Metcalf’ on Audioboo

Yesterday was our last day of school before the winter break and many of our classmates were sick or away (almost half).  Jaslehna was one of them.  Since she couldn't be with us to wish a Merry Christmas in person, she too recorded a special holiday greeting for us.  Take a listen.

listen to ‘Jaslehna's Christmas Greeting’ on Audioboo

Our Christmas Concert

Not sure how this happened but Ms. Lirenman never shared our Christmas concert adventures.  On Tuesday we travelled by school bus to the Bell Centre.

While at the Bell Centre we were very patient as we sat in our seats and watched the other grades practice their songs.  Ms. Lirenman brought along a few iPods, our special wooden men which transform into cubes, and a collection of Elephant and Piggie books.  Ms. Lirenman was very proud of how patient we were for such a long period of time.

In the evening we returned to the Bell Centre but this time with our parents and in our PJs.  All the children in the school waited in the big high school gym.  When it was our turn  to perform we made our way to the stage.  We had to be dressed in our PJs so we were pretty comfy in the gym.  Again Ms. Lirenman brought some items to keep us busy but we must admit is was pretty noisy in the gym with all the other kids there too.  We were really glad to have a dad stay with us as well.  

When it was our turn to shine on the stage we did really well with the other grade one classes, and again during the final number with the whole school.  Unfortunately Ms. Lirenman doesn't have any photos of us on stage because she was back stage with us.  But trust us, we looked great and we performed really well.  We owe Mr. Johnston a huge thank you as well as he worked so hard to get us ready to shine.

Using Augmented Reality

Today Ms. Lirenman printed these extra special Christmas colouring sheets which she found at colArApp.com When we were finished colouring we used an app which brought the pictures to life.  Here is a  sample but be sure to check out our individual blogs for more.

Christmas Must Be Coming!

We have been creating a few more Christmas crafts this week. Here is a picture of some. 

Reading With Ms. Walia's Class

Every Monday we get to read with Ms. Walia's grade threes and fours. Sometimes we read to them and sometimes they read to us. This is what it looks like. 

Mystery Number Skype With Guests

Today we had the pleasure of doing a Mystery Number Skype with Mrs. Sorenson's grade one class in Vermont.  We don't usually do them first thing in the morning but 9:00 am our time worked well for her class three hours later.  Since we have community read every Thursday and Friday morning we decided to invite the parents to stick around if they could so they could see what all this "Mystery Number Skyoe " is all about.  Here's what our room looked like this morning.

Have you ever invited your families to join in our your Skype calls? 

Our Hour of Coding

Today, after gym and the arrival of the salmon eggs we sat down to learn about computer programming.  My Lirenman showed us the computer science website where we watched a video about basic coding.  Together we coded a bit and made an angry bird move along a path. Then Ms. Lirenman let us try on our own.  Some of us worked with friends and some of us worked on our own, but we all gave it a try.  Some of us were really good at it too.

After recess Ms. Lirenman arranged a special Skype call with the people who created the iPad app Kodable.  They had a lot to share with us about how programming works. We learned a bit more about the importance of coding from them too.  After the call we spent a bit of time trying to code on the Kodable app.

Over all it was a really successful way to learn about code.  Ms. Lirenman showed us that there are many other ways we can code.  Check out this blog post for more links to try. Have you ever tried to computer program? If we can, you can too!

The Salmon Have Arrived

This year we will be learning about salmon. Mme Kell has arranged for us to receive salmon eggs for her classroom and today the salmon eggs arrived.  Right now they are in a special incubator in Mme Kell's classroom. We will be peeking in regularly to see how they change over time.

These are dead salmon eggs but we were able to hold them and touch them.

These are live salmon eggs. We are going to watch them change over time.

Our Movement Movie

A couple of weeks ago, while we were in the gym we took the time to demonstrate some of the different ways we can move.  We shot our own film and Ms. Lirenman combined all our film together to create this video.  Enjoy.



In what creative ways can you make your body move?

The Hour of Code

This week is Computer Science Education Week and it is being promoted through The Hour of Code.  The goal of The Hour of Code is to expose students to the language of computer coding and what is possible if you take the time to explore code.

On Wednesday Ms. Lirenman has organized many different ways that we will be looking at code.  We will be able to code our friends to move around the classroom by giving them very specific directions and seeing if they can follow them.  In addition she has iPad apps for us to explore such as Kodable  or Cargo Bot, and she has some on line coding games for us to check out too that work on any device that can access the internet.

If you're seeing this blog on Tuesday night and you want a sneak peak at some the coding Ms. Lirenman is going to share with the class tomorrow check these out.

Bot Logic - be sure to sign in as a user in the right age level

The Hour Of Code - Check out the tutorials.  There are a couple of tutorials that five and six year olds can do with a friend (or two) but Ms. L thinks the one with the Angry Bird is probably the one we'll like best.

If you're trying to code on a computer you may want to try

Light Bot on the Computer

Some other iPad coding apps (most can be found in other tablet platforms as well) that you may want to try at home with a big brother or sister (or mom or dad) include:

Daisy the Dinosaur
Hopscotch
Light-bot

Happy coding! Ms. Lirenman is so excited to see where we get with this.

Teaching a Class About Hanukkah

On Thursday we Skyped with Mrs. Cassidy's class in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and taught them about Hanukkah.  We showed them Ms. Lirenman's driedel  and menorah.  We even lit the menorah with all the candles in it because it was the last day of Hanukkah.  They also asked us some questions, which we answered.  Here are some photos from the call.

Deck The Halls

Today in the afternoon all the classes took part in Deck the Halls.  We started our project yesterday by working with colourful tissue paper squares. We painted with a water glue mixture.  We worked on the floor too which was kind of fun.

Then today we used our finished product to make Christmas trees to decorate our door.  Here is what the final product looked like.

A Line Expert

Today we had our second expert present to the class. This expert was an expert on lines. She helped us see that lines are every where around us.  Ms. Lirenman smiled because this is one of the principles of art that she is also trying to teach us.  Here are a couple of photos of her presentation.