Flat Classroom Project

A few days before Spring Break Ms. Lirenman was talking about a Flat Classroom Project that our class will be involved with.  We will be creating a collaborative project with two classes from around the world - one in the USA and one in Hong Kong.  We will be looking at the View From Our Window and Making a Meal.

But before we start our collaborative project we first had to introduce ourselves to one another.   With permission from Mrs. Kaput from Cathedral St. Raymond in Illinois, USA and Ms. Pih from the Canadian International School of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, here are our digital handshakes.  We look forward to learning and sharing with them.

Mrs. Kaput's Kindergarten Voice Thread



Ms. Pih's Kindergarten (Prep)  iMovie



Our Class iMovie

Learning with Ten Frames

The past couple of days we have been looking at the ten family and the different number combinations we can use to make the number ten.  At first we watched this great catchy math video.

As you can probably imagine our favourite part (or at least the part that made us giggle the most) was the check baby check baby check baby part.

After reviewing the video a couple of times Ms. Lirenman introduced us to the Find Sums app on the class iPad and iPod.  It's a great app because it helps you "see" what the different math pairs for ten are.  Ms. Lirenman had the iPad hooked up to the projection device so that we could all play along.  One of us would choose a number between one and ten and then that many apples would show up in the ten frame box.  Then someone else in the class would have to figure out how many more apples we would need to complete the ten frame box.  Needless to say it was a lot of fun.  It was almost like we were using an interactive white board, but instead of touching a white board we were touching the iPad. The whole time the process was being projected onto a screen.

But as with most kids we like doing things ourselves too.  Unfortunately we don't have a class set of iPads (or at least not yet) so we had to make do with tiles, a ten sided dice, and a blank tens frame (thanks Mrs. Morrison for letting us borrow yours).

To play the game one person had to roll the dice and put that many tiles on the tens frame.  Then the other person had to complete the frame and read out the number sentence that went with the frame.  While it wasn't a challenging game it certainly helped us learn the tens family much easier.

At the end of the math period we watched the movie again, but this time we could easily shout out the missing numbers in the addition questions closer to the end of the video.

They have been a good couple of days of math learning.  Here are some pictures of us playing the game.  You will notice that one group is playing on the iPad.  A second group was planning on the iPod until Ms. Lirenman realized she needed it to take photos since her camera died in Vietnam.  Enjoy the photos.

Jobs in Our Community

Since we have been less successful than most years to attract parents into our classroom to talk about their jobs we turned to books to learn about other jobs in our community.  In pairs the children read books about a variety of jobs.  Typically in most groups one person read while the other person recorded important details such as what type of duties the job requires.  At the end of socials we all met together and shared what we had learned from our books.  Here are some photos of us learning together.

Screen Chomp

Last week Trista and Brooklyn worked together using the iPad and the ScreenChomp app.  While this is still pretty new to them, they did create a great subtractions story together.

Enjoy.

Saying Goodbye

This week was a sad week because we had to say goodbye to two of our classmates.  While we had word at the beginning of March that Claudine had moved and would be going to a new school after Spring Break, it came as a total surprise to find out that Nicolas was moving too.

We have thoroughly enjoyed having Claudine and Nicolas in our class this year and we will miss them both terribly.  Hopefully they will be able to keep in touch via our class blog, or their individual blogs. We wish them both the very best of luck at their new schools.  Both schools will be VERY lucky to have these special students.

Love Ms. Lirenman and Division 16

Brooklyn's Dad

This past week Brooklyn's Dad came in to talk about his job with us.  He runs Street Legal Tint and Detail.  He told us about how he adds material to windows that either blocks out light (or harmful sun rays) or makes glass stronger, and harder to break.  He showed us some of the tools he uses.  He also told us about his favourite part of the job - it's something that he loves to do.  He let us know that he started his company a long time ago, and used to do it from his garage when he lived in Winnipeg.  He sure has come a long way because he now has three shops, which are very busy.  The one thing he doesn't like about being the boss is that sometimes he gets home from work late and so he misses out on the important time with his family. Thankfully as the boss he can leave work sometimes too to be at his children's special occasions.  Thank you Rene for visiting our classroom.  We learned a lot from you.

Fin's Adventures in Vietnam and Korea

Ms. Lirenman took our class Fin on her adventures over spring break. They went to Vietnam for two weeks with a quick day trip to Korea on their way back to Canada.

Here is a video of Fin's adventures.