Working with Mr. S in South Africa Again!

After our first Skype call with Mr. S from South Africa, we knew we wanted to work with him again.  Even though we can't meet his students because our time difference is so big, we can work with him.

Ms. S taught us a few magic tricks. He made us think, and guess too.  We were so interested in what he had to say that some of us actually skipped recess to work with Mr. S some more.  Here are some photos from Ms. L's side of the call.

Here are some photos from Mr. S's side of the Skype call.

Here he has us doing silly tricks. 

We are trying to wiggle our ears with invisible string.

Mr. S is trying to trick this boy.

If you can't tell by his face, Mr S. tricked him.

This person was harder to trick, but in the end Mr. S did it.

Are you curious what Mr. S looks and sounds like?  Here's a little video Ms. Lirenman took while he was teaching us the secrets behind one of his tricks.

Fantastic News!

After two weeks of running around Surrey, Gingerbread Candy and Gingerbread Santa have been safely returned to their home at Sullivan Elementary.  On Tuesday we are going to visit them there along with four other classes in our school district.  It will be great to meet these friends in person.

Guess Who Wrote Us a Letter?

Skyping with Mexico

On Friday we were fortunate enough to Skype with Ms. Gomez's class from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon , Mexico.  We connected with this class through a project started by Mrs. Harrison in Ontario. where we were invited to share our school yard through a digital book or video with the world.  Ms. Gomez's class did the same thing.

As is often the case with technology we had trouble skyping at first.  While we could clearly hear and see Ms. Gomez's class, they could see us but they could not hear us.  So after a few messages with white boards, we switched computers. It made a big diffference for them (they could hear and see us) but it caused issues for us - we could only hear them through our computer's speakers and NOT through our additional speakers.  But we made it work anyhow.

The conversations between the two classes were quite fascinating.  Ms. Lirenman had us think about and write our questions on our personal white boards, and we brought those white boards to our carpet area.  We took turns asking and answering questions. We were curious about their guard and soccer field, and they were curious about many things too. We surprised them by the ten languages spoken in our homes.

Near the end of our skype call we asked if they could teach us a little spanish, which they did.  We really hope that we'll be able to skype with them again soon as they had some very interesting things to share with us.  As much as we were very different from them, we were a lot more alike.

Skyping continues to be a very valuable way for us to learn and we can't wait to do it again.

Bowling with Our Buddies

Friday was a first for many of us in our class. It was the first time we had ever been bowling. While our technique may not be perfect, and a lot of bowling balls ended up in the gutter, our smiles made it clear that we had a wonderful time.

 

FOUND!

Gingerbread Santa was located at another elementary school in Surrey.  He was hanging out at the top of their coconut tree!  Now we hope they have located Gingerbread Candy too. We sure miss them.

UPDATE:  Gingerbread Candy was also found at this school. She was a bit tougher to catch but traps were set and she walked right into one.  Hopefully they will both be returned to Sullivan Elementary where they were originally from.

Gingerbread Houses

Today with the help of some amazing adult helpers we created our very own gingerbread houses.