Hello from Hong Kong!

Hello Room 9 children, families and followers! This Christmas break I'm off on an adventure of my own... Half way across the world. Right now I'm sitting in the Hong Kong airport with my good friend and traveling partner, Mrs. Kinnear, waiting to board our flight to Singapore to see Ms. Krochak! We left Winnipeg at 7 am on Boxing Day and have been traveling for about 24 hours. We're headed to Singapore today, and then to Thailand for New Years Eve. I'll try and post a few pictures along the way. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! See you soon!
-Mrs. Malkoske

Reindeer Snacks!

Today in the morning we made Reindeer Snacks. You have to use a graham cracker and then put chocolate icing on it. Then you stick a chocolate chip in a marshmallow to make eyes, and a swedish berry for the nose, then two pretzels for the antlers. -Syd

I felt awesome about it. I got all messy. -Cali

The best part was making the eyes. -Sam

Here are the ingredients that you need:

3 graham crackers

6 chocolate chips

6 marshmallows

chocolate icing

3 swedish berries

6 pretzels

That will make 3 reindeer. You can make more if you want you just need to use more stuff. -Elly 

It tasted really good. I ate one and I had a fun day. -Nick

My favourite part of making the reindeer was getting messy. -Karys

When we started to make them, after I was done, I ate one. Then I ate the other two at lunch. I had a fun day. -Reegan

Today my favourite thing was making it because we got to scrape everything on and put stuff on it by ourselves. It was fun. -Ella

The reindeer looked like Rudolph because they had a red nose, antlers, and icing that looked like fur. But it doesnt feel furry. -Rylee

 

Christmas Centres!

This week we were doing Christmas Centres. There were groups. There was a group called Christmas Trees, Presents, Stockings, Snowmen, and Ornaments. -Reegan
Today my Christmas Centre was Reindeer puppets and you need a paper bag, googly eyes, ribbon, a bell, a leash that had his name, and paper and glue. -Ella
This week the Christmas centres that I went to are Reindeer Puppets, Reindeer Ornaments, Wreaths, and Snowglobes. My favourite one so far was the snowglobes. -Syd
Yesterday my group made snowglobes. First I went to the painting. You had to trace a paper and my mom put it on our little Christmas tree. -Nick
Today I had a great day. We did reindeer. I think it was pretty fun. -Sam
My group went to these centres: Christmas Cards, Christmas Wreath, Snowglobes, and today we did Reindeer Puppets. -Elly
Today is our second last day of Christmas Centres. My centre today was Christmas Cards. It was finger stamping and your hands got really dirty. The other one was cutting out magazine pieces. You had to stick them on to another card. On the inside you had to write a Christmas notes to one of your family or friends or someone you know. You got to pick the colour you wanted your card to be. -Rhianna
Today we had Christmas Centres and I was in the present group. We made Reindeer. -Brandon
Today we had Christmas Centres and I made a wreath. I had to trace my hands and we had to glue them on to the paper cardboard thing. -Jonathan
Today we did Christmas Centres. We've done it since Monday. Tomorrow is our last day. Each group needs to make one more thing. Our group will make Christmas Cards. Today I did snowglobes. -Rylee

Sharing Our Learning with the World!

This morning we took some time to check out some of the comments that have been left for us on our blog. One of them came from a teacher, Ms. Babalis, in Richmond Hill, Ontario. She and her class came across our blog via Mrs. Lowe's blog. Mrs. Lowe is a teacher in St. James who visits our blog with her class regularly. She is someone that I have been able to connect with on Twitter and in person at a variety of workshops and professional development sessions.

During our morning meeting today, the kids and I looked at both Ms. Bablis's Blog and Mrs. Lowe's Blog . We checked out their posts about snowflakes. Mrs. Lowe saw a picture of our snowflakes on Twitter and sent me a message asking how we created them and if I thought her kindergarten students would be able to create them as well. Once they tried, she sent us a link to their blog post about it.

Ms. Bablis follows Mrs. Lowe's blog regularly and saw their snowflakes and then saw that they were inspired by our blog, so she and her students visited us and left a comment. Very cool connections.

The children in Room 9 were very impressed that by sharing their work, they inspired others to create something beautiful. Each classroom created symmetrical snowflakes in a slightly different way and then shared them with each other. And that's a little bit of AWESOME :)

Nutcracker Eye Spy!

Today we did Nutcracker Eye Spy! We were looking for all of the presents because it's close to Christmas. It's from Mrs. DeBruyn and Mrs. Klaussen. They are really nice to let us do it. Each week we look for different things. We had to count them.... Our guesses are below:

 

Andy: 43

Brandon: 44

Cameron: 45

Cali: 43

Carter: 44

Cayden: 44

Ella: 44

Elly: 44

Jonathan: 48

Karys: 44

Nick: 20

Reegan: 44

Rhianna: 44

Rylee: 36

Sam: 40

Sofia: 45

Sydney: 44

Sharing Portfolios



Today we shared our portfolios with our learning buddies and they shared to us. -Carter

Our learning buddies shared thier portfolios after ours. And in our portfolios we had to tell them about it and after we shared, they left a kind compliment. The grade 3/4s shared their portfolios and they told us about thier portfolios. We left them a kind compliment. -Rhianna

Our learning buddies had some of the same things in their portfolios as ours. They shared it and after we read a book. -Nick

This afternoon we shared our portfolios with grades 1 and 2. We had different things in our portfolios but we also had some of the same. We both had the Writing Continuum. -Kaelan

The grade one and twos left us a compliment on our compliment sheet and we did too. -Emma

We had to share our things. We shared our word work stuff and listen to reading and our work on writing notebooks. We also shared our home reading baskets. -Sofia

For the last two periods we shared our portfolios and my partner was Elly. She spoke clearly so I could hear her. -Jess

Last week we started to put together our portfolios and some of them had a piece of paper in the front so we had to take it out and throw it in the recycling. -Reegan

After last recess we went to our learning buddies and we had to share our portfolio after they shared theirs. I felt that Carter spoke clearly. His writing was neat. -Matthew

 

 

TWAS

We practices  the christmas concert.this is  Ellys first  Chritmas Concert. I hope it is fun.yesterday  the kids of Room 9 played a brain game. we played 3  brain games.We had  fun.We are working on our  portfolios. -Rylee & Elly

 

The Brain Game!

Today we played the brain game and it was fun. One of the games was we had to go and get stuff that was biggest to smallest and Cam got the pea pod and I got the tiniest things. It was a poppyseed. -Elly

Today we played two brain games. One of them was kind of like Guess Who. The other one was biggest to smallest. I got one of the word work materials and after, other people had to get smaller things. -Rhianna

After lunch recess we played three brain games. The first one was one person had to think of 4 sounds like clapping and snapping. Then we went around the circle and we all had to do the same. We could only do it after the person on the left side of us did it. -Syd

I liked the biggest to smallest because first you had to get a bigger thing and then you had to get a littel smaller thing. -Nick

Responsibility!

 

We are learning about responsibility at home, at school, and in my community. We finished our papers today. We told about what we do at home like cleaning up our room or listening to mom and dad. -Nick

We've been learning about communities. Yesterday we wrote down what we're responsible for at home and at school. When we did the at school one, we had to do it with a partner. Today we finished the rest. We had to do "in my community" and what you're responsible for in the community and we did it with our table group. -Syd

On Monday we started working with Mrs. Klaussen. We were doing stuff about communities. We made a list of the things we see in our community. We did attractions and she told us to answer what the two rivers were. The two rivers were Assiniboine River and Red River. We did a Kid Blog about community. Mrs. Malkoske made a list and we wrote about all of it. -Rhianna

Surveys!

Yesterday we started to do our surveys. Today we're asking the questions. -Ella
We had to tell our names and write it down on a piece of paper. We stood on a stool to spell our names. -Sam
The list is for asking questions so that we keep track of who we've asked. We did surveys last year and it was the same book except we didn't stand on the stool. -Rylee
The different kinds of questions were Yes or No and What's Your Favourite? Everybody's question was yes/no questions. The questions started with:

Do you like...?
Do you have...?
Do you want...?
Do you need...?
Do you play...?

Some people did other kinds and some did the same. -Rhianna
Yesterday we wrote all the names in boxes for the survey. Today we're going to use the list to see who we've asked and who we didn't ask. I think it's going to be fun. -Syd

Bag Up Manitoba Results and Snowflakes!

Today we found out the  Bag Up Manitoba results. The bag up total for the winning school was over 42 000 bags! The school's name was Victor Wyatt. Click on the link above to read about all of the winning schools! -Elly

 

On Thursday we made snowflakes with pattern blocks. They have six sides that are the same. It was fun! -Karys

We made a project. We made snowflakes out of blocks. I think it was pretty fun. -Sam

All the snowflakes are the same. They are symmetrical. It means they have the same sides. -Jonathan

 

On Monday we made our snowflakes out of paper and blocks with our learning buddies. It was a really fun day. -Nick

 I made a snowflake with my buddy. The first time it didn't work because it only looked like it had 5 sides. So we tried again and this time it was pointy and then Mrs. Kosolowski took a picture when we finished. They said switch and we made paper snowflakes and the paper snowflakes were trickier. My snowflake had triangles and rectangles and tiny squares. It was fun. -Rhianna

 

 

Our Plasticine People

Today in the library Mrs. Malkoske and Mrs. Oddy were helping us do our eyes. We did our colour eyes, nose, pupil and eyebrows. We finished our hair. We did our shirts. -Nick
I did my skirt and my tights and my face. I had eyelids, eyes and a mouth. I felt really good. -Ella
Today we did our plasticine art and Mrs. Malkoske was sitting at the brown table with their eyes and mouths. I had a fantastic day. -Kaspir
Today we worked on our plasticine people. We were going to do it yesterday but we didn't have much time so we did it this morning. Some of the girls got to stay in for recess to put on their noses and finish up thier faces. In the library, everybody else finished up. -Syd
Today I did my mouth, and my eyes, and my lips. -Kayla

Remembrance Day Assembly

The Peace Book Final Cut from Erin Malkoske on Vimeo.

Today was the Remembrance Day assembly. Mrs. Ziprick was playing the piano. We all got a sticker poppy. -Nick
We went to the gym and there was someone playing the trumpet. We sang O Canada in the gym. -Kaspir
We showed our video of what peace looks like to us. -Reegan
Two of our girls, Sydney and Rhianna, went up to explain our video about The Peace Book. Two of our boys, Cayden and Carter, carried our wreath and laid it down on the ground. They all rocked. -Rylee
They played lots of videos and there was some reading. All of them were very peaceful and I liked them because it reminds me of peace. I thought the assembly was awesome. -Rhianna
At the Remembrance Day assembly, me and Rhianna had to go up and introduce the book to everybody. It was embarassing. -Sydney
The 3s and 4s sang two songs to everyone in the gym. -Ella

Our Humans

Today we started with our person. We used plasiticine to make our shirts and we had to make it flat. We had to make the head and neck. -Nick
Today we started our people made out of plasticine. I had to mix yellow and light green for a really, really long time. -Syd
Yesterday when my mom was here we had to mix colours together to make the right skin colour and today we are working on the bodies. -Reegan

Our New Pets

A little while ago we got hermit crabs, a new fish, and stick bug eggs. Me and Cameron are doing pets as a job and sometimes I stay in for recess because I get to change the crabs food and water. Today I got to do that and I also got to put new lettuce for the stick bugs. -Sydney
Our pet's names are Sassy, (fighting fish) Shelly and Joe (hermit crabs), and Fred and Bob (frogs). The frogs eat pellets. The hermit crabs eat crackers, carrots, and celery and they drink water. -Ella
The hemit crabs drink from a sponge. -Sofia
The stick bugs eat lettuce. -Sam
One day one of our hermit crabs died. It's name was friendly. It fell apart. It's hands and legs broke off some how. -Reegan
It might have had some disease. If one of our grade 2ers do PIP on hermit crabs, we might find out why. Maybe it didn't really want to eat or maybe it got in a fight with another crab. We don't know for sure. -Rylee
We have baby stick bugs and they don't have names yet. -Kaspir
When we were thinking of names, we had a vote. Whatever name had the most, wins. I really like the name Sassy. -Nick
We have two frogs, two crabs, eighteen stickbugs and one fish. All those equal twenty three. -Rhianna
At my old school we had a pet. It was a hermit crab. We let him crawl around on the carpet and there was a bush in the cage and he would dig a hole under it. My teacher had to try and find the hermit crab. It was kind of hard. -Elly

Communities

We are learning about communities in our classroom. This is a chart that we made in our classroom. All the people got groups and they got a big piece of chart paper. They got a smelly marker and they had to write about the parts of the community. -Elly
We shared our charts and we did this chart on the computer. Everybody got to put at least one or two ideas on there. -Rhianna

The Manitoba Museum

Today in the morning we went on our buses to the Manitoba Museum. First we saw a community map and we had to put some magnets on it. -Nick
Everybody got to put some on. There were tipis, a school, houses, stores, Assiniboine River, and Red River. - Elly
We learned somethings about houses and schools and hospitals. It was pretty fun. -Sam
We went to the city. There was a whole bunch of different things like a sewing shop, the office for the sewing shop, drug store, a hotel, and the church. -Kaspir
We went to the theatre, the restaurant, train tracks, a park, and the chinese laundry. -Andy
Then we went on the boat, the Nonsuch. You had to climb down backwards and no touching the ropes. I liked the downstairs. -Karys
Mrs. Scalesi told us the Nonsuch was supposed to be haunted. -Jonathan
There was lots of ropes on the Nonsuch. -Sofia
After we toured around upstairs of the museum we went downstairs to the science gallery. There were three little fish tanks. One had two turtles in it. It was awesome. -Sydney
While we were by the ship, my group went upstairs into the cottages and we saw little beds for the people who wash the dock. -Ella
When we were in the olden days we went into this little thing. We saw this man driling a hole in the kid's tooth. That was his little office and he lived there. -Cali
In the science gallery there was a ball and you pressed a button and there was air coming out and it pushed in the air. There was also a racing section. You got to build a car if you wanted. There were four that were already made and two kids I saw they made their own. They were really cool. -Rhianna
At the Science Gallery there were little booties and you had to wear them to go into the Matrix. It was really cool. It looks like you'll just go right through, but it's actually small like the bathroom. -Rylee

Batteries

Today Mrs. Malkoske is shipping our first box of batteries filled. We are starting another one. We collected one ful box in two weeks. -Rhianna

Every week two people are going down to classes to collect batteries. Before we put them in a box, we have to put one battery into a plastic bag. -Sydney

I am incredibly proud of the work that the children of Room 9 have been doing this fall to help our environment. We have been collecting and counting plastic bags and batteries for a few weeks now and they have been wonderful leaders in our school community.

Our BAG UP! total is currently at 9460 bags and tomorrow is our final day to count any more bags that are turned in.  Today we took some time to reflect on the project. As we were talking about why what we are doing is important, one of the boys in our class asked an important question:

Why do they even keep making these things?

It's thinking like this that makes me believe in the power of small people. It seems like a simple question, but there is so much behind it. To recognize that this is a big problem and then to be baffled by the fact that people (adults) are still making and using bags despite the damage they cause, is incredible... especially when you're 7. It's a question that adults need to start asking. The kids in our class understand (probably better than most adults) why it's important to take care of our planet. They know that this is their world and they know what they need to do in order to keep it beautiful and healthy. Not bad for a Monday afternoon... these kids are AWESOME.

Bag Mountain!

Today we counted bags and we got 8224 bags. Monday is our last day to collect and count bags. If you have any bags please send them in! -Elly

In our classroom we have hardly any room. We have too many bags! I wonder when they are picking the bags up! -Rylee

We have a stack full of bags. It is giant! -Nick

Today we counted plastic wrap in the hallway. We had to rip off all the labels.  It took a long time. We have 13 bags of bags. -Cameron

We had to do lots of bags. We have to shake and pull the bottom so it's inside out. -Sam

Today we counted bags in a big circle. -Kaspir

We counted lots and lots of bags. We counted them by 10s, 20s, 2s and 4s. -Reegan

We never counted them by 5s. It was ok. -Cayden

We didn't count them by 8s either. -Sofia

Call 2 Recycle!

The children of Room 9 are starting a new recycling project next week... We're recycling batteries! Well actually, we're collecting them and sending them to a company called Call2Recycle . Call2Recycle recycles batteries in an environmentally safe way. Here is a video about what they do:



Our classroom is now a drop-off point for batteries. If you have dead batteries at home, send them to school and we will recycle them for you!

Design Project!

Today we watched this video about Caine's arcade. We are doing a project kind of like this in our classroom. Our project is about building your own machine. Just like Caine, we're going to build stuff out of cardboard or recycled stuff. We're going to build our machines on Thursday. It's going to be fun!
-The Kids of Room 9

Turtle Time!

Today Kaiya brought her turtle and her Dad found it alone from it's group. It was cute. -Brandon

We got to see a turtle today. I think it was kind of fun seeing it. -Sam

I was fun but we didn't get to touch it because it was too scared. She told us it was a painted turtle. -Reegan

Today Kaiya's turtle came in a Ziplock plastic box. There was a turtle and it had dirty water and there were some peas floating in the water. It was awesome! -Cam

Today we got to see Kaiya's turtle and we didn't get to touch it. It eats shrimp and vegetable. Wallace got to see it too. -Carter

The spinach is poisonous to the turtle so it can't have spinach. It was found in the wild and now it's Kaiya's pet. That was my second time seeing a turtle. I saw a different turtle at my lake but it wasn't a very good one because it was a snapping turtle. -Rhianna

Her turtle was a painted turtle and on its tummy it was like almost a painting because it was like orange and black and yellow swirled together. At Grand Cayman I saw lots of turtles. -Syd

Today we saw a turtle and his name was Ernie. -Elle

Kaiya brought her awesome turtle to school. It is very cute. -Rylee

He was floating and he was swimming and he was trying to get out. That turtle looked pretty cool. Today was an awesome day. -Nick

It tried to escape! -Cayden

The turtle is awesome! -Jonathan

Last year under my chair was a big snapping turtle. It almost snapped me when I got off. -Ella

A Room Full of Turkeys!

Today close to the end of the day, we were making turkey hats. The first thing you had to do was go to your table and make a turkey body. Then you got a head band and a red wobble. Then you got your feathers and you stuck them all on. -Rhianna
In the morning when we got to school we listened to a video called Albuquerque Turkey. Everyone sang along. We recorded our voices when we sang the song. -Nick
Today we made turkey hats with feathers out of paper. We put feathers on and glued them an stapled them. We wore them and sang the song. It was awesome! -Cam
I sang the Albuquerque Turkey song and its similar to a song from my old school. It was fun. -Elly
There are a bunch of turkeys in the classroom today. We all got to make a turkey today. The turkey hats had 4 colours for the feathers. I picked one of each and I named mine "Dinner". -Rylee
Today some of the things to do to make the turkey hat was:
1. You had to get a brown piece of paper to twist it like a headband.
2. You staple it together.
3. You trace a turkey body.
4. Then make the beak.
5. Then we made the feathers.
6. Then we had to cut some lines in the feathers to look like real feathers.
7. Then you put it on your head. -Andy
I'm going to get eaten this weekend. -Syd

Here is a picture of some of our "turkeys" and you can hear our recording of the Albuquerque Turkey song!


albuquerque turkey movie from Erin Malkoske on Vimeo.


Today during word work, the children had a special Thanksgiving challenge... they were asked to make the words "Thank You" out of one of our word work or choice time materials. Some of them were very creative. Over the lunch hour I put photos of all of their creations together in the collage below using the Frame Magic app. Each of the kid of Room 9 was given a Thank You card with image on it to write in, and give to someone they'd like to thank. I can't wait to hear who they shared their cards with! Happy Thanksgiving! -Mrs. Malkoske

Bag Up Manitoba!

Yesterday we started Bag Up Manitoba! We had to bring bags to school. We counted them in groups and yesterday's total of bags was 800. -Rhianna
When we count we put them in a big bag. We have to shake them only once, pull them inside out, then make them into an umbrella. They will make them into birdhouses. -Sam
Today we counted our bags again. We got a lot of bags. We got more bags than last time we collected the bags. I had a different group to count the bags. We had to make the bags into 10s and then we brought them to the big bag with all the bags in it. Today our number of bags we collected was 910! I had fun. -Andy
If we collect enough bags, we'll get a bench for the school. Yay! -Reegan
Bag Up 2012 from Erin Malkoske on Vimeo.

Things That We're Thankful For!

Today we wrote a list of things that we're thankful for in our notebooks. Yesterday we did it too. Some of us we're at the Turkey Trot. I was at the Turkey Trot. -Sydney
I started the things I'm thankful for writing yesterday. I am thankful for a lot of things. I had some new ones in there. It was awesome! -Cameron
Yesterday we had a substitute teacher. His name was Mr. Cheyne. We wrote things that we were thankful for in our Writer's Notebook. We made a Tagxedo. -Andy
Yesterday Mr. C wrote a list called Things That You Are Thankful for. On the list was house, people, food, water, pets and school and some other things. -Nick
Today we all came to the carpet and put them on the blog! -Kaspir



What are YOU thankful for? Please leave us a comment and tell us what you're thankful for. 

Read to Someone Video!

Here is the second video in our Daily 5 series!


Read to Someone Final Cut from Erin Malkoske on Vimeo.

This video was made by the Kids of Room 9. We hope you like it. We made this video to show the world what we've been learning at school.

Choice Time

Today at the end of our day, the children in Room 9 had some Choice Time During choice time the children choose an activity to work and play independently or in a small group. The options available to them are connected to the curricular focus in our classroom. Some of today's options were connected to our inquiry topic, Machines & Motion, others were connected to our Daily 5, and others were connected to the Bag Up Manitoba recycle project we are starting next week. Choice Time is one of my favourite times in our classroom. The kids are given an option for learning and as such, stay focussed on thier activity for a longer period of time. They are given the opportunity to choose the direction of thier learning and today they made some great choices! -Mrs. Malkoske

 Here's what happened:

Today we made a book for Wallace because he was sick. He was supposed to come back yesterday but he didn't. We made it before Choice Time. Me and Cayden built a rectangle and we used our marbles on it. We built a small one first. Then we built a bigger one. I had fun with Cayden and the other kids who were playing with me. -Andy

My group did some sorting with papers. When we did the sorting we had to count all of them. I had lots of fun counting. The papers were about "Bag Up Manitoba!" We are starting Bag Up on October 1st. If you have any plastic bags send them to school in your bag. -Rylee

Today at the end of the day we did Choice Time after we made a get well soon book for Wallace. My choice was doing Work on Writing on the iPad. On the iPad I was writing on KidBlog. I did "Save as Draft" because I didn't finish 5 sentences. I was writing about my friends. -Rhianna

We drew a target and taped it. We flew our paper airplane to the target. I coloured mine with stripes. -Sam

I coloured my airplane with markers and stuff. I started throwing my airplane. My airplane got stuck. -Kaspir

Today I was blogging about Wallace. I really miss him. I wrote a lot of writing on my KidBlog. I was like a speedy person. -Nick

Today I made a book for Wallace. I had lots of details in my book. It had a double garage and some bubbles. On my Kidblog I taught Karys how to blog. I had only one sentece so far so I saved it as draft. I built a ramp in choice time. I had fun with lots of kids. And I had a big marble -Cam

Building Ramps

I built a ramp with my group and it was fun. -Elly
Today we tested our wheels, big and small. The big ones went further and the little ones went closer. The little ones turned around. -Sofia
We built ramps to see if they worked. We had to push our wheels down the ramps. -Ella
Today when we tested our wheels, the big wheels went faster and the little wheels went slower. It was awesome! -Nick
It was fun building ramps because we got to work in a group. -Cali
Today my group found out that the bigger wheels went further than the little wheels. We were using the same force but it still did not work. -Rylee

Before we built our ramps we read a book and we learned some fancy science words. They were FORCE, STEEP, FRICTION, the 2 forces were PUSH AND PULL. Then we went to build our ramps and our group got to go by the library in our classroom. We leaned a long piece of cardboard by a chair and put our cars down. The bigger one worked better. -Syd

We tested our ramps. The big wheels broke a lot. They went faster than the little ones. The little ones were turning lots. -Cam

One of the fancy science words is AXLE. It is the part of a car where the wheels connect. -Andy

Me and my group were in the area where the book boxes are to build ramps. My group built a steep ramp and a non-steep ramp. -Reegan

To build the wheels we used plastercine on the inside and outside and for the axle we used a straw. For the wheel part we used plates. We tested them after we built them. The little wheels were a little food stick like for shishkabobs, and beads. -Rhianna

Runclub

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This mornig some of the people in the class went to run club. 5 of the people went. they were me elly ella rylee and reegan went. we were running with mrs. malkoske. we went really far. when we got back ms. castor took a picture of us at the tracks. There was a few people behinde us in the back groud. we were at the back of the school. when we got back to school the bell did not ring so we played outside for  a bit.it was fun. - Rhianna 
today we went to runclub. I ran with Rhianna. it was fantastick. -ella
Today was run club. I had fun. I ran with mrs. malkoske.we got our picweher.Rylee. 
we went to runclub -elly
Today we did runclub. -Reegan

Math & Daily 5

Today we had Daily 5. When I was reading I found information about rocks in a rock book. When I get home I'm going to look at the rocks in my rock garden and I'm going to crack them with bigger rocks and see what's inside them. -Rhianna

We did some math, adding and taking away. We had to use dominoes and we sorted them by number. -Sofia

Today I went with Mrs. Green and I read two books and I sounded out the words. Mrs. Green helped me a little bit. -Nick

Today we did some math with dominoes. We sorted them. Somebody got it mixed up. -Cam

I read a book to Mrs. Malkoske and it was fun. -Elly

When I was reading a book, I read two chapter books. -Kayla

In our math time this month we've been reviewing addition and subtraction facts to twenty using a variety of materials, games, stories and centres. Today the children in our class worked with dominoes. The thing that I was most impressed by was how well the groups worked as a team to count, add, sort and organize their dominoes. They had conversations about patterns and addition, strategized about how to organize, and cooperated and divided the work to be done. It is still early in our year together and I'm already seeing our older and younger students connecting, supporting, and celebrating together... and that's AWESOME :)

Drawing Penguins!

Today we were learning how to draw penguins like the penguin from "Lost and Found" by Oliver Jeffers. We used this slide show to help us: How to Draw a Penguin

There are 12 steps to follow. You should try it too! We practiced a bunch of times and then some of us got to paint them!

Oliver Jeffers!

Today we had to do read to someone and me and Rhianna were partners. We were doing outher studes on Oliver Jeffers and we had to pick an Oliver Jeffers books and we picked The Way Back Home. - Sydney

Oliver Jeffers has made a lot of books that we have in our class room. He does the drawing and the writing. His first book is How to Catch a Star. His second book is Lost and Found. His therd book is The Way Back Home. His forth book is The INCREDIBLE Book EATING BOY. His fifth book is the great paper caper. Oliver Jeffers is from England Belfast but now he lives in Brooklyn New York. He makes Exhibits art and he enjoys a good game of rock paper scissors! He has Exhibits in painting in Belfast, New York, and Sydney. - Sydney

We read stuck and the first time it was funny and when Mrs. Malkoske went to a meating she herd that two other teachers had also read the book stuck that they were discussing that the tree terd different colors in each of the pages. We are still trying to figger out why! - Rhianna

Here's a link to Oliver Jeffers' website.

Stuck!

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Today we reread the book "Stuck" by Oliver Jeffers. We found this video of Oliver Jeffers reading it. It was read again because Mrs. Malkoske got a message from Ms. Nairn and Mr. Stimson and they sent the message and told Mrs. Malkoske that they read it too. When Floyd went to bed he forgot everything else in the tree!-Rhianna

Ms. Narin's class noticed that the whole time the tree turned different colours. We didn't notice that. Then we read it again and we discovered that it did have different colours! But haven't discovered why yet. -Rylee

We noticed the tree changed different colours. The tree was red when Floyd was mad. When he was sad it was blue. It was gray when he was frustrated. It was an awesome book. -Cam

The first time we read Stuck it was really funny. And then when Ms. Narin's class noticed that the tree turned colours we read it again and saw that it did. This time that we read it, we didn't laugh as much, we were more concentrating on trying to figure out why the tree turned colours. Ms. Nairn's class thought that it turned colours because of Floyd's feelings and Mr. Stimson's class thought it was the time of the day. -Sydney

I noticed that the letters S-T-U-C-K are stuck in the tree on the front. -Jonathan

I like the book because it was funny. -Elly

When the tree changed colour Floyd's face changed. His eyebrows changed. -Ella

It looked like unibrow. -Sydney

In the book, every time things went into the tree, it changed colours. -Cayden

Oliver Jeffers read it super fast. It seems like he's read it a million times. -Rylee

Today I was away from school in the morning at a committee meeting at the Manitoba Teachers Society. During our coffee break, I noticed that two Manitoba teachers that I follow on Twitter were discussing a book that the kids and I read (and loved) last week. They were posted some things that they noticed about the book. When I came back to school I told the kids about the discussion I read and they decided to look into some of the other classrooms' comments. We're hoping to set up a Skype date with the other two classrooms to continue our discussion about this great book! -Ms. Malkoske

Check out our post from last year about another Oliver Jeffers book, "How to Catch a Star".

Being Builders About Ramps

Today everybody got to bring a toy to school. If you didn't bring one you get to build one or pick one out of things that move. We got partners and my partner was Elly. We had a paper and a marker. We wrote what we did when we were building ramps. We did 6 things. One of the things we used was a clipboard. We tried a whiteboard too. -Rhianna

We each got to work with partners on building a ramp. It was like we were builders. I felt really proud of myself. My partner was Ella. -Rylee

Today I built a ramp. My partner was Brandon. We worked hard to find the right ramp. The right one was a white cardboard. It was the biggest one we could find. -Cameron

Today we had to do ramps. We had to get a car. We had to ride them down the ramp. -Nick

I had fun building a ramp with Rhianna. -Elly

I had fun. We got to get a car and ride it down. We built a cardboard ramp and my partner was Jonathan. -Carter

My partner was Karys. -Reegan

It was fun! Yay! -Cayden

My partner was Carter. It was fun. You had to run stuff down ramps. Carter had a plane. -Jonathan

When we were talking about making ramps, Mrs. Malkoske asked if we could look around the room and find something that you could use for a ramp. I found a big piece of wood. When it was time to make ramps I went and got it. My partner was Cali. We tried a bunch of places to put the ramp but a few of them worked. Then we went to the carpet and put a stool under and put the ramp over top and got little place value blocks and we put them underneath. We got some foam things that we put at the end. When we put the place value block under and the foam at the bottom, our cars went really far and it worked really well. I had fun. -Sydney

Today we each got to bring a toy to school. We got to build ramps. -Kayla

Daily 5 Video!

Today we did read to self and we made a video of what we're supposed to do. We recorded the expectations with a partner. On the video people got to be recorders and actors and talkers. We worked two or three in a group. We used our FLIP video camera. Here is our movie:

This year the children in the K-3 classrooms in our school will once again be participating in the Daily 5 on a daily basis. The children in our classroom already knew the expectations for Daily 5 and were ready to dive right in! We've spent  a week reviewing and adding to our expectations for each of the five choices and have decided to create a short video series to share with others. This is the first video in the series. The children decided what they would do and say, and they filmed each clip themselves. I put it together during recess with a couple of guest editors :) -Mrs. Malkoske

Time for Animals to Move

Yesterday we started our first Science Inquiry of the year. We're learning about Motion and Position. During our Inquiry, we're going to look at how people, animals, and machines move. We'll even design and build a machine that moves! Today we talked about animals moving and watched this video :)


Today we did some learning about how animals move. I hope you like this video just like the kids of room 9 like it! -Rylee

Today was fun! -Cayden
Today we watched a Madagascar 2 music video. It's about moving. The video was funny. -Nick
The video is called Move it! Move  it! I've watched Madagascar on tv before and I learned the song. I also met one more new friend. My friend is Cali. -Elly
Today we watched a video. It was Madagascar. After we cut animals out and glued them about how they move. It was fun. -Cameron
After the Madagascar video Mrs. Malkoske gave us a piece of paper with a bunch of animals on it. We had to sort them by how they move. There were lots of animals that had four legs. -Sydney

Cayden Joined Our Class!

Today Cayden came to our class. I like that because he's really special. -Nick

We had a little party to celebrate for Cayden. It was exciting. We all had fun. -Rylee

On the morning message Rylee was pointing to it, and when we all read it something special was in it that Cayden was coming to our class. For the celebration we had Rice Krispie cake with Smarties and choice time. -Rhianna

Cayden joined our class and we had a little party. We got to play on the iPads. -Elly

Today Cayden did math centres with us. We did 3 centres. It was Power of Ten, Pattern Blocks and Patterns. I did a whole bunch of patterns. -Cameron

Today a new kid came to our class. Yay! -Ella

To celebrate Cayden joining our class we made a book for him and had a little party. Mrs. Malkoske made a Rice Krispie Cake with Smarties. It was fun making the book. -Sydney

Today was an exciting day as we had a new student join our classroom. During our morning meeting I let the children in our class know that Cayden would be joining our crew. I was surprised and impressed with the kids in my room (although I shouldn't have been surprised!) as they suggested, and then insisted, that they make something for Cayden to welcome him. They talked about how nervous he must be feeling and thought that making a book with welcome messages and put ups might make him feel a little better. As a teacher, these are the moments that make my day. The kindness and caring that kids show one another is... AWESOME :) -Mrs. Malkoske

A Busy First Week!

Welcome to Grade 1 & 2! We're going to have a awesome year! We have a whole bunch of new friends joining our classroom this year. Some of our classmates from last year have moved on to grade 3 and we look forward to visiting their classroom blogs thoughout the year. Here are some highlights from our week.

On the first day of school we did self portraits. We did it last year too. This year we painted it. Last year we coloured it with pencil crayons. Mine looks a lot better than last year. -Sydney
This week we made self portraits. We got a little bit of choice time. On Monday we're going to start glyphs. Today we started with O Canada and then after we went outside for Gym instead of having it inside. I saw flowers coming into the shcool. This morning I got to do my first TWAS with a full page and  a little bit more. I helped Ella for a little bit. Today is our first blog post with kids. Tomorrow is Saturday and it's the weekend. On the back of the TWAS page is a weekend job that you have to do and bring back to school. The job is to make a list of things you do at your house. -Rhianna
Today we did our first TWAS. I almost did a whole page. -Cameron
Today on TWAS I wrote a whole page. It was fun. -Nick
Today was the third day of school. I was late for school. I'm always late for school. -Rylee
Today we had Gym outside and I played with Sam and Nick. -Kaspir
We have new book boxes. -Reegan
Our book boxes are rainbow colours. -Rhianna
I got a new classroom. -Elly

Here is a song that we're learning in our classroom. Listen carefully to the words... What we are is AWESOME!



I am looking forward to another AWESOME year in Grade 1 and 2! It was so nice to start the year with my returning students and to meet our new classmates. We are just getting back into our routine and should be back to blogging EVERY DAY by next week... so stay tuned! -Mrs. Malkoske

Gotta Go! Gotta Go! Video

Gotta Go! Gotta Go! from Erin Malkoske on Vimeo.

We Gotta Go! We Gotta Go! We Gotta Go to Mexico!

Today we did our Gotta Go! play. We had to say our words when it was your turn. For part of it we had to turn off the lights. We paused after each scene so people could put on their costumes. We are already at the part where the butterflies are heading to Mexico. We started video taping our play. We going to put it on our classroom blog and memory sticks.

-Room 9

Today we went to the computer lab and Mrs. Malkoske said we could go on anything on the wiki because it was our last computer lab. -Nick
Today when I logged in, I went to Wordle and Lindsay and Jadyn did it too. I wrote about summer. When I was done I went to KidBlog and did comments. I started a post. My title was "What I'm going to do in My Summer." -Rhianna
Today we got to have early gym. We watched a movie and it was about dogs. -Lindsay
Today Mrs. Malkoske was cleaning up the classroom and arranging it for next year. We got to take our book boxes home if we wanted to. I couldn't fit everything in my bag. It will be heavy. -Taylor
Today at school we did some packing up. I put my book box and my duotangs in my backpack. -Cam
Today was our first blog back. We haven't blogged for a week and two days. Mrs. Malkoske was sick. She went to the doctor. I missed her. -Rylee
Today in the gym we watched a movie. I sat at the front. It was funny. I had fun. -Kaspir
The movie was Marley and Me. Marley and the other dog went to the dog show. Brody's friend won. She had pugs. -Sydney H
Mrs. Malkoske was sick for 12 days. We had lots of substitutes. She missed field day. -Ali
One of the dogs names was Turbo. The kindergartens were in there. I went to go sit with them. Then they left and Lindsay and Rhianna moved over and we watched the rest of the movie. -Jadyn
Today in the computer lab I went to my KidBlog and Kendal and Rylee were looking at pictures of butterflies, caterpillars and moths. Then I wanted to go and look at pictures of them too. We found really cool ones. We typed in some of the names that we knew of . -Sydney R

Getting Ready to Gotta Go!

Today we did our Gotta Go! play. We had to read all the pages and we had to write which part we wanted. Stay tuned next week!