skype calls!

We Skyped today with mrs.dent scarcello class. Jadyn read dalphins and tristan read flippidy frog. it was cool becuase there was a microphone in the headphones. The grade 5s read to us and we read to them. It was for Read to Someone during Daily 5 in the morning.      

-Tristan & Jadyn

Plastic Bags and Big Numbers!

We were making tens out of bags. -Rhianna
We've got 1810 plastic bags! -Olivia

The first day we had only 46. Now we have 1810. In gym we played Halloween games. -Tristan

I was having fun. -Sam
I was at Gym and we were playing Ghostbusters. There are 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then Halloween! -Nicholas
It was Madeline's birthday and she gave us cookies. -Peyton
We had Gym and we played lots of games. They were
Halloween games. -Taylor
We were doing the Plastic Bag Round Up. We found a soft bag.
First you shake it, then you pull it, then turn it inside out and
into an umbrella. -Cameron
We read a new book called Timmy the Tumble Bag. It was from Mrs. Dent Scarcello. -Kendall

Our Plastic Bag Round Up has had a very successful start. In just 1 week the children have collected over 1800 bags! Each day our 'collectors' go to each classroom to collect bags from the other children. It's always very exciting when they come back with a full garbage bag. Today we tried to estimate the number of bags in our pile before we counted. We had estimates ranging from 130 to 8000. Many children looked at the pile we'd already collected, looked at our pile for the day and made their guess. We had lots of kids that estimated around 1000 bags (our actual count was 953)... not bad!
This project has been quite exciting for me as well. The kids have completely taken ownership of the collection, counting, organization, and advertising for it. They know how to get the bags ready for counting and they've developed a system for keeping track of how many bags go into the large garbage bags (they make piles of 10 and one student marks the 10s on the whiteboard as they are added to the bag). Not only have they created an accurate and efficient system for counting, they are learning about taking care of our environment, the importance of recycling, how things are recycled into new things, the importance of good advertising when you have an important message to share, how to count in groups, how to add large numbers, how to work together with a group of people, how to compromise when necessary, and most importantly that small people can do big things. I'm always amazed at how much a group of 5, 6 and 7 year olds can do when they care about something and work together. Awesome :) -Mrs. Malkoske

Teachers Are Learners Too :)

This afternoon I was in a meeting with my PLC (Professional Learning Community). My PLC is made up of 8 teachers from our school and our focus this year is on integrating technology into our classrooms in meaningful ways. Our group will meet throughout the year to plan with one another, support each other, and grow our learning about technology integration. We've already made some exciting plans for our students!

This Friday is an inservice day for students across Manitoba because it is SAGE (Special Area Groups of Educators) Day for teachers. This year I am participating in SAGE as a presenter instead of a participant. I belong to a SAGE group called MAME (Manitoba Association of Multiage Educators). Our group is hosting events at two different schools this year for over 600 Manitoba teachers! Mrs. Dent Scarcello and I are presenting two sessions together. The first session is about blogging with students and the second is about free web tools for classrooms. I am looking forward to Friday, although it is quite a different experience to teach teachers instead of kids. I can't wait to show off all of the great work the kids have done on our blog this year!

Commenting on Blog Posts

Today we spent some time in the computer lab learning about what makes a quality comment. The children in our classroom know that when you comment on a blog post you should:

1. Choose a post that is interesting to you.
2. Give a put-up or compliment to the writer.
3. Make a connection to yourself, your life or something you know.
4. Ask a question.
5. Sign your first name.
6. Reread your comment before you post it to make sure it makes sense.

The children worked in partners to go through the process of leaving a comment on a blog. We had a few technology glitches, but everything was in working order by the time we left the lab.

This weekend the children's Weekender homework assignment is to work with their families to post a comment to our blog, or one of the other blogs that we follow. Here are some quick links to the other blogs we follow:

Mrs. Dent Scarcello's Blog

Mrs. Caldwell's Blog

Mr. Hoeppner's Blog

Mrs. Kosolowski's Blog

Receiving and responding to comments on the blog is always exciting for the children in our classroom. It helps them to realize that they have a real audience, their work is important, and that people are interested in what they are doing and what they have to say. I'm fairly certain that when I was 5, 6, and 7 the only people that were listening to and reading about what I had to say were my parents and maybe my sisters (but probably not... I'm the youngest). Through the use of technology we are able to turn our classroom walls into windows, we are given the opportunity to connect with and learn with people in far away places, and are able to share what we do with the world. Awesome.

-Mrs. Malkoske

An afternoon away and other news...

It feels like it`s been a long time since my voice has been heard on our classroom blog... which is kind of awesome because that means that I`ve started to meet my blogging goals...
1. To post something every school day.
2. To `hand over` the responsibility for the blog to the children.
3. To help the children in my class see that the work they do is important, interesting and worth sharing with the world.
...I`d say so far so good. We`ve posted every day and blogging has become a natural part of our daily routine. Some days we blog together and everyone has a chance to contribute, and other days two or three students take on the responsibility. I have had a number of children ask if they could post on their own and very soon they will get that opportunity. The children are interested in looking at our flag counter to see which countries our visitors are from, and the LOVE getting comments! They`ve even helped Mrs. Caldwell with her blog. She was a bit nervous about sharing her thoughts and ideas with a global audience, but Taylor assured her that she would be okay, there was nothing to be nervous about, and that `it`s just like sharing stuff with your friends`.
This week we got a present in the mail from one of our blog followers. (Which was very exciting for all of us!) Mrs. Dent Scarcello at Bird`s Hill School follows our blog and saw that we are doing the Daily 5 in our classroom. She sent Awesome Owl bookmarks to each of the students in our classroom! The children knew that we needed to thank her so we Skyped her this morning. It was our first Skype call of the year and we had a couple of technical difficulties at first, but we got to talk with Mrs. Dent Scarcello for about 5 minutes. She asked the children about the Daily 5 and answered a few of their questions. We talked about the criteria for Skype and the jobs that we will have during longer Skype learning calls. This short call allowed us to test out all of our equipment and of course to thank Mrs. Dent Scarcello!
You might have noticed that I`ve made a few changes to our blog tonight. That`s because I`m getting it ready to share at a professional development conference for teachers this weekend in Winnipeg. I`m facilitating a session called A Window to the World - Blogging in the Classroom at the Fab Five conference for new teachers. I`m also conducting a couple of different technology sessions at the SAGE conference later in the month... so our visitor counters are going to sky-rocket!
I almost forgot... the reason that I`m posting without the children today is because I was away this afternoon at an ICT coordinator meeting (I am the coordinator for Dr. Hamilton this year). Our blog requires a password in order to create a post, so the kids can`t post without me... but they`ll be back tomorrow!
-Mrs. Malkoske