The Shadow Movie

Since it's I Love to Read Month, we've been learning a song called "I Love a B-O-O-K!". Mrs. Malkoske's friend, Miss Krochak, wrote the song and the music. We had a Skype call to learn the song. We had to make shadow puppets out of black pieces of paper. We had the projector on and we used it to make the shadows. Mrs. Malkoske used the iPad and iPhone to make the video and put it all together. When we used the iPad, the background looked rainbow. Enjoy our show!
-The Kids of Room 9

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

ARRRR Matey!

Today at Dr. Hamilton School it was "Talk Like a Pirate Day"! People dressed up like pirates. If you talked like a pirate you got candy and a bookmark. Lots of kids in our class dressed up like pirates. We talked like pirates.We listened to the story "Pirates Don't Change Diapers" during Listen to Reading time. It was a Tumblebooks. We had fun!
-Peyton, Cole, Alexander, Sam, Nicholas, Jonathon

The Daily 5 and Open House!

Tonight our Mom's and Dad's are going to meet our teacher (Madeline). We can look at books at the Book Fair too (Rhianna). Open House starts at 6:00 (Petyon).

Today we started the Daily 5. We learned about Read to Self (Lindsay). When we read to self we have to remember:
-Keep our eyes on the book (Sydney H)
-Read for the whole time (Cameron)
-Look at our books slowly (Nicholas)

-Don't talk to your neighbours when you're reading your book (Taylor)

-Pay attention to your book (Peyton)
-Whisper if you're sounding something out (Jolene)
-Read your just right books (Ashley)

-Pick 1 spot and stay there (Jadyn)

-Get started right away (Jolene)
-Treat books right (Rylee)

Today we also had Run Club and Gym. (Aliegha)

It was another busy day in Grade 1 & 2. Today we started the first component of The Daily 5, Read to Self, and it was a big success! This summer I read The Daily 5 and The Cafe Book  and plan to implement this program in my classroom this year. At our school there are 5 teachers that hope to do the same. We are working together to share, discuss and celebrate with one another as we grow our professional practice around literacy. What I like best about The Daily 5 is that it fosters literacy independence and provides children with choice. I will be blogging a bit about how things are going as we learn about the other 4 components of The Daily 5. Stay tuned...

Reaching for the Stars!

Today we read the book "How to Catch a Star" by Olilver Jeffers. The message in the story is an important one to remember: Reach for the stars and never give up, keep on trying. When we finished the story we talked a little bit about some of the things we're trying to get better at. Here's what we said:

Reading! -Kendall

Iwant to have nice printing and spell words right and math. -Lindsay

I want to draw better. -Tristan

I want to write better, like get all the words right. -Jolene

Sports! -Sam

Soccer! -Nicholas

I want to get better at crafts and swimming. -Madeline

I want to get better at working. -Alexander
Get better at reading. -Sydney R
I want to get better at hockey and soccer and swimming. -Taylor
I want to learn how to catch a star! -Sydney H
I really want to learn how to draw some animals. -Rylee
I want to learn how to do my pictures better. -Jonathon
I want to write good and get all the words right. -Peyton
I want to write my name in handwriting better. -Jadyn
I want to get better at reading. -Cameron
I want to get better at math. -Ashley

Have a wonderful weekend... we'll be back on Monday!

One More Sleep!

Tonight is the last night before the first day of a new school year! For me that always means a restless night full of anticipation and nervous excitement for the day and year ahead. One of the reasons I love teaching, and can't imagine doing any other job, is that every year is different and new... new beginnings, new opportunities, new students, new colleagues, new classrooms, and new learning. I can't wait to see what this year will bring!

As some of you know, and others will find out soon, I am an avid reader of all kinds of books, articles, blogs, and magazines. I'll read just about anything from fiction to biography to business to technology to environment to pop culture, and of course, the occasional People Magazine. On the weekend I was looking through a couple of books that I usually revisit at the beginning of the school year and came across a passage in one of them that I had flagged a couple of years ago. The book is called "The Last Lecture" and was written by Randy Pausch. (You may have seen him on Oprah or on Youtube, talking about his book and sharing his story.) There are a number of passages in this book that I connect to as an educator, but none more than this one (from Chapter 36 - Look for the Best in Everybody):

"This is beautiful advice that I got once from Jon Snoddy, my hero at Disney Imagineering. I just was so taken with the way he put it. "If you wait long enough," he said, "people will surprise and impress you." "

This is another reason I love my job. Young children tend to surprise and impress more quickly than adults, and usually on a daily basis. :)

And with that I wish everyone a good night's sleep. See you in the morning!
-Mrs. Malkoske