New Friends

Last night Mrs. Malkoske went and bought frogs. We named them Fred and Bob. -Nick

Our new friends are frogs. We feed them black pellet things. We feed them on Thursday and Monday. They didn't eat their lunch today. -Cole

I have the same frogs that we have but my names that I have are Freddy and Splash. I have the same rocks in mine. Today I got to see them. -Tyson

Today we got some new pets and they are frogs. We had to do a vote to see what names we should name them. Fred and Bob won so that's their names. Mrs. Malkoske also got an ant farm but there's no ants. It's for Jolene's PIP project. -Madeline

Today we got an ant factory, it's a mini one. It came with instructions to make it and the directions also had an ant food recipe. You have to get human food too like an egg and stuff. -Jolene

Our frogs have bamboo and two crystals and coloured rocks and we feed them. -Kaspir

Taylor and Jolene went to the table with me for Star Lunch. -Sam

Today we got new pets. Now I want to do pets because now we get to feed three pets. -Brandon

In the morning Mrs. Malkoske wrote on the board "We got 2 new members of our classroom." She said that they didn't like to be in hot or cold places and she told us that they were in her lunchkit. Then we went to Assembly. -Sydney R

Today was a very exciting day in our classroom! Last night I went to Scholar's Choice and picked up a few things for the group of kids that are working on PIP projects. For most of them, this is their very first experience with researching a topic, and I hope that it will inspire many more personal inquiry projects both in school and outside of school. Their enthusiasm for doing research and sharing their learning is amazing (and I have to admit, a little bit surprising)! I think it's very important for kids to learn by reading, doing, seeing, touching and exploring the things they are most interested in. You can learn a lot about frogs from books and the Internet, but at some point I think it's important to actually meet one :) I want to keep the excitement alive while supporting these kids in their personal learning. So... for now we've now added 2 frogs, an ant farm, a model solar system, a crystal growing science kit, a fossil making station, and a rock testing station... and our greenhouse is ready to go for after spring break! I'm just trying to figure out something for the kids that are studying larger animals... I'm on the look out for some experts that those students can connect with via email or Skype. We're looking for a fish expert and a horse expert. If you know of anyone, please comment below.

-Mrs. Malkoske

The Best Number Of The Day

For number of the day we could pick the number that we wanted to do. The grade ones got to pick between ten and fifty. The grade twos got to pick between fifty and 200. The number Madeline's picked was 195.
Sydney R number was fifty that was the highest number you could go if you were a grade oner. One of the number sentinces was 20 + 30 = 50. We had to draw a math picture how much the number was.
- Madeline, Kendall, and Sydney R

We also talked about measurement today. Here are some of the ways and tools we talked about:
-length (tape measure, measuring tape, ruler, meter stick)
-height
-weight (scale)
-temperature (thermometer, fish tank, outside, your body, in the car
-time
-GPS measure distance
-in the oven
-baking... using measuring cup and spoons
-level tells if something is straight or not

Daily 5 Projects!

Today was a great day in Room 9! Since last week when some of the kids in our class started working on PIP during Daily 5, many of the other children have been anxiously awaiting the start of their Daily 5 project. Every day they've been asking about what their project will be and when they're going to be able to get started. Today was the day. Two more groups of kids started working on two new Daily 5 projects.

I decided to start these Daily 5 projects for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, projects like these provide kids with purpose and motivation for reading and writing. Each of the projects was tailored to suit a small group of students with similar strengths and needs. For example...

Personal Inquiry Projects (PIP)

The children working on PIP are independent readers and writers who are moving from "learning to read" to the "reading to learn". They are working on building their independence in both reading and writing, learning those life-long learning skills of finding information and asking good questions, and most importantly they are learning that if they are interested in something and want to know more about it, they have the skills to do it. As I watch these kids decide on their topics, ask to visit the library at recess time, take notes, share information, and take their notebooks home at night to keep on learning, I can't help but feel very proud. :)

The Recording Studio

The children that are working on recording some of our picture books for our listen to reading centre are working on solidifying the reading skills that they have. They are building their confidence as readers and working on fluency and expression. Recording books on a digital recorder allows them to hear themselves read, and gives them an opportunity to try again if they want to do something differently or if they make a mistake. Burning their recordings to CDs for the other children to listen to provides them with purpose and motivation to make their recordings their very best work. I stood back and watched these children work today and overheard a wonderful conversation between them where they made a plan, talked honestly and respectfully about how the recording went, and gave each other advice. It was one of those moments that I wish I had recorded!

Newspaper Project

The group of children working on the newspaper project are working on solidifying some of their writing skills like ensuring that their writing makes sense to other people, spelling high frequency words correctly, using their 'voice' in their writing and building confidence as writers. The are so excited to share thier newspaper with other people when it's finished. As I watched one of these kids sit and write out a list of questions for an interview (during choice time) and then take our digital camera, her reporter badge, and her notebook and head to the office to ask for an interview with Mrs. Caldwell I couldn't help but smile. Earlier in the day I'd watched this same child struggle and ask for help with a writing task... a little motiviation and a chance to feel very important made a huge difference.

Today the some of the grade 1 stared a project and it was newspaper. We had to talk to people and record or write what they said. We are taking pictures and put them in the newspaper.- Sydney R

I love watching kids learn to love learning. It makes my day :) Today during choice time more children chose to read, blog, play a word work game, work on their Daily 5 project, and write in their writer's notebook than chose to play Lego or with blocks... I think that is AWESOME.

All About Today

Today a group of kids started a PIP. PIP stands for Personal Inquiry Project. I'm researching horses. I'm wondering how horses see on the sides of their head. -Jadyn
Today was our second day doing our PIP. Mrs. Malkoske got us notebooks, coloured pens, dividers, and binders. We got to choose the colour of our pens. My colour was pink. We got to pick our colour of our notebooks. The colour of my notebook is green. I'm learning about butterflies. After I'm done learning about butterflies, I'm going to be learning about flowers and other plants. We got to write in our notebooks with our pens. -Madeline
At Daily 5 we did Listen to Reading and we got to choose our books. -Sam
Today some of the grade 2s were working with Mrs. Malkoske. We were doing PIP. We picked things that we could write about. I picked fossils. -Jonathon
Today I did Daily 5 and I did work on writing on the computer. I'm star of the week this week. In the start of the week bag there's a book called All About Me. That gave me an idea that I should write about me. I"m not finished it but I"m going to finish it next time I do work on writing. I am also very excited to finish my book because my Mommy is going to look at it and she might say it's very good. -Rhianna
Today we did PIP. I started doing some writing in my notebook that Mrs. Malkoske bought. I am doing research on crystals. I am wondering if when they get over a hundred years old they start to change colours. Tyson is also doing research on crystals. We are going to have fun doing it. -Tristan
Today after lunch we were doing a plan for a boat. I finished doing all the steps. One of my things on my boat is a balloon. -Sydney R
Today we did some planning for our boats. We got to pick if we got a partner or work by ourselves. My partner was Jolene. We designed a boat. I think tomorrow we get to build them. Mrs. Malkoske will get our materials. We got a little booklet that had some stuff we had to work on. -Taylor

Today we got to get our folders for PIP. I'm focussing on planets and I'm going to learn so much about them. I already know lots of things. -Ashley

Today we did another PIP. I picked to research on crystals and rocks. I like rocks because sometimes they have crystals in them and sometimes they are flat and sometimes they are bumpy. Something I learned today is that sometimes rocks have crystals in them. -Tyson

Today during Daily 5 I did a PIP. I am researching about earth and space. -Cole

Today Mrs. Malkoske gave us boat planning books and I made a boat and Andy said it was a nice boat. -Kaspir

Today Mrs. Malkoske gave us a booklet and we had to write down the materials we were going to use to make it. I"m using clay, a glue gun and tin foil. -Sydney H

Today was an exciting day for the children who are beginning their first P.I.P., or Personal Inquiry Project, (and for me too!). On Friday I spoke with a group of my grade 2s about "learning to read" versus "reading to learn". They all agreed that they have definitely learned to read :) They also agreed that they can't read every book that they see, but that they can read and understand most of the books in our classroom. They use strategies to decode text, they can retell the books they read, and they self-monitor for understanding. They are ready for a new challenge. During Daily 5 time, these children will continue to develop their independence as readers and writers as they conduct their own inquiry into a topoic of their choice. In other words, they will read to learn. Each child has selected a topic (a few have their next topic chosen as well), and started today by looking for some books, writing down what they know already, using our computer to find more information and images, and of course, they set up their new binders! It was very exciting for me to see them so engaged in their learning. Quite a few of them chose to take their notebooks home so that they could work on their PIP tonight... they've actually given themselves some homework. :)

As you know, I believe in the "fun theory". For this project the 'fun' is in the stuff... the kids were buzzing about their new binders, notebooks, pens, and dividers (which they were kind of confused but excited about at first). They couldn't wait to put pen to paper and get started. I think the new supplies also make them feel important and in turn, make them see that the work they are doing is important too. I think (hope) it also sends a message about how I value all of their efforts, big and small. A couple of the kids (who had obviously seen my weekend blog post) came in to the classroom in the morning and said "I saw all the stuff you got us for PIP! Thanks! When can we have it?" There were lots of thank you's during our meeting too.

A few small things had them so excited and eager to get started.

I think the choice the kids have for this project is a big part of why they are so excited about it. So much of their time in school is spent learning about the content in our curriculum for each grade level. The truth is that not all kids in grade 2 will be interested in learning about lifecycles, but during our Science time, that's what I need to teach. PIP allows these kids some time for their own learning. During this time they will be learning other life long learning skills that will (hopefully) be valuable to them no matter what they are trying to learn. Skills like finding information, asking good questions, using different types of resources, and organizing and  presenting information... Life long learning skills. I can't wait to see what they find out!

-Mrs. Malkoske

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

Digital Learning Day and KidBlogs!

This morning while I was having my breakfast I was checking my Twitter feed and noticed a few tweets about Digital Learning Day (which is today). Many of the teachers I follow were encouraging each other to try something new with their students using Web 2.0 tools. I thought that this was a great challenge and started thinking about what new technology tool I might share with the kids of Room 9 during our computer lab time at the end of the day today. I thought about putting together a quick FLIP video, or trying out a new tool like Voki or Voicethread, or maybe just taking some time to try out some of the new sites on our wiki. However, during Daily 5 this morning, my plans changed. Here's what happened...

Tristan was working on a piece of writing on one of our laptops and wanted to show me. I sat down with him and read his writing, a detailed piece about himself full of great descriptions and interesting facts. It sounded like the kind of description bloggers post to their blogs to introduce themselve to readers. During our writing conference I shared my reaction with him and asked if having a blog would be something he'd be interested in. He had lots of questions and was pretty excited about the possibility however, he wanted more information before committing to the idea (and I wasn't totally sure I was ready to "let go" of one of my classroom bloggers :) I gave him the option to check out some other student blogs during the next round of Daily 5 so that he could see what other kids in other schools are doing. After a few minutes, he was sold. I set up a KidBlogs account for him within my teacher account and together we posted his first piece.

Little did we know, there were many eyes watching and wondering what we were up to as we moved from laptop to classroom computer. A few students figured out what Tristan and I were doing and word spread through the room like wildfire. For the next few minutes all I heard was:

Can I go next?   I wanna do that!    Is that his own blog?!?    Can I go next?!   Can I go next?!!

As the kids went out for recess, I thought to myself - What have you gotten yourself into now? Setting up individual blogs takes a bit of work, as does moderating all of the posts and comments. But, if a little bit of work on my part will give my students new motivation to write, edit, revise, talk about words and spelling, and to reply to comments and questions about their writing, then I'm sold too. To see an 8 year old boy get excited about writing (of course while playing it very cool) and ask if he can do it at home on the weekend is pretty awesome.

As an educator, I believe that using technology in teaching is no longer an option, it is a necessity. The children in my classroom are "digital natives", meaning they have grown up surrounded by technology and will continue to be no matter what path their lives take. They are "programmed" differently than the adults around them and learn to use technology quickly and efficiently. However, I discovered this morning that using old technology is a different story....

This morning I found some books with cassette tapes in the library and brought them into the classroom for the kids to use during Daily 5. As the first group pulled out their books and the cassette tapes, a discussion ensued (which I assumed was about the book that was chosen) and then one of the members came to me (cassette in hand) and said, "We don't know what to do with this". I showed them how to put the tape in the stereo, and walked away. After about 5 seconds I heard one of them say, "It's not working. It didn't start. It just sounds like shhhhhhh" As I started to walk back toward the group (assuming that there was something wrong with the stereo) one of the kids said "Wait! Now it's going". They of course didn't realize that when you start a tape from the very beginning there is a slight delay as the tape spins to the right place. It doesn't start instantly like a CD or an iPod. That short pause threw them for a bit of a loop. Afterwards when I explained that you could flip the tape over and hear something different, I was met with blank stares. I was not speaking their language. I'm considering bringing in my old record player tomorrow :)

So, I needed to make a decision about who, and how, and when other children would be able to start their blogs. I decided that the best time would be today, while the idea is fresh and their excitement is high. Over the lunch hour I set up KidBlog accounts for all of the kids in our class and decided that we'd try it out in the lab at the end of the day. It went very well with one student, so why not try 25 all at once! As always I was surprised and impressed by my 25. Before I was logged in and had the Smartboard running, most of them had made their way to their blog and had begun posting. They took their job seriously and many decided not to post their piece today as they wanted more time to add to, revise and read over their writing before other people would be able to see it. I think that this makes it all worth the effort. They took their writing seriously and wanted it to be their best work. When the kids write in their notebooks their audience is me and maybe a couple of classmates. Blogging broadens their audience and has motivated many of the children think about the quality of their writing, spelling and word choice, and interest level in just one day... I think that's pretty awesome too.

So here it is... the link to our KidBlogs. Please read them, write a comment for someone, and keep checking back for more! If you leave a comment, here is our criteria :)

A note about KidBlogs...

KidBlogs is a blogging platform that allows teachers to set up accounts for their students under the umbrella of a classroom account. This means that I have complete control over what is posted to each blog. Before any post or comment appears online, I receive an email and then have the option to approve, deny, or edit the post or comment. If the post or comment meets our criteria, I approve it and then it can been seen by others. I moderate everything and choose what goes live.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Many of you know that I connect with a variety of other teachers and educators on-line via Twitter, Edmodo and a variety of other social media tools. Today I noticed a link to the video below. The teacher that posted it is a teacher librarian in our school division and thought it would be a great way to kick off I Love to Read Month. I agreed :) Today we watched it and did a little bit of writing during Daily 5 time. The kids liked it so much they asked to watch it again while they were eating their lunches, so I thought I would share it with you too. Enjoy!
-Mrs. Malkoske


The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Here are some of their comments about the video:
My favourite part was the houses flying all over the place. -Cameron
In the movie I saw a tornado. -Nick
There was a tornado and everything was flying. There was a man riding his bike to home and he was flying. -Sam
When we watched the movie, my favourite part was when the book needed surgery. -Madeline
My favourite part of the movie was when he did surgery. -Rylee
My favourite part of the movie was when all the books were sad because the man was leaving. Then the little girl came and they were happy again. -Ashley
When he came into the different world, he was black and white. Then he went into the house with all kinds of books. When he picked up a book and read it he turned colour. -Tristan
When the man was lending the books to people, and wehn he gave them a book, they turned colour. -Sydney R
In the movie my favourite part was where the books had to have surgery. It was a good movie. -Aaron
In the movie there was a part where the book had surgery and the book was hooked up like a person to see if his heart was beating. When he read the book, there were bumps like his heart was beating. -Tyson
My favourite part was when the man put the little jacket on the book. -Jadyn
When he looked at the book it made him turn colour because he liked it. -Kendall

Number 99...

Today I'm posting by myself as the kids of Room 9 are off to Music class. Our afternoon was very busy and we ran out of time to post together. However, as always, they were very clear about what today's post should say. :) Here is what the kids wanted me to tell you:

This morning during Daily 5 we took a look at a few pieces of writing that some of the children are working on for our next Mixbook. In order for us to be able to see the writing and revise/edit as a group, I took a picture of a few students' notebooks with my iPad and connected it to our projector. We opened the pictures in the Glow Colouring app (a word work favourite!) and we were able to write on top of the student writing to highlight, fix, and add. It was very interactive and the kids loved to see their writing on the big screen :) Here is a picture of one of the pieces we looked at. ------->

In this piece we were able to see that the author was using language that made it sound more like a poem than a story, they were using some WOW! Words (descriptive words) and that they had asked a couple of questions. This group revision/edit was valuable to both the student who's work was on the wall, as well as to other students who were working on similar pieces.

The second thing the kids wanted me to share with you is about an art project that we've started during our inquiry time. We are learning about different states of matter and we have had many discussions about changing from one state to another (solid to liquid, liquid to gas, etc). One of the student in our class talked about a crayon maker that she got for Christmas. She explained that you can melt crayons (solid to liquid) and make new ones. This reminded me of an art project I saw on Pinterest where crayons were attached to a piece of foam core and heated to melting with a blow dryer. Of course, the kids had to try it. They busily peeled broken crayons during indoor recesses last week, and today we did step one of the project... choosing our crayons. Here's a picture: ----->

Tomorrow we'll attach them to our board and blow dry. I have a feeling it's going to get warm in here!

Just one more note... This post is our 99th blog post of the school year!  Be sure to check out our special edition 100th post tomorrow :)

This morning...

This morning I was greeted by one of my grade one boys who had come to school early because his older sister is involved in an early morning club. He asked if he could come into our classroom instead of watching in the gym. I invited him in and told him he could find something to do as I prepared for our day. After a few minutes, and not even a peep from him, I turned around and saw this:

Out of all of the things he could've chosen to do, he quietly took out his writer's notebook and wrote and wrote and wrote. What a great way to start the day :)

-Mrs. Malkoske

Yummy Word Work & Science Centres!

Today at Word Work Mrs. Malkoske got a new word work material. It was crackers and we got to make words with them because they had letters on them. After, when you were done word work, you got to eat them. (And I am star of the week). -Madeline

I did fishy crackers at word work. When I was done my words I ate them. They tasted like cheesy crackers and they were letters. -Nick

Today word work was yummmy. It was exciting to work with things you eat. After your round you could eat them. That's the part that made it yummy! -Ashley & Cameron

Today in the afternoon we had centres. There were 6 centres. There was different groups. Some were with their whole table group and some had one person away to make another group. We got to pick our own spot at our table. After that we got to pick where we wanted to go. -Taylor

We kind of used marbles and we put some water in to see if it would go up or no. -Sam

Today we did centres. I really liked using the marbles and the blocks. It was hard. -Rylee

My favourite science centre was the ones with water. In one of the water ones you filled a cup with water and put marbles into it and see if it overflowed. The other one was there was a container with a line and a big marble. You poured the water into the cup with the line then  put the marble in. -Sydney R

My favourite centre was the one with beads but the beads spilled everywhere! It was still fun. -Kendall

This weekend I took another trip down to Grand Forks with my Mom to visit my sister and her family. We were celebrating my nephew's 4th birthday and watching my niece perform in the North Dakota Ballet Company's production of Alice in Wonderland.

Whenever I go across the border Target is always on my list of places to visit. (After family of course.) When I shop at Target my rule is to only buy things that I can't get in Canada. This weekend I found Cheez-It Scrabble Junior crackers... and they were a huge hit during word work this morning! The kids are always excited to use a new material, especially when they can eat it after. :) -Mrs. Malkoske

The WOW! Word Day

 Today we had a substitute teacher because Mrs. Malkoske had to go to a meeting. Our subs name was Ms. Koehn. (Rhianna) Today Mrs. Malkoske went to a meeting and then she came back with Mrs. Kosolowski. We were talking about snow and Wow words. One of the wow words is white as flour and white as a wedding dress. (Madeline) We had two charts; one was ordinary words and one was Wow words!(Kendall) When it was recess I was playing Lego and we made the biggest houses and mine was a little bit big and I liked it. (Nick) We had gym and there was a subistitute. We played Ollie Ollie Octopus and after that we played soccer and then we played basketball. (Ashley)
Today at lunch, Nicholas' tooth started to hurt and I thought that it was going to fall out. (Kaspir)
Today it was hot lunch. It was pasta from Boston Pizza. I don't like pasta so I didn't get any. (Aliegha)
Kendall's mom brought cupcakes because it was Kendall's 7th birthday. The cupcakes were yummy. (Sydney R)
This afternoon we did math and I finished because I used a ruler. (Rylee)
We did mini bubble art with little pieces of paper. Mrs. Barnes helped us. (Jonathon)
We have had indoor recess for the last week. We are tired of playing inside and want to play outside. (Olivia)

Snowballs!!!

Today we read the book, "Snowmen at Night" and decided to create our own snowball people! Here is a photo collage of our process:

Check tomorrow's post for some photos of all of our snowball people!

Monkey Machine!

This week during our Math time we've been exploring skip counting (counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, etc). At the beginning of our exploration we watched a Youtube video rap of skip counting. It was very catchy! Throughout the week I've caught a few different children singing it quietly as they work. :)

In order to help us remember the counting sequences, the kids in our class have decided to create their own rap videos... from scratch. We started on Tuesday by choosing our skip counting sequence, writing a rhyming introduction (which is much harder than we thought), and practising. Today we used a site called Monkey Machine to create our beat tracks. It was really easy and a lot of fun. Here's a sample:



Stay tuned to see our finished videos next week!

Little Drummer Boy & Winter Wonderland

I love Christmas music! A couple of days ago I hit the local musical jackpot when I came across 2 tweets about local artists' performing Christmas songs. I thought that I would share them with you :)

The first one is a link to the song Winter Wonderland by Winnipeg duo, Keith & Renee. If they look familiar to you, it might be because both Keith MacPherson and Renee Lamoureux were on Canadian Idol a few years ago, and they both work at Moksha Yoga Kildonan occassionally... talk about talent! Here's a link to the free download of their version of the song.

01 Winter Wonderland by keithandrenee

The second tweet was a link to a Youtube video created by Sean Quigley, a 16 year old Oak Park student. In the video he perfoms the song Little Drummer Boy. It's amazing! Here's the video:

Happy Holidays!

Word Work!

This week the children in our classroom are trying out some new materials for Daily 5-Word Work. Each week they practice their individualized word lists using a variety of materials. I'm always looking for new things to keep it interesting for the children as they learn and play with words. Here's a picture of some of the things I picked up last weekend in Grand Forks:

Some of the other materials the children use include:

-mini whiteboards and dry erase markers

-mini chalk boards and colorful chalk

-letter beads

-letter puzzle pieces

-wiki stix (Bendaroos)

-ABC magnets

-ABC stamps

-ABC silly bands

-play doh

-felt letters and the felt board

-using Pictochat on our DSs

They've also been learning some word games that challenge and give them a little break from practising their word lists. Most of the games require the children to make their own words from a given set of letters. We have mini Boggle, Scrabble Slam, the Jumbline App (on the ipad), and Scrabble Flash in our classroom. I am a huge fan of Scrabble and love to play with anyone who has the patience for it. :) Scrabble Flash is fun for kids and adults (trust me, I've played a few games with the kids in our classroom). Here is a video of a group of kids playing Scrabble Flash today during Word Work:

My favourite thing about this game is that it often fosters meaningful conversation about words and word patterns between the players. I've heard children discussing whether or not a word is in fact a 'real' word, giving other possible spellings for words, using what they know about word patterns and vowel sounds to help others make more words, and occasionally sticking letters together randomly only to find out that a word like "mira" is actually a real word. (Usually I'm then asked for a definition...or we take a trip to an online dictionary to find out!) I think the children enjoy the break from their word lists and are having a lot of fun learning!

If you want to check out Scrabble Flash or Scrabble Slam, here's  link to the Scrabble site. Enjoy!

-Erin

A note about conferences...

Conference time can be a very crazy time of year in an early years classroom. Helping 25 children prepare 25 portfolios is always a challenge... but worth every second and every effort! Over the past two weeks, the children and I spent lots of time talking about our year so far, reflecting on the things they've learned, setting some goals for next term, choosing just the right pieces for portfolios, and practising sharing learning with others. The night and afternoon of conferences can be quite hectic, but also very rewarding. I love eavesdropping on the children in my classroom as they talk their way through their portfolios with their families. Hearing the children explain their work, talk about their favourite books, teach their families a new math game, and laugh about something they remember about a project is my favourite part of the night. Seeing them explain, reflect, and discuss all of their learning makes me feel very proud. Watching parents look at their child's work, ask them questions about their learning, and congratulate them on their accomplishments is also very rewarding. It was another AWESOME week.

On Friday afternoon I came across some interesting tweets while I was checking my professional Twitter account. A number of the educators I follow were at a conference where author Peter Reynolds was the keynote speaker. (Peter Reynolds has many great children's books including "Ish" and "The Dot") The tweets were sent by Tony Baldasaro and many were quotes from Reynolds' keynote speach. Here are 4 of the tweets Tony sent. I thought they came at a perfect time. I love it when that happens :)

Here they are:

The last one was my favourite. Simple. To the point. True in everyway. Every child is amazing. 

-Erin



Skypeing with Mr. Hoeppner's Class

we  wher skypeing with  mr.  hoeppner s  class  and  they  wonid  to know  the   criteria  for  skype and  they  wher  asking us questions.
- Kendall, Cameron, and Sydeny H

Today Mr. Hoeppner's class called us to ask us some questions about Skype. His class is new to Skypeing and wanted to know about our criteria and how we us Skype in our classrom. The children in our class did a great job sharing our criteria and answering their questions. We are hoping to connect with Mr. Hoeppner's class again soon!

A note about report cards...

Today I am sitting in a very quiet classroom working on student report cards. I must say that our classroom is a whole lot less exciting (and a whole lot more lonely) without the 25 little people that usually share this space with me.... I am looking forward to tomorrow when we're all together again. :)

Report card writing is not my favourite part of being a teacher. I always seem to struggle to find just the right words to describe what I know about my students. It is a difficult task to put into just a few words, everything that a child has had success with, is working on, and needs a little extra help with. It's just a small snapshot of what I know about each child at this moment in time. Tomorrow, or in a week, or in a month, that snapshot will look different... that child will grow a little more, and know a little more, and have new challenges to face.

As I look at the list of names in front of me I can't help but feel proud of the children in my classroom. Every day I ask children to be kind, to be a good friend, to help and take care of each other, and to try their very best always. On top of all of that they are learning to read, write, figure out math problems, explore science topics, and learn about the world outside of our classroom. It seems like an awful lot to ask of a group of 5, 6 and 7 year olds... but they meet the challenge every single day. Every one of the kids in my classroom tries their very best, wants to learn new things, and rises to any challenge I present to them. I think everyone in this classroom deserves just one mark on their report card... an 'A' for AWESOME!

See you tomorrow,
Mrs. Malkoske :)

Bag Up Manitoba!

Our adventure with Bag Up Manitoba has come to an end. The kids in our classroom worked really hard to collect, count, package and recycle 3733 plastic bags... that's 3733 less bags that will end up in Winnipeg landfills this year. This video documents their work and learning. Awesome!

What Does PEACE Feel Like?

Last week the children in our class read, talked about, and created this video about PEACE. This video is based on the book "What does PEACE feel like?" by V. Radunsky... with a few small changes of our own. The children in our classroom recorded their story and created beautiful paintings to illustrate it. We will share our video at the Remembrance Day assembly next week.