Good Times

In Daily 5 I was doing reading to someone and my partner was Sydney R. Her book was New Kitten and it was the Berenstein Bears.- Nicholas
Mrs. Malkoske and Mrs. Masey came to our class and helped us with the writing continium. - Kaspir
I want to write more than one page. -Cole
We looked at our writing in our writers notebook. -Brandon
Today in gym we were learning how to catch and pass. - Lindsay
Today we had gym and we played a couple games, one with balls and we tried to see who was the last one standing. - Ashley
In gym we played hot potato.- Jolene
In gym my partner was Brandon. We almost were standing at the end.- Tyson
In gym today we played two types of ball. My partner was Sydney R and we won one of the games. -Rhianna
In gym we played a game and my partner was Ashley and we had to practice before our little competition. A couple of times we were almost left standing. -Taylor
We did math and my partner was Sydney H. We played number blackout. - Cameron
We played a game that had Bellybutton dice. There was a blue dice inside and a see-through dice on the outside. -Tristan
We had fun playing with the belly button dice.- Rylee
We made a Glyph and it was a gingerbread girl or boy. -Madeline
We made gingerbread mans but they were actually us. - Aliegha
We had a subistitute. We were learning about our Community.- Olivia
We had recess. - Sam
I was late for school because I was at my grandmas house with my cousin. -Alexander
Today Ms. Anderlic wrote the Blog post instead of Mrs. Malkoske. -Sydney R

Today I taught my first actual lesson. We are starting a new Social Studies unit that focuses on Canadian Communities. The children learnt what a community is and what makes a community. I am so happy that the lesson went well; the kids were very well behaved and I am so proud of them. -Ms. Anderlic

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

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!