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

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

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!

all about today

Today we worked on our comic Cole Tristan Tyson Alexander Peyton and Jonathon are makeing A comic. We are makeing all of the carachacters first we are allmost done the cover.  We finished our me on the map. Tristan said we would get 20 pages of paper and we allmost did of our comic.
-Cole, Jonathon, Peyton

Making a Math Video

We maked a math video today. it is a video about cownting by  2s  and  5s  and   we    allso   did    10s     my    gruop     did    2s. my gruop did 10s. my   group  had fun doing 2s and are excited because we did our very own song. It went like this: 2s 2s 2s lets count by 2s, 2,4,6,8,10 lets all count by 2s again.
-Olivia and Rhianna

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

The Skip Counting Day

Today we swtiched jobs and my job is library and my partner is Jolene. Me and Jolene are at a different table but are really close to each other. Today we had a Christmas concert rehersal and the actors came over so we watched them do their play. -Taylor
We had gymnastics and we were doing backward rolls and we were doing cartwheels and we were doing balancing. -Nicholas
Today I got a new job and my new job is greeting. We had gymnastics at lunch recess and I like gynmastics because you can do cartwheels and I like to do cartwheels. -Rhianna
Today we went to music and the actors were there. We also switched seats and jobs. My job is cleanup with Aleigha. -Ashely
We switched seats today and we switched jobs too. I played a math game with Aleigha. - Cameron
Today I went to the dentist but I was here this morning. I came back at lunch but everyone was still outside. -Jadyn
We had music today and the grade 4, 5 and 6s came and watched the rehersal. - Kaspir
We switched our jobs and our seats today. I sit beside Taylor and Olivia. My new job is survey. We played a math game and my partner was Sam. -Madeline
I switched jobs and my partner is Taylor for my job. My old job was survey and I was with Ashley. - Jolene
We switched seats and I sit beside Sydney H. and Cole. - Jonathon
We switched seats and I was beside Sydney and Jonathon.- Lindsay

Today we practiced skip counting by 2, 5 and 10. Here is one of the videos we watched. (Be careful, it is catchy!)

A Special Delivery

After lunch recess, we walked into the room and there was Frisbees in our classroom and everyone got a Frisbee with their name on it. After we got our Frisbees, there were some leftovers so we got to practice with the Frisbees outside in the front and the side. -Taylor

We were throwing them to our partners. My partner was Sydney H. It was feeling great! -Sam

When I was outside, me and Jadyn were throwing the Frisbee and we threw it to each other. It ended up over the fence. Then Mrs. Malkoske had to get it. -Rhianna

Me and Tristan threw the Frisbee together. It got full of mud. I threw it and it looked like it was going over the fence, but it didn't-Cole & Tristan

When we were outside in the front, my partner was Nicholas. We are friends. Nicholas was a really good thrower. -Rylee

I thought my Frisbee was going to end up over the fence. It got all full of mud too. -Jonathon

My partner was Aliegha and Jolene and Mrs. Malkoske. When Aliegha threw the Frisbee it went in the mud and I had to go get it. -Madeline

You put your pointer finger out and hold it with your thumb on top. Then you wrap it with your arm and throw. -Cameron

Taylor was my partner and she was awesome! -Ashley

I caught the Frisbee two times. -Jadyn

My partner was Sydney R and we sometimes hit the glass on the window. -Kendall

Lindsay was my partner. She was a good thrower. -Olivia

My partner was Brandon and we almost went so high, it almost went over the fence. -Peyton

My partner was Alexander and he was AWESOME! -Tyson

When Kendall threw the Frisbee, it rolled and I thought it was going to go in the parking lot. -Sydney R

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.

The Plastic Bag Round Up!

We are collecting plastic bags to recycle them into Frisbees and other stuff. We made jobs like making posters, bag collectors, talking at assembly, letters, and announcements. We do not like to throw stuff in the garbage. We saw a video about the garbage dump. When it rains the water goes through the garbage and it isn't good for the earth. We watched a movie about recycling and making new plastic bags. Here is the video:

Here are some picture of us getting ready for the Plastic Bag Round Up!

 We wrote an announcement to read in the morning.                              We wrote a letter to Mrs. Caldwell to tell her what we're going to do.

We already got some bags from the kids in our class.              We counted how many bags we've collected.        We wrote a speech to give at the assembly.

You can sign up for the Plastic Bag Round Up too! Or send us your plastic bags.

-The children of Room 9

We made posters to put up around the school to remind people to bring in their bags.

When we count the bags we make sure they are empty and we count them in groups of 10 (Thanks to Mrs. DentScarcello's class!)

The Daily 5 in Action!

The children in our classroom have spent the last two weeks learning about the Daily 5. We created lists of expectations together, the children have had many opportunities to practice, and their stamina and independence is increasing every day.
Until today we have been practising each of the five elements of the Daily 5 all together, one at a time. Today was the first day that the children were given the opportunity to choose the order of their Daily 5 activities... and they were terrific! They knew exactly what they wanted to do and when they wanted to do it. They were focussed and independent.
This morning we had time to do three rounds of Daily 5. The children chose between Read to Self, Read to Someone and Listen to Reading. At the end of the third round, each child had compeleted each of the three elements. Here is a short video that shows what our classroom looks like during one round of the Daily 5:

The Daily 5 in action! from Erin Malkoske on Vimeo.