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!

First Guest Reader!

Alexander's Dad (Coach) read us a story. It was called 'Boo!'. -Lindsay

It was a good book. -Nicholas

It was written by Robert Munsch. -Peyton

It was illustrated by Michael Martchenko

A monster kid was scaring everyone. He was scaring everyone and saying "boo!!" on Halloween. -Sam

When Alexander's Dad read us the story, at the end of the story, there was another teenager who dressed up as the same thing except he was a rock star and then he had a big bag of candy (like the same as the boy) and he had a pillow case on his head. He took off his mask and he showed a scary mask but it wasn't as scary as the boy's. Then the boy took all the candy. -Tristan
It was funny. -Olivia
When he said "Boo!" they would scream and fall right over. -Aliegha
It was so scary and when I saw it, it scared me! -Cameron

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!)

Reflections on the Daily 5

This morning I asked the children in our classroom to talk a little bit about what they liked best about the Daily 5 now that we've learned about all of the different components and have had a chance to practice them. Here is what they said...
I like listen to reading because you get to look at the pictures and listen to the stories. -Jolene
I like word work because Mrs. Malkoske bought whiteboards. -Lindsay
Read to someone is my favourite because you get to read to someone else. -Kendall
I like read to self because I sit in a comfy spot and have fun there. -Cameron
I like listen to reading because you can hear a story and you don't need to read it. I also like work on writing. -Olivia
I like work on writing because we can write about what we want and I write different things every time. I do some writing and some pictures. -Tristan
I like read to someone because you get to  hear the other people read a story to you and you get to read to them. -Cole
My favourite is listen to reading because you get to hear the story and there's lots of books on there. -Peyton
I like work on writing because I get to write what ever I want and me and Ashley work together when we need help. -Taylor
I like work on writing because I get to write what I want. It's fun because I can draw pictures and write a lot. I also like read to self because I can read chapter books. -Ashley
I like listen to reading because I like listening to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie because there's a song after. -Jadyn
I like listen to reading because you can go on Tumblebooks and you could pick what ever story you want and listen to it. When you're done you can listen to another one. -Madeline
I like work on writing because I can write about my family. -Rhianna
I like work on writing because I like to write a lot of things. -Aliegha
We can pick where we want to go (and what we want to do). -Jolene
I like word work because you get new words when you get them right. -Brandon
I like listen to reading because I don't have to read a story and it's fun. -Sydney H
I like work on writing because I never draw pictures. -Tyson

Choices, choices, choices! As I read over the reflections the children made, one thing is very clear... They love to have choices in their learning. Choice in materials for word work, choice in which books to read or listen to, choice in what they write about, choice in location for working. When they have choice, they are happy and focussed. They are working on activities that are important to them, and appropriate for their skill level. As I looked around the room today during Daily 5 I saw a room full of children making great choices. At any given time there were children listening to reading on the computer or the iPad, children practicing their words with a variety of materials, children sitting side-by-side reading to one another, children quietly curled up in a comfy spot reading a great book, and children working on writing in their writer's notebooks. What a great way to start the day!

Lots of things to do

Today we came to computer. We played games about spelling tests. We logged on by ourselves. -Rhianna
We are writing our Children Just Like Me book. Today we wrote about friends. -Jadyn
The website was called Spelling City. You had to pick your number. -Peyton
It was a fun day because we had three recesses  and Choir and Gym. -Rylee
We went to Gym and we played tennis. It was easy. -Madeline
Me and Aliegha played spelling games on the Smart Board. -Nicholas
We had 2 new games (Bananagrams and Sumoku). One was for word work. -Jonathon
We went to music today and I had so much fun there. -Cameron
We had fun in Gym because we played tennis. -Lindsay

We Are Thankful

Today we talked about some of the things we are thankful for...

I'm thankful for food and water. -Lindsay, Peyton
I'm thankful for toys. -Sydney H
I'm thankful for recess. -Sam
I'm thankful for tv and my bed. -Olivia
School! -Kendall
That we have clean water to drink. -Kaspir
For our houses. -Rhianna
I'm thankful for our beds. -Alexander
Our familes, food and water. -Ashley
For all of the toys that we have. -Tristan
I'm thankful for brothers and sisters to play with. -Sydney R
My home and friends. -Cameron
Thankful for families because some kids don't have dads or moms or aunties or uncles. -Jonathon
I'm thankful for my family and food. -Madeline
My family. -Jolene
My Mom and Dad. -Taylor
I'm thankful for my family and friends. -Cole
For clothes. -Jadyn
Toys. -Aaron
I love my Mom and Dad. -Nicholas
My Mom and Dad. -Brandon
For other countries. I wish there was more food for people there. -Aliegha
I'm thankful for the stuff that our parents do for us. -Rylee
I'm thankful for my food. -Tyson

This morning I was away at a professional development session hosted by Free the Children. It was and incredibly inspiring morning. Free The Children believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as agents of change. They empower young people to become active local and global citizens and to move their thinking from "Me" to "We".
This year our school has been accepted to participate in the We Schools program. That means that throughout the year we will support children in organizing and implementing change projects, and that some of our grade 5 and 6 students will be able to participate in "We Day" at the MTS Centre in November. I am very excited to see what kind of change the students of Dr Hamilton can make!
As I was sat in the session listening and watching the people from Free the Children talk about their experiences, I couldn't help but think about how grateful I am for all that I have. I hope that you take some time to visit the Free the Children and We Day sites and take a moment to thing about how you can change the world. Happy Thanksgiving.

The Albuquerque Turkey Song

We sang a song called Albuquerque Turkey. -Sam

Here is a YouTube video we found:


The turkey is afraid he'll get eaten on Thanksgiving. -Kendall
It's a great song. It's funny. -Rylee
At the end of the YouTube video they changed the words. It's supposed to be "egg foo yong" but they say "pizza pie". -Tristan
We made turkeys with a brown cup, some tissue paper and some construction paper. Some of us made beaks. We made the feathers by tracing our hands and cutting them out. Ms. Anderlic helped us. When we were almost done, the fire bell rang. -Ashley, Jolene, Jadyn, Aliegha, Madeline
We had our first family groups today. We made flip flops. We got to decorate them. It represents walking in someone else's shoes. -Petyon, Alexander, Jonathon, Taylor, Tristan
My flip flop showed 'angry'. -Jolene
Some of us have new family groups. -Ashley
We had fun in family groups. -Lindsay
For the family groups my group had to choose mad or cheerful. -Peyton
I was in group 2. -Nicholas
We did some writing. I did lots of writing. -Cameron
We had a fire drill today. -Kaspir

Memoirs of a Goldfish

Today we read the book "Memoirs of a Goldfish" by Devin Scillian. Before we read the book we talked about the word memoirs. Some of us made a guess about what it might mean. Kaspir said, "It's kind of like memories". Sydney H said, "it means memories of something that you had." Those were both great guesses. Madeline thought the book was hilarious and so did Mrs. Malkoske. Tristan liked when the snail fainted and he wrote a story like this story but he tried to take on the perspective of a turtle and a crab. Cameron liked when everything went in the bowl. Jadyn liked when the goldfish got mad. Jolene liked when the goldfish saw another goldfish but thought it was his reflection. Kendall liked when it swam around it's bowl once. Then twice. Jonathon liked the cover. The goldfish was stuck in the middle with a sign that said help. Lindsay liked the snail.

We talked about getting a few more pets for our classroom. We are thinking we might need some frogs, another fish, and maybe a hermit crab (although Mrs. Malkoske has been quiet unlucky with hermit crabs).

Children Just LIke Us

We started our Children Just Like Us book. We had to write about our houses, ourselves, and our families. We switched seats and jobs, and we had gym outside. Me and my friends played soccer. -Tristan
It was Rhianna's birthday. Happy Birthday Rhianna! -Brandon
We sang Happy Birthday to her. -Nicholas
We had 3 recesses. It was fun. -Sam
Rhianna gave us cookies after first recess. -Peyton
We drew a picture for Rhianna. -Jadyn
We put stuff in our number of the day and we did some numbers. -Cameron
We started number of the day. Grade 1's did 3 because it's October 3rd. Grade 2's did 19 because that's how many days we've been in school. -Taylor
I wrote a big story in my notebook during free writing. -Jonathon
We had Gym outside. It was hot! -Alexander
We got dragonfly tickets. Me, Jadyn, Ashley, Rylee and Kendall and Nicholas got them. -Lindsay
There were lots of birds in the birdfeeder. -Sydney R
We had a friendly, fun day. -Rylee

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