Cards from Across North America

This month our class has been participating in a card exchange with other classes from across North America through Projects by Jen.  The theme this year is snowmen, so our class created snowmen cards, then placed them in envelopes and sent them to our project partners in places like Saskatewan, Tenesse, Florida and Idaho.  The students are very excited with every card we receive and can often be found at the bulletin board when they have some free time. 

Our Busy Class Week

We were very, very, very, very busy this week.

We did two different art projects - Abi
We made Penguines today to put in the gym for our Christmas concert. - Christian
We made little fingerprint snowmen. - Sarah
We learned about how to make a penguin by watching a presentation from the author Oliver Jeffers. - A
We made snowman cards to send to everyone who sent us a card (We are participating in the card exchange across North America Project). - Maki & Rory (and Ms. Nairn)
We have received 10  cards so far. - Morgan

We had library but it was cancelled - Kylie
We had gym today.  In the moonroom we played soccer - Zane
We had grade 6  and 8 students from Arther Day help us in gym to play soccer. - Rory

This week we had a field trip to The Manitoba Museum - Kaydince
We went on the sailboat - Aidan
There was a bunch of different skeleton bones - Nick
When we started the field trip we saw a bison with people on horses hunting them. (They were plastic) - Daniel
We got to see the Touch the Universe program.  The instructor made a rocket out of film canister -
Max
We saw the old town - Mimi
I liked when we went on the pulley chairs - Sarah
We had in the Manitoba Museum - Jana
I didn't get to go to the museum because I was sick - Lily
I liked the Matrix.  The Matrix was alot of mirrors and lights - Josh

Growing Global Connections

This week as we started composing a letter to a class we connected with in England during our Monster Project, I realized much global connections and using technology has become an accessible and natural part of our everyday routines. 

Every day I am seeing the students become more globally aware as they run their fingers over the world map in our hallway to find places we've talked about.  They bring up a conversation we have had with another class via skype or e-mail when discussing the topics we are studying in our classroom.  They are using our blog to extend their learning at home, and as a way to share their learning with their families (Thank you to Christian's Nanna for letting us know that even some extended family is keeping up with our classroom community).

The moment this week that made me realize my students are definitely 21st century learners was when as we were writing our letter, two students raised their hands and asked "Can we skype with them?", like it was something they'd been doing for years.

Ms. Nairn

Where in the world are you from?

As I watch our viewer counters go up, I am seeing more variety in the locations of our visitors.  This past week I noticed visitors from Beauséjour, Manitoba,   Medford, New Jersey and a few weeks ago on from Tasmania, New Zealand.  I am curious to know (and I know my students are too) how our new visitors have found our blog and what they think.  So whether you're a new comer or a long time follower of our blog we invite you to comment on what you think and where you are from.

Science - Cars for Mr. Box

We have been building cars, modelling our classroom routines to teachers from other schools and continuing to talk about good fit books this week.  Here is what has excited us most this week:

Mr. Box is a little bit lego man - Aidan
Mr. Box likes all our cars - Kylie
He loves every single colour even girl colours.  He is a boy too. - A
Mr. Box has three boxes of luggage  - Nick
Our cars have wheels - Maki
Mr. Box needs a ramp - Dylan

Today we had an assembly about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team.  They are going to the Grey Cup. - Kaydince, Josh and Christian
We did a letter to Ms. Morris' class in England - Rory
We had Ms. Nairn's nephew visited this afternoon - Maki
We had two guest teachers come to our class to see what we're doing for Daily 5 - Nolan
We were modelling for the two teacher - Kaydince
We had to unwrap books because we were learning about good fit books. - Christian and Kaydince


Photos taken by: Christian, Mimi, Josh & Morgan

Good Fit Books

This week we had the opportunity to have Ms. Gauvreau come to our class and talk to us about Good Fit Books.  Here are some of the things we learned as well as other things we did this week:

Good fit books have most of the words you know - Nolan

Ms. Gauvreau talking to us about Good Fit Books

Books are good for your reading and for your brains - Kylie
& Daniel
We have fun with good fit books - Jana
We had another teacher come and we did a good fit books rap - Maki
We had a teacher come talk about good fit books -Kaydince
Don't pick too hard books because you won't know most of the words but you can try another day - Sarah
Don't pick too hard books cause you will just mess up what you are reading - Rory
Have fun reading and don't sit right beside your best friends or you'll distract them. - A  

We are making a car for a lego guy named Mr. Box. - Keiran
The car for Mr. box has to go down the ramp, has to have 4 wheels, hold 3 blockes, have a safe spot for Mr. Box and look cool, nice, and detailed. - Nick

We are having a Christmas play - Mimi
We are going to have Christmas and after Christmas is my birthday - Daniel
We had assembly this morning and we got to see grade 4/5 dance club perform - Jana, Rory and Christian

By Ms. Nairn's Class

Our Class Week

Performing our doubles wrap for the grade 1 class

We skyped with another class today.  They did a rap about good fit books and we did a double's rap.  The class we skyped with was a grade 1 class.  We said "hi" and our principal from kindergarten is now their principal.  We asked them questions.  We had fun skyping.  They go for recess the same as us.  This is our second time skyping.






We had gym this week.  We played Yoshi island, treasure island and chicken pox.

We had our Remembrance Day assembly.  We heard a song about the soldiers and it was really sad.  Also we heard orff club.  We had poppies to put on our shirts too.  Some of the students in our school drew pictures about Remembrance Day.

We finished our monster and we have to take him down because he is too big to keep for the whole year.

By Ms. Nairn's Class

Our Last Day with our Monster

 

Our First Skype Ever

The day has finally arrived!!!!  Today marked the first time we Skyped with another class, and they were Mr. Ferguson's grade four class.  We enjoyed sharing details about our monster making journey and asking questions about where the other class lived.  Here is what the students had to say:


We skyped with another class today.  They were from New Hampshire, United States.  We got to see what they look like because we were video chatting.  We had fun.  We got to see their monster's head.  They see deer, moose, coyotes, foxes, black bears, mountain lions rabbits, chipmunks and porcupines in their back yards.  When they look out their school window they see mountains.  And they get to ski on the mountains.

Our classmates asking questions to Mr. Ferguson's Class

After we skyped we went for recess.  There was snow on the ground.  We played with the snow and some of us made snowmen.  Some of us made a giant snowball.  And some of us even made snow balls and Ms. Nairn took some pictures.

This picture slideshow created with Smilebox

This is what it looks like when we are writing our whole class blog posts like the one we wrote today.

Polar Bears in Manitoba

Polar Bear Cam - Tundra Buggy - Polar Bears - explore

Check out this link!!!! I was talking with a friend this weekend, and they mentioned this website. It is a live streaming camera that was set up in Churchill, Manitoba. The camera will actually zoom in if there are Polar Bears of other creatures in the frame.

The camera is attached to a tundra buggy, which is a vehicle that is used up north to travel and observe wildlife safely.

I spent about 15 minutes watching a Polar Bear sleep, and it was so close I could see it breathing.


Ms. Nairn

It is November

We had a busy week at school.  Here are some of the things we did:

We went to phys. ed. and we did some warm ups.  Then we played something like chain tag. - Devan

We have a good school because we do good work and we get rewards, like gum. - Kylie

We go to computer and we look at other people's monsters. - Noah

We had choir.  We sang a song about peace. - Maki

We had lots of fun today because we played games in math.  The game was about even and odd numbers. - Nick

We learned a new song called Doubles, Doubles.  We are going to sing the song to a grade 1. - Morgan

We had a fun day today because we had gum and we had choir too.  - Mimi

The other monsters look nice too! - Daniel

written by Ms. Nairn's Class

The Monster

We have had a very eventful week:

Our monster is done and it is scary (you can see the picture) - Kylie
Our monster's  name is Puffle - Rory
The tail of our monster is long - Daniel
Building the monster was fun - Nick
It took a long time to make the monster - Kaydince
We had so much fun building the monster - A
We like our monster - Lily
We put alot of work into the monster - Keiran

We had baby Lauren and she layed on her back - Devan
We had fun with baby Lauren - Mimi

We had an assembly and we sang Halloween songs - Abi
We had a Halloween party - Morgan
We had Halloween gym - Maki

 

Our Monster

Enjoying our Halloween Party

The first half of our monster building

I am sure most of our students' families have by now heard something about the monster building project.  I discovered it this summer while exploring different ways to connect with other classrooms around the world.  There are 42 different classrooms participating and each class was tasked with selecting and describing one part of our monster.  I pre-chose the legs and together as a class we described them as:

3 legs, blue, green, gold, 3 feet long, 1.6 feet wide, squishy, scaley, stripes, and glittery

This means each of the 42 participating classrooms with have a monster with 3 legs.

Back in our class, pairs of students have been given a body part to work on and the description of what it should look like.  The pairs must then decided what materials to use and work together to make their part. (Special thanks to all the families who donated various materials to our project, we greatly appreciate it.)   

But the teamwork doesn't stop there.  Each group must also work with the a joining part's group to figure out how to attach the pieces together (for example, the foot group has to also work with the leg group and the toe group).

We hope to have a chance to skype or e-mail some of the other participants, or visit their blogs to see how they are constructing their monsters.

Below is a slide show of our class sorting the body parts to see which ones connected to which, and then us building them.  Also included are two videos of students explaining their plans.

Ms. Nairn

Create your own slideshow design

Our short week

It was a short week at school this week, but we got alot accomplished.  We did not get a chance to write a end of week post as a class because we have been working hard on our monster project and everyone is busy with their piece of the puzzle (I will write more on this later this weekend).   

We also had a visit by our community outreach police officer who talked with all the grade two and 1/2 classes about bulling.  I am seeing our students put in to practice the lessons she taught us about sticking up for each other and standing up for yourself.  Every day I see evidence of what a caring and empathetic classroom community everyone has helped create.

We can now do 20 minutes straight of writing and students are getting opportunities to share their hard work with the rest of the class.  It is a delight to see students taking such joy in their writing and I am seeing a lot of growth, our class has come along way in two short months.  As a teacher there is nothing better then seeing students get excited about something, especially writing.  One student this week came up to me after his guided reading session and said "Ms. Nairn, I hope I didn't miss writing".

I can see each child in our class gaining confidence, and getting excited about the new discoveries and connections they are making.  Keep up the great work Venus 1!!!

Ms. Nairn

Some of the students enjoying work on writing:

Our first step in our monster project was to get our creativity flowing by designing our own monsters on paper:

 

Today was crazy hair day and here are some of the fashionable hairdo's:

Writing a letter for our principal, Mr. Code

This term Venus 1 is learning to write friendly letters.  We have been working on our first letter together so that every understands all the elements of a friendly letter.  Below is a description of the process in the students own words.  Our next step will be to write letters as small groups, and then individually to our university writing buddies.

We wanted to tell Mr. Code that he is a nice prinicpal and we are learning how to write friendly letters.  As a class we wrote a letter for Mr. Code

To write our letter first we brainstormed some ideas we could use  to write as a class.

We wote a rough copy to get our ideas out.  Then we crossed out some words and put new words in to make it better and to make more sense.

 Then Ms. Nairn used the edited copy to make a new one, using her best writing.

The we sent it to Mr. Code

Mr. Code liked out letter and he wrote back.

 Written by Ms. Nairn's Class

Photo of Mr. Code taken by Josef

Math games and the police officer!

We went to Computer and we played a math game by 2s,5s,10s,and we had fun at are blog  and  we saw a sign that said Happy holidays from room 14. we had so munch fun at class. We had computer on friday. we had the police officer come today and it is Tuesday!!!

Written by: Kaydince and Christian!

         

Photographs taken by Christain

Work on Writing

This week we have been building stamina in our writing.  I have seen lots of growth in all of the students.  they are working hard to writing longer stories with interesting details.  Here is what some students had to say:

We are having fun - Rory

We are writing about our monster project - Maki

Working on writing helps you learn more words - Nick

I hope everybody made a long sentence - Abi

I wrote a story about dolphin vs. shark - Nolan

I wrote about a dog vs. a puppy - Zane

I wrote about my two guinie pigs yesterday and the day before - Lily

I wrote about surfing - Max

Writing is fun - Josh

I wrote about games -  Devan

My next writing about bay blades - Keiran

I wrote about dog vs. cat - Christian

We don't talk while we're writing - Morgan

We have fun writing - A

We like to write at work on writing - Sarah

I wrote about I went to my cousins - Daniel

I hope everybody worked hard - Mimi

No yelling during writing - Noah

We build stamina - Aidan

I like work on writing - Ethan

We do hard words and we try our best - Kylie

Ms. Nairn's Class

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving fellow bloggers and followers,

There was not a lot of posting this week as I was out at some workshops and students had Friday off school.  On Monday we said goodbye to two of our students who are moving to Ms. Matsumoto's class, they drew us a picture and as a class we created a tree with leaves the shape of our hands for fall.  You can see both the picture and us creating our tree below.

I hope our Venus 1 families have a great Thanksgiving.

See you on Monday,


Ms. Nairn

This free slideshow design made with Smilebox

Roots of Empathey

the baby is cuite.    Her name  is Lauren.    We  got   to  sing  too  the  baby.    We got to tuch  her feet.    she opened  her  eyes.      she  was  hungry.   she sucked  on  her  hand.      she cryed.     her moms  name is krista.      Roots  of  empathey is fun.     we  mesherd   her.   we  Layed  her  on  a  blackkit.    ms .burns  helps  out.

Written by: Nick and Rory

Some Art!!!

A week ago, Mrs. Koehn our guest teacher did some art with the Venus 1 crew.  She placed a reinforcer on each student's papers and everyone had to incorporate the circle into their art.  Here are the results...

Coming Up Next....October

October will be an exciting month in our classroom:

- We will be participating in the Global Monster Project, along with 42 other classes around the world including classes from New Zealand, Russia and England.

- We will continue building stamina in daily 5 and add Word Work, Read to Someone, and Listen to Reading into our daily choices.

- We will continue to correspond with our University of Manitoba writing buddies

- Our whole school will be collecting money for UNICEF by participating in dress up days such as crazy hair day and sports day (stay tuned for fabulous photos)

- We will have new places to sit in our classroom.

- We will continue to study position and motion, with the end goal of creating our own cars.

- In math we will continue looking at patterns around us and learning new addition and subtraction strategies.

- We will get to meet baby Lauren

- We will continue blogging with our class buddies Mr. Hobley's grade 4 Hobloggers from Birmingham, Michigan and Room 14, our grade 1/2 bloggers from Richmond, New Zealand.


Ms. Nairn

Our Classroom is Good

This is our fourth Friday.  It is also the end of the month.  Here is our week at a glance:

We went on a community walk. We were looking for things about our commuy- Abi

Veronica and Rebecca are moving to another class starting on Tuesday - Veronica

It is Rebecca's birthday tomorrow. - Rebecca

We have daily 5 in our classroom and it is really fun - Sarah

We had math today, we did a rainbow seating game and then we acted out a story.  We also worked on 0 facts like 5 + 0=5 - Mimi and Maki (twins)

Today we had phys. ed. with  a guest teacher and we had music with our music teacher - Kaydince

We had math and we had really really fun.  We were making patterns and then we took a picture.  You can see some of our patterns below.   - Morgan

Can you find the core and the type of patterns we made?



Ms. Nairn's Class

Ms. Nairn's Class

This week we did lots of things:

We did art with Ms. K our guest teacher - Mimi

We got our school photos taken earlier today - Nick

 We did math games with Ms. K and Ms. Nairn - Maki

We got cupcakes on a student's birthday - Rory

We did daily 5 for 20 minutes - Devan

It will be another student's birthday on the weekend - Sarah

We get to see  baby Lauren 10 times this year - Kaydince

We trained for when baby Lauren comes - Daniel

We ran in the hallways for Terry Fox - Christain

We saw a video about Terry Fox - A

We saw a puppet show where two kids had cancer - Nolan & Kylie

Written by Ms. Nairn's Whole Class

Photos by Nolan

Coming Soon....Roots of Empathy

Our class is excited to be participating in the roots of empathy program this year.  We will have a special visitor come to our classroom next week and once a month after that, as we learn about caring and respecting others.

Parents: A note was sent home today that needs to be signed so that students can participate in this program.  Please return the note by Monday, September 26th.

Our Class Promise

Today we added the finishing touch to our class promise.....our signatures.
We have agreed that these are the ingredients needed to create the best class environment possible.
 

Our Hopes for Grade 2

Last week we read the book How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers and then wrote down our own hopes for Grade 2, an idea I got from the 200 Awesome Days blog.  Here is a video of what we came up with:

The Friday of Our First Full Week

We had a full week:

We won crazy candy Friday for the first time in grade 2 - Nolan

We had gym and played a new game called squirt - Rory

The first time we learned about what the classroom has and then we wrote in the black lines and then we showed Ms. Nairn and then we were done. - Mimi

We played soccer in gym - Devan

We spelled words - Maki

We did I Pick (for daily 5) -  Rebecca

Yesterday some of us went to a BBQ - Nick

We are going Mad science soon - A

Today we did a math game with money - Kaydince

Ms. Nairn's Class

Mad Science and Math

This morning we had a presentation from Mad Science.  They will be running an after school program for 8 Mondays starting September 26th, after school.  Students who wish to attend must fill out and return the form they are bringing home today before September 19th.

We have been learning new math games in class and today we played More or Less.



Photos Taken By: Kaydince

Photos Edited by: Kaydince and Daniel