Paper Slide Videos :: The Skeletal System {IBL}

The third in our series, the Skeletal System!

The Skeletal System from LeslieDent on Vimeo.

Paper Slide Videos :: The Respiratory System {IBL}

The second video in our grade 5 human body series is The Respiratory System!

The Respiratory System from LeslieDent on Vimeo.

Paper Slide Videos :: The Digestive System {IBL}

I have started working with both grade 5 classes in IBL. They are looking at the body systems in Science so we decided to do paper slide videos in small groups on each of the systems.

The first group were experts on the Digestive System. They wrote the steps to their system and created the drawings you see. Enjoy!

digestive system from LeslieDent on Vimeo.

Time Lapse Video

Last weekend while I had the caterpillars at home, I tried out time lapse photography/video. I set up my dslr camera with a caterpillar that was ready to go into chrysalis and let it got all night, taking a photo every minute and a half. When I woke up I was excited to see how it turned out...the caterpillar was still hanging there and the camera battery had died half way through the night. So, I charged the battery and set it up again through the day. This time it worked! I caught the caterpillar going into his chrysalis. The lesson this time was that the photos needed to be closer together. Regardless, I made it into a video. You will notice that the caterpillar very quickly changes, this is because it happened in a matter of 5 minutes which was only a few photos.

I also found an app that makes this process WAY easier. Of course. It is called iTimelapse and it costs $1.99. Worth every penny! You follow all the steps and the app takes the photos and puts them together (renders them) into a video. You can watch the video right there or share it in a variety of ways. Of course my class thought this was as awesome as I did so we tried it at the beginning of their gym class. This video is of them having their free time warm up and then settling in to their squads.

I am planning to catch the process of the butterfly emerging using this process as soon as they are ready! Stay tuned :)

- Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Weekend Caterpillar Invasion

What a crazy caterpillar weekend! As you know, we have hundreds of caterpillars. We had to buy plants to feed them because they were running out of food. On Friday, I took a bunch home with another net to transfer them into for space and feeding. On Friday evening I moved them all into their cozy, new home. Early Saturday morning I was up to get Emily a bottle, I took one step into the kitchen and noticed something on the floor. I flicked on the light and {*sigh} there were about 10 caterpillars crawling all over the kitchen! I quickly scooped them up and put them back in their net. Then I noticed some on the counter, climbing the cupboards, much farther away in the dining and living rooms and even one all the way downstairs in the basement! Sheesh! Thank goodness I noticed when Emily found a few before she was able to get them in her mouth or squeeze them too hard.

I fixed up their net to make it more secure, and hopefully escape-proof. No such luck! Through the weekend I continued to find caterpillars here and there. I even found one attached to a thank-you card that eventually went into his chrysalis.

I went to school early this morning to get some work done. When I arrived, the caterpillars there needed new plants to munch on so I started dealing with them. As I walked down the hall to our classroom, I saw a caterpillar crawling down the HALLWAY! Upon closer examination, there were about 5 in the hallway and 10 in the classroom, inching their way around. Once the children arrived and heard there had been an escape mission, they scoured the classroom and found a few more, including 2 hanging in chrysalids from tables and 2 chrysalids in the middle of the floor! Geez Louise!

Things are back under control now and everyone is safe in a place. That is, until the chrysalids around the room start emerging and we have to chase down loose butterflies!

Their new home, before it went into lockdown mode with tape and numerous clothespins.

The first escapee - notice his friends further along the floor.

This guy made down three steps and was headed out the door.

In the bathroom...

The first escapees I found, I thought THIS was a lot. I also thought I had caught them all. Silly me.

In the kleenex.

Now that is talent. Climbing the wall!

When Emily got up there were a couple more out, looking for a challenge. She won, easily!

Point, Emily.

Later in the afternoon, this is clear across the house.

All the way downstairs in the basement on some smelly socks!

This guy hid from me long enough to attach to this card. This is where he remains, in his chrysalis. It will be a nice surprise when he emerges as a butterfly and wakes us up!

I was able to watch this one change from caterpillar to chrysalis! LIVE!

This morning at school, across the room, out the door and two classrooms away from his net!

Sneaky, this guy attached to the baseboard. Great hiding spot!

A chrysalis on a table.

And another table.

Random Acts of Kindness

Yesterday we were talking and blogging about random acts of kindness because we got a special delivery from our friends. I told the children how nice it was when they said "good morning" to me in the halls or when they said "bye, have a good night" when they go home because it lets me know they care about me. I also told them how I think it is kind when they draw or colour a picture for me at home because it lets me know they are thinking of me even when they are not at school with me. At the end of the day yesterday, many of the children stopped before they left to say "goodbye Mrs. Dent, have a good evening." Melt my heart :)

Today some of the children were excited to tell me they had paid it forward and went out of their way to be kind to someone. Here are some of their stories.

We were eating dinner and my sister was grabbing a piece of bread and I grabbed it for her and I gave it to her. -Iain

I was playing on the iPad when my sister came down and she asked for the iPad and I gave it to her. -Kaitlyn

I was colouring a picture and my sister asked if I could pass the crayon box and I passed it to her. -Elisa

I was looking for a piece of paper to draw on at lunch when I was finished my lunch and I asked Tommy for one and it was crumpled with a staple hanging out of it and then Tyler randomly gave a blank piece of paper to me. -Max

I went to my sister's room and read her a book. -Katrina

I wanted to help my mom so I dried the dishes for her. -Laine

This morning I got my brother's lunch kit for him before school. -Paige

At lunch I was all done my lunch so Emily W let me look at her Pokémon cards. I only have two of them. -Carter L

I also noticed today that Emily was digging through the pile of duotangs to put something away and she knew that Katrina needed to put something away also. So when she came to Katrina's duotang she passed it to her. That was helpful!

Caterpillars - day 6

they are big and they pop and eat a lot. Hag from the top of the lid and move the poop so get the food. There heads come off. The spikes on their backs are pointy. We have had them for 6 days, one more day and it will be a week.
-Tyler

Paper Slide Videos {IBL}

I am getting ready to work on paper slide videos with the grade 5 classes. They are learning about the body systems and will use the videos to describe the process of one of the 7 systems:

• Digestive System
• Skeletal System
• Muscular System
• Nervous System
• Integumentary System
• Respiratory System
• Circulatory System

Check out this introductory video which describes paper slide videos and the process we will use to make them.



THANK YOU!

Today we got a very exciting and surprising piece of mail from our friends down the street in Ms. Malkoske's Class! They made us nets for our caterpillars! It arrived just in time because our caterpillars are getting SO BIG! We think they might start going to chrysalids before the weekend.

I think it was really kind of you and your class to take your time to make it for us.  -Elisa

I think it was really nice of you and everybody likes the butterfly nets. -Katrina

When we got the caterpillar nets, we hung them up from the ceiling. -Carter L

Thank-you for the butterfly net. weil  uos it as sonyas we get butterflys.-Olivia

We really like the butterfly net you gave us. We are going to use it as soon as we get chrysalids. -Alexa

I like the butterfly net. by Tyler.

Thank-you for the butterfly net. I hope we get to use it. I like the green and blue plates with the polka dots. -Laine

I hope our butterflies will like to stay there until all the caterpillars are butterflies. -Iain

How did you make the butterfly nets? -Paige

When did you start making the butterfly nets? -carter V

How long did it take you to make the butterfly nets? -Olivia

How did you get the idea to make the nets? -Carter V

It's cool how you made the butterfly nets because it looks perfect on the ceiling. -Rebecca

We are going to do something kind to another person to pay it forward. -Iain

Ms. Malkoske's class told us they do random acts of kindness for other people. We really liked this idea. We talked about what this means and decided that we should thank Ms. Malkoske's class and then pay it forward by doing a random act of kindness for someone else. We talked about how this doesn't need to be a great big gesture of kindness but could be as simple as holding the door open for someone, saying "goodbye, have a nice evening" or drawing a picture. So, thanks to the children of room 9 not only for the butterfly nets but for spreading kindness. Your kindness will now be spread even further as we pay it forward!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Chris Hadfield's Trip Home

As you probably heard, Chris Hadfield travelled home from the ISS to Earth yesterday. They departed from the ISS at 6:08 local time and landed in Kazakhstan at about 9:30 pm. Of course, like most of his expedition, this was widely talked about online and streamed live online. In case you missed it, here is a short video of the highlights from his trip home. We will certainly miss hearing updates from space but are glad Hadfield had such a successful expedition and made it home safely!

 

Watching Animals LIVE!

We are live streaming our caterpillars again, you can see the feed along the right side of our blog. As in past years, there are many other animals to watch live online using sites like livestream and ustream. Some popular ones are the Decorah Eagles and the Peregrine Falcons that nest in downtown Winnipeg. The Peregrine Falcon cam will be live from Winnipeg on May 15, 2013.

I also just found an active Eagle nest in Minnesota! There are two eaglets in this nest that hatched 3.5 weeks ago. They have not left the nest yet. Today in their nest there is half a fish they are feasting on!

We will keep tabs on these live streaming animals and typically check in on them each day as we come back after lunch. Watching them sparks some very interesting conversations and learning. For example, today we noticed that the eagle nest looks pretty big. We looked up facts on eagles nests and found that they can be 2 metres wide! That is taller than the children in our class and bigger than the tables we sit at! We also read that eagles nests can be as deep as 4 metres which is higher than our classroom roof. We aren't sure if that is true and need to look into it a little further.

Have a great weekend!
-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Caterpillar Observations

Day 1:

Today we got our caterpillars!There are so many of them!
They are currently in the larvastage, or caterpillars. They are small and black with little spots on theirbacks. They also have spikes.
They came in three containers andwe had to transfer them into small containers with just a few caterpillars ineach. We mixed their food and put it in the containers first, and then we useda paint brush to gently put the caterpillars in their new homes. They will stayin these containers until they are in the pupa/chrysalis stage.

Day 4:

Today are caterpillars are smaler then your finger. Today we figgerd out how much caterpillars we had by adding 6+6+6=18 and we just had to add 0 and that makes 180.The caterpillars grew because they ate alot. Today are caterpillars are in the larva stage. Tommy-lee

Quality Commenting on Blogs

today we are lurning how to leave coments. these are the steps you hafe to fallow to make a cwallite coment

1. read the post
2. compliment
3. connection
4. question?
5. re-read name

today where bloging in the computer lab. where bloging all diffrint things like the song ISS is somebudy singing. there is 20 pepule bloging today some pepule are allso bloging about farie books.

Alexa

This week we are starting the important conversation about quality blog commenting. Since we have just been blogging together for a few weeks in grade 2, it can be a bit overwhelming to learn the criteria and all the buttons to click to get a comment posted. I am more than impressed with the patience and perseverance with our children in learning new skills like this. The quality commenting, quality blogging and global audience conversation will continue through the year :)

When the children are leaving a comment on a blog, they are encouraged to:

1. Read the post to understand what the author wanted to share.
2. Leave a compliment, say something nice about what was written.
3. Make a connection to their lives and what they know.
4. Ask a question.
5. Re-read the comment to fix mistakes.
6. Leave their first name.

Since we started writing blog comments I have been getting emails every evening to approve the comments the children have been sending from home. This is awesome!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Our Caterpillars Finally Came!

The caterpillars finally came on Tuesday, May 7th. We are happy they are here! -Tommy and Sam

There are LOTS of caterpillars. -Tyler

After they came we made the food with water and the mix they sent. -Carter L

We took one scoop of food and put it in the small container. We patted it down with a spoon. Then we put 2 or 3 caterpillars in the small container. -Laine

We had to pick the caterpillars up with a paint brush and then we put the lid on. -Avery

Some of the caterpillars fell of the brush while we were moving them! -Paige

We took a push pin and then pushed it on the lid to make 3 or 4 breathing holes. -Alexa

Our teacher put them on display on the back counter out of direct sunlight. -Elisa

When the caterpillars came they were black with yellow spots. -Paige

They have spikes. -Sam

They are eating a lot. And the caterpillars are working out. It looks like they are doing push-ups. -Tyler

The caterpillars are pooping a lot and some of the caterpillars lost their heads! -Rebecca

They are spinning silk in the containers. -Max

My friend's caterpillar spun a web of silk and stood on it and it looked like it was walking on thin air! -Katrina

Some look like they are sleeping, some look like they are dead. -Elisa

One of the caterpillars was taking of it's head off but it wouldn't fall off. Then the caterpillar was saying "get this head off of me, I don't like it!" -Olivia

One of the caterpillars lost it's head but the head was still eating! -Max

Now we are guessing how many caterpillars there are. We are going to make estimates and use different math strategies to figure it out.

I think there are 530 caterpillars. -Tommy

I think there are 235. -Elisa

Music Monday with Chris Hadfield!!!

We are so excited for Music Monday! Our school will be tuning in to the concert with Chris Hadfield LIVE FROM SPACE!
Here is the live feed, tune in with us!

Video streaming by Ustream
 

Mrs. Turner's Environmentalists! {IBL}

This week I finished up another project with our other grade 1 class, Mrs. Turner's class. The children wrote, edited and typed their tips to help the Earth and we did an art project together using up-cycled National Geographic magazines. Then, each student created their own slide in a Haiku Deck on an iPad. We hope you can follow all these tips all year long!
-Mrs. Dent Scarcello and The Children in Mrs. Turner's Class :)



Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

The #eduphotoaday Experience

On May 1st we started a project that combines a few of my favorite things - photography, technology, connecting with other classrooms and educators, inspiration and writing. #eduphotoaday is a teacher-created photography and writing project based around Instagram, a photo social media platform. Classes around the province are participating by taking their version of the photo of the day based on this plan:

Then, we browse the photos posted by other classes and use them as inspiration in our writing! We took our first photos yesterday, the word was US.

These are the people that decided to put there feet in the grip of kids.we tried to keep are feet as strait as we could. This is #us. By Elisa #eduphotoadaymay

It is the city we live in. If you look farther away it is are cuntre. This is my finger on are city. By Elisa #eduphotoadaymay #us

 Today the word was MUSIC.

Good bay mrs allen are #music student techer. We hoop you have a great year. -Katrina #eduphotoaday

We are practicing ISS for #music Monday next week! @cmdr_hadfield will be broadcasting live on Monday during the national event! The video of the song is on our blog www.missdentsclass.blogspot.com #eduphotoadaymay

Today we also started some writing using the photos from the #eduphotoadaymay feed. There were a huge variety of ideas that the photos sparked; from lists to stories to personal reflections. It was really awesome! There are no rules, whatever idea comes to mind from browsing the photos is good to go.

Max saw a photo of students around their school logo - a hawk. Hawks are his favorite animal so away he went!

Tommy-Lee was inspired to write a fictional story about a band of guitars from a photo of a guitar.

If you are on instagram you can check out #eduphotoadaymay for this month's action and request to follow us @mrsdentscarcellosclass. Also, check out the blog and follow along here on our blog. We will post samples of our writing as we go!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)