New Read Aloud || Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

We have a reading goal. We want to read, as a whole group (read alouds) 30 books before spring break! After Christmas we decided to set a goal and track it using www.goodreads.com. When we finish a book we rate it and write a review. You can see our reviews over there --> along the side of our blog. We finished a chapter book last week so this week we spent some time reading picture books we were interested in. Now it is time to start another chapter book. In the past, grade 2's have enjoyed hearing other books by Kate DiCamillo so we are going to give this one a try. Before we started we watched this book trailer:

Stay tuned to hear what we think of it!

The Kids of Room 4 :)

The Best Part of Us!

We wrote a book! Check it out here!!

Our Book!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly allows you to customize your photo book just the way you want.

Walter Wick :: I Spy

In IBL I have started a new project with a grade 3 class exploring the work of Walter Wick. He is the photographer behind I Spy books and Can You See What I See? Today we explored the books with an examining eye and noted what we notice about his work and what we wonder about his work. We collected our wonders on this padlet. We are going to connect with Walter Wick, either online or with a Skype call next week to actually ask him our questions! Then we will use his expertise to publish our own "I Spy" book with our own collections of items. We are all pumped about this project!

Created with Padlet

Global Read Aloud

This month we have been participating the the Global Read Aloud. This is a very cool reading project that uses books to connect classrooms around the globe. Groups in similar grades are all reading the same book and connecting online to discuss, predict and share ideas. We have connected with classes in Canada and the United States!
We are reading "The Year of Billy Miller" by Kevin Henkes. Today we used padlet to post ideas we had about a problem in the story. I created the padlet and then each of the kids posted their own idea in the computer lab. Now we can share the padlet with the other classes we know and have them post their ideas! You can check it out below.

Created with Padlet

Lulu and the Mysterious Mission || Book Review

We just finished reading Lulu and the mysterious Mission. It is the second Lulu book we have read. We really like Lulu and the Brontosaurus so we were excited to try this one.

Lulu's parents are going on vacation WITHOUT Lulu. So she has to have a babysitter. She doesn't want a babysitter. She tries to escape and do sneaky things to get her parents to come home on the next plane. -Kate

This is what we thought of it:

After the Lulu and the Brontosaurus one we had 2 books to choose from, this one and  Flora and Ulysses and the whole class picked Lulu and the Mysterious Mission. It was really interesting. - Gabby

I like when Lulu sang the poem. She sang it because she wanted the babysitter to go. The babysitter's name was Sonya Sofia Solinski or Triple S. -Haylee

I liked when Lulu tried to escape by climbing out her bathroom window and climbing down the tree. I also like the one where she used the top secret code message and tried to get her friend to bring her 3 cats over and SSS was allergic to cats. -Adam

I liked the story because when Ms Solinski transformed Lulu into Lou so she transformed into a lady, a mad kid and a cow. -Jaden

I really liked it because it was funny and I liked when it said "the end" it was spread across 2 different pages. -Addison

I liked the ending of the story but I am not telling what it was. -Anthony

I really liked it because she was trying to escape and it was really funny because Ms Solinski was always finding her. -Kate

We recommend this book 100%, 10/10, 5 stars. We think our siblings would like this book and maybe seniors because they like to read a lot. We also think our moms and dads would like it too. We think Mrs. Henry's class would like it because they are also in grade 2.

An Exciting Guest Reader!!

This week we were very lucky to have a special guest reader! Frankie Hollywood from Energy 106 came and read "Yuck, A Love Story" to us. It was so fun! He was a very energetic guest. He told us that he has been a morning radio personality for 25 years. He has to wake up at 2:45 AM!!! That is so early! He reads for 2 hours before he goes to work. He has to read the latest news, celebrity gossip, and sports news so that he knows what is up for his radio show. He told us reading is very important for his job. He also recorded us saying "Bird's Hill School loves to read" and then played it on the radio twice the next morning! We got to ask him questions too. His favorite sport is hockey and his favorite team is the Jets. He has met a lot of celebrities like Zach Bogosian and Taylor Swift!

Simply Read.

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great summer. I sure did! My family and I enjoyed many days at the lake, at the beach, on the water with our boat and at the park. I am getting ready for the first day of school next week and I came across this great infographic that shows you why it's so important to read everyday. I found it on Pinterest. What are some of the books you read this summer?

My Favorite Chapter Book

Rainbow magic books are my favret chapter books.
They are my favrit becuese to me they are so itresting.
They are about goblens that try to steall juoles from the fiarys.
Even my name is in one rainbow magic book.
The store that has my name in it is called Elisa the Adventure Fairy.
by Elisa

OMG! AAA ART!

On Friday we had AAA art. We're doing our performance with puppets and we're doing it on the book "The Lonely Inukshuk". The characters in the book are:

• The Inukshuk
• Tiriaq the weasel
• Tuktu the caribou
• Qinalugaq the beluga
• Ukaliq the arctic hare
• Siksik the ground squirrel
• Nanuq the polar bear
• Aqiggiq the ptarmigan
• Tiriganiaq the arctic fox
• Attaata the father
• Irniq the son

The book was amasingly made by 15 kids and well probbaly their teacher helped them with ideas but I WOULD'T KNOW! The kids live in Nunavut in Whale Cove

Thanks for listening!   Reading!
-Rachel :)

Book Shopping - Best Job Ever!

I absolutely love it when someone at school asks if anyone is interested in ordering some books for ... anything! My hand shoots up immediately. I love buying books for my classroom, I love buying books for myself, I love buying books with someone else's money! So this time the request was to buy some books for our upper elementary Literacy Lab. Teachers can sign books out to supplement and add variety to their classroom library. I started browsing the Scholastic flyer which always has the current popular series kids want to read. But I was feeling like these are the books they already know about, the ones they probably have, our library probably has and our classrooms probably have. I think it is important to have some of these popular books for the reluctant readers to hook in to but we need something more.
Lately in my classroom I have been witnessing kids really branching out with their reading. There are a couple of kids that are willing to try reading anything I suggest they might like (hello, awesome!). They read the books fast. Within days. This is fantastic for the other kids in our class that like to stick to the same series. They see students with other books that they can't put down and immediately there is a pile of sticky notes in the front cover declaring who gets to read it next. These students that will read anything also like to talk about what they read, telling the rest of the class what they thought of the book, encouraging even more reading. Fantastic!
As I was looking for titles that would inspire our grade 4-6 students I remembered a blog I was pointed to by a friend, Mrs. Loewen. Sal's Fiction Addiction is a blog written by Sally Bender, a fellow Manitoban. Almost daily, she writes a post reviewing the latest book she has read. Sally loves books and this is glaringly obvious from the passion she reviews books with.
I am reviewing her posts and creating a list and her passion is making it difficult to not order these books immediately, read them myself and share each of them with my class! Comments like:

"Here's a book that will stay with me for a long time, and I will be talking about it in classrooms visits. Once started, I just wanted to keep reading. Then, when I had to stop because I could no longer keep my eyes open, it was the first thing I picked up when I opened those eyes this morning."

"How lucky am I that I keep reading books that yell to be shared? After reading The One and Only Ivan, and fervently wishing that there was a classroom somewhere that I could share it with, Wonder rises to the top of my TBR pile! It is a book that packs a powerful punch and should be read in every fifth grade classroom...and don't stop there. It is a story that should be read and savored by anyone who loves books that will impact the way we live our lives. It is a 'wonder'!"

Her blog is most definitely worth checking out and following by email. I get her blog posts right to my inbox whenever she adds something new. Or, like I am doing today, scroll down and click the label/category you are searching for and get a specific list of the books in this category.

Lots of New Books!

Well, not really lots of new books but it seems that way! Lately, many of our students have been discovering new books and authors that they love. The best part is that they are talking about these new books they love and the demand for them is spreading like wild fire! I must say, I am very happy to see something other than "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" floating around here!
We were talking at the end of the day about how we could share our new titles with our virtual audience using a web tool. A simple blog post is fine but a list we could add to continuously with our favourites is even better. As we were scrolling through the blog looking for a tool we had used in the past that would work for this, there it was, at the bottom of our page - our Shelfari! Of course! What better way than our Shelfari!
Mrs. Tresoor and I have been scheming about some "not a boring book report" tasks the kids could do when they are finished reading a book. I found this blog post that got me thinking about the cool ways students could respond to their reading. We want our students to be more accountable for what they are reading. We also want them to share what they are reading with their peers, just like they have been today, because we know how powerful peer opinion is when it comes to choosing a book. We both started with a "Now I am Reading..." chart in the room where students put a sticky note of the book they are reading. When they finish it, they give me that sticky note and put a new one with their title. Today alone, 11 sticky noes were handed in for new ones! Awesome.



The pile of sticky notes from TODAY alone!

 One of the "not a boring book report" tasks we have been planning to introduce was to write a book review on Shelfari (or chapters.ca or amazon.ca etc). Previously I have used our Shelfari myself, adding books that I read with my students, that my students read, that I read professionally and personally. This is probably why it sits there at the bottom of our blog, lonely and ignored. Now that I have used it with my students, they are more aware of it and will be much more likely to scroll allllll the way down there!
You can check out our Shelfari by scrolling down, all the way down (perhaps I should move it???) to the bottom of our blog. Or, you can click here. You will notice not all the books are children's books. I also post some of the personal reading I do here. I think it is important for my students to see me as a reader and see the books that I read when I am at home.
Stay tuned for the book reviews coming soon to our Shelfari!

Expert Projects

We have recently introduced a new element to our Daily Five called Expert Projects. Students can use one of their choices each day during Daily Five to work on a topic of their choice. They may choose to share knowledge from personal experiences or research using books, the internet or other people. These expert projects will be presented to the class as they are complete. Some have been shared here on our Expert Projects page as well as on the student's personal blogs. Students have to set up a plan, follow the expectations set out and work towards the rubric we created.

Daily Five is by far a favorite in our class, primarily because of the choice it gives students. When expert projects were introduced, at least 95% of the students jumped right in to a project. The freedom and variety that these projects offers is very appealing to them. Some students have already completed more than one!

While working on an expert project, students are covering a gigantic range of skills including reading/scanning for information, recording information in jot notes, organizing information, tracking resources, using a variety of resources, writing information in sentences using their own words, publishing work using a HUGE variety of tools (web 2.0 and good old marker and paper!) and speaking to an audience. Phewf, sounds like a lot of hard work. But they love it and have fun doing it so it doesn't feel like a lot of hard work.

It's a win-win for us all :)

Publishing Tools

Just as we are getting back at it, 2 great links came my way via my Twitter network. Both relate to some great new ways to publish student work that we are going to look at this term. These come from GlennW and Mrs Ripp. You can check out their full posts by clicking their names. Some of the most exciting ones in my eyes include:

• Flipsnack - A free site with Premium features, Flipsnack will quickly convert uploaded PDF documents into a cool virtual magazine with flipping pages and it’s easy enough for even adults to figure out. You can view and share the online version in a variety of ways including Facebook, Twitter and html embed codes.
• Issuu - Issuu is another tool that kids can use to upload almost any document format and create a virtual flipping book. Like Flipsnack, you can share or embed whatever you upload.

Mrs. Ripp's post was about alternatives to a "book report" and more interesting ways students can be accountable for their reading:

• Blog about your book; reflect, ask questions, see if others have read it.
• Create a wordle about the word associations you had with the book
• Sell the book to your classmates, how can you get them to read it - written or oral - try this even if you did not like the book, can you still convince others?
• Write a letter/email to the author (even if no longer alive). Tell them what you thought of their book.
• Create a VoiceThread discussing your book's message.
• Pretend you are the author on a Voki and tell us about your newest project.
• Use Shelfari to post the book and then explain why you chose to post it.

Congratulations!

At Bird's Hill School we participate in the Boston Pizza Home Reading Program. If students read at least 20 times for at least 20 minutes, they get a free kids meal at Boston Pizza! Thanks to Ms. Wasney for coordinating this for us.
Congratulations to the following students who got kids meals for their October reading:
Rachelle
Matt
Kirstyn
Kaitlin
Jada
Ashleigh
Jessica
Maxel Mae (who read so much she could have earned 3 meals!!)
Emily
Nick S.

Way to go and keep reading in November!

Publishing With Book Creator

This week i finished my frist story in daily 5. So I got to publish it on the ipad. The ipad is from a group that Mrs.Dent Scarcello is in. I got to publish it on a app on the ipad called "Book creater". Book Creater is where you get to type your book, when you are publishing you get to put pictures in your book. Its very cool and when you are done your book it goes strate into "ibooks" (if you have it) but if you dont have it, it just stays in book creater. Book creater is a great way to share your storys and to get your friends to read them. I  love doing book creater and I can't wait to finish my other book in daily 5.

- Jada :)

My Fantistic TWAS

This week at school I got taught a new game called Banana grams. Banana grams is a game that 4 or 5 people can play and righ now I’m going to teach you how to play.


Step 1: flip over all tiles and then pick 21 if 4 but if 5 15.


Step 2: say “split” and the game starts and you are trying to make as may word or long words.


Step 3: say you have a Q or a V you can say “ Dump” and put the Q or the V goes into the pile and pick 3 new tiles but you don’t want to say “dump” all the time or you will end up with to much tiles.


Step 4: when your tiles are all gone you say “Split” then you win 
That is how you play Banana Grams

This week we did a french paper on Famous people. You had to cut Famous people out of magizene or on the computer. I cut people out of a magizene and i took Justin timberlake and Karry underwood.

But lots of people forgot to bring in pictures but Brook saved the day because she had a teen magizene so every buddy took pictures from brooks Book. anyway then you had to glue the pictures on the paper and write their names.

This week we started a plasic bag round up. Its when you have to collect all the plastic bags you can.

anyway me and Emily were parters so you have to take a bag and turn it inside out of no food or receipt or in the bag. Then you have to line them up in a row of 10 and Mrs. Dent scarcello puts a tally on the white borad. We have 2600 bags so far then round up ends on October 27 so bring all the bags you can. Adress #3950 raliegh St.

In daily 5 i am so close to be finshed my book on the ipad. My book is about my dog bening a super dog and his real sister Emma. My dogs name is Jumbo and he is a dashound i love my dog. I took pictures of my dog around my house on my ipod i also got pictures off the computer. Also in Daily 5 i am reading a book called Dork Diraies and its number 4. It came out on Tuesday afternoon. I just got it on October 13, 2011 or yesterday. I am really enjoying the book so far and i am on page 55.

By: Jada



Video TWAS

This week since while we were doing TWAS we decided to try out our new video cameras to make a mini video TWAS! I compiled the video using iMovie over the weekend but in the future, students will be able to do this themselves using the iMovie app we have on our iPads and iPods.

- Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Quality Blog Commenting

Today we discussed quality blog commenting. A quality comment involves:

1. Read the post you are going to comment on.
2. Compliment - Say something nice, leave a compliment related to the post. 
3. Connection - Make a connection to ourselves or our lives. 
4. Question - Ask a question related to the post. 
5. Leave your name, first name only. 
6. Re-read your comments to check for mistakes.

All comments go to Mrs. Dent Scarcello for approval keeping our blog community more controlled and safe. Our inspiration for this discussion stemmed from our conversations and experiences as well as a blog we follow, Mrs. Yollis' Class. They created a video about quality commenting. I think this is something we will explore next week during our Writer's Workshop in Daily 5!
After our discussion and reviewing how to leave a comment on our blog, we moved to the computer lab so the students could practice. Each child left a quality comment, following our criteria, on one of the posts on our blog. If they had time, they visited our virtual friends over in Mrs. Malkoske's Class to comment on their posts too.
Now, over the weekend, students are going to teach their families about quality commenting and leave a comment on our blog together! On my weekend I am going to teach other teachers about blogging at the MTS Fab Five conference! Mrs. Malkoske and I will be presenting "A Window to the World: Blogging in the Classroom". We will also be presenting two sessions at the SAGE (formerly SAG) conference in October. I am very excited to share the world of blogging with other teachers so that they will be inspired to start blogging with their students. I think blogging is a very empowering experience for children because they learn that what they think and write is important and worth sharing with a global audience.

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


Here is Mrs. Yollis' video:

How to Compose a Quality Comment! from yourwonderfulteacher on Vimeo.

Class Edit - Math! Math! Math! Sharing Our Learning

After Brooke and Rachel wrote and self-edited their blog post to share their learning we used our SmartBoard to edit the post all together. We think they did a great job being the first students to write a "sharing our learning" blog post. Here is our edited version of their post.

Yesterday we learned about ones, tens, hundreds , thousands ect, in math. So Mrs.Dent Scarcello taught us anything times 10 you would put a zero in front of it like 10x10=100! We also talked about when you move to the next bigger place value it always gets 10 times bigger.We got twelve 100 paper squares and cut them up and taped ten of them together to make 1000. We had to find a way to make 10,000 with our table neighbours, one group had 5000 and the other groups needed 1 or 3 more people. We ended up with two groups of 10 000 and one group of 5 000. The total was 25 000 little squares. We took them out to the hallway and taped them together. We counted every single one of them and then we took a pretty picture from one end to the other. We destroyed it after, IT WAS FUN :) !!!!!!
- BrOoKe AnD rAcHeL (edited by grade 5)

Options, Options, Options in Daily 5!

So far I am really like daily 5 the writing is super fun. I used to hate writing because we always had a topic. now writing is super fun because I get my choice of a topic -Jessica :)

I really like daily 5 beacuse you get to write its so fun. In grade 2 i did not like writing at all but now i LOVE  writing. Right now I'm writing a story about  my dog bening a super hero i think its a pertty good story -Jada!

daily 5 is a great way to start the day because a couple years ago i always thout writing was boring but know it is fun because i have topics to write about.-Mason :o

i like daily 5 because you get to write about whatever you want its awesome.Kayla

Daily 5 is really awesome because we get to pick what we want to do. So far we have learned read to self and writers work shop. For read to self it's explains it's self you just read to your self. For writers work shop we can write a story, graphic novel, novel, poems, comics, song, or whatever you want!!! -Peyton :P

daily 5 is really fun because we get to pick what we want to do. Like we could read first for a while then write in are book it is really fun!;) my favorite type of writing is graphic novel and comics!;)-Brooke!!!