Library Guest Readers!!

In library we have started having our classmates volunteer to read to our class! It is so fantastic to see them so eager to read in front on an audience. This also tells me that the children feel safe in front of our class which is always a goal of mine. We have a fabulous group of readers this year and the books they choose are great! 

When reading in front of an audience we try to remember to read loudly and clearly, show the pictures to the audience and use animation in our voices. 

Our first guest was Jace and this week Madelynne read to us. Hey did a great job!! Up next is Sarah!

The Rock Star of Outer Space

Last night Chris Hadfield was at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg! I was really disappointed to miss it but my lovely mother went and stood in line (for a verrrrrry long time). What a champ! Morgan from our class was also able to go. She posted to her Kidblog about it!! Morgan's mom told me: 

Morgan told Chris that she liked his videos, particularly the 'sleeping in space' one. She said she wasn't fond of the 'brushing teeth' video because he had to swallow toothpaste. His response? "We gotta do what we gotta do up there!"

Here they are!

Polar Bears in Churchill!

Thanks to Ms. Wasney for the heads up, the polar bear video stream in Churchill, Manitoba is live! The best viewing is from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm but they have clips from the day posted in the evening as well. Click this link to see them live for yourself!
This is a snapshot taken from the live stream!! What a neat experience THAT would have been! The polar bear is standing up on his hind legs trying to get a closer look at the people in the tundra buggy!

Happy Halloween

Today is Halloween! At our school we all get together in the gym and each class has a chance to parade around and show off their costumes. There were some fabulous homemade costumes this year!

We got to dress up in costumes and parade around the gym. My favorite costume was the fortune teller. -Sarah

I liked the two Monster High costumes. -Rhyan

My favorite costume was the two boys dressed as girls! -Adrianna

My favorite costume that I saw was an iPod! -Carson

We got to have a party with treats and chocolate juice in our classroom. -Carter

People go trick or treating and they get candy. -Rhyann

Trick or treating is going to be fun. -Lucas

Quality Commenting on Kidblog

Since we seem to be getting the hang of posting to our student blogs, I thought it was a good time to venture into the world of commenting. A number of my smarty-pants 7 year olds very quickly figured this out on their own but we hadn't set criteria for leaving comments.
I referred back to my tweep, @pernilleripp for a great way to explain the type of comments we want to write. We discussed and compared the difference between "highway comments" and "dead end comments". It always feels great to get a comment and know that there are people out there reading your posts, but we are hoping to generate discussion with our comments.
Dead end comments are kind and usually involve a compliment. For example, "Great job on your post, Leslie!" A highway comment is kind and complimentary but it also opens the door for discussion to begin. For example, "I really enjoyed reading your post, Leslie. I am reading it in Vancouver, Canada. Can you find that on a map? In Vancouver it is warm and sunny right now. What is the weather like in Winnipeg?" One of our main goals in commenting on blog posts is to start a conversation. When a commenter asks a question, the blogger can reply to their comment with the answer and perhaps another question.

Our criteria for quality commenting on blog posts is:

• Be kind and appropriate.
• Give a compliment.
• Ask a question.
• Make a connection.
• Re-read your comment for spelling, punctuation and upper case letters.
• Sign your first name only.

We would love to hear from you too! You can comment to us on our class blog, here, or on our Kidblogs as well.

Halloween Howl at the Henderson Public Library

Henderson Public Library is hosting an exciting Halloween event that you may be interested in. I double checked with the library and it does not matter if you have a library card or if you are not residents of the City of Winnipeg, you are still welcome to attend. As it mentions on the poster, please call to register. Happy Halloween!!

Finally Online! Adventures in Kidblogging :)

We are so excited that our blogging adventure has finally landed us online! While the children may have thought it was a drawn out process and that I talked too much (who, me?!), I am very happy with my new "road to student blogging" plan. I used many ideas from one of my tweeps, @pernilleripp http://pernillesripp.com/. This was the perfect opportunity to go through all the important things about being online like digital citizenship, global audiences, quality posting and (still to come) quality commenting. While I did this in the past, I don't think it meant as much to the kids because I did it in a mini-lesson style while they were in the computer lab or in conversation when it came up. Covering these things in a more formal way was more meaningful to them and I can see they are taking it seriously.
It also made the moment today when they actually got to use their real, live personal blog a big deal. They are taking the responsibility of having a personal online space seriously and they did a great job. There are so many little things to learn along the way.

It's not just "start your sentence with an upper case letter" but rather, "how do you make an upper case letter on a computer?"

"Where is the period?"

"How do I make an exclamation mark or a question mark?!"

"What's my password again?"

"WHY ARE ALL MY LETTERS UPPER CASE? I JUST WANTED ONE!" {a mini-lesson about CAPS LOCK!}

Saving a favorite so they can get back to their kidblogs next time, the importance of a catchy title to entice your readers, adding detail, re-reading your post to make sure it makes sense. It is really amazing how brilliant these little 7 year olds are. The number of little details we ask them to learn,  understand and remember for next time is really unbelievable. The even more amazing part is when they actually do!

When I talk to other teachers about blogging with young students, the topic of editing student posts always comes up. "You're going to publish it with all those mistakes???" Here is my theory. This is their space. I will guide them and teach them and many, many little lessons on spelling, punctuation, meaning, and purpose will come from their blogging. I look at their posts before I publish them and if they have met expectations as we have set them as a class (see the last photo), they get published. I want their posts to be a reflection of who they are as writers and learners right now. As the year goes, their blogs will show amazing growth in their writing just like their paper/pencil work in the classroom will. If I expect perfect spelling before each and every post is published, a single post would take many, many days for some kids. This will discourage them from writing and that is exactly opposite of what I am trying to do.

Please check out our first posts and leave us a comment. Comments from our global audience and families are a major driving force in our purpose to blog.

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

It was exciting to start our own kidblog. -Rhyann

I had fun starting our own kidblog. I like to type my post. -Anthony

It's hard to find which letter you need to type the words on your kidblog. -Carter

I thought it was hard to type all those letters. You get exhausted after you are done your kidblog. Our criteria was to use punctuation and upper case letters for name and the start of a sentence. -Carson

I like my new kidblog because you get to do lots of stuff. -Georgia

Everything has to make sense for your own kidblog post. You have to go back and check for mistakes before you press submit for review button. -Carter

You had to re-read your post  before you save it. -Madison

When you write a blog post, it has to be appropriate. -Matthew

To make an uppercase letter, you press shift and the letter you want. If you press CAPS LOCK all the letters go upper case. -Anthony

Put spaces between your words or ifyoudon'titwillbehardtoread. -Carter

If you put something inappropriate, Mrs. Dent Scarcello won't approve it to publish. -Carson

Check out these typing skills! Carson will be able to type without looking like his teacher one day soon!

We have posts!

Our criteria or checklist for blogging

Paper Blogs! {IBL}

We made our paper blog posts. We wrote something about us like what we like to do. -Carter

We tried our own blog posts on our blog paper. -Corbin

We always start our sentences with upper case letters. We end our sentences with punctuation. -Anthony

We have criteria for blog posts. We have to sound it out if we don't know or ask a friend. And no personal information. Include all the important information and it has to make sense. -Carson

Don't use your address and be kind when blogging. -Georgia

We use a catchy title for our blog posts so people will keep on reading. -Adrianna

If you don't know how to spell a word, sound it out or ask a friend or look around. -Mikaela

When we are done we gave it to our teacher. -Lucas

It was fun making our paper blog posts because soon we are going to have our own blogs. -Isabella

I loved writing the sentences because we will have our own blogs someday. -Rhyann

Question of the Day :: Daily Routine

Today we learned our third activity in Daily Routine. These are math activities that we rotate through each day. Right now, while we are learning them, we all do the same one. Later, when we know the drill we will have three groups doing different things at the same time and we won't do the same thing each day. The one we learned today is Question of the Day, it's the noisiest but we like it the  best.

It was hard keeping track of all the names. To know who we asked already we write down the initials when we ask them. -Rhyann

It was easy to ask people the questions because you just have to go to them. If someone is busy we don't interrupt them, we wait. -Anthony

It was fun doing this because it was fun finding out about people that like our stuff. -Carter

We wrote down a question to ask our whole class. We thought about what question we want to ask the class. -Adrianna

When we are done asking everybody we count the initials and write the number at the bottom. -Rylee

Lots of people asked the question "what do you like better this or that?" It is kind of boring when everyone gets the same thing that they like. - Carter

Lots of people asked about pizza. Lots of people used Mrs. Dent Scarcello's example as their question. Next time we could choose different questions because it gets boring. -Carson

The other kind of question we could ask is a yes or no. Like "have you ever went to the states?" -Jace

"Have you ever gone to the Bomber game?" -Rylee

When we are done with the front, there are questions on the back that we answer to analyze the data we collected. Once the kids get beyond asking about hot dogs, pizza and ice cream, they find out some really interesting things about each other!

This is our Kidblogs

We did something REALLY awesome this week!!! - Matthew

We went to IBL and went to the computer lab. We found out we were going to start our own kidblogs. We are the only kids in the school that will have our own kidblogs. - Adrianna, Mikaela

We are SO excited because no one else has a blog. - Morgun

When we use our blogs we might be able to talk to other people. People who read our blog post might leave us a comment. - Anthony

The world can see our blog which is a good thing but we have to be careful not to share personal information. - Adrianna

We made paper blogs to understand what a blog is. We had to leave the big box blank because we still need to learn about writing a blog post. - Anthony

It will be awesome when we finally get on our real blogs! - Rylee

We are interested in learning about blogs because it is a new thing. -Rhyann

It's going to be awesome when we finish our real blogs. -Lucas

Seasonal Changes with Grade 1 {IBL}

In IBL (Inquiry Based Learning) I am working with grade 1. I taught a grade 1-2 multiage class a few years ago but my memories of September grade 1 children have faded a little. I absolutely love working with grade 1, they are SO excited to see me and are gung-ho to do just about anything I announce!! In Science they are learning about Daily and Seasonal Changes so we are focusing in on the changes animals go through in the different seasons. We talked about the seasons (no, Christmas and April are not seasons...) and some of the things they know about the seasons and then they got to use sticky notes and smelly markers (best writing lures ever) to post their ideas in each season. I reminded them that if they didn't know how to spell an idea they had, they could just write the sounds they hear, stretch out the word, etc. This was followed by some awesome ideas that the children wrote independently! There were also a few of these:

child: "I did one!"
me: "Awesome! Can you read it to me?"
child: "Umm, I don't remember what I wrote."
me: "That's ok, I think it says               "
child: "Mhmm, I think so too."
I love it.

I posted this photo to instagram the other day - such a great reminder of where these new little writers are at. :) It says "the snow is melting so we can play outside at the beach!"

International Dot Day!!

This Sunday, September 15 is International Dot Day! It is the anniversary of publication of a great book, The Dot by Peter Reynolds (great author). We started celebrating today by reading The Dot and talking about being ourselves when we work on art at school. Each piece we create is our own and should look the way we want it to look. Art is what we want it to be! We started Kandinsky Circle art, one of my favorite pieces to do at school. It always looks so amazing when they are all done and we post them all together. I love circles (and polka dots) and I love colours. On Monday we have some other activities planned and don't forget to WEAR DOTS!

Getting Started with Kidblogs! {IBL}

"It's a big responsibility, you're the only ones in our school so far with personal blogs. Can you handle it?" You can imagine the intensity of fist pumps and quiet "yessss" under their breaths.

Today the children in Room 9 are embarking on a blogging adventure. Each child will have their own blog space on Kidblog that will be all their own. I know they expected to come to the lab and "get on the blogs already" but there is a lot to talk about first. We started with, and will continue to talk about being responsible digital citizens, how to write quality blog posts and quality commenting. It is very important to me that the children appreciate the responsibility of having a global audience and also understand what is and isn't appropriate to post for this audience.
The children will be supported to write, edit and publish their work but it will be their work. Their posts will be a true snapshot of who they are as writers at this point in their lives. By the end of the year we will be able to look back and see how much they have grown in our 10 months together! That sounds pretty awesome to me.

A note about KidBlogs...
KidBlogs is a blogging platform that allows teachers to set up accounts for their students under the umbrella of a classroom account. This means that I have complete control over what is posted to each blog. Before any post or comment appears online, I receive an email and then have the option to approve, deny, or edit the post or comment. If the post or comment meets our criteria, I approve it and then it can been seen by others. I moderate everything and choose what goes live.

Wrapping Up Week 1!

This afternoon we were browsing old posts on our blog and we came across this great song. "What I Am" by Will.i.am has such a great message, we love it! I am reposting it here so the kids can find it easily from home this weekend. We had a great first week back and are enjoying getting to know each other, figuring out new routines and learning about some of the neat things we will do together. I also shared some news with our class today, I am going to have a baby in the new year! Everyone was very excited and had lots of questions. As you can imagine with 6 and 7 year olds, this was a very entertaining way to end a great first week!
Have a super weekend, see you next week!

I like how he sang. -Rhyann

The First Day of School

Yesterday was our first day of grade 2. We have 22 kids in our class. In the morning we all met on the playground. Our teachers and friends were waiting outside for us. In the morning our teacher is Mrs. Henry and in the afternoon our teacher is Mrs. Dent Scarcello.

We learn. -Madison

It was exciting to meet our new teachers. -Rhyann

We met a lot of friends yesterday. -Corbin

We made self portraits yesterday and today. -Sarah

They are made out of construction paper. We cut the parts of our face out of paper and glued them together. -Mikaela

We did a get to know you activity where we wrote things about ourselves. We will put them in the hall with our self-portraits. -Anthony and Lucas

We did word searches with all our names in it. -Sage

We made paper t-shirts. We coloured them. Our names are on them. -Jace

We got our agendas and we learned about making cardboard faces. -Carter