The last rockin' day of November!

Today, first thing, we had choir and we were on the risers. We were with the Grade 1's and 2's, and we practiced for the Christmas concert. After lunch, we had free Gym, and there was basketball and volleyball. There were ropes we could swing on and there was a spider net we could climb on. There were those rings and bars that hang from the wall, and you could do five swings on them. There was also bouncy balls and bowling set up. - Cam H.

For Writers' Workshop, we did a copy of our other paper about a party we went to. We had to do our writing goals to make it better. We also had Daily 5 after Phys. Ed., and in the morning. - Markus

Another awesome day in Room 18!

Today we saw the book fair for the first time, and there were robots set up. They had a contest, and they put people's names in the draw for $5 for the book fair. One of the winners was Tyler in our class. - Cam H.
In our Christmas concert, we get to tell a story and the Grade 1's play music at special parts of the story. We're playing Boomwhackers and we have a special order for two songs. The two tallest people go in the middle, and it goes to the smallest people. Me and Lexi are the ones who lead off on the Boomwhackers order. - Cam H.
At Phys. Ed., we played a game where we have to throw balls and run around and steal the tennis balls. We had to switch our partner every two rounds. - Markus
Our Christmas concert is in 5 more school days, and I can not wait! - Markus
It's almost Gal's birthday - it's on Friday. - Markus

Thanks to Markus and Cam H. for our blog entry and title today - they are this week's Classroom Bloggers (a new job that appeared on our job board last week!).

It's a Monday!

Between getting the report cards ready to send home today (which, hopefully, all of you should have found in your child's backpack!), extra choir practices for the Christmas concert, preparing for student-led conferences on Thursday/Friday this week (and, perhaps, recovering from the sting of yesterday's Blue Bomber Grey Cup loss!), I just realized, as I sit at my computer at work, that I forgot to get the kids to write on our blog today - oops! They'll have something to say tomorrow... I promise!

Friday

We had Music. In Music, we practiced reading a story for the Christmas concert. Today, we read for 2 hours and 15 minutes in Daily 5. After Math, we read to the Grade 1'ers. At Library today we saw the robots made by students in the school, and someone is painting the wall in the Library. - Hailey M. and Joey

We Day!

Today we missed Science and watched We Day. It was famous people from around the world who were at the MTS Centre. They were singing songs, talking about children in Africa and Haiti that needed clean water, beds, medicine, and schools. They were telling us how we could help the children, so that they don't have to work to live. - Joey and Hailey M.

This morning, we changed up our regular routine to watch part of We Day Winnipeg, which took place at the MTS Centre. What is We Day? Here is a great synopsis from their website:

At We Day, youth from across North America join together to celebrate the positive actions they are taking and to build the momentum of the movement of young people making a difference in their communities and around the world. Through We Day, youth learn that it is cool to care.

The students got to listen to speakers such as actress Mia Farrow, former Vice-President of the United States of America Al Gore, former Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin, and musicians such as Shawn Desmond and Down With Webster. The class heard about all the ways that children around North America are making a difference in the lives of children all over the world! This afternoon, the students did some writing to describe their experiences of watching We Day. We are going to be talking more about We Day in the days to come, and to see if our class can be inspired to help children elsewhere in the world! You can learn more about the We Day movement at http://www.weday.com/, and you can learn more about today's event in Winnipeg at http://www.weday.com/event/winnipeg.

The force of gravity

Today we did an experiment where we looked at the force of gravity. We estimated and then measured how long a student in our class could hold his arm straight out to the side, while holding up a piece of paper, then 1, 2, 3, and 4 books. We talked about why his arm got so sore trying to hold those objects up... even when it was just a piece of paper - it's because gravity is acting against his arm, wanting to pull it AND the object toward the ground. Here's a shot of our test subject fighting against the force of gravity, to keep that ancient dictionary from being pulled to the earth!

Skyping with Mrs. Malkoske's class!

Today we Skyped with Mrs. Malkoske's class. They were telling us how to act when we are on Skype. After that, we asked questions about how to behave when Skyping, like not goofing around, not waving your hands around, and stuff like that. At the end when we were going to say goodbye, we asked them if we could read to them and they could read to us one-on-one on Skype some other time. - Hailey M. and Joey