Thank you to Z.A., L.N., E.H., J.A., M.Y., and R.J. for your help in selecting the format for this blog post. Our inquiry group would like to know what do you see, think, or wonder about when looking at these images?
It is with great joy that I share tonight's post with all of you!
One of our students M.Y. and her family just recently were involved in a front yard makeover project by SNAP: Sustainable Neighbourhood Retrofit Action Plan.
M.Y. so proudly shared the project with our class today, and we eagerly watched the YouTube clip (see below) that her mom emailed us. M.Y. asked if I could post it onto the blog for everyone to see. After having approval from her family, I also learned that they created an entire powerpoint (M.Y. and her mom) that they wanted to share. It's absolutely beautiful and documents the experience so elegantly. When reading through it, I found myself tearing up...
M.Y.'s mom did a wonderful job capturing her voice and honouring the photographs that M.Y. took as an equal participant in the project. What a powerful message that sends to M.Y., that her ideas, images, and contributions really matter. I hope that this blog post also further commends M.Y. for the important role that she played during this wonderful makeover...
We hope that you enjoy the powerpoint made by M.Y. and her family and consider leaving them a response:
(If you click on the photos below you can see them in a slightly larger format)
"The following YouTube video showcases two Front Yard Makeovers that were demonstration projects for the Lake Wilcox SNAP. It tells the stories of the Makeover homeowners and the transformation of their lawns into beautiful, colourful gardens designed for families and busy professionals. These made over gardens need less water, fertilizer and time to maintain, and will help to keep Lake Wilcox healthy" (Taken from the "About" description from YouTube, published on December 19th, 2012).
M.Y.'s family also shared the following link from their experience with SNAP:
As I responded to M.Y.'s mom, I thought that their family did a wonderful job speaking in front of the camera. The girls already looked like they were having fun, and I'm sure are anticipating Spring's return for more outdoor exploration. We hope that they continue to make exciting discoveries in their new eco-friendly yard, and that M.Y. shares with us "what she see's" during our class meetings!
Thank you to M.Y. and her family for sharing this wonderful project with us, and giving us the opportunity to write about it for an even greater audience! What a dream yard!
Over the Winter Break, one of the students (N.C.) from Bond Lake Public School in Ms. Babalis and Mrs. Ham's class travelled to India with her family. There, they took a few photos to include in our "We Can See" Project.
We are so excited to share this with all of you!
Now Ms. Babalis has added India to her extensive travel wish list.
Thank you to N.C.'s family for sending us these incredibly beautiful photographs and for being the first family to share what they saw while on their vacation.
We encourage more families to participate by sending photos saved with a description onto a usb stick. It could be from a previous vacation or a community walk. If you do not have access to a usb stick, I am in the process of planning to send one home as an extension to this project. Stay tuned!
Since our classroom has been involved in the amazing "What Can You See?" project, we continue to look for new ways to interact with the participating classrooms and their educators! In particular, I think we have created a 21st Century version of the "pen pals" tradition! After our class read the "We Can See" book from our friends at Bond Lake Public School, we decided to share compliments through the form of a letter on their blog! If you haven't had a chance to check out their blog, you can click on the following link: http://myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.ca/2012/11/i-think-we-can-send-letter.html.
We continue to feel inspired by their classroom happenings, inquiries and daily discoveries and their educators certainly embrace every opportunity to make for meaningful and purposeful learning! We would like to dedicate this post to them and thank them for exploring and communicating with our class through the blogsphere! It has led to some wonderful connections, questions, and new learning!
After reading the response letter from our friends at Bond Lake Public School, our students have enjoyed expanding on their connections, answering their posed questions, and writing a reply!
Dear Bond Lake Public School, Thank you for the letter. We liked reading about your connections to our book. We liked how you think clouds are fascinating. Thank you for sharing the "fancy" word. We want to answer your questions. J.S. (SK): We have three teachers. Ms. Schmidt, Ms. Theis and Ms. N. They are all really nice and like to have fun. S.M.: We have lots of signs because they protect us from danger. We see STOP signs, "bump" signs for bumps on the ground and school crossing signs so cars know when we are walking.
I.D.: We had frogs last year but we do not have any pets this year. We had two frogs and one was big and one was small. We got to feed them.
J.S. (JK): We want to send you our class picture. What do you look like? R.L.: We know about Ninjagos. They fight into battles because the master tells them when the bad guys make traps.
A.M.: I only know that Ninjagos have swords. They are yellow. Here are some new questions we have for you: I.D.: Do you get snow in winter like us? C.M.: I wonder if your teachers is nice or mean? A.C.: You have a rabbit. What is its name? What does it eat? L.D.: Where does your rabbit live? We want to share what we are learning about with you: S.M.: We have been making a big cloud. We made raindrops too. E.S.: We are learning about clouds. We know how they make rain and read a book called "The Falling Raindrop." It taught us about the water cycle. It's cool.
G.B.: We liked being raindrops. I.D.: We learned that a pumpkin floated in a lot of water.
R.L.: We did a "Shape Rap." Sphere, Cylinders, Cubes and Cones were in it and we got to wear sunglasses in front of our school at the assembly. We would like to share our video with you. J.S. (SK): We like magnets because they stick to things. Magnets also don't stick to things. We have fun experimenting. Magnets stick to Ms. Schmidt's boots because they have metal on it.
E.S.: Clouds do all sorts of things. We wonder how they make snow. I think its called a "snow cycle." Thank you for your letter. We want you to write back more. We drew some pictures for you too. We hope you like them. Thank you for your pictures. They were pretty colours.
This is a bridge. W.F. and R.L. and me made it in the
building and constructing centre. It has a thing that
lifts up and down so boats can go by. - J.S. (SK)
Love, Ms. Schmidt and Ms. Theis' Class from Lorna Jackson Public School.
Ms. Schmidt and Ms. Theis were also wondering: What inquiries are you exploring in your classroom? Can you write back and share some of your learning with us? We hope that you enjoyed this post! We look forward to continuing to connect our classrooms and our learning through this social media and look forward to extending our learning through the use of our "What Can You See?" blogspace!
Last week we went on awinter walkwith ourSnowflake Inquiry group. The students in this group helped me to determine which photographs they wished to include in our next contribution to the"We Can See Project." They also took leadership in the class and shared their discoveries with the other students who did not wish to be apart of this inquiry group. Learning is a collaborative processin our program, and as such we are always learning from and with each other.
Although we planned to add student descriptions to each page, we thought that we would share the images we captured with you first. Possibly a ComicLife or Pic Collage book companion will follow this post. The Snowflake Inquiry group also mentioned to me that they would like to use iMovie and go outside and videotape themselves and their conversation about snow, snowflakes, and winter. Of course to protect their privacy, I will edit any content that might make them recognizable online.
This Monday, my intentions are to talk about this video with our class, as we continue to wonder about the weather changes and where all of the snow has gone! I will also take the descriptions we documented and re-visit them with the students. If they continue to be pleased with their initial observations, then we will decide what book format to use for our companion.
Stay tuned!
For blog visitors, this is our first YouTube video!
Please consider viewing it in the larger format by pressing on the "YouTube" symbol on the bottom right, liking it, and subscribing to our new YouTube Channel where we plan to post many more videos (from the "We Can See Project," other inquiries, and general information we would like to share with all of you!)
As a class we plan to monitor the number of views, likes, and subscriptions to our channel.
Parents, we would also love your support with this new extension to our blog space! Try to view, like, subscribe to the video from home and have conversations about it with your child.
When I arrived at school this morning, I was struck by the colour of the sky and clouds. I knew that I had to take some photos and share them with Lorna Jackson P.S. who have been inquiring about clouds.
Thank you to Angie Harrison for introducing me to Pic Collage. It's an amazing app that I am beginning to fiddle around with! Very user friendly!
Here is what they did with math pattern blocks which they showcased in their "Symmetrical Snowflakes" post:
Our students were very interested to try this out on our light table, overhead projectors, and on our math carpet. We thought that we would visit the library first and ask our librarian if we could use some more books to inspire our pattern block snowflake creations. Our librarian (Mrs. Reeves) is nothing short of amazing! She always has the right book(s) available at the exact moment that we need them! And believe me, we visit her a lot with all of our new wonders...
Mrs. Reeves suggested "Here Comes Jack Frost" as another way to encourage students to revisit their initial theories about snowflakes and snow and see if they had adjusted or developed any new theories.
After we read the story the geometric creations and snowflake shadows began to take form:
Our students continue to place "stop" signs when they want to preserve
their work and add to it at a later time.
We thank our friends in Mrs. Lowe's class for providing us with our most recent snowflake spark! If you would like to join our "We Can See" project, we would be happy to provide you with all of the information for logging in.
