Videos From The Terry Fox Run

We had a lot of fun today taking part in the Terry Fox Run! See and hear what some people had to say about this run. We hope you enjoy our videos!

Miss Dunsiger's Class

Experience The Trip With Us!

At the end of last year, I wrote a post on my professional blog about "giving the students control," and how amazed I was by what one student did when he wrote about our whole trip during the field trip itself. Through some replies by others, I commented about how great it would be if the students had iPod Touches or cameras to record their learning on the trip. I thought that I would give this a try on our first field trip of the year to the Ancaster Fair. I'm so glad that I did!

My class was divided into three groups of six with two parent volunteers in each group. I gave each group an iPod Touch or a flipcam to take pictures and record videos showing what they saw, did, and learned throughout the trip. I was amazed by the results! When we got back to the school, I realized that I received over 200 photographs and over 60 videos throughout our four hour field trip. Incredible!

What I love the most is that the majority of these photographs and videos were recorded by students. They were documenting their own learning. They were watching closely, reflecting on what they were seeing, and engaging in meaningful discussions with others. As I watched the videos, I heard students inferring and I saw students problem-solving. I love that! It's not about the quality of the video, but what that video captured. I only wish that I tried an activity like this one a long time ago.

For other educators reading this post, have you ever tried this before? What were the results? For parents and students reading this post, what do you think looks like the most exciting activity? Why?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on our trip to the fair!

Aviva

Our First Week At School

Meet the Teacher Night is tomorrow evening, and I wanted to put together a slideshow to play tomorrow night showing what the students have already done in Grades 1 and 2. For those that can't make it tomorrow night, below is our Animoto Slideshow of our exciting first week at school. Watch this slideshow with your child. What did your child enjoy doing the most? What has your child already learned at school? Please leave us a comment and let us know!

Have a great night!

Miss Dunsiger and Her Grade 1/2 Class

Down By The Bay

For Shared Reading this week, we read Down By The Bay. The students got to create additional verses to this song, orally first and then in writing. As a class, we developed Success Criteria for good sentences and questions, and all of the students had to check that their questions started with a capital, that they left spaces in between their words, and that they ended their questions with a question mark. The Grade 2 students also created some more complex verses, adding in adjectives to make their writing more interesting. Students were given a choice of using the sentence starter provided or writing their own complete question. Many of the students independently made use of their copy of the poem to find the words that they needed as they wrote their questions.

Below is a digital copy of our Down By The Bay Class Book:

Please read this book with your child and leave a comment with more possible verses that we could add here. We'd love to hear all of your ideas!

Aviva

A Down By The Bay Update

Today (Friday, September 9th), my students recorded themselves singing Down By The Bay using AudioBoo. They read the words as they sang the song, tracking the words as they went along. I hope that you enjoy our singing debut!:)