Today we went on a nature walk. We saw signs of spring including; robins, green grass, buds, seeds, and an acorn.
We went to the park and it was fun. We were really close to lots of kids houses and we saw lots of airplanes.
While we were on our nature walk. We decided to go Geocaching. We found treasure!
If you've never heard of Geocaching, be sure to check out the website here.
My favourite part was the treasure! - Mercedez My favourite part was finding the treasure! - Julia My favourite part was going to the park! - Jessica, Kiara, Aaliyah I loved playing in the park. - Jaylan
"Music Monday is an annual event that brings together thousands of students, musicians, parents and community members across the country to celebrate the gift of music in our lives, on the same day at the same time. The Coalition for Music Education launched Music Monday in 2005."
We started the day by gathering with the whole school to perform our new Stevenson School song "Reach for the Stars." We all stood outside and Mr. Miller recorded us from the roof!
This is a video of the song that was made so the students could learn the words. Soon we will have a new video to show you!
In the afternoon we watched a live broadcast from Astronaut Chris Hadfield in space.
"Astronaut Chris Hadfield and Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson have collaborated between earth and space to co-write the official song for Music Monday 2013. The end-result features Hadfield playing the song from the International Space Station, while Robertson and the Wexford Gleeks, a TDSB school choir, join him to unite in song with schools and communities across our nation."
Mrs. Lowe will post a link to a recording of the broadcast as soon as it's available. Here's a video of the beautiful song.
We had lots of wonders about how Commander Hadfield does things in space so Mrs. Lowe showed us some very funny YouTube videos that explain how everything works up at the International Space Station.
We have lots of wonders about space. What do you wonder?
This is Mrs. Lowe tonight. I want to share about how I use YouTube with my Kindergarten students.
First, I have to tell you how much I love YouTube! Kindergarten students have a lot of wonders and I don't always know the answer or the answer has already been perfectly described and recorded by someone else. YouTube gives us nearly immediate answers to many of our wonders. It allows us to access experts in many fields. It is a source of songs, dances, stories and even animated books.
Just this week we got to see the inside of the International Space Station and learn how the astronauts brush their teeth in space!
All of that being said, YouTube is not always an appropriate place for 5 year olds. I believe they should never search for videos themselves. There are MANY links and advertisements that are not child friendly.
In our classroom I always freeze the screen on the SmartBoard or turn it off while I do a YouTube search. This way the students will not see anything inappropriate that may come up.
Once I have found the video I am looking for, and previewed it, I use a website called www.safeshare.tv This website allows me to easily cut and paste a link from YouTube and view it without any of those advertisements or suggested videos at the end of the clip.
In our classroom all YouTube videos are shown using SafeShare.tv. This way I can be sure that my students are not going to be seeing anything unexpected during or after the video.
This year I have found an another wonderful resource that uses both YouTube and SafeShare. The resource is called Symbaloo.
It is a place where you can store and access your online bookmarks. It is also a great place to share online resources. We are very lucky to have access to a Symbaloo webmix created by the lovely people at #kinderchat and managed by Matt Gomez. The web mix includes links to alphabet songs, interactive books, math games, videos, and much more! We use this site almost daily in our class! You can check it out by following the link.
