Gr. 2's are learning about the salmon life cycle

Ms. Lycan and Mrs. Uhlmann's Gr. 2's classes have been studying the salmon life cycle.  They have seen first hand the stages from eyed-eggs, to alevin, fry and learned about the smolt and adult salmon stages.  This week they are releasing their salmon back into the river.  In celebration of this learning Brendan's mom baked this incredible cake. 

The salmon fry are ready to be released.  Students have learned about the life-cycle, habitat and caring for salmon.  Below the fry swim in the classroom tank waiting for release day.

Demo day

This past week Randerson Ridge had the opportunity to host teachers, EA's and district staff in demo lessons with our Gr. 6/7's and our Gr. 2's.  More than a dozen educators from across the city took part.  A huge thank you to Teacher-Librarian Tammy Reynolds who co-taught the Gr. 6/7 lesson with me and to Grade 1 teacher Tricia Anton who co-taught the Gr. 2 lesson .  A huge, huge thank-you to District Literacy Coordinator Shelley Beleznay who organized the entire afternoon :)

The goal of this demo class was to show curriculum-based learning using the iPads and to introduce educators who may be new to the technology, lesson ideas, managment strategies and logistics of teaching with tablets and other hand-held devices. 

Gr. 6/7's Explain Everything

A huge thank you to Ms. World's Gr. 6/7 class who were not only wonderful learners but also wonderful teachers, helping one another and teaching the adults to navigate the iPads.

 

Using the Khan Academy philosophy that children learn best when teaching others, especially other children, students were asked to solve a math problem describing their thinking.  The math problem was taken from the Gr. 4 curriculum because we wanted the students to be learning the tools as well as explaining the problem.  Thus students were asked to create a video using the app Explain Everything. The video is to be shared with grade 4 buddies. 

                                       Students Aurgha and Asia explain their math problem.

Grade 2's celebrate the Beach and Earth Day

Our grade 2's lesson focused around earth day and the beautiful beaches of Nanaimo.  Students brainstormed ideas on what they might see at the beach.  They then thought of descriptive words to help bring those creatures alive.  Using Doodle Buddy students created the following poems.  Great descriptive words Gr. 2's...sticky anemone...ouch don't get too close! 

 

Stars, Planets, the Space Station...and hot chocolate too!

Ms. Burnham's Gr. 3's reflect on their stargazing field trip



Here is the planet app we used

Wow,that was great!!!

Did you know the sun is a star??? It get's bigger and bigger

until it swallows up all the planets around it,even Earth and Saturn!!!!!!                  Tabatha

After school we came back at eight thirty and went onto the field to look at planets and stars.  We saw Venus and different constellations like the Big Dipper.  Then we went inside and had hot chocolate and cookies.                                          

Jada and Owen

We saw the Space Station.  It goes 5000 miles per hour.  It can go around the earth in 90 minutes.  We could only see it for 5 minutes then we saw a shooting star go by.  Then we saw Mars and I can't believe it's red and orange!  Then we saw Jupiter.  It is white and kind of blue. 

Aaron & Rylee

I was amazed when the space station flew overhead and disappeared in the earth's shadow.  My favourite planet is Saturn.         Courtney

The mysteries of space.  We saw the International Space Station!  We also saw Mars and had hot chocolate and cookies.  Yumm!  We saw Jupiter too!         Alex & Shane

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR

Posted by Ms. Burnham and her daughters, our guest bloggers :)

The stars aligned for our stargazing evening – literally! Clear skies prevailed, all of our special guests were able to come, and the whole class came out for a spectacular evening on Friday, April 13, 2012.

Our school borrowed a set of 15 iPads a few weeks ago. Teachers got to take them home to familiarize ourselves with them. My family and I discovered the “Planets” app and were excited to stand in our back yard and actually be able to identify the planets and constellations by name. I decided it would be a fantastic experience to do this as a class, particularly since we are learning about the solar system. When I mentioned the idea to Tanya Casselman, my student teacher, she immediately jumped on board and invited her astronomy professor from Vancouver Island University, Dr. Greg Arkos, to come and lead the class in a star walk. I contacted Garland Coulson, president of Nanaimo’s Astronomy Club, and he and some volunteers brought 3 telescopes for us to use. George and Ryan Clark, a grade 5 student at Randerson and resident expert, brought their telescope, too. Twenty one of my students arrived, along with siblings, parents and even grandparents. About 70 people converged on our field with iPads in hand!

Dr. Arkos used his high powered laser beam to point out various planets, stars and constellations and tell us the stories associated with them. It truly was an example of lifelong learning for adults and children alike as we listened to him share his expertise.

Miss Casselman and Ms. Burnham enjoying the night with their students

After hot chocolate and cookies, we went back outside. Coincidentally, the International Space Station was to pass overhead at 9:50 P.M. and we were directly under its line of orbit! Sure enough, it appeared out of the west and we tracked it across the sky. It was in view for about 5 minutes until disappearing just above the horizon.

It was awe-inspiring to see the Space Station and imagine the 6 astronauts on board looking down at Earth. Viewing Saturn and its rings through Ryan’s telescope was a highlight for me – I never imagined that I would be able to see a planet 1.5 billion miles away!

Many thanks to Dr. Arkos, Tanya Casselmen and her fiancé Josh, Garland Coulson and the volunteers from the Nanaimo Astronomy Club, Ryan Clark and his parents, Val Martineau, our librarian who facilitated our use of the iPads, Shelley Beleznay, District Coordinator of Literacy and Learning, Glenn, Catherine and Sarah Norman, Dave Sutton, and all the parents who let their children stay up well past their bedtimes. I was so proud of my students who were terrific self-managers and such enthusiastic learners! An incredible experience was had by all.

Nancy Burnham Gr. 3 Teacher

        

Guest blogger Sarah :)

First, everyone met in the library. We all were bursting with excitement. Dr. Arkos was going to do a star walk with us. The sky was very clear and the moon wasn’t shining so it was easy to see the stars. We went outside and looked at the telescopes that Ryan and some of the astronomers had brought. There were about 70 people there! We took the iPads and saw planets, stars and a lot of amazing things. My partner was Jada. We had a great time. After we finished doing our star walk and seeing space with the iPads, we all went inside for hot chocolate and cookies. At about ten minutes to ten, most people went outside and saw this astonishing Space Station flying through the sky. I looked away for about two seconds and it was already on the other side of the sky. It was going really fast. Soon, it slowly disappeared. It didn’t really, but we couldn’t see it anymore. My favourite part was seeing the space station go by and seeing Saturn through a telescope. You could actually see the rings of Saturn! I had a wonderful time and I would love to do it again!

Sarah Norman

Grade 3 Student

Guest blogger Catherine :)

I saw an orange and yellow light speeding across the sky so fast! I barely saw it before it disappeared behind a single star. Ryan Clark reckons it was a shooting star. It was very interesting. Through the various telescopes I saw Mars, Venus, Saturn and its rings, Sirius and the Space Station. My favourite star is Sirius because when I gazed through the telescope it looked like a shining disco ball. It was in the Canis Major constellation. I also learned how to find the North Star. The night sky shows that there is much more out there than we can imagine.

Catherine Norman

Grade 5 Student

Grade 1's Explore math and literacy with iPads

Mrs. Rhodes Grade one class is embracing iPads with gusto.  In math they are working on tangrams. Ancient Chinese puzzles that are completed using 7 geometrical shapes.  Students learn shapes, patterns and combination of shapes to create a puzzle.  This is reinforcing the concepts they are currently working on in math.  

Shapes used in making a tangram

In language arts the students are learning about spring.  Today they explored spring by beginning their stories with the book creator app. 

Gr. one's took a picture of spring or something meaningful in their classroom.  They then imported the picture into book creator app, added text and added their voice.  In no time these six year olds were determining their best read and deleting recordings that weren't up to their standards.  They were creating wonderfully imaginative spring scenes including having their stuffies create a Don Cherry, Ron Maclean type hockey chatter on how the Canucks will win. 

Mrs. Rhodes and her students are loving the iPads.  She said "It's a perfect example of how we all learn from each other, with students showing students, teachers showing and being shown techniques and everyone learning through collaboration."  Mrs. Rhodes says the skills the students are becoming so adept at include framing pictures, choosing background, importing pictures, writing text on the keyboard, recording and playing back their voice. They are using critical thinking skills while having a lot of fun. 

Enjoy their work...be sure to read their scripts.    

I love the conversation between the two boys (see their written text)

The icon indicates our gr. 1 student recorded her words but I am still working on learning how to transfer the audio through this app

 

Puppet Pal Story Telling with the 5/6's

Today Mr. Mac's class took on puppet pals.  Our goal to create a story with 2-4 characters, 2 or 3 settings and a strong beginning, middle and end.  The story had to have a conflict and conflict resolution with no violence.  Students worked in partners.  Thanks to my teacher-librarian colleague Tammy Reynolds for suggesting this lesson.

Reflection: 

 - We liked how easy it was to manouver the characters (larger, smaller, rotating)

-  We liked how easy it was to record except on three ipads, we tried numerous times and could not record.
-   Some students took pictures of characters (themselves or others) and of settings, some students were able to import these into their stories while others were not.  Through trial and error we realized the iPads have 3 puppet pals apps on them.  It was the directors version with the cloud and character on the icon that was needed to use the personalized pictures
- We didn't like the fact you have to record the entire story in one take as this required many takes and lots of retakes due to background noise
- We learned from each other and liked the program, especially when you could import personal pictures

Gr. 6/7's learning with iPads and Screen Chomp

Today Mrs. Radcliffe's Gr. 6/7's class had their second session with iPads.  Our focus was how can we learn iPad tools while working on our science project about Inventors.

Here was their task:

1) Find 3 interesting facts about your inventor (either by internet through the iPad or by books) and write them down in note form   (skill development- note taking ~ no cut and pasting allowed)

2) Find an image of either the inventor and/or the product they invented and take a screenshot and save that image (skill development - screenshot and saving)

3) go to screen chomp app on iPad  

4) using left icon go to library and use the picture of your inventor and/or product (skill development, importing pictures)

5) adjust using zoom, rotate etc.  this you will have to play with a bit. It took me a few times to zoom in to a depth I was comfortable with. (skill development - picture quality)

6) once the picture is in place, label or title the picture and/or inventor

7) use record button to record yourself or your partner explaining who this inventor is and the three interesting facts (skill development - working on voice to enhance presentation, learning fluxuations etc.  avoiding cut and paste by voicing work in their own words, taken from brief notes)

You will be working in partners so be sure to help one another and make strong suggestions and offer encouragement. 

Here is some of the work the students created in a 40 minutes class.

Nick's screen chomp on Bill Gates

Spenser's screen chomp on Morse Code

Making a difference through Fair Ball ~ a documentary by SportsNet

Mrs. Epps' Gr. 4/5 class is currently working on their third term inquiry.

                       How can we continue to transform our thoughts, beliefs
                       and actions as a community of healthy living learners that
                       makes a difference in the world around us? 

In library today we watched the SportsNet documentary Fair Ball about a Langley baseball team that travels to Uganda to play the team they were supposed to play in the Little League World Series.

Felix proudly showing the Canadians his home
Fair Ball

Here are some of our reflections from our double entry journal

Describe a scene in the documentary.                                   How does it make you feel?
On the Baseball field where they were having                         It made me feel fortunate to have a
lots of fun playing against the Canadians it also                      nice house here in Canada and always
connects to me because I play baseball.                                   enough food and water.             Trevor

I liked the part when they changed their jerseys                      It made me feel sad that people in
because they liked each other so much they wanted                Uganda live in grass houses and
to remember each other.                                                           worse materials.  It made me feel
                                                                                                  happy that the Canada team didn't do
                                                                                                  racism to the Uganda people.      Anoop

When they took a tour of Felix's home.                                    I was sad because I know we have big
                                                                                                  homes and clean water but I didn't know
                                                                                                  that they lived in small houses and had
                                                                                                  no clean water and only can have 1 meal
                                                                                                  a day.                                           Declin

I liked the part when the two boys were friends because         It made me feel that we are lucky to
that showed me that anyone can be friends.                             have all these things and we should be
                                                                                                  gratefull of what we have because it
                                                                                                  could be worse we could have none of
                                                                                                  this stuff.                                    Jessika

Canadian team getting ready for their game agains Uganda
Fair Ball

The Ugandan team hosted Canada for a baseball game           It made me feel very devastated that
after they weren't allowed to go to the US to play.                  the Ugandan team could not fly to
                                                                                                  the US. It made me feel sad that some of
                                                                                                  the kids from the Ugandan team could
                                                                                                  not get their birth certificate because
                                                                                                  they were abandoned by their parents.
                                                                                                  It made me feel happy to see that lots of
                                                                                                  the kids from the Canadian team really
                                                                                                  bonded with the Ugandan team.    Emily

Canada and Uganda celebrating and having fun after the game
Fair Ball

Our First Week with iPads



With excitement in the air and giddiness abound the anticipation of the iPads arriving is finally over. Randerson is pleased to be part of SD#68’s pilot project using iPads in the classroom over a six-week period. It started with a transition session for teachers from the schools who have just finished them to the schools just getting them. This helped tremendously as we learned of what worked best from management, logistics and apps to some of the challenges and how they were solved or averted.  We also had Shelley Beleznay,
Coordinator of Literacy, Learning & Instruction for our district visit our school and work with the teachers on apps, lesson ideas, technology and logistics.  

Over spring break teachers took iPads home to play and learn.  We had lots of stories about about the ‘kid’s’ teaching their parents.  That definitely was true in our home. 

Week one with iPads.  The primary classes were introduced to the iPads during library class.  Here we went over care and safety, turning on and off, volume and using your finger to move the screen and get to apps.  Students played with Doodle Buddy with the specific task to create math sentences.  They also learned to scroll left and use the keypad to quickly go to an app by spelling or partially spelling out the apps name.

Some favourite apps from week one as rated by our K-3’s

Doodle Buddy, Drawing Pad, Talking Tom & Math Ninja

Our intermediate classes will begin their work on iPads this week.  A few classes had the opportunity to test the waters. 

What we loved after week one:

·       iPads are cool and fun to play with

·       there are so many great apps

·       they are easy to navigate

·       students are completely engaged

·       guidelines and expectations were followed excellently

Challenges from week 1:

·       one iPad somehow got a password on it and we were unable to use it for two days – we need to be careful not to add or delete apps or programs to the iPads

Bookfest Coming May 5th

The 26th annual Bookfest, one of Canada's best literary events for elementary school kids, featuring authors and illustrators from across Canada is being hosted downtown Saturday, May 5th.  This year's feature authors and illustrators are:
Andrea Beck
Mike Deas
Julie Flett
Michael Kusugak
Julie Laswon
Martin Springett
Joan Betty Stuchner
Paul Yee
Werner Zimmermann

Students in Grade 2 through 6 have an opportunity to write a book review on one of the author's books. Stop by the library and see me about this opportunity.