TOOTH TALLY PROJECT: ONE MONTH IN

We're one month in to the Tooth Tally Project and there's been lots of wiggling and wobbling of teeth.

6 of us have lost a tooth in February and have been paid a visit by the Tooth fairy. The rest of us are waiting patiently. We've started to record data about teeth lost and how many are waiting on a graph. There are plenty of wriggly teeth, so we think our total for March will be much higher.

We've also finished our tooth fairy drawing task. Our drawings had to reflect the following description -

The Tooth Fairy likes to wear green from the very top of her head to the very tips of her toes. It is green like growing grass. Sometimes, instead of her beautiful sparkly gown, she wears trousers so that she can fly from house to house in the twinkling of an eye. As children dream, they may hear the tiny sound of the tinkling bell on the tip of her cap as she quietly visits them.

Have a look at our slideshow to see our month of Tooth Tally fun.

DAY 20 - ZERO COMES AGAIN

We had Day 20 of school during the week
and that means....
ZERO the HERO came to visit!

ZERO brought us a HUGE container of Fruit Loops and our task?
Thread them to make bracelets!


First we counted out 20 fruit loops using the Base 10 boards.

It was easy to see that we had 2 groups of ten. It wasn't easy to not eat them straight away!

As we threaded, we used the Base 10 boards to keep track of how many threaded and how many still to go.

Using Base 10 Boards from 2M Gems on Vimeo.
The threading was very tricky but before long we each had one VERY yummy bracelet!

THANK YOU ZERO FOR MAKING DAY 20 SO TASTY AND FUN!

PANCAKE TUESDAY FUN

Last Tuesday was SHROVE TUESDAY.
It is also known as PANCAKE TUESDAY.

Shrove Tuesday is the last day before LENT. There were many foods that the early Christians didn't eat during Lent - foods like meat and fish, eggs, and milk, flour and butter. Instead of wasting food, families would have a feast on the Shrove Tuesday, and use up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent.

We decided to made pancakes - the EASY way.

All you need is: a frypan, a spatula, Pancake Shake mix, water, cooking oil or spray and your favourite topping, which for us was Mrs Knee's maple syrup.


We've learnt that maple syrup has been something that has connected the 'Gems' to Mrs Knee for the last two years and we agree with the 2008 and 2009 Gems - it's the BEST maple syrup ever!

WORLD MATHS DAY

We are excited to be participating in WORLD MATHS DAY on March 3.

It is a day when children and adults around the world compete in LIVE mental maths challenges. It's a fun way for us to practice our number facts.

Today we received our log in details so now we can get ready for the big day by practicing at home and at school.

We can't wait.

Are you or your class participating in World Maths Day?

Maybe one of us will be competing against YOU!

DAY 10 - ZERO THE HERO's FIRST VISIT

On Tuesday we had ZERO THE HERO visit our classroom.

WHY?

Because it was DAY 10 of the school year!

ZERO THE HERO visited because we are counting up to the 100th day of school. He's going to help us count in tens, visiting us every '10' days until we reach the '100th' day, when we'll have a big celebration.

ZERO is going to help us understand place value and the important role 'zero' has in a number.

This was ZERO THE HERO's first visit, so he told us a little about himself, not by speaking but through strange looking designs called 'qr codes'. We needed MRs M's iphone to scan and read the codes. One of the codes had a link to ZERO THE HERO's favourite video -' ZERO, MY HERO'.

When ZERO visits, we have special activities that help us count in tens.

Watch the ANIMOTO we made to show what we did to celebrate DAY 10.

We can't wait for ZERO THE HERO to visit again.

BANG BANG - A READING RESPONSE

We have been reading 'Tashi and the Golem' by Anna and Barbara Fienberg.


As a reading response to the story, we each created mind maps of words that describe the character of Bang Bang.
Here is a wordle showing all our responses.

Even though you might not have read the book, do you think Bang Bang was the problem or the problem solver in the story?

TOOTH FAIRY DESCRIPTION

We are taking part in the Tooth Tally Project.

One of our first tasks is to draw a picture of the Tooth Fairy.
We can't draw whatever we imagine the Tooth Fairy to look like.
We are basing our drawing on a description that we have been given. All the children in the 250 classes taking part in the project have been given the same description.

We used Bubbl.us, a mindmapping tool, to help organise the information we have about the Tooth Fairy.
Click and drag the Bubbl.us around to see all of the mindmap.

This is what each of us will have in common with our drawings but will each drawing look the same?

What do you picture the Tooth Fairy looking like?

OUR WRITING BLOG

Today we created another blog - our WRITING blog!

Our writing blog is a space where we write independently and where we choose what we'd like to write about.


It's a blog for first drafts, a space where our writing will NOT be corrected by Mrs M.
Each day, some of the Gems will add to the writing blog.


We're sure you'll see a huge growth in our awareness of grammar, spelling patterns, print conventions and text types throughout the year.

Please head over to our 2M Writing Gems blog and tell us what you think about the clever things we are doing in our writing. Your comments will help us improve.

COMING SOON TO A BLOG NEAR YOU

Who are these weird and crazy looking members of our class?

They're our Wild Selves...and they'll be coming soon to a blog near you!

Our Wild Selves are our avatars - our 'online' image of ourselves.

If you'd like to create a 'wild and crazy' version of yourself, go to BUILD YOUR WILD SELF.

Have fun!

WHAT ARE WE BORROWING?

Wednesday's are LIBRARY days and today we had our first borrowing session for the year.

Many of us are now reading simple chapter books, with books from the ZAC POWER and TASHI series popular.

Have a look at the slideshow we made to see what we are reading this week.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

What are you currently reading?

Have you read any of the books we're reading?

What do you recommend we borrow next?

A FRIEND IS...

Our unit of inquiry this term focuses on the question 'What does it mean to act justly?'

Today we listened to a story where one of the characters didn't want to be friends with someone because they looked and sounded different.

We discussed - what it is that makes someone a friend?

We put what we value in a friend in a wordle.

A friend is...
What do you value and look for in a friend?

OUR NEW ADDITION TO 2M

Look what we now have in our class - an iTeddy!

iTeddy is really cool, because we can load and view pictures, video, audio and games onto the media player connected to his tummy.

Our iTeddy is going to head home with each of us when we are a 'Student of the Week'.

We plan to load on affirmations from each of us about the 'student of the week', plus any video, photos and recordings that showcase the learning of the 'student of the week'. We thought it might also be a good idea to load some of our favourite stories onto the iTeddy as well.

What do you think?

Can you suggest any other way we can use the iTeddy?

We can't wait to take iTeddy home. He is already a special member of our class and because he is so special, we need to give him a name.

We'd like to invite you to help us name our iTeddy.

On Friday we put out a tweet, asking for suggestions and we've already had a reply from olcskinders in Manitoba, in Canada and globalrams in St Louis, USA.

What do you think would be a good name for our iTeddy?