Our 100th Day of school was made extra special by the arrival of this box - a box that had us extremely excited because this box contained a gift for us from Mrs Knee.
Trying to guess what the gift might be, got us talking about how connected we are (Jarvis' words!) - how others around the world are part of the conversations and learning that occurs in our room....that often it's because of these connections that learning occurs.
It all started with our post about Pancake Tuesday
Mrs Knee saw our post and left us this comment-
This comment really got us talking. What did 'tap the trees' mean? Johanna thought it meant putting a tap into the trees to get the syrup out.
Then we found a slideshow from last year on Mrs Knee's blog and then we understood.
We were fascinated and thought it so cool that Mrs Knee made maple syrup at her place!
Here was something we had never thought we would learn about this year or any year...but this is what happens when you connect with others- you share and learn amazing things!
At the end of last term, Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids made a VOICETHREAD to teach us more about how maple syrup is made. Mrs Knee invited us to join in the conversation by asking questions and leaving comments.
Mrs Knee told Mrs M that she was going to a conference where she would show other teachers how they could use Voicethreads with their class...and this is where the story gets exciting!
Sitting in Mrs Knee's workshop was Mrs Rablin from BCE, who had travelled all the way to America for this conference.
How amazing that out of all the people there, Mrs Rablin met someone connected to us.
Mrs Knee sent a gift back for us with Mrs Rablin and today, as part of our 100th day celebration, she came to hand it over to us.
We knew when Mrs Rablin was coming because she sent us a message on Twitter-
I'll be leaving work shortly... it's the highlight of my week! Need to find a shiny box for the 'gift' on my way.
First Mrs Rablin told us about how she met Mrs Knee
and then she handed over the gift. Mrs M got a gift too - Mrs Rablin's hat from Texas where the conference was.And then came the magic moment. Sophia and Emily got to open the box because they had guessed correctly that Mrs Knee's gift to us was...
MAPLE SYRUP!!!
Can you see who else was present to see us open the gift?
MRS KNEE!!
She stayed up really late to be part of this special occasion too - by SKYPE!
To be able to see and talk to Mrs Knee made our day even more 'special'.
We all couldn't wait to have some maple syrup on pikelets.
Of course, we made sure Mrs Rablin had the first taste!
We knew there would be enough for everybody but wondered how much 1 pint was. Out came a measuring jug and we discovered 1 pint was about the same as half a litre.
Mrs Knee's maple syrup tasted NOTHING like the syrup we're used too - it was more like our 'golden syrup'.
We all agreed that it's the BEST maple syrup we've EVER tasted!! Who would have thought, when we were learning about how Mrs Knee's maple syrup was made, that we would actually get to eat some.
Mrs M says "IT'S A SMALL WORLD" and we're glad we're 'CONNECTED'.
THANKYOU MRS KNEE!!
(2M, while Mrs Rablin was in Mrs Knee's workshop, she left a message on the maple syrup voicethread. Did you hear it? She also left us a comment on our Now We Understand post. I had to keep both of these a secret until today but now that the secret has been revealed, go back and check out the great comments she left. Mrs M)
