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?

I LOVE SCHOOL

I was so excited this morning that I wanted to go to school at 6:00am!

I LOVE being in 2M and I LOVE learning.

Today during SQUIRT time, I read 'Pigs Make Me Sneeze!'

Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids gave 'Pigs Make Me Sneeze to Mrs M and last year's Gems.

It is a great book. It is by the same author as 'Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus'.

If you look carefully, you can see the pigeon on the last page.

I'm glad Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids gave it too us.

by Stella

TRACKING OUR VISITORS

We have two maps on our blog that show us where the visitors to our blog are coming from. We can see from the stars that the 2M Gems blog has had visitors from America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
One of the maps has stars that 'flash' when someone is actually online, viewing the blog.

This morning when we were on our blog, we were excited to see two stars flashing.

We knew that the one flashing on Australia was us and the other one looked like it was flashing where we know Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids are.

So we sent them a tweet, to check if it was them.

While we were waiting for a tweet back, we checked if there were any comments on our blog.

What do you think we found?

Mrs Knee HAD been on our blog and she'd left us a comment!

We also discovered that Kavidu, one of last year's Gems, had left us a comment too!

We think it's great to have these maps to show us when someone is visiting our blog and where they are coming from.

Do you have maps to track visitors to your blog?

WELCOME TO 2010

Today is our first day in Year 2 and we are very excited to join Mrs M in the 2M Learning Neighbourhood.

Some of us have older brothers or sisters who were amongst the first Gems. We have heard much from them and Mrs M about how we will be blogging about our learning and connecting with classes around the world, so we are very excited to be stepping into their shoes and continuing the conversation as the 2010 Gems.

We were also excited to receive a welcoming tweet from Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids in Deerfield, New Hampshire in the USA.

None of us knew where Deerfield is, so we hopped onto Google Maps to check it out. As you can see, Deerfield is a LONG way away!

View Where in the World is Deerfield, NH? in a larger map

If you head over to the Kinderkids blog, you can see the special welcome post Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids made for us.

What a great way to start Year 2! We feel very lucky to have such a wonderful welcome and know, just like the previous Gems, that we are going to love having Mrs Knee and the Kinderkids as our blogging friends.

Our other exciting news is that we are on Twitter and today we put out our first tweet. By clicking on the blue bird on the sidebar, you can read our tweets and follow us on Twitter.

Today is the start of our blogging journey. We don't know where our learning will take us this year but we know the journey will be exciting.
We need YOU to be part of it so...

COME JOIN THE CONVERSATION!