Skyping with Mrs. Price's Class in Australia

We had a very busy day and lots of schedule changes. We had to live our other motto of "go with flow like seaweed in the ocean" many times. But we all did a great job handling all of the changes.

Now that daylight saving is in effect, we can Skype with Mrs. Price's class in Australia. We have one hour of overlap in our days - our last hour of school is their first hour Their school year is almost over - it ends on our winter break. They are excited for summer while we are getting ready for winter. In February when they come back to school, Mrs. Price will have a whole new class. Thanks Ms. Jen for helping try to get a few photos during this crazy time.

Skyping with Mrs. Price's New Class

Yesterday we Skyped with Mrs. Price's new class in Australia. Earlier they had sent us videos of each child introducing themselves to us but today we got to Skype with them and introduce ourselves. This will be the last time we Skype with them this school year because the time will change while we are on Spring Break and we won't have any times that will match up in our school days after that. We will still be able to send them videos, emails and tweets, though. We learn so much each time we connect with them. One cool fact that we learned yesterday was that the national animals of Australia are the kangaroo and emu. This is because they are the only animals who can't move backwards and Australia wants to be moving forward. Very interesting!


Homework ~ Read a good book or two. Check out a Bedtime Math story.

Skyping with Australia

Two years I "met" Joan Price, a teacher from Australia, on Twitter. We became friends (we can talk for hours when just the two of us are on Skype) and connected our classrooms. I have been anxiously awaiting the time when I could introduce my crew this year to her class. We had to wait until we switched to daylight saving time in order to have any school time in common. Today we Skyped with them for the first time at 3 pm our time which was 9 am Tuesday morning for them.  Her class is a Prep class. Prep is comparable to our Kindergarten. It was exciting to get to see and hear them today. Sadly, they could see us but couldn't hear us so we improvised and wrote messages to them on a whiteboard. Ask your child to tell you all about the things we have learned about them.

Note ~ The Book Fair will be held in the library all this week. We were all very excited to visit the fair this morning. A special evening of family activities has been planned for November 17th from 4:30 to 7:30 pm. Please be sure to stop by the book fair one day this week.

Homework ~ Read a good book or two. Check out a Bedtime Math story.

Important Dates
11/16-11/20 Fall Climbing Week ~ Belayers needed, sign up here: Fall Climbing Belay Sign Up
11/16-11/20 Book Fair Week ~ Family Night 11/17 from 4:30 to 7:30 pm
11/20 Thanksgiving Lunch at 12:25 Thanksgiving Lunch Sign Up
11/25-11/27 No School ~ Thanksgiving Break
12/4 Fieldwork to Joyous Chinese Cultural School - more information coming soon
12/18 Fieldwork to Pacific Ocean Market and Kings Land Restaurant - more information coming soon
12/21-1/4 No School ~ Winter Break

Skype Call to Australia

Yesterday we Skyped with Mrs. Price and her class and other students from her school. We got to meet her new class of Preps (Kindergarteners). What shocked us most of all was that there are only 9 students in her class. Wow, just wow! Our crew quickly pointed out that we have many more students since we have 25 students. We told them about our recent snow storm, our upcoming Voyage and how we made polygons in Math. They told us about an Arts and Crafts Festival that they had and some new caterpillars that they have in their classroom. We enjoyed chatting with them. It was also very nice to see Regina again.

The view from here

The view from there

One of their caterpillars

The second part of today's post is about last Friday. We had so many students absent that I had a hard time trying to pull my reading groups because so many students were missing from each group. I finally decided that this was a good day for me to just spend a little time with the crew during station time. It is nice to just get to hang out with the kids for a little bit, too. We had a lovely time.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 7.5 Practicing with Fact Triangles

Global Awareness

One of the 21st Century Skills that we want all students to have is global awareness. We have had many experiences that have helped us increase our global awareness. Below is a list of some of those experiences:

• Skyping and tweeting with Mrs. Price's Prep/1 class from Jindivick, Victoria, Australia
• Each of us having a friend in Australia that we feel personally connected to
• Visiting Joyous Chinese Cultural Center to meet people who were born in China and to learn more about Chinese culture
• Doing an in-depth study of families in China including topics like foods, celebrations, schools, hobbies, shopping, daily life in cities and villages, languages and more
• Learning a little bit about the differences in time zones between various places in the world. The crew was fascinated to learn that people in Australia and China are still sleeping when we get to school in the morning. It was also interesting to learn that when we Skype Mrs. Price's class on a Monday afternoon just before the end of our school day that they are just arriving at school for the start of school on Tuesday morning there.
• We are learning to be accepting of differences in accents, skin color, language usage, personal beliefs and more.
• Locating various places (China, Australia, Mexico, Florida, Idaho, etc.) on a map or globe and noticing where those places are in relation to us.
• Grappling with the idea that there are many ways to live in our world - farms, apartments, houses, house boats, huts, etc.
• We spent a while discussing whether everyone in the world speaks English or not.
• We learned that money looks different all around the world
• We have learned a few words of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Sign Language

These are just a few of the ways that we are trying to become more globally aware. This age is wonderful to explore these topics because they are so willing to be open to new cultures and ideas.

They are also very willing to share our culture with others. Mrs. Price's class has learned so much from our crew, too.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Practice basic addition or subtraction facts.

Important Dates
12/19 Fieldwork to Pacific Ocean Market and King's Land Restaurant
12/22 - 1/5 Winter Break
1/6 First day back after Winter Break
1/16 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
1/19 No School - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2/13 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
2/16 No School - President's Day
2/26 Winter Voyage ~ Day 1 - not an overnight trip (Day 2 will be in April - also not an overnight trip)
3/23 - 4/3 Spring Break

Getting to Know Our Friends from Australia

Today was a great day! We really feel more connected to our friends in Australia now. We received a package of gifts from them as I am sure that you all know by now since the crew was so excited about them. The package contained: clip-on koalas (enough for one for each of our crew), a flag, stickers, a book, a calendar, kangaroo counters, vegemite, a kangaroo pen, coins, and notes and brochures about their school. It also contained two gifts for me from Mrs. Price: an echindna ornament and two stuffed koalas. The package arrived while we were practicing measuring and we opened it right away. It was very exciting.

Then as if that wasn't exciting enough, later in the day some of us got to Skype individually with our buddy from Australia. We talked mostly about pets but were able to ask any other questions we had.  About half of us (or a bit more than half) got to chat with our buddy. Next Monday, we will have another chance for the rest of the crew to chat with their buddy.

Here we are wearing our new clip-on koalas on our fingers right before we left to go home. We were excited but very quiet in this picture because Madison was still Skyping with her buddy at the time. I love this! I get just as excited as the crew about connecting with our friends in Australia. In January, a girl from their class will be visiting our school while she is traveling around the United States during her summer vacation. We can't wait to meet her in person.

After  school I got the picture below from Mrs. Price. It shows some parrots sitting outside their window while we were all Skyping. I will have to show the crew tomorrow.