This post highlights the celebration of our Cloud Inquiry as the school year came to a close and how our students helped transform our learning space into that of a Cloud Gallery! 

The inspiration for this idea of an Art Gallery came from when my wonderful grade partner, Melanie (@mela4education) and I had the lovely opportunity of visiting another amazing educator Robyn Ecclestone (@robynecclestone, http://tocreatered.wordpress.com) at Wendat Village P.S. in Stouffville. It was there where we were introduced to one of her fabulous grade partner's Hallie Montreuil (@my_wonderings). After discussing with Hallie how her class presented their various art pieces (e.g. drawings, paintings, etc) in the form of an Art Gallery, I immediately presented the idea to my DECE and we were sold! The exciting part of this process was taking the inspiration and making it our own to ensure that it was unique and meaningful for our students.

Considering our Cloud Inquiry was reaching new heights with the integration of various art techniques inspired by the Group of Seven, Heidi and I wasted no time in presenting the idea of an Art Gallery to our students! With the use of acrylics coupled with various painting techniques, our young artists truly embraced every ounce of learning that occurred throughout the process and we couldn't be more proud of all that they accomplished!

BEFORE THE OFFICIAL OPENING:
To recount the exciting preparation of events that took place over the course of the final two weeks of school, our students had a number of fabulous ideas:

1. Students created announcements that they read over the P.A. system to advertise and invite other classes in our school to come down and visit our Cloud Gallery.

2. Students created posters that were displayed around the school letting students, parents and staff know the title of our event, date, time and place!

3. Students created personalized tickets for their family members to attend the exciting event that were then sent home!

4. Students decorated Cloud Cookies to be given to parents on the day of our official Cloud Gallery opening! (Thanks to our good friend Joanne Babalis for the idea!)

5. Students fully embraced the role of an Artist as they explained to their family, friends and staff the techniques they learned and how they created their masterpieces!

DURING OUR CLOUD GALLERY:

On the day of our "official" Cloud Gallery opening, words cannot even begin to describe how proud Heidi and I were of our students and how truly humbled we were to have seen such an overwhelming amount of support from our parents! Their enthusiasm, participation, feedback and support was a true testament to parent engagement at its finest and we couldn't be happier! This event will be one that we'll always remember and look back fondly on as a true highlight in our careers (which have only just begun)!

Our model airplane to signify our connections to our Airplane Inquiry.

Paintings created by myself and Ms. Theis that helped inspire our students.

Official Cloud Gallery cards - every students' masterpiece was showcased.

The following are a list of events that took place during the "official" opening of our gallery:

1. Students and parents watched a surprise video that documented the entire process behind their masterpieces!

2. Students each had a special "Artist Station" that they led their parents too after the video that helped begin our interactive gallery approach. Each station contained the following: Cloud Cookies, "Ask an Artist" card, and official "Gallery Program" that included a list of the artists as a memory of the event.

3. Students, staff and parents contributed towards a collaborative cloud painting that will be hung in our classroom in memory of this event! (Thanks again to our good friend Joanne Babalis for the idea!)

4. When other classrooms visited throughout the afternoon, our artists became ambassadors and led their peers in a Scavenger Hunt (K-3) and an Artist Critique (4-8) around the room that incorporated elements of their masterpieces.

5. Parents, students, and staff also signed our Gallery Guest Book to act as a memory of this event!

The following pictures are of the incredible artwork created by our students and we hope you feel inspired by our young artists, their efforts and their undeniable talent!  

I apologize for the long post, but feel that in order to give our celebration justice, all of the above needed to be included. Thank you again to all of our wonderful parents who came out to this special occasion and we are thrilled to have ended the year on such high note! We hope you have a restful, relaxing and enjoyable summer and we look forward to seeing you in September!

Celebrating Father's Day

It truly is incredible the number of inspiring educators there are that openly share their knowledge, ideas, expertise and work through the use of technology. Twitter, blogs, and other forms of social media certainly act as a catalyst for bringing educators, parents, friends and school communities together and I'm so grateful for all that I've learned, continue to learn and continue to feel inspired by as part of this professional learning network!

Today's post highlights a particular inspiration I had from a wonderful colleague, Angie Harrison (http://techieang.edublogs.org). Having been a regular follower of her blog, I particularly enjoyed her "Special Someone" post and the idea of recording a sentimental message for someone special in our students lives. Since our students created an artistic piece for Mother's Day, my DECE (Heidi Theis) and I decided to utilize our class' technology to follow in Angie's footsteps for Father's Day.

After sharing the idea with our class, they were thrilled to be able to share with their Dad's all that they love about them and why they're special and especially with the use of our class iPads. Since Angie had posted some of the challenges of this activity that she experienced with her class (e.g. some students struggled with talking and drawing at the same time and finding a quiet space for students to record their ideas), Heidi and I took this into account when planning for this special Father's Day surprise.

To begin, we had each student create a plan of what they want their drawing to look like on the iPad. This helped students get used to talking and drawing at the same time because we would dialogue and ask questions as they were drawing (e.g. why their Dad is special, what they like doing with their Dad, etc.).
Next, we modelled the use of the app "Explain Everything" for students individually so that they could see how it works. Finally, we took students out into the hallway one at a time to record their special message! Voila! Once exported, we sent individual personalized emails to each of our students' families with specific instructions to only open on Father's Day!

Here is a few examples of some of our student's special Father's Day messages. Thank you to these families for letting us share these sentimental messages on the blog and we hope you feel inspired just like Angie inspired us! 

T.B.'s Father's Day Video

S.M.'s Father's Day Video

I.D.'s Father's Day Video

W.F.'s Father's Day Video

To all of the incredible father's of our students! We would like to thank you for being your child's biggest fans and for encouraging them to be the best they can be! Your support, interest and involvement in their education is wonderful and we truly hope you enjoyed your special message and secret envelope surprise! 

We would also like to wish all of our followers, colleagues, friends and family members a Happy Father's Day! 

To my Dad, thank you for being my biggest fan, supporter and endless inspiration and example of what hard work looks like. You always encourage me to follow my dreams and I am so grateful to have you as my Dad! 

Our Father's Day was spent at Paintlounge creating a collaborative piece as part of their Father's Day Workshop! I think my wonderful brother and Dad are hooked already! Safe to say, they'll be coming back with me again!

What Can You See? and Egypt!

With the "What Can You See?" project, our students have been able to not only develop a greater understanding about the world around them, but in fact, the project has grown to the point where our students can learn about and appreciate different cultures around the world. 

As part of this new and exciting chapter of "We can see" books, one of our JK students (T.B.) recently got back from a trip to Egypt where he was visiting family. He was very excited to share his pictures with us and tell us stories about what he saw there and where he had visited. We had offered to compile his photos and create a digital book to share as part of the project on his families behalf!

We thank T.B. and his family for collecting these wonderful photographs and for letting us put them together into a digital book to share with all of you!

This video, along with our video from A.C. and her family in China, has generated lots of discussion in our classroom as our students have begun to see connections from these "We Can See" books to other books found in our library and at home. T.B. is very proud of where his family comes from and his ability to teach us new things about his culture and country! 

Even though the end of the year is approaching rather quickly, we still encourage our families to participate in this wonderful learning opportunity well into the summer months! If you haven't already, please check out our shared learning space for this incredible project by clicking on the link below:

www.wecanseeprojectsharingspace.blogspot.com