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

Up, Up and Away: A Celebration

Last Friday, our class had the wonderful opportunity of visiting Pilot Ryan at his airport! Not only was this a great way for us to see a real airport and airplanes in action, but it was a wonderful way to celebrate all of our learning as this incredible inquiry comes to an end.

Leading up to our visit, our students began to make predictions about what they think they might see at Pilot Ryan's airport based on what they've learned throughout our inquiry. One of our SK students (J.S.) decided to look up Buttonville Airport on Google Earth and inspired his peers to do the same. What came out of this learning opportunity was a chance for our class to create checklists for our special visit and what we hope to see when we're there:

When the day finally came, our students were beyond excited and we were happy to also have the company of our Community Class join us on our excursion! Smiles, songs and excitement filled our school bus and to top it off, the weather was absolutely perfect! 

Once we arrived, Pilot Ryan greeted us at the front doors and our adventure began. It wasn't long before "ooh's" and "ahh's" filled the building as we made our way to our "Classroom" for a Morning Meeting. This classroom was pretty neat - filled with pictures of airplanes, helicopters, maps and a real propeller! Pilot Ryan taught us about safety when we go out on the tarmac and had a few other Pilots come and assist us as we started our tour. 

Some highlights of our trip:

1. Students were able to make connections to various parts of the airport, airplane and job roles at the airport.

2. Students got to go up into the Weather Tower, talk and learn from a real Meteorologist and listen to the radio commands being given to pilots up in the air! 

3. Students learned how the Weather Tower measures how high the clouds are in the sky! A special machine shoots a laser into the sky and once a cloud passes over it, it bounces back down and tells the computer how high the clouds are!

3. Students got to see the flight simulation room where Pilot Candidate's practice how to fly.

4. Students got to sit in the cockpit of a real airplane, turn the yolk (steering wheel) and see what happens to the wings.

5. Students got to watch airplanes and helicopters taking off and landing every few minutes! They also learned that helicopters take off and land by going up and down and airplanes need to "zoom" down the runway to lift off!

For the "grown-ups" on the trip, we learned that Tom Cruise trained to be a pilot at Buttonville Airport and that John Travolta visits often (too bad we missed them during our visit)!

The pictures below are only a snapshot of all the wonderful things and conversations had while visiting Pilot Ryan at the airport! 

Flight Simulation Room

We would like to take this opportunity again to thank our wonderful Parent Volunteers who assisted us on our trip and to Pilot Ryan for hosting! Our students will always remember this visit and it truly was an authentic learning opportunity for them!

Pilot Ryan, we hope you enjoyed your "Thank You Book" from our class and we hope to see you again soon or maybe even up in the sky!