The "What Can You See?" project has reached new and exciting heights in our classroom! With the project extending beyond our class and Mrs. Harrison's, other educators and their Kindergarten and Grade 1 classes have jumped on board and produced their own "What Can You See?" digital books! From Keswick and Newmarket to Richmond Hill, Markham and even Surrey, British Columbia, our class continues to enjoy such an authentic audience for learning about the world around them and making those meaningful connections!

After such an overwhelming response and interest from our students after our Skype session with Mrs. Harrison's class, we have embraced every moment to talk about, make connections and share ideas throughout our class meetings and daily discussions. Our Comparison Charts have made for engaging conversations with our whole class as well as during small group instruction and also act as a visual reminder of our learning.

Our introduction to Google Earth and this project actually came from students' connections to the fact that our Earth is a sphere! Having been inquiring about 2D shapes and 3D figures in the recent weeks, we wanted to make this notion even more visible to our students so we decided to show them the Earth with this program! This even led to our class extending our connections to one of our students who happens to be away in Egypt and Google Earth gave us the opportunity to see just how far away Egypt really was from Woodbridge! This initial exploration with such a dynamic teaching and learning tool led to robust thinking and authentic conversations throughout our classroom!

After dialoguing with our Administrator, Mr. Collins, we left with a "spark" on how we could use Google Earth to support our "What Can You See?" project! With this idea, we used our students connections to shed light on how close and how far the schools in our project really are from us and each other. "3...2...1...Blast off!" filled our room and the "flying in" to each destination truly captivated our learners and we were able to not only connect the project to the world, but we were also able to use this opportunity to discuss perspective, "birds-eye view" and the shapes we see! Talk about cross-curricular integration!

Not only has Google Earth given us the chance to see each school from a different perspective, but it has more importantly captured the thinking of our students whereby they feel inspired to explore where they live, the community, and the world around them! We have had students excitement lead them to finding their house, a friend's house, a park, the grocery store, Canada's Wonderland, and other destinations outside of our community like the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls! With each day that passes, our students grow more and more excited to embrace technology to enhance their learning and this project is authentic learning at its finest!

We noticed that Bond Lake Public School wasn't built yet - this image provoked lots of interesting questions and theories! 

We encourage you to check out the other amazing videos that have been shared with our class throughout our exploration and involvement with this project. As you watch, talk with your child about any connections they have and by asking prompting questions like "What do you see?," "Tell me more" and "What are you thinking?" will help elicit some wonderful dialogue at home! If possible, we kindly ask that you take a minute to share your families comments here on our blog for our class to read!

- Mrs. Jelley and her Kindergarten team  from Keswick, Ontario created an inspiring video found on their class blog: http://teamjellybean.posterous.com

- Mrs. Harrison's Kindergarten class is also from Keswick, Ontario and you can watch their video on their blog: http://techieang.edublogs.org  Scroll down to the "What Can You See" post.

- Ms. Babalis' Kindergarten class from Richmond Hill, Ontario created a different kind of "What Can You See?" book and used a program called "Comic Life" to tell their story! Check it out on their blog: http://myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.ca

- Ms. Lirenman's Grade 1 class from Surrey, British Columbia was a great surprise! Check out their book on their class blog: http://mslirenmansroom.blogspot.ca

Thank you again to Angie Harrison for the time and effort it has taken you to organize this incredible project! We hope to have more schools from around our community, region and even the world join in on this incredible journey! 

Making A Cloud

The quote by Mandy Budan noted during my own exploration with clouds through art at Paintlounge has stuck with me and trickled into our class' Cloud Inquiry...

With her painting she said, "I'm exploring the way clouds interact with the sky. Sometimes the cloud seems separate from the sky and sometimes it is clearly just an extension of it."

As a way of bringing this quote to life in our classroom, we have been using our knowledge and observations about clouds to be the inspiration for creating our very own cloud in our classroom! 

It's safe to say that construction is underway! 

After brainstorming what materials we will need in order to make our cloud, our students have taken an active role in sculpting, weaving, knotting, and wrapping various materials into our installation! Take a look as our learning collages bring to life the "cloud construction" in our classroom! 

Our students have also decided to make raindrops that will fall from our cloud installation! With beads and wire, they have not only been building their fine motor skills, but we were ecstatic to see them showcasing their knowledge about patterns, shapes, lines and the water cycle! 

It's truly incredible to see the power of inquiry in our classroom and our students are a true testament to how their natural curiousity can be the driving force behind their learning! To honour the process behind our cloud inquiry journey, we have showcased our learning through a documentation panel again in our hallway! Similar to our Tree Timeline last year, we decided to take it one step further ! In addition to the photographs, we have used our pedagogical documentation, captured quotes, and observations to highlight our journey so far! This also makes for an interactive experience for not only our class since they can connect to their initial theories/observations, but it allows anyone who walks by a chance to dive into our inquiry and become a part of it! 

If you get a chance to "walk our walls," we would love to hear about what you see! 

Stay tuned as we plan to post more about our Cloud installation as it unfolds in our classroom as well as how our Cloud Inquiry Panel grows!

Our Peace Book

Take a look at how Todd Parr's book entitled "The Peace Book" inspired our class to create their own!

Since we've taken this leap with technology in our program, we decided what better tool to use when creating our very own Peace Book than the iPads! Over the course of the week, some students were interested in contributing a picture, others were interested in sharing a comment and some were eager to do both! As a result, we ended up with student participation from a multifaceted level and those interested in the actual creation of the book worked in a small group using an app called Pictello. As the company's description outlines, Pictello is a simple tool for creating talking photo albums and talking books. Each page in a Pictello story can contain a picture, up to five lines of text, and a recorded sound or text-to-speech using high-quality voices. Pictello is developed for all ages and skill levels, so it is easy to use and requires no reading skills to locate and read stories! 


Our original book contains recorded voices of each student involved in the project as they state what peace means to them. However, the Pictello file on the iPad could not be transferred to create a movie file. Instead, my DECE and I took the screen shots of each page in the book and turned it into an iMovie for you all to see! We also look forward to sharing Our Peace Book with our school at our Remembrance Day Assembly. We even had one student create their very own Peace Book with sentences about what peace means to them at home and share it with the class! Below are pictures of this student's book with captions of his words.

Peace is sharing. Peace is keeping the water blue. Peace is taking turns. Peace is keeping friends and family. Peace is no fighting. Peace is loving each other. Peace is reading a new book. Peace is saying sorry to a friend. Peace is just having fun.

Peace is planting a tree. Peace is staying in a house to be warm. Peace is treating new things properly. Peace is fixing things. Peace is playing games properly. Peace is playing with friends!

We hope you feel inspired by our younger generation and embrace their knowledge about peace to help make the world a better place!