We had some fun today with a new website. The site is called PicLits. It is a neat site where you can add descriptive words and phrases to a picture. You can see the example below.

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

It’s great for Language Arts. We did a couple as a class and suggested that they may want to add some to our blog. However, they will only be able to add a link not the actual picture. Anyway, I thought I would try a step by step to do this:

1. Go to PicLits.
2. Sign in. Students can use the same user name and password as the one I gave them for Animoto.
3. Students create their picture with words.
4. When you are done, click on the word save.
5. Then click on the button for “blog or share” which is on the right hand side of the picture under the save.
6. Highlight and copy the link in the first box by clicking the mouse and dragging it over the words in the box. Make sure you have them all! When it is all highlighted, click on the right mouse button and choose save or go to the top of the screen and click “Edit” -> “copy”.
7. Go to our class blog.
8. On the most recent post, click on the “Post a Comment”
9. Type in your message like normal than “paste” in the link by right clicking with your mouse and choosing paste or got to the top of your screen, click on “Edit”->”Paste”.
10. Click submit and wait for me to approve it
11. And You’re done!

Have fun making your piclits! I will look at any of the ones done and maybe paste them into a post so we can all see them!

Well, we were back at it this week with lots of exciting things happening. Today we started looking at converting our outlines into paragraphs and the students were very excited to see the difference between what they started with and the paragraph we ended up with. The second paragraph was much more interesting with more details and interesting words being used. We also talked a great deal about how scientists developed their Mars Rover using the same ideas and procedures as we did when we looked at Oobleck. The students were amazed to discover that they had been doing the very same things that scientists did when they went to build the Mars rover. We watched some cool videos on the Mars Rover development and what happened when it went to Mars. We did a lot of talking about all the thinks scientists had to consider without even really knowing what the surface of Mars was like. Here is one of the videos that we watched.

Here is the spelling listspelling-l-32 for this week:

Reminder: Class pictures tomorrow! Please have your children come dressed in full dress uniforms!!!!

“I scream!  You scream!  We all scream for ice cream!”

Popsicles, Fudgsicles and Ice cream bars, $1 each

Wednesday, October 1st

In the lobby during recess and lunch.

This ad is being brought to you by the “High Fives”

*Items may not be as pictured.

We had a great day today. The students did so well and were amazing with their listening and following directions. It was a great day. The class is really starting to come together and create something exciting!

I am completely floored by the Oobleck machines the students are making. We had some new ones come in today. Here they are:

It was a busy day today and the students got quite a bit done. We are just about done working on our outlines and will be getting ready to turn them back into stories. The student have really picked up the idea of writing outlines and should be able to make an easy transition to writing paragraphs from those outlines.

In Art, we are working on creating pictures out of horizontal lines, diagonal lines and vertical lines. While it may seem that it would be hard to do an interesting piece of art out of just lines, I think the art will be amazing.

We reached a milestone the other day! We have gone past 2,000 visitors on our blog! We were all very excited and we are now trying to reach 3,000 by the end of the year.

Just a reminder! Students have their spelling test and memory verse tomorrow. Please help the students prepare for those!

Here is a game for you to try that looks like fun.

3D Maze – Play Now! Prepare a plastic bag near you before playing this game…

I got a new toy for the class. It is called a Flip and it is a mini video camera that takes amazing video and is extremely easy to use. I hope to use it with the students in some projects this year. However, because S.D ( a student in our class) requested it, I thought I would add the inaugural video from the Flip. It is a video of our dog and our attempts to get it to roll over. Here it is:

What a day!! So much happening . ..  So tired . . . so much excitement . . .

Chapel! Lot’s of excitement. Our class actually won a prize for being so full of praise and love for God and worshiping with all their hearts. It was great to see.

Speaking of the bible, the memory verse for this week is from Philippians 4:4-6:

Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: rejoice! Let your greatness be evident to all. The Lord is near! Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

We had some more Oobleck machines come in from various students. Here are some of the pictures:

In Social Studies we had this great discussion on the community of Chilliwack. I discovered this project that this Grade 3 Girl was doing in Colorado. She was asking people to fill in her wiki site with information about where they were to help her learn about geography; almost like getting people to send her a postcard. A wiki is a neat kind of website where you can allow people to add and change something that you have created as a way to collaborate and build something bigger, more relevant, interesting and powerful. Wikipedia is a very good example of this. Anyway, we decided to add some info about Chilliwack and we got into a great discussion about what picture we could use that would show as much as we could about Chilliwack. We found some good pictures but not all of them reflected the true diversity of what Chilliwack was about. So we ended up do a little bit and then added a message stating that we would add the picture later when we had finished discussing which picture to use. We were looking at the pictures from the City of Chilliwack site which you can see here. I have also added the site to the list of links of the side if you want to take a look at the wiki and what people have added already.

It was a great day today. We got a lot of work done today and the students are really starting to feel confident with multiplication. Many of them said that before this year, they were worried that they were going to find multiplication hard but now think that it will be really easy which is great to hear though we are still just getting into introducing the concept.

Science today was really interesting. Some of the students had made an actual Oobleck machine out of different materials and we spent a little bit of time exploring their creations and testing how they worked. One of the students then asked a really good question about what an Oobleck creature would look like so we spent some time talking about that. I will put some pictures on the blog of the machines when I get my camera back (my wife has it right now, and is holding it hostage until I bring the memory card back home from school!). I also have some audio clips of students talking about their oobleck drawings and will add those when I have some time.

Here are the spelling words for this week. Again you can see them below, click the link above for download them from the box.net widget on the right hand side.

What a great end to the week. The students had a great couple of days and we got a lot accomplished. The students all did a wonderful job on their bible verse today which was fantastic to see (and hear!).

Students also did their spelling tests today as well, which will be marked for Monday. Thinking about the next wee, the students will be really getting into things. We will be wrapping up their science projects on the Oobleck machines and working on the student’s pictures of their visions of what a safe and caring community looks like. We will be adding those ideas into a Voicethread to share with everyone. If you don’t havea microphone for your computer, you may want to consider picking one up as you will be able to add comments to the voicethreads to respond to the students work. Microphones are pretty cheap and do not have to be fancy at all. It would be really cool if the students were able to get some feedback on their work.

Monday is Red Shirt Day at Highroad to encourage and cheer on the volleyball team. Students are allowed to were jeans and a red shrt. The info I have is:

Well, Ned was in town today and a whole lot of yo-yo fun was to be had. It was a great performance with a great Christian message. The students loved the tricks and the presenter, Tim, was great and really spoke well to the students in a way that was entertaining and enjoyable.

Here is an animoto of the presenter. The pictures aren’t great but give an idea of what was going on. I also included a couple of clips of people doing yo-yo tricks and a video of a lesson on how to do a trick.

In math, the students have started multiplication with a look at the dimensions of a rectangle. Students learned that rectangles can be made up of lots of little squares. A dimension is the number of squares going along the bottom of the rectangle and how many squares going up the side of a rectangle there are. We call it over and up. Students also learned that the over number of squares times the up number of squares equals the area of the rectangle or the product. I know what you’re saying! “Easy for you to say, Mr.Hancock!” Well, the students caught on very quickly and were able to create rectangles with me only giving them the area of the rectangle.

This afternoon, students had their first party. We had a great time and the students are now working on the next 25 stars they need to have their next party. However, they may find it to be a little harder as I tend to get quite picky as the year goes on.

Reminder that Friday is both their spelling test and their memory verse reciting. Please help your child to work on both those items. If you need a spelling list, you can download the list from the class files section of the blog.

Lots of stuff happening today!!!!

We started our Oobleck machines today! They are looking really good. Aftre looking at the Oobleck, the students wrote down five important properties of Oobleck. After discussing those properties with the class, each group chose 5 properties that we titled Laws of Oobleck. The five laws we came up with were:

• It melts in your hand sometimes but not always and after it has been used a lot.
• It melts and dries because it was a solid and a liquid
• The liquid evaporates but the other stuff doesn’t
• It hardens in a quick amount of time.
• It hardens when we squish it.

Now that the laws have been established, students are working on designing a vehicle that could move around on the surface of Oobleck and collect specimans to further study Oobleck before it takes over the world!!!

Students also got their first ten spelling words today. I have put the entire list here in the post. If you can’t see the list, you can click on the document in the Box.net widget on the right side under where it says Class Files. If you click on the file, it will give you the option to download it. You can also click spelling-l-1 to download it.

This weekend, the school is holding a golf tournament in support of purchasing more equipment for the playground. The information is as follows:

September 20, 2008 Aquadel Golf Course, 9am Shotgun Start, includes lunch and prizes for all!  Cost $60.00 please purchased tickets at the school office. :

Students also have their first bible verse today. They will need to have these verses memorized for FRIDAY!

The verse is Ephesians 2:10.

“We are God’s Masterpiece. he has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good thinkgs he planned for us long ago.”

I have had lots of great comments about doing the favorite verses as memory verses. I believe it is really affirming to hear how the bible affects people and how each of these special verses speaks to each of us. I also have been reading verses I have not heard before which is great for our growth in studying God’s word.

Finally, I was told that I just have to add some of the songs from the Bungee Jumpin’ Cows on the blog. This group is a band from the States that goes around to schools and sings songs that are science related. They are great fun and I actually met one of them when I went down to take a science course. It was great fun and the kids just loved the CD.

Have a great evening!