Global Play Day ☼ 2016

Today, my class participated in Global School Play Day! 

Thank you to the Bedley Brothers and Twitter for introducing me to this project!  The power of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) triumphs again!

I was heavily influence to participate in #GSPD after listening to this eye opening presentation: 

The Decline of Play TED Talk from psychologist Peter Gray. 

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On Monday, I emailed parents, shared "The Decline of Play" video, and asked for games to be brought in for our #GSPD event. On Wednesday, we had a few curricular blocks, but we were able to have two solid play sessions. 

The sessions were sensational!

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First, we talked about the rules. 

There would only be ☝, the Golden Rule.

Let's play!

This was a funny Twister game! 

Jenga!

As these students were setting up the game, they used the commutative property. See it? 

Even putting this game away was fun!

Let's play Hedbanz! 

Working the loom! 

What do you notice about this game? 

How do you play? 

Look at super cool creation on her head! 

Very creative!

Learning all about the Rubix Cube! 

A fun card game played on the Twister mat! 

Dominoes, rain forest style!

It was fun to play with our Journeys buddies! They are only five years old.  

What is your opinion of Global School Play Day?

Would you recommend it?

Convince me!

Your homework was to play. What did you do with your time?

Thanksgiving is Nearly Here!

If our tree looks like this, it must be nearly Thanksgiving! 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

That means it is time to bake pumpkin bread! 

Thank you, volunteers!

Baking Pumpkin Bread on PhotoPeach

Besides baking bread,  we were able to help out our Journeys buddies. They put on a fabulous Thanksgiving show!

We are thankful to have such wonderful friends! 

The speeches, songs, and poems were so well done! Great job, Ms. Cuevas and buddies!

After a week of conferences, announcements, and fun activities, everyone was exhausted, including Beverly! 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Enjoy your Thanksgiving break! 

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Do you have a special meal planned?

What are you grateful for? 

Annotative Journey :: Skitch App

Every Friday, we meet with our Reading Buddies in Journeys. The students in Journeys are four years old and will be entering kindergarten next year. This week, we helped them learn about the ipad app Skitch to practice annotating or labeling an image. 

When you annotate a photograph or drawing, it becomes a diagram. Diagrams are pictures that show information and are also called a text feature.   

Students sat together with their buddies and identified and labeled parts of an original photo. Uniform formatting and providing a title were goals. Here are some photos from the annotating session:

Here are some of the final products.

What are some tips you can share for successful annotating with Skitch?

What did you learn from the exploration? 

A Thanksgiving Journey!

Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Students learn about the history of Thanksgiving in school and sometimes there is a Thanksgiving presentation. Our reading buddies are in the Journey's program at our school. They are pre-kindergarten students; many are only four years old! Our pals invited us to help and watch their Thanksgiving Performance.

Before the show, we helped the young performers with their costumes. Four third graders worked as ushers who handed out programs to the parents in the audience. Ella assisted with the entrance. The Pilgrims, turkeys, and Wampanoags were excited to start their show.  

Here they are lined up ready to begin! 

Mrs. Cuevas introduced the presentation. 

What a great pumpkin backdrop! 

This little Pilgrim welcomed the crowd.

The audience enjoyed Thanksgiving fun facts, sensational seasonal  songs, and it ended with a poem of gratitude!

The young performers enhanced the singing with clever gestures. A gesture is a movement that expresses an idea. 

Leave a message for your Journey's buddy. 

Remember, they are just learning to read. 

It is okay to leave very short sentences. 

It is okay to start your sentences the same way.

What was your favorite part about the presentation?