Kids Who Code: 2016 Code-a-thon

We had a minor setback this year as our scheduled Code-a-thon kickoff date ended up being a snow day due to a severe blizzard. This meant that we had to postpone our collaborative coding session with the OLCS Kindergartens until after our Christmas concerts. Although we were disappointed, we still had other Hour of Code sessions to lead! Once we were back at school, the grade 1s led coding sessions for the Grade 7/8 and Kindergarten students who were here during our no-bus day on the second day of the blizzard.  The weather settled down later in the week and we continued with our planned Hour of Code sessions at HES.  The grade 1s led sessions for all 30 of the grade 4 students and our 20 grade 2 neighbours.   It was awesome to see such great cooperation and collaboration between students!

We finally got to work with our OLCS Kindergarten buddies on the final day of school before Christmas break. Our class taught them how to code using Kodable and Tynker. Their class taught us to code with The Foos. It was a really fun way to spend our final morning of school before the holidays!  In total, the 22 grade 1s worked with over 70 other students to learn about coding!  I also led coding sessions for our HES Coding Club.  That means over 100 of us completed the Hour of Code this year!


Check out the video of the 2016 Kids Who Code Code-a-thon

Kids Who Code: Planning the 2016 Code-a-thon

It has become an annual tradition for my class to plan and host an event for Hour of Code during Computer Science Education Week.  In our inaugural year, my grade 2 class co-planned the first ever Kids Who Code Code-a-thon with Mrs. Caldwell's Kindergarten class.  Last year, my grade 1s planned the 2015 Code-a-thon event and invited students from our school and surrounding schools.  This year, my grade 1s collaborated with our partner class, the OLCS Kindergartens, to plan the 2016 Kids Who Code Code-a-thon. 

When we are working on a project with another class, we often use a to do list to guide us.  The to do list changes as we work together to complete the project.  We typically meet via video call to stay on track with our event planning.  This system of collaborative project-based learning worked well for us as we prepared for our big event!

One of our jobs for this project was writing instructions for our selected coding tools.  We saved them as PDFs to print out and we created a video version with narration.  This was a great opportunity to introduce procedural writing to my grade 1s and it always adds motivation to write for an authentic audience.  Check out our final shared writing projects below:

Skype-a-thon 2016

On November 30th, our grade 1 class took part in the 2016 Skype-a-thon global learning event!  We were honoured to be selected for a call with special guest speaker, Ms. Toni Townes-Whitley.  Ms. Townes-Whitley is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Worldwide’s Public Sector.  We read one of our favourite poems "Pets for Sale" for her to start the video call.  Then, she answered our questions about her job, her community (Redmond, Washington) and her life. She also had lots of questions for us.   We discussed our successful Books for Guatemala garage sale and our upcoming plans to host the third annual Kids Who Code Code-a-thon.  It was a very special experience to have such an important leader take time to talk to our class!

Skype in the Classroom is an awesome tool that I've been using in education for about eight years.  Besides connecting with guest speakers, I use Skype to support teaching and learning in a variety of other ways, including:

• Skype story time - Shared read alouds between classrooms can be a great way to encourage students to talk to each other about books.  We have also shared student-created books via Skype so students could reach a real audience outside of the classroom and get feedback on their writing!
• Global Read Aloud - Classrooms around the world read the same book(s) and connect to discuss the books, share ideas and work together! 
• Mystery Number Skype - Guess a Skype partner classroom's mystery number using yes or no questions, while fostering some great math thinking! 
• Collaborative projects- We often use Skype as a "meeting tool" to work with other classes when planning and executing collaborative projects such as the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon, our Maker Faire and Yoga Festival and the Marvelous Muffins fundraiser.

Books for Guatemala Garage Sale: Thanks for your support!

The grade 1 class hosted a successful garage sale fundraiser on November 21st, raising $171!  We would like to thank everyone who helped us and supported our garage sale!  This grade 1 project was in support of a Global Read Aloud Gives Back project to benefit El Buen Samaritano community center in Jocotenango, Guatemala. Our profits will be used to buy books for their center.  

Grade 1 students and their families volunteered to work shifts at the garage sale during our parent-student-teacher interview day.  The grade 1s did a great job of collecting used toys, books and clothes to donate for the sale.  I think it is really special that my students chose to sell some of their belongings to help others!

When we were back in class on Tuesday morning, we were excited to count up our money.  The grade 1s counted how many of each type of coin and bill, printed the numbers for each and then counted by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 20s to determine the subtotal for each.  To calculate our grand total, a small group worked together using base ten blocks representing the dollar amounts.  Once we determined how much we had raised, our class selected books from the book drive fundraiser page and ordered them for the students in Guatemala. 

 

Books for Guatemala Garage Sale

As I explained in this post, our grade 1 class is hosting a garage sale fundraiser in support of the Global Read Aloud book drive for El Buen Samaritano community center in Jocotenango, Guatemala.  We would like to invite any local blog readers to support us by coming to shop on Monday.  If you are interested in personally supporting the cause, visit the Palms & Souls organization website or the GRA Gives Back Book Drive site. 

Books for Guatemala Garage Sale : Our First Project

Our class took part in the Global Read Aloud (GRA) this year.  This year, the Global Read Aloud is partnering with a nonprofit organization, called Palms & Souls,  to organize a book drive for a school/community center in Jocotenango, Guatemala. Each year, I provide opportunities for students to engage in project-based learning that addresses real-world problems or makes a difference for others.  When I read about the partnership between GRA and Palms & Souls, I thought it could be a great starting point for a Grade 1 project.   I decided to tell my grade 1s about how students participating in GRA were working together to help students in Guatemala.  We were even able to "meet" some of the kids there by reading about them on the GRA blog!

When it was put to a class vote, the grade 1s decided that they would be interested in contributing to the book drive.  We began by brainstorming ways to fundraise and, once we decided on holding a garage sale, we created a to-do list to guide our project.  We decided to hold the garage sale during parent-teacher-student interviews, so that many families would already be coming to the school.  One of our next tasks was to ask our families for help.  We completed the letter to our families as a shared writing activity and I added a short teacher message and sign-up form to the note before students took the letter home. 

GRA founder, Pernille Ripp, shared the following information on her blog:

"Who is behind Palms & Souls?

Educator, Reidun Bures...and her husband Ryan,  traveled to Guatemala for their honeymoon in 2014, never dreaming that they would end up founding a nonprofit. They write, “We spent a week volunteering at El Buen Samaritano community center in Jocotenango. The community center provides healthy meals, primary education, tutoring, school supplies, and a safe place to play for 60 students. We left the center with a sense of awe and love for all they were doing. But we were also disturbed after seeing the enormous barriers these people faced to bettering their own situations.”

What is the problem in Jocotenango?

In Guatemala, school is only compulsory through 6th grade. Less than 40% of students make it past middle school. Our nonprofit, Palms and Souls, is committed to changing that narrative.  We are partnering with El Buen Samaritano to help them meet some basic needs of the students, but so much more is needed.  These kids need the one tool that has been shown to improve overall academic performance and lead to enriching lives. They need books!"

Ripp, P. (2016, August 18). Global Read Aloud. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from https://theglobalreadaloud.com/2016/08/18/major-announcement-the-global-read-aloud-gives-back-gra16/

Our first book: Is this a ball?

The grade 1s published their first shared writing book today!  We read "Is this a moose?" by Jenny Armstrong and used her book as a model text for our own writing.  First, we began by brainstorming possible topics for our book.  There were a lot of good ideas, but we narrowed it down to 3 topics and voted.  Once we decided to write our book about toys, then we brainstormed some toys we could include in the book.  Since we wanted to have photographs of each toy, we had to make a plan for that too.  We took pictures of any toys we had at school and then some of us took notes home to get our families to help us.  Once we had all of the photographs, we began to write the words for each page of the book.  Each day we would read our writing as a class, then add the writing for the next page.  When we were done writing, we printed off a copy to keep in our classroom and we also made a digital book to share online.  You can flip the pages in our book by clicking here or watch the version below!