Kids Who Code: A Successful Code-a-thon

After much hard work and preparation, the Grade 1s successfully hosted the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon last week!  The 22 kids from our class ran 6 different coding stations, featuring coding activities from Kodable, The Foos, Lightbot, Tynker, Scratch Jr. and code.org. 

We had over 140 guests, including students from other classrooms and local dignitaries.  Guest classes in attendance included Mrs. Hrymak’s Grade 3 & 4 class from Rapid City School, Mrs. Caldwell’s Kindergarten Class from Miniota School, Mrs. Gorrell’s Grade 2 class from Shoal Lake School, Mr. Smith’s Grade 8 class from Hamiota Collegiate and the Grades 2,3 and 4 classes from Hamiota Elementary.  Local dignitaries in attendance included Arther-Virden M.L.A. Mr. Doyle Piwniuk, R.M. of Hamiota Mayor Mr. Larry Oakden, Park West School Division Superintendent Mr. Tim Mendel and Park West School Division Board Chair Darren Naherniak.  A group of awesome student teachers from the Brandon University Faculty of Education volunteered to help us keep the event running smoothly!

This unique, student-led event was planned to engage students in learning coding as part of the Hour of Code™ movement.  The Hour of Code™ is considered the largest learning event in history, with more than 100 million students worldwide already completing an hour of code.  This global event is designed to spark interest in computer science since many computer science jobs go unfilled and few schools teach computer science.  I was very proud of what great coding teachers my students were for this special event - they helped so many others to learn more about coding!  Great job grade 1s!

 

2015 Kids Who Code: The Code-a-thon Returns!

We live in a world surrounded by technology and we know that students will need to know how to effectively use technology to succeed in their futures.  And it’s more than just a need to use technology, it’s a need to create with technology and understand how technology works.  However, only a tiny fraction of people are learning computer science.   

That’s why my class is joining the largest learning event in history: The Hour ofCode!  Hour of Code takes place during Computer Science Education Week (December 7-13th).   More than 100 million students worldwide have already tried an Hour of Code and we are excited to see that number grow.  We are putting our own twist on Hour of Code again this year.  The Grade 1s in my class are very excited to host our 2015 Kids Who Code Code-a-thon! This exciting, student-led event will take place at our school on Friday, December 11.  

The Kids Who Code Code-a-thon idea was born last year while I was working with fellow educator Mrs. Devon Caldwell.  We decided that planning a coding event with a project based learning approach would be a great way for our students to start coding.  Students are in charge of planning the event, including making the guest list, sending invitations, preparing coding activities for our guests and planning the refreshments. 

Check out the 2014 Kids Who Code Code-a-thon video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVr9tSJNyhk

Read more about coding in our classroom in these posts: http://mrsobachsclass.blogspot.ca/search/label/%23kidswhocode

Use the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon Tip Sheet to plan your own Code-a-thon event:  

Student Teaching in grade 1!

It sure has been a great five weeks here in Mrs. Obach's class! The Grade ones have taught me so many new things like coding, how to use Book Creator, and how to do Daily Five ELA and Math. I have so enjoyed my time at HES and am very sad to be leaving.

Our last book for week 6 of the Global Read Aloud was Friendshape by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Amy Krouse Rosenthal used shape characters to remind us what good friends do. There were also lots of funny jokes that we really enjoyed. After reading Friendshape we decided to create our own friendshape pictures  and write about what we felt was important for a good friend to do. We used fun paper cut-out shapes to create our pictures. We sure had a great time doing this activity!

Amy Krouse Rosenthal has certainly become a favorite other for all of us here in grade one.

Global Read Aloud: The OK Book

Our week 5 book for The Global Read Aloud was The OK Book.  We were so inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal's work that we wrote our own OK book with our student teacher, Miss. Barkley.  Check out our book:

Global Read Aloud: There Was Much Exclaiming

Our book for week 4 of the Global Read Aloud was ! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  Our class really enjoyed this wonderful story about an exclamation mark learning that it is okay to be different.  In the story, the exclamation mark learns to exclaim all sorts of fun words and phrases.  We had a great time writing and exclaiming our own words and phrases.  Using ChatterPix, we even made the ! character do the talking!  Check out our work below:




We really enjoyed exclaiming all sorts of things and I know this will be a valuable activity to build on as we learn to be expressive Grade 1 readers!  I loved the positive message that this book shared about embracing our individuality and special talents.  Amy Krouse Rosenthal is fast becoming our favourite author with her meaningful, yet entertaining and funny books.  Check out the book trailer for !  here. 

Global Read Aloud: More than Just Reading!

We kicked off the Global Read Aloud on October 5th and we've had so much fun reading and learning together since then.  The GRA is a wonderful opportunity to promote rich, deep learning while connecting and collaborating with other classrooms.  Our class is interacting with classrooms in Ohio, Illinois, Virginia and Thailand to engage in a variety of activities linked to the GRA books.

Here's a sample of what we've been up to:

Making Connections
We shared our personal connections to the text Chopsticks on a digital Padlet bulletin board.  Check out our ideas at the 2KG blog.  It was interesting to read how other students connected to the text and their ideas even inspired more connections from our class.

Vocabulary Building & Word Study
We loved our first book, Chopsticks, and reread it MANY times.  We used our Daily 5/CAFE literacy strategy "Tune in to Interesting Words" to learn new vocabulary and created a Mindmeister web of words to share with our partner classrooms.

Inspired by the students in 2KG class in Thailand, we studied compound words and shared our list with our partner classrooms. 

Data Collection & Graphing
We completed the 2KG online survey for Duck! Rabbit! They found out that more students thought it was a rabbit. 

We also graphed our class opinions for Duck, Rabbit and shared with our partner classrooms.  

In preparation for a Skype discussion with Ms. Loverde's class, we collected data and graphed our favourite book so far.  When we met on Skype, each class shared their results and we found that both classes like It's Not Fair the best.  Then, students from both classrooms took turns sharing which book they liked the best and why.  We had a lot in common - many of us liked the same parts of books or enjoyed the books for similar reasons. 

Skype Story time - a cross-classroom read aloud!
Sadly, our copy of It's Not Fair is STILL backordered.  Thankfully, we have awesome partner classrooms willing to help us out.  Mrs. Grodek and her class in Brooklyn, Ohio read the story with us on Skype earlier this week and also recorded it for us to enjoy.

I can hardly believe that we are halfway through the Global Read Aloud!  We have had so many great learning experiences so far and we are really enjoying this special author study! 

We are Thankful

It is hard to believe that we are already well into October and thinking about our Thanksgiving weekend.  Thinking about the upcoming holiday reminds me of all I have to be thankful for!  Sitting in my classroom after a busy week, I am grateful that I found a career that I am so passionate about.   I am glad that we have the opportunity to learn and teach in this wonderful, safe country.  I'm thankful for the family, friends and community who support me.   I could share a much longer list, but I think I'll head home for the weekend and just enjoy the many things I'm grateful for this year.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here's a few things that our class is thinking as we start off our Thanksgiving weekend:

I am thankful for friends. - M.
I'm thankful for school and my mom and dad. They helped to put my bunk bed back together. - C.
I am thankful for the earth. - B.
I am thankful for art. - A.
I am thankful for my mom. - J.
I am thankful for people that help out. - A.
I'm thankful for my dad. - K.
I'm thankful for my dad. - B.
I am thankful for my horses. - Mrs. O.
I am thankful for my stuffy. - S.
I am thankful for my puppy. - C.
I am thankful for my dog. -B.
I am thankful for my kittens. - A.
I am thankful for my little sisters. - L.
I am thankful for my daddy. - C.
I am thankful for candy! - M.