Welcome to a New School Year!

Hello Room 209 students and families (and the rest of the blogosphere!),

Welcome to a wonderful new school year. It's great to see familiar and new faces in Room 209 this September! We had a wonderful first week, filled with games, laughter, learning and community building.

For now, our class is called the "Egg Heads", as a nod to our class recipe for success, ADD EGGS. Students have spoken in detail about how Accountability, Dynamism, Drive, Engagement, (being) Grateful, Generousity and Support will help to make our classroom a wonderful place to work this year!

Please check out the slideshow below for some ideas about what ADD EGGS will look like in Room 209.



I'm thrilled to be teaching this great group of school leaders this year and I can tell already that we are full of ideas, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. Wait 'till you see how far the Egg Heads will go!

Skype with Miss Robin's Class - Big News!

We have been working with Miss Robin's class in Palo Alto, California, comparing how our lives are impacted by geography. A parent in Miss Robin's class works for Skype and thinks that what we have been doing is so interesting that we have been invited to join in a promotional video for Skype! We will be featured Skyping with Miss Robin's class on April 17th!

We were so excited about the news, that we celebrated in an "uproarious" way, by having our very own impromptu "Harlem Shake"!

14 of the Most Inspirational Kids of 2012

Hello boys and girls,

  I found this great list of 14 of the most inspirational (and certainly innovative) kids in 2012. As I read more about these kids, I realized that some of the accomplishments happened in 2011, so the list isn't totally accurate, but it's so good, I had to share!

  Take some time to watch the slideshow and/or click on the links below to learn more about the kids Mashable deemed the 14 most inspirational of the year. You'll certainly recognize their #1!

  Do you agree with their list? Who else would you add? Would you change the order?

  I was thinking, maybe this could be the topic for our next news show...what do you think?

1. 10 year old American Caine Monroy - the namesake of one of our degus and a personal hero in Room 209 - created the inspiration for our Cardboard City, the Cardboard Arcade! People donated nearly $250 000 to a scholarship fund in Caine's name and a charitable foundation pledged to match those donations, dollar for dollar, to help start the Imagination Foundation!

2. After Hurricane Sandy, 11-year old American, Jacob Hughes heard that kids in New Jersey and New York couldn't go trick or treating. He took all his candy, packed it up and sent it to them!


3. Kelvin Doe lives in Sierra Leone and gets electricity in his town once a week, if he's lucky. He has had NO lessons or instruction in engineering and is completely self-taught and loves inventing. He created a battery from metal and wire scraps to "power lights in people's houses".

4. 17-year old American, Nithin Tumma is a teen scientist whose reserach on slowing the growth of cancer cells will lead to better treatments and maybe a cure for breast cancer!

5. 15-year old American, Clara Ma wrote an essay to NASA and got to name the Mars rover! She is responsible for choosing the name "Curiosity"! Her essay is below.

Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day. Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. When I was younger, I wondered, 'Why is the sky blue?', 'Why do the stars twinkle?', 'Why am I me?', and I still do. I had so many questions, and America is the place where I want to find my answers. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder. Sure, there are many risks and dangers, but despite that, we still continue to wonder and dream and create and hope. We have discovered so much about the world, but still so little. We will never know everything there is to know, but with our burning curiosity, we have learned so much.

Do you think Jack was excited when he won one of the world's largest Science Fairs?

6. 15-year old American Jack Andraka invented a low-cost, non-invasive, ultra-sensitive test to identify pancreatic cancer in its early stages.



7. 12-year old Justen Beer from the Netherlands is a breakdancer whose short film went viral this summer. He plays a young boy who was having trouble at home and at school and turned to dance. His appearance in a short film is stunning and reminds us how important the arts are for ALL kids to express themselves.

Adam Cudworth, his camera, his contraption and one of his incredible photos!

8. 19-year old American DIY engineer-photographer Adam Cudworth launched a camera 20 miles into the atmosphere with a high-altitude balloon and took amazing photos of the Earth. He shows us that almost anyone can do space exploration with a little ingenuity and not that much money!

9. 14-year old American Julia Bluhm started a online petition urging Seventeen magazine to stop editing photos of young girls. She collected so many signatures that Seventeen magazine's editor in chief listened and agreed to never change the shape or size of a girl's face or body in their magazine! That's serious Girl Power!

10. 16-year old American Marian Bechtel shared her Landmine Detection Research at the White House Science Fair! Hip Hip Yeah for girls and Science!

11. 4 young Nigerian girls, Duro-Aina Adebola (age 14), Akindele Abiola (age 14), Faleke Oluwatoyin (age 14) and Bello Eniola (age 15) created a urine-powered generator that can turn a litre of water into six hours of electricity! Quadruple Hip Hip Yeah for girls and Science!

Brainstorm: Ideas to Make Our Next News Show Even Better

Some tips and ideas to make our next news reports even better:

-Maybe just in case the video isn’t over, stay seated until the camera person does a thumbs’ up (James)

-Maybe look at the camera a little more. Look at your cards before we start filming so we know what we’re supposed to say. It looked cool how people came in through the back, ‘cause it looked like an actual newsroom. (Fiona)

-I think next time, the people shouldn’t look at the cue cards that much. Just about every time I saw people doing that, they were just reading their notebooks and it didn’t look like they were talking to you. You could read them first and try to memorize them, like Fiona said. (Hunter)

-Make sure you have your information correct. Double-check your facts! (Pat)

-Maybe we could make up an introduction and we could say, “321, Hello everybody” or “Good morning, Canada” at the exact same time. We could make up a specific introduction. (Finley)

-Next time, have some cue cards at the front that are beside the camera or write on one of the mini white boards and write what you wrote on your notepad. (Mel) Or we could use the projector and type the text. (Fiona) Like a teleprompter! (Shauna)

-I think we should have a back drop. (Sophia)

-I noticed that mine was a little long, so maybe some people could do shorter ones. (Vickie)

-For some people, they should make their voices louder, because some people I couldn’t hear. Keep your back straight and push out your voice. (Thomas)

-Maybe when people are doing it live, they should go outside. Like for Kaleigh, she could have gone outside to do her report on Hurricane Sandy. (Jackson)

-I think when people are doing their report, they should have not just their notebook, but also paper and a pen to make it look real. (Millie)

-Sort of like Jackson’s, next time, people should try to be clear. Let’s say, if you said, “The Giants won 8-10 to a team”, it wouldn’t make sense ‘cause you don’t know the other team. They would have to say “The Giants lost to Toronto Blue Jays” or something like that. (Ethan)

-If you do go to the bathroom, definitely go around and try not to be seen. There were a lot of people. (Madi)

-I think people should try to look at the camera more. (Jack)

-I think people should put more expression and be more enthusiastic. (Molly)

-I noticed that there were some people with long periods of saying nothing. It was really hard to understand. If you say half a sentence and then flip a page and say nothing, it’s hard to understand. Try to write smaller to fit it all on one page and not to leave big spaces. Just take small breaths. (Laryssa)

-Or you could write your notes on a big piece of paper. (Madi)

-First you should take notes on your pad, because what do we use them for anyway? And then make them into the story. (Melodee)

-Try to not go like “the….bear….went….in…..the…..house.” (Haydon)

-I guess, try not to interrupt or correct people. (Camden)

-I have an idea to have fake microphones and ask questions. (Jackson)

-I think the audience should not make that much noise when somebody’s doing their story. Don’t move a lot, try to stay where you are and if you can, don’t take out a chair. (Sophia)

-Say with a lot of expression so it sounds like a news report. (Pat)

-Papers were rustling, and that’s why we couldn’t really hear some voices. Whoever has papers on stage should put them down if they don’t need them. (Thomas)

-I found that Daniel was hiding behind his paper and Owen was trying to signal to him to raise his head. I think you should not have your paper if you don’t need it. If you think you’re going to hide behind it or rustle it, don’t use it. (Fin)

-I noticed that some people, during the presentations, were walking by. If you need to get something, wait until the presentation is done. (Vickie)

-I think that the audience shouldn’t bring anything to the carpet with them, because I think a lot of the noise was coming from the audience, fiddling with their notebooks and stuff. (Hunter)

-I think it was good, but sometimes, I was looking at the paper a lot, a lot of people were looking at their papers, maybe they could have memorized their papers. (Kaleigh)

-I found some people weren’t looking at the camera. Don’t look at your sheet so much, memorize it. (Liam)

-After you’re done your part, try to keep on looking at the audience, don’t sit there and draw on a paper. (Erika)

-When you’re on the carpet, if you can’t control your notebook and are flipping through your notebook, just sit on it so you won’t get distracted. (Fin)

-I have a suggestion for next time. Maybe only one group at a time could be in the room so there would be no disruptions from the audience and they would watch it after, but not while it’s filming. (Gabby)

-You know when they come from the back cloak room, you could just sit where you come in. (Thomas)

-The group that I was in, we were in the hall when filming started, maybe somebody should come get us. (Gabby)

-Maybe we should have a sign on our door that says “Filming in Progress”. (Shauna)

-When someone is laughing, don’t encourage them to laugh more and don’t laugh. (Lauren)

Room 209 News Desk

Today we hosted a live news show in our classroom. We went from selecting and researching our news stories to preparing and practicing them and finally presenting them for the class. Owen was with us this afternoon and helped to record each segment of the Room 209 News.

Enjoy!

DOGO News for Kids

In searching for a news article for Gabby, I found another news website for kids. Check out DOGO News!

Teach Kids News Website

I hope you have seen this WONDERFUL website before. If not, please take some time either at school or at home to check it out!

Teach Kids News is a news website designed for students. They have a wide variety of articles that you will be able to read and enjoy.