The 2M Gems

2011 GLOBAL MONSTER PROJECT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:50:00 +0000

We are excited to be one of 42 classes from around the world taking part in the 2011 Global Monster Project.

After seeing the amazing monster that last years Year 2's made, we knew that we wanted to make a monster too!

Each of the classes participating choose a body part or accessory and come up with an 8-12 word description for that part.The body part we chose is the bellybutton. We imagined what a monster's bellybutton might look like and after brainstorming, this is our description-

rainbow coloured, hexagonal shaped, 15cm/6inches wide and tall, oozing green blood, hairy worms, 3 rotten apple cores, 5 purple-ringed eyeballs, spider bellybutton ring

You can see the body part descriptions from all the other participating classes in the table on the MONSTER 2011 home page.

Our task now is to use the descriptions to build our monster by October 31. Building this monster is going to be a HUGE task and will require a LOT of collaboration and teamwork. With only 21 of us and 42 body parts and accessories, we have TWO parts each to construct! We're certainly going to be busy!

We know that each class will interpret the descriptions differently and can't wait to see what all the monsters will look like. We're excited that both Year 3 classes are also taking part. Our school will be a very monstery place to be in 3 weeks!

Have you taken part in the Monster Project before?

Do you have any suggestions for the materials we could use the create each part?

Can you offer any ideas for how we should go about building our monster?

We'd love to hear from you!

WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE BAYS?

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:00:00 +0000

OUR OTHER BLOGS PART 2: READING BLOG

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Besides our Class blog and our Writing blog, we also have a Reading blog - the 2M Reading Gems!

Our Reading blog is where we post about books
that we are reading.
It's a space where we will share our reading responses to books we have read, post book reviews and recommend books we think others should read.

It's also a space for us to post audio of ourselves reading and reflect on our oral reading skills.

At the top of our Reading Blog you can also explore websites of our favourite authors and browse our Shelfari to see the books we are reading as a class.

Because of all the building work occurring right beside our classroom, it's been too noisy most days for us to record ourselves reading but now that our hall is finished, we'll be posting more often.

We'd love to know what you think about our reading and if you have any books that you love...please share them with us by leaving a comment on our Reading blog.
We'd love to read them too!

OUR OTHER BLOGS PART 1: WRITING BLOG

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 06:55:00 +0000

Since the first day of Year Two, we've been posting to our writing blog, the 2M Writing Gems.

It's been a place for us to learn how to post and comment as we share our writing with others and one of the coolest things to happen is that some of our parents are posting to the writing blog too!

Our writing blog is a place where we can independently post about whatever we choose. Our posts to this blog are like 'first drafts'.

As we are writing and before we publish, we focus on the CUPS.

The CUPS are-

C - is for capitals. Do I have a capital to start my sentences and for the names of people, places and thin

U- is for understanding. Does my writing make sense?

P-is for punctuation. Have I used my full stops, commas, exclamation marks,

question marks or speech marks?

S-is for spelling. Are all my words spelt correctly on my post?

At the moment, our posts to the writing blog are mainly recounts but as we learn about other text types like narratives, descriptions, opinions and explanations, we will be attempting them as well.

We'd LOVE for you to encourage us with our writing, so please visit our Writing Blog often and leave comments that will help us become better writers.

SHARING OUR LEARNING - THE COMMONCRAFT WAY

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:40:00 +0000

At the beginning of the year, to help us understand what a blog was, Mrs M showed us a CommonCraft video about blogging.

We loved how it simply explained what a blog is and we wondered whether we could use this style of video to share our learning.

Mrs M showed us a CommonCraft style video The Kinderkids made about maple syrup and then we saw Mrs Cassidy's class had made CommonCraft style videos about wants and needs.

After seeing their CommonCraft videos, we definitely knew we each wanted to make one too, so here's Matthew's CommonCraft style video about the number 28.

All About 28 from 2M Gems on Vimeo.

What do you think about the CommonCraft style of video?
Have you shared your learning using this style of video?
If not, could you?

We love how other people and classes, through sharing their learning, can inspire our learning.
We hope through sharing our learning we can inspire others too.

OUR NEW HALL

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 04:55:00 +0000

This week we're excited because our new hall is finished!
It's been a long 8 months of constant dust and noise.
Some days, the noise almost drove us bananas but it's
been worth it.
Our new hall is AWESOME!

This is what we saw in July last year, when we came back to school after our winter break.

but look what's there now!

It's great to have a new covered area to play in and we LOVE the new green space outside our classroom.

We haven't been 'inside' the hall yet as some electricals are still to be finished. We think it's cool that the wall behind the stage rolls away so that the stage can be viewed by an outside audience or an indoor one. We can't wait to have an assembly in it!

What do you think of our new building and outdoor space?
Do you have a new building at your school?

PANCAKE DAY 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:35:00 +0000

Today was SHROVE TUESDAY.

Depending on where you are in the world, it is also known as PANCAKE DAY, PANCAKE TUESDAY, FAT TUESDAY or MARDI GRAS.

Shrove Tuesday is celebrated on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of the church season of LENT.

In earlier days there were many foods that Christians would not eat during Lent like meat and fish, eggs, and milk, flour and butter.

To stop food being wasted, families would have a feast on the day before Ash Wednesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent.

To celebrate SHROVE TUESDAY, we made pancakes - the EASY way.

This is what we needed:

EQUIPMENT-

a frypan
measuring jug
spatula

INGREDIENTS -

Pancake Shake
1 3/4 cups water
cooking spray
our favourite topping - we used Golden Syrup

Do you know the steps we took to make the pancakes?
Watch our ANIMOTO to find out how easy it can be to make pancakes.

Our Year 7's, along with some parent helpers, spent the morning cooking pancakes in our new canteen. They raised over $400 from the sale of pancakes, which will go to Caritas to help needy communities in Nepal.

We enjoyed making pancakes and enjoyed eating them even more!

How did you celebrate PANCAKE DAY?
What's your favourite topping?

Please tell us in a comment. We'd love to know

SES VISIT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 07:09:00 +0000

This morning, Danny, from the STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE (SES) visited our school to talk to all classes about the service the SES volunteers provide for our community during disasters and emergencies.

Each year the SES receives thousands of calls for assistance. The SES have been extra busy this year helping people affected by the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi.

Danny let us sit in one of the SES rescue boats while he spoke to us. It's the largest boat the SES uses and has lots of scrapes and dings from being used to rescue people from their homes during the Brisbane floods.

We found it interesting hearing about the important role the SES volunteers play in our community. We're lucky that none of us have needed to call on the SES for help but we like knowing they're there and glad they give of their time to help others.

Do you have a volunteer emergency service in your community?
Have you ever needed help from this service?

INVESTIGATING 2 DIGIT NUMBERS

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:48:00 +0000

We have been investigating two digit numbers.
Our investigations have lead us to explore not just how many TENS and ONES make up a particular number but also how we can make that number in other ways by regrouping the TENS and ONES.

Here's a video we made that shows how you can regroup 51.

Place Value with 51 from 2M Gems on Vimeo.

Have you explored the regrouping of two digit numbers?
Which numbers did you explore?
What did you discover?

THE 2011 GEMS ARE HERE!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:25:00 +0000

We are so excited to join Mrs M in the 2M Learning Neighbourhood.

A few of us have older brothers or sisters who have been a Gem. We have heard lots from them and Mrs M about how we will be blogging about our learning and connecting with classes around the world.

We are very excited to be continuing the conversation and following in the footsteps of four previous classes of Gems by sharing our learning on this class blog, our Writing blog, our Reading blog and hopefully by the end of the term, our own blogfolios like previous Gems.

We are proud to be the 2011 Gems.

Please come back and visit our blog often.
We want you to be part of the CONVERSATION!

MORE POETRY

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 03:29:00 +0000

Our adventure with poetry continues.
Now we are investigating ACROSTIC poems.

ACROSTIC poems are poems that use the letters of the topic word to start each line.
All the lines of the poem have to describe the topic.

Like a Diamante poem, an ACROSTIC poem does not rhyme.
As we have been taking part in the Monster Project, we all chose 'monster' as the topic of our acrostic poems.

Here's Keely's poem-

Monster teeth that can break a bone

On the move, it's very fast

Never stop eating people

Scares the people all the time

Terrifyingly large claws

Every one is frightened by him

Roars so loud it hurts your ears.

and here's Tom's poem-

Monstrous claws

Out and about all night

No-one knows him

Scares everyone he sees

Terrifying teeth as sharp as swords

Everyone hides from him

Runs like a cheetah.

Have you tried writing ACROSTIC poems?
What topic might you choose?

If you would like to know more about ACROSTIC poems and try writing one, head over to READ, WRITE, THINK.

DIAMANTE POEMS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 06:37:00 +0000

This post by guest blogger, Ebony is a cross posting from 'Diamante Poem' on her blogfolio.

On Friday we learnt about Diamante Poems.
A diamante poem is a poem that follows certain rules.

On the first line you have one noun,
on the second line you have two adjectives,
on the third are three verbs ending in -ing,
on the fourth line you have four nouns or a short phrase,
on the fifth line you have three more verbs ending in -ing,
on the sixth line are two adjectives and
on the last line, you're back to one noun.

There are two types of Diamante poems - synonym where the two nouns mean the same thing and an antonym, where the two nouns are opposites.

I did a Synonym poem, and my Synonym poem topic was Monsters. On the bottom you have to choose a topic that is the same. I did creature. So did the rest of the class. Here is one that I did.

     Monsters
   scary,weird,
   roaring,stomping,hiding
   scares people in there dreams
   crawling,creeping,annoying
   big,hairy,
   creature

And heres the Antonym poem that I did.
     puppy
   playful,cute,
   jumping,digging,barking
   loves playing around house
   meowing,sleeping,yawning
   loud,soft
   kittens

Have you ever written a Diamante poem before?
What might you write about?

If you'd like to try writing Diamante poems, head over to Read, Write, Think.

by guest blogger,
Ebony

The 2010 Global Monster Project

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:26:00 +0000

This year we participated in the Global Monster Project.

The Monster Project is when classes from all around the world collaborate with each other to describe a monster.

We had to come up with a description for the ears.
Some descriptions weren't on the website, so we got to make them up ourselves.

All three of our Year 2 classes joined together to make our monster.
The parts that our class got were the body, toe nails, legs, feet, toes, cane, jet ski, ears, digital camera and the tongue.

The 'body group' had a HUGE and messy job making the body out of paper mache.

We had to think creatively to decide how we could make the translucent toes and the 9ft/3 metre long legs.

For the translucent toe we used cling wrap, and for the legs we used air con tubes.

The digital camera was an easy job. Noah and Jack had totally different interpretations of the description. Jack had the mud and the gum smothered it all over the camera, but Noah had it in blobs. They had to negotiate and agree on a design that included both of their ideas.

The Jet Ski was a really fun job. It required a lot of team work, because the original jet ski wasn't big enough for the monster so the group had to problem solve to make a bigger jet ski.

All of this year's 'monsters' can be viewed on the Monster Project website . We knew that each class would interpret the monster descriptions differently but we were still amazed at how no two monsters are alike.

We'd like to congratulate Mrs Beagley's Grade 5 class in South Africa for their winning monster, Tokoloshi-Afrika. You can read about how they made their wonderful monster on their blog.

We had an amazing time participating in the Monster Project. Our room was a mess for weeks but it was buzzing with activity as we collaborated and problem solved to create our monster. We didn't want it to end and hope we can participate again next year!

TIME TO VOTE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Gems,
you've all come up with some great names for our monster but now it's time to choose which name best suits our monster's appearance and personality.

In the form below are your suggestions. Read the list then choose ONE name. The top three choices will then be added to 2R's and 2BP's top three names for final voting.
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Gems, the votes are in. The top three names we'll be taking to the final Year 2 vote are:
Ozzystein, Aussie Frank, and Mad Rumbler Bumper Pumper!

THE MELBOURNE CUP: THE DAY THE NATION STOPS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 05:19:00 +0000

The first Tuesday in November in Australia is a special day.

It's the day many people stop to watch the Melbourne Cup, Australia's most famous horse race.

This day has a special place in Australia's culture and history, so special that it's a holiday down in Melbourne!

The day gives us the opportunity to investigate ordinal numbers and we had fun designing and creating hats and ties to wear as we watched the race.

Melbourne Cup 2010 from 2M Gems on Vimeo.

OUR MONSTER IS BORN!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:16:00 +0000

Today was the day!

Our monster for the Global Monster Project has been made!

This morning, we joined with 2R and 2BP, our teachers, Mrs J and Mr S to assemble our monster.

Today was the first time that we saw the body parts that 2R and 2BP had made. All of us have done a fantastic job.

Because many of the body parts are so big, our teachers helped us build the monster. We had to think creatively when putting the monster parts together.

It took all morning to build our monster. We were amazed at how well all the pieces were able to fit together. All our efforts to work together as a team and collaborate and consult with each other over the past 5 weeks has been worth it.

Here's a video of our monster coming to life.

SJV Monster from 2M Gems on Vimeo.

WE THINK WE HAVE BUILT THE BEST MONSTER EVER!!!!

What do you think of our monster?
Have you taken part in the Monster Project?

MONSTER MAKING UPDATE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:30:00 +0000

Our classroom has been a hive of activity the last few days as we work together to finish off our monster for the Monster Project. With the deadline for monster construction Friday, we've been spending full days working on our body parts and accessories. Here's a video we made to show you how we are progressing.

GLOBAL MONSTER PROJECT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 07:29:00 +0000

Along with 2R and 2BP, we're joining with 37 other classes from around the world to take part in the GLOBAL MONSTER PROJECT.

Each of the classes participating chose a body part or accessory and came up with 8-12 words to describe that part. Along with our buddy Yr 2 classes, we chose the ears. We imagined what a monster's ears might look like and after brainstorming, this was our description-
Right ear - thorny, twisted, curly, long, dragging on the ground
Left ear- hairy, scabby, sunburnt, elf like

You can see the descriptions that all the other classes contributed in the table on the MONSTER 2010 home page.

Our task now is to use the descriptions to build a monster by October 29. We know that each class will interpret the descriptions differently. We can't wait to see what all the monsters will look like.

Building this monster is going to be a HUGE task and will require a LOT of teamwork...but will be heaps of fun!

Have you taken part in the Monster Project before?

Do you have any tips for us as to how we should go about building our monster?

Do you have any suggestions as to the materials we could use the create each part?

Please leave your suggestions in a comment and visit again to check on our 'monster' progress.

WELCOME TO TERM 4!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Welcome to term four. We're excited to be back and we can't believe we only have 9 weeks left of Year 2. There's so much learning still to do!

Right from the start of the day, we were reminded of how connected we are in our learning, that it's not just us and Mrs M.

We had 'welcome back' tweets from the Kinderkids and Mrs Glynn's class in Houston, Texas, plus a surprise skype call from Mrs Cassidy.

She showed us all the leaves in her 'fall' backyard. It was cool to see her autumn trees. We don't notice the changing of the seasons as much in our climate. We found if amazing that it was a 27C autumn day in Moose Jaw and only a 25C spring day in Brisbane. Mrs Cassidy was having a heatwave!

Then Mrs M surprised us with some gifts - books from Mrs Cassidy and Mrs Knee, plus lots of books that Mrs M bought for us while she was overseas.

We can't wait to read them. Some of them are even signed by the author! We already think, just by looking at them, that many of these books we'll want to read over and over!

Because Mrs Knee knew we were planning a marine inquiry this term, she also sent us some marine stuffies (a horseshoe crab, hermit crab and a moon jelly) and some shells and a whelk egg case from the beaches of New Hampshire.

We can't believe how BIG some of the shells are and we've never seen anything like the whelk egg case before! We wonder if there is anything like this in our Moreton Bay habitat?

We ended our first day back with the biggest surprise. Last term, we were closely following Mrs Knee's daughter Abi, a marine biologist, while she was collecting data about marine life on Lizard Lsland, up on the Great Barrier Reef.

We skyped with her and after she sent us some photos, we had LOTS!!!!! of questions. We were expecting for her to just email the answers to us, but guess what she did? She created a site on Shutterfly and made an ebook for us. We were amazed to get our questions answered this way and think Abi should write more books. What do you think?

Click here to view this photo book larger

What a way to start the term! We're so lucky to be part of a network of classes and people from around the world.

We are really excited about our learning, about the conversations we will have and the connections we will continue to make.

Come back to see what we're doing and PLEASE leave a comment because your comments help us LEARN!

WHY POPCORN POPS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:39:00 +0000

This term we have been learning about where our food comes from. We investigated why popcorn pops. First we looked at a corn kernel. It was solid, hard, smooth, pointy, light, teardrop shape, yellow, hard outer shell and transparent. Here's a Bubbl.us I made about it.

After popcorn is popped it's fragile, puffed, very light, has holes in it, larger, cloud shape, white, brown inside and edible. Here's another bubbl.us about popping corn.

After we looked at the corn kernel and the popping corn we were wondering what was causing it to explode.We found out that the moisture in the kernel was making the moisture evaporate then there was no more room for any more steam and that made the corn kernels explode.

by guest blogger
Tom

OUR TRIP TO THE EKKA

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:59:00 +0000

On Thursday the 5th of August we had a trip to the Ekka on a train. We had to walk to the train station. We had to change trains once. We were squashed in like banana's and the other passengers were staring at us.

When we arrived we saw cows and lots of cow manure. We had to be really careful where we walked...not everyone was so lucky!!

We had our morning tea and then we split up into groups. First we went to the Cattle Pavilion and we got to pat them. Some of the cows weren't very happy.

Some of us also saw bulls, the Dog Pavilion, horse stables, goats, the Agricultural Pavilion, the auditorium and the Government Pavilion.

We all saw the reptile show. No-one was game to pat a snake. Others got to plant tomatoes and a few lucky people got to milk a cow.

We met for lunch and after that we got our showbags. Then it was time to go home.

At the train station everyone began to scavenge through their showbags, try on their masks and test their toys.

On the train some of us played The Non Talking Game which Miss Mac loved! Others were playing with their remote controlled whoopie cushions.

We wish had such a great day. We can't wait to tell Mrs M all about it when she comes back.

Do you have an agricultural show where you live?
What do you love best about your show?

OUR HENNY PENNY CHICKENS

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:20:00 +0000

This term we have some chicks and some eggs that will hatch. We are keeping them in 2R Shining Stars classroom. The eggs are kept in an incubator which is shaped like a dome. It's a container that is heated. It has lots of eggs in it. The eggs hatch every day.

When they hatch they are put into a clear plastic enclosure. They have lots of room to walk around and plenty of food and water. The enclosure has 9 chicks in it. They have fluffy, yellow feathers. One of them is fluffy black and she is sleeping right now.

When they first hatch they look like they are wet, sick and sleeping. This is because they are exhausted from pushing the egg open. When they come out, their heart is beating so very fast. Once they dry and get their strength back, they look happy and healthy. We are happy and proud to have them in our classrooms for a while. :)

The construction site at SJV School

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:28:00 +0000

The first day back from holidays we came back and saw there was a construction site at our school. During the holidays the old Hall and the Multipurpose Room were knocked down. The hopscotch courts and the handball courts were gone too, they were dug out by machines. When we came back we saw two diggers, lots of dirt and people who were working at the construction site. One was in the digger, the other ones were working on other things. They were wearing helmets, brightly coloured vests and work boots. There was a giant, wide open space where the school buildings were demolished and a big fence around it. Half our school has vanished!

It's taking up some of our oval space and we don't have our undercover playing area. We have to go to the Pre area to play at second beak. It's really fun there and it's good to be back...it reminds us of prep.

It;s going to take a long time until the new building is finished.

Mrs M sure is going to get a surprise when she comes back.

USING THE BEE BOT

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:58:00 +0000

On Thursday we used the Bee bot and our DS's to play a direction game.. The Bee Bot had to start on number one and Sam had to roll the dice and we had to look at the number and work it out and then we had to write it in pictochat on our DS's.

It's like an maths game. A bee bot is a robot that you can program to stop and go -move forwards, backwards, left and right. Mrs M got it for us at a work shop. We like the bee bot. Thank you Mrs M!!!!

Number Family

noreply@blogger.com (2M Gems) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:38:00 +0000

A number family is a number triangle that has three numbers on it and you have to use those three numbers into sums. You have to draw a triangle then at the edges you put three numbers then you work out the sums in the number triangle. When you do the subtraction sums the biggest number always go's first and in addition the biggest number always go's last.