Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope you all enjoyed the fantastic weekend full of sunshine, family and good food.
Don't forget to finish the rough copy of your interviews and I hope you all put in your hour of reading (I polished off two books this weekend. "Wake" and "Fade".
I hope you saved all your paper towel rolls to create our arms on Wednesday.  We need only 15 more!!  Congrats to Aleks and Kelsey for solving the weekend cipher; "Don't eat too much turkey this weekend".  See you tomorrow!!

Alien X-Rays

One fun assignment we created this week was for studying the skeletal system in science; we call it the Alien X-Ray.
By taking anatomically correct bones from the human skeleton, we had to design an alien and write a short biography about him/her/it???? We then showed them during our sharing assembly on Friday. 
Here are a few fan favourites.

Pettela Nutella by Faith
 Mr. Handy by Aleks
 War Machine by Nick
Claw-Arm Calvin by Kelsey

Curling up With a Good Book

You may not know this but we are now reading 1/2 hour every day. 1/2 hour!!!! If you could be a fly on my classroom wall this is what you would see; students sprawled out, laying on pillows, curled up in a corner, feet up on the chairs and every single one of them reading. There isn't a sound in my classroom. Did you know they could do that? If they can do that with 25 other people in the class, could you imagine how easy it would be to spend some time at night, curled up on a couch/bed/pillow, to read your favourite book? I don't know about you but I am completely jealous of my students. I think tomorrow I might pretend to be one..just for a 1/2 hour.

Podcasting with Audacity

A new feature to the blog this year will be podcasting.  The students are going to be making a weekly, online review to let you know about some of the major events that took place over the week.
First we will be learning how to create a podcast using "Audacity".  This program will allow the students to digitally record their voice on the computer and then we'll upload it to the blog.  You can also download this program at home for free by clicking on the "Audacity" link above.  I've thrown in a quickie tutorial to get you started.  I can't wait to hear about all the exciting events that take place in our class.



Audacity Tutorial from Mr. Kitchen on Vimeo.

First Day!

Wow! Here we are already.  For those of you new to my class, welcome!  This blog is a way to keep you informed of what happens during the school days.  I update this blog often so be sure to keep coming back.  As you can see there have been a few changes to my usual class blog.  We will be featuring a podcast this year where the students will review what has happened over the week.  As usual, I have useful websites the students are using and an event/homework updater.  I can't wait to see how this year unfolds.
Here is the tentative schedule for my class.