We are asking all our visitors to please update the links on your blogroll to our new blog address

http://4kmand4kj.global2.vic.edu.au

You might also like to subscribe to the 4KM and 4KJ blog to keep up to date with what is happening in our new class. Simply enter your email address in the box on the right hand side of the 4KM and 4KJ blog.

The students start school on Thursday 2nd February and the 4KM and 4KJ blog will begin being updated from that date.

Thanks again for your fabulous support on the 2KM and 2KJ blog and we look forward to seeing you at our new address!

We have written 112 posts and received over 4,600 comments. We are nearly at our Clustrmap goal of 25,000 visitors.

There are some special people we would like to thank. These include all of our blogging buddies around the world who we have collaborated with, especially Mrs Yollis’ class, Mr Salsich’s class, Mr Avery’s class, B4 and Mrs Watson’s class. We have loved learning with you in 2011!

We have some very special commenters who are always there to have a conversation with us. These include teacher, Ross Mannell, parent, AA, grade three student, BB, and teacher, Stef Galvin. We appreciate your support!

Finally, we’d like to thank all the 2KM and 2KJ families, and all our friends around the world.

This photo of 2KM and 2KJ was taken on 7th February 2011.

This photo of 2KM and 2KJ was taken on 21st December 2011.

The 2KM and 2KJ blog will stay at this address but will no longer be updated.

Next year, Mrs Morris and Miss Jordan are looking forward to teaching Grade Four. We will post the link to the 4KM and 4KJ blog during the holidays so you can keep following our adventures! We hope everyone stays in touch.

What have you learnt or enjoyed this year?

What was your favourite post on the 2KM and 2KJ blog?

What are you doing on the Christmas holidays?

At our party we…

- Completed a fun trivia quiz about our year. The competition showed who remembered details about the students, teachers and events that happened throughout the year.

- Played pass the parcel in girl and boy groups. Excitement was high as the parcel got smaller and smaller!

- Enjoyed playing statues outside. When the music stops you have to freeze, or you’re out!

- Ate some delicious party food. Girls brought in savoury food and the boys brought the sweet food. What a feast we had!

Watch our slideshow to see all the fun we had!

Stay tuned for our final 2KM and 2KJ blog post on our last day of school, Thursday.

What was your favourite part of our class party?

What activities do you enjoy at parties?

What is the best party you’ve ever been to?

You can click here to read Mr Avery’s post about our project.

We used an online program called Storybird.

We used Storybird earlier in the year to write our own stories, but we had never used it to write collaborative stories before. Earlier this year, B4 in New Zealand and Mrs Watson’s class in Canada collaborated on Storybirds and gave us the idea to do this ourselves. Check out their work here and here.

Even though the students in Mr Avery’s class are four years older than us, that didn’t stop us working together. Mr Avery’s sixth graders were excellent role models for us and helped us to produce our very best work.

Here are four of the Storybirds and you can find the rest by visiting Mr Avery’s class blog here. Thank you Mr Avery for collating the Storybirds!

What did you enjoy about this project?

Do you like writing stories?

How did you enjoy using Storybird compared to writing a story on paper?

We were honoured to be short listed out of hundreds of nominations in many different categories.

Most students stayed in at recess and watched the ceremony on the interactive whiteboard at 11am. There were some fabulous results for 2KM, 2KJ and their friends. The top five in each category were recognised.

Best Class Blog

We came FIFTH! Two of our closest “blogging buddy”classes were in the top five. Mrs Yollis’ Classroom Blog came FIRST and Mr Salsich’s Class Blog came FOURTH!

We were the only Australian class in the top five. Go Aussies!

Best Student Blog

Seven 2KM and 2KJ students were shortlisted which was an amazing achievement as there were hundreds of nominations.

Congratulations to Jarrod who came FOURTH! Mrs Yollis’ former student, Jaden came FIRST. Miriam and Victoria, also students of Mrs Yollis, came SECOND.

Being an Edublog Award finalist is an incredible achievement for Jarrod. He only started his blog in mid-2011 and has already had nearly 3000 visitors. Jarrod was also the youngest student in the top five (he recently turned eight).

Best Group Blog

Our third piece of exciting news was that Our World, Our Stories WON the Best Group Blog category!

There were cheers of delight as the announcement was made. Our World, Our Stories is a global project that we have been working on with classes in five other countries for most of this term. It has been an incredible learning opportunity and a highlight of 2011 for the students.

What a way to end Our World, Our Stories with an award that we can all celebrate together!

Other Great Results

Many of our blogging buddies also experienced excellent results to recognise the fabulous work that they do with educational blogging.

Mrs Yollis and her class WON the Most Influential Blog Post category and Mrs Yollis came SECOND in the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr Avery and his class came THIRD in the Best Use of Audio / Video / Podcast category.

Mrs Hembree and her students came SECOND by just one vote in the Best Librarian / Library category.

2KM and 2KJ students Haille, Ava, Millie, Charlotte, Jordi and BB (2KM 2010) were shortlisted from hundreds of student blogs. What an achievement for grade two students! This was the second year that grade three student BB was nominated!

***

All of our blogging friends, teachers, students and classes are winners in our eyes.

This year, 2KM and 2KJ have discovered how blogging can help us improve and grow in so many ways. While awards are nice, we all know that personal improvement is what counts. This is something we have definitely won!

What has been your blogging highlight this year?

Who did you vote for in the Edublog Awards?

Charlotte’s mum, Martine, organised the morning for us and the students loved showing off their creativity and getting into the Christmas spirit.

The four craft activities we enjoyed were:

- Christmas cards for family and friends

- Special felt Christmas tree decorations

- Reindeer food to sprinkle over the lawn on Christmas Eve

- Paper plate snowmen. Check out this link to find out how to make one yourself!

Watch our slideshow to see all the fun we had!

A big thank you to Martine for organising this special event for us. We loved the activities and had a fantastic morning!

We would also like to thank Tammy, Marcie, Kim, Mandy and Sara for helping out!

What was your favourite craft activity today?

What other craft activities do you enjoy?

]]> http://2kmand2kj.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/12/14/christmas-craft-morning/feed/ 14 http://2kmand2kj.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/12/09/guest-post-the-marine-discovery-centre/ http://2kmand2kj.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/12/09/guest-post-the-marine-discovery-centre/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:25:15 +0000 Miss Kelly Jordan http://2kmand2kj.global2.vic.edu.au/?p=3819 Our trip to the…

Marine Discovery Centre

This guest post is written by Molly (2KJ) and Jordi (2KM).

Today we went to the Marine Discovery Centre! The Marine Discovery Centre is in Queenscliff, which is about 15 minutes from our school. It is a great place to visit to learn about marine life and how to care for the sea creatures. We had great fun and learnt lots of interesting facts!

We got on the bus at 10.00am. We spent an hour and a half at the MDC and got back at school at 12.30pm. We went to the Marine Discovery Centre because we are learning about the sea this term.

Some of the things we did were:

• Met the leaders, Anne and Jess.
• Held the creatures in the “feel and touch” pool.
• Watched Alan, who works at the Marine Discovery Centre, feed the animals.
• Watched the huge lobster in the tank.
• Made a rock pool.
• Explored the different fish and marine animals in the many tanks.
  
• Saw flathead fish come out and dig them selves up again.
• Saw one of our favourite fish, the pufferfish.

We hope you enjoy the slideshow we made…

We had great fun at the Marine Discover Centre! A big thank you to Anne and Jess, who taught us so many new things!

What do you like about this guest post?

Have you ever been the Marine Discovery Centre? What did you enjoy?

What is your favourite marine animal? Why?

This is a guest post by Alana and Haille.

Today 2KM and 2KJ skyped with Mrs Watson’s class in Sointula, Canada.

It was 9 o’clock (in the morning) when 2KM and 2KJ were skyping and it was 2 o’clock (in the afternoon) when they were skyping.

Alana, Haille, Jordi and Mia all had a special job each. Alana and Haille were the typers. Jordi and Mia were the photographers.

Mrs Watsons class asked 2KM and 2KJ lots of questions and we asked them questions too.

Here is a screen shot of Mrs Watson’s 2/3 class blog. Also here  is the link to their blog because they have done a post too.Click here.

You can see some of the questions and answers that we typed in Word here Skyping Mrs Watson’s Class

I hope you like our typing and photos.

Please leave us a comment.

Did you like our guest post?

Did you learn anything from our skype?

Voting is now open for the worldwide 2011 awards. Mrs Morris, Miss Jordan, 2KM and 2KJ need your support to help Leopold shine!

Voting closes on Wednesday 14th December and the Awards Ceremony will be held at 11am on Thursday 15th December (Leopold time).

To vote, go to http://edublogawards.com/vote-here/

You will simply need to use the drop down menu to pick your category and your choice. Then press vote.

It is important to know that you can only vote once per day per category from any location/IP address. You can vote for yourself and you can return every day to have another vote.

Here are some ideas 2KM and 2KJ came up with to support our class:

• Email, text or phone friends and family and ask them to vote.
• Ask your family and friends to vote from work or from their phones on as many different days as possible.
• Vote from your home computer every day.

Who to vote for:

These are 2KM and 2KJ’s suggestions to support our students and teachers. Many of our blogging buddies are also nominated so perhaps you could vote for them too!

Tip: If you click on the category, you will go straight to the voting page!

Best individual blog

Kelly Jordan Teaching Literacy in the Early Years OR Kathleen Morris Integrating Technology

Best individual tweeter

Kathleen_Morris

Best group blog

Our World, Our Stories

Best class blog

2KM and 2KJ @ Leopold PS

Best student blog

Ava OR BB OR Haille OR Jarrod OR Jordi OR Millie

Best ed tech blog

Teaching Generation Now (Mrs Morris, Mr Limb and Simon Collier)

Most influential post

Kathleen Morris

Best teacher blog

Kelly Jordan Teaching Literacy in the Early Years OR Kathleen Morris Integrating Technology

Lifetime Achievement

Kathleen Morris

Want a flyer to email to friends or print off for your workplace?

Click on this link to download a PDF document

How to vote – 2011 Edublog Awards – 2KM and 2KJ

Vote today and have your say!

Leave a comment and tell us who you voted for.

Using the netbooks and classroom computers, students researched interesting facts about their chosen marine animal. Some of the animals we investigated were sharks, dolphins, seals, sea turtles, stingrays, octopuses, seahorses and sea stars.

Students found information about the animals’ diets, habitats, lifespans, special features and much more. They had to put the information into their own words and create posters to share what they had learnt.

After researching and writing out some facts, students focussed on the presentation of their posters. It is important to make posters bright, easy to read and attractive. We included colourful headings, neat borders and realistic pictures on our posters. Check out some of the students’ work!

What is an interesting fact you know about a marine animal?

Do you have any questions for us about sea creatures?

What posters have you made in the past?