Open House Success for Parents and Students

Last Thursday our school celebrated our annual Multicultural Open House. We opened our school doors and welcomed all students and their families to visit our classrooms, watch student performances, eat a huge and generous potluck and participate in a technology event.

Before heading to the gym, students in our classroom led student conferences in our room. We worked hard on Persuasive Open House Letters to convince our parents to come to open house. It was a success as most of the students in our room made their way into our classroom to show their parents all of the great learning that takes place in Grade 3. To prepare for the evening, we talked about what we would most likely want our parents to see or learn about. We created centers and students put what they wanted to showcase at each of the centers. The centers were: Math Center, Literacy Center, Reading Center, EQAO, Padlet & QR Codes, KidBlog Writing  and of course..Tech Experts!

It was so great to see the students welcome their parents into our classroom while leading them around the room to share their learning. They loved showing off their technology expertise on a variety of apps. It was the favourite center for sure. They showed their parents all of the tools we are fortunate to have. They helped them log into Chromebooks and use the iPads to log into Raz Kids. They showcased their amazing KidBlog accounts and how much our writing has improved since the start of the year. It was so nice to see parents and future generation kids excited and engaged in the learning in our Grade 3 class. Well done friends!

Our class is all set and ready for our Open House. See you at 4:30! pic.twitter.com/i51xzh0pqV

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 7, 2015

The technology event in our school's gym was a first for our school. Together with the leadership of some grade 5 and grade 3 students, families were treated to an engaging Padlet selfie wall. Students set up a Padlet selfie station filled with many fun props, a camera, and a projection screen to track all of the fun images that were captured. Students guided parents to navigate on the Padlet and taught them how to use the tool by getting them to post a comment about our school. Families and students were also introduced to our school Twitter account (@Assumption_ocsb). Students answered questions about how we use Twitter in our classrooms and everyone was invited to post a hard or real tweet on Assumption's Twitter account.

With all of the wonderful access to technology that our school is fortunate to have, parents got to see some of the amazing ways we can use tech tools to engage, communicate, connect and share. Our grade 3 and 5 students are comfortable navigating the tools and families were treated to a fun and engaging activity that we called our Selfie Wall. Families lined up to take selfies with their children and were excited to see their images posted on one large Padlet. We heard so much positive feedback from families who were delighted their their children had access to so many tools AND that they were using the tech tools in fun and engaging ways. It was great to have families participate and to see some of the great messages they left on our Twitter and Padlet wall. One of my favourite quotes came from a student who said "I like that we can learn at school and then go home and teach our parents too."

Below is a link to the completed Padlet selfies and some Twitter comments posted by our family community. We hope that your picture made it onto the Padlet wall. We also hope that you enjoyed participating in the event as much as we loved planning it! A huge thank you to Mme. Paradis, Mrs. McEvoy and Mme. Oliver who supported us and helped to make this event possible. Mr. MacKenzie and I were very proud of the grade 3 and 5 students who hosted a wonderful first parent technology event at Assumption. Well done everyone...until next time :-)

Created with Padlet

#asuparent This is what I like about assumption. This is what I like the program and the teachers because they help our children.

— Assumption School (@Assumption_ocsb) May 7, 2015

Hi I am a student from @Assumption_ocsb and my name is Andie . I am here with my awesome friend Nyakueth and we just took some crazy a pics

— Assumption School (@Assumption_ocsb) May 7, 2015

Hi my name is Angelica and I go to @Assumption_ocsb with my best friends and I really enjoy going. The teachers are really nice and fun. ^.^

— Assumption School (@Assumption_ocsb) May 7, 2015

Wow- lining up for food @Assumption_ocsb Thanks to all who were able to drop by. #asuparent #CathEdWeek #Vanier pic.twitter.com/Mqgzwztxs4

— Simone Rose Oliver (@SimoneROliver) May 7, 2015

Thanks for being the official photographer! #asuparent #CathEdWeek https://t.co/35IAxuezED

— Simone Rose Oliver (@SimoneROliver) May 7, 2015

Good news - @Assumption_ocsb will have a #walking #school #bus this fall. Via @OttSchoolBus #asuparent #ocsb #CathEdWeek #safety

— Simone Rose Oliver (@SimoneROliver) May 7, 2015

Leveraging digital @Assumption_ocsb Drop by to get your photo taken ! #CathEdWeek #asuparent #ocsb pic.twitter.com/G0dhU3rXe5

— Simone Rose Oliver (@SimoneROliver) May 7, 2015

Doing #Math With Your Child. A #parent resource via @OntarioEDU MT @Assumption_ocsb @OttawaCSPA #asuparent #ocsb http://t.co/Vs4Ots5rky

— Simone Rose Oliver (@SimoneROliver) May 7, 2015

Kindness Week

Kindness Week is a weeklong initiative that ran from February 14-21. The initiative started right here in Ottawa and is promoted on Twitter using the #kindottawa hashtag as well as the Twitter address via @kindottawa. 
At our school, we participated in a number of school and class initiatives to spread kindness to our friends, our family and to our school! Our class got the opportunity to collaborate both at school and online with a few other classrooms.

At school, we posted a wonder on our Twitter Wall together with Mrs. Swan's Grade 3 class. Our wonder...How do you make Assumption School a Kinder Place? We brainstormed together what that looks like in our school. We talked about how we make our school kind as well as what other people (like teachers, the principal or our friends) do to show kindness around us. Our class was so proud to post their tweet on our Twitter Wall. The grade 2's and 3's use this wall to share with the school their ideas and their learning. Excellent ideas everyone. You can visit our Twitter Wall located beside our classroom whenever you are visiting our school!

Our class also got to share our kindness learning online in a number of fun ways. At our literacy centers, we got a chance to add to our Padlet thinking about kindness. Have a read at our kindness brainstorming: http://padlet.com/wall/grade2kindness
We also created a few kindness stories using the Educreations iPad app. Have a read at some of the stories we made during our literacy centers:

WN: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/wn-shares-a-kindness-message/17187539/

AB: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/ab-shares-a-kindness-message/17187361/

FF: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/ff-shows-kindness/17109073/

Finally, we used Twitter to connect with a few classrooms about how we can be kinder. Twitter is a great way for us to share our thinking and to connect with other classrooms. It is another way that we are practicing our writing and communication skills. Have a look at some of our kindness tweets with Ms. Alvarez's JK/SK class, Mrs. Swan's Grade 3 class and Mr. Robinson's Grade 2/3  class!!

Shared-Twitter Thinking and Learning

Together with Mrs. Swan's grade 3 class we created a Twitter wall in our school. We are using the wall to share our thinking and learning using the similar learning opportunities our classes participate in.  


Last week our 2 classes participated in similar problem solving and kindness activities. We were happy to hear that the grade 3's also participated in the kindness paper person activity. Our Twitter wall is a way for our 2 classes to share our thinking and learning about how we can choose to make a positive choice in a problem situation. 

The wall is located close to the lunch room. We hope to inspire other students to make positive choices when faced with any sort of problem or issue (whether big or small)! 

Our classes have already used the online version of Twitter for shared learning opportunities. We will continue to watch one another's learning on Twitter as well as use the Twitter Wall in our school to share our learning in many ways over the year. If you are in the school, come by and visit our Twitter Wall!