Category Archives: Global Connections

A Visit to the Post Office and Special Hellos!

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Today we packaged up our letters to Japan and set off for the post office. Linda looked surprised to see so many people filing into the building!

Linda explained that our envelope would be loaded on the mail truck tomorrow morning and would travel to Port McNeill on the ferry. From Port McNeill our letters would head down island to Nanaimo in another truck and then would travel on the big ferry to Vancouver. Next, they would be loaded on a plane at Vancouver Airport for the long flight to Tokyo, Japan. We all wonder how long our letters will take to arrive at Christian Academy in Japan.

We thought it would be fun to make a short video for our friends in Japan so that they will be able to put faces to the names on the letters they receive.

New Friends

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In January, we received a comment on our blog from a teacher in Japan named Mrs. Hino. We were very excited because it was the first comment we had ever received from Japan. That comment, was the start of some great conversations between our class and Mrs. Hino. She told us all about her school and where she lived. She even sent us pictures. We found out a lot of cool facts about their International School and about Tokyo.

Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Hino decided that it would be great for our classes to get to know each other better and perhaps work on a collaborative project together. The time difference makes things a little challenging (although we think we have problem solved a way that we will be able to Skype together) and so we thought we would start by making Mrs. Hino’s class a video to introduce ourselves and show them a little about our class and our school.

We can’t wait to get to know Mrs. Hino and her students better. We also hope that we will learn more about their school and life in Tokyo.

Skype with 2KJ and 2KM

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This afternoon (tomorrow morning in Australia) we had a chance to Skype with our blogging buddies from 2KJ and 2KM. This was our first Skype call of this school year and a first ever for the grade twos.

We have spent the last 6 weeks learning more about 2KJ and 2KM through the Our World, Our Stories project that we are both a part of. We have blogged about our school days, favourite activities, the foods we eat, what it is like where we live and we have even shared stories and songs with each other. It was so much fun to actually get to see and talk to their classes today.

Here are a few of the highlights from our Skype call:

  • The number of students in 2KJ and 2KM is just a little less than the number of students in our whole school.
  • Our town has a population of about 800, which is about the population of their school.
  • There are 32 classes in their school and we only have 3.
  • We thought that it was very cool that they have seen kangaroos.  Some students have even seen them boxing!  They also have two zoos that they can visit nearby.  At one of the zoos the animals aren’t in pens or cages and you can drive around and see them like a safari.  We shared about all the deer that live on our island.  We found out that they don’t have deer where they live.
  • It was also really amazing that two students from 2KJ and 2KM have been to Canada.  No one in our class has ever been to Australia, but we would all love to go for  a visit one day!
  • We loved hearing 2KJ and 2KM sing part of their traditional song for us.  We’ll all be humming G’day, G’day all evening.  We sang Land of the Silver BIrch for them. 
  • We found out that they like the Christmas song Jingle Bells.  They sang a bit and we couldn’t help but join in 🙂  Then we took a turn and sang part of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

At the end of the call we also had a chance to thank Miss Jordan, Mrs. Morris, and all the students in 2KJ and 2KM for the wonderful present they sent us.  They made the most amazing book about all their blogging buddies around the world and sent us each a copy.   We received the book yesterday and the students cheered as we followed Santa on his journey to find the true meaning of Christmas and save the Internet.  A few pages in the students realized that the book was all about classes they knew through our blog.  Someone called out, “It’s all about our friends!”  and then someone else said, “I wonder if we will be in the book!”  As Santa was given each clue on his journey the students would shout out which class he must be headed for next.  When the clue was given for our town the students were bouncing and cheering!

2KJ and 2KM, we can’t thank you enough for the wonderful story you wrote and illustrated.  It will have a special spot on our classroom shelves and will definitely be well read and cherished.

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and summer break (It seems very funny to say both of those things in the same sentence)!

Our World, Our Stories

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Our World, Our Stories

Today is the first day of Our World, Our Stories, a global project we are participating in.

Over the next seven weeks we will be sharing and collaborating with other classes from all over the world. Each week there will be a different topic for us to share about. We have a special blog where we will make posts and leave comments for each other. This week the topic is, “A Typical School Day“.

There are seven classes involved in the project:
Mrs Watson’s 2/3 class from Canada

2KM and 2KJ from Victoria, Australia

B4 from New Zealand

Mrs Yollis’ third grade class from California, USA

Mr Salsich’s third grade class from Connecticut, USA

Andy Sefa Boachie and his students from Kumasi, Ghana

Miss Usher’s standard 3 class from Punta Gorda, Belize

We are very excited about making new friends from different parts of the world and learning about their lives. We hope that you will visit the Our World, Our Stories blog and share in the learning with us.

Have a Great Journey, Gill!

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We have had a wonderful visit with our new goldfish friend, Gill (a.k.a G2). G2 came to visit all the way from Cambridge, Ontario. He is the class mascot of a group of students called the Gill-Villeans.

We have had so much fun showing G2 around our school, community, and even down island. Gill loved making pancakes (he brought the syrup, YUM!), going to the Regional Science Fair, his trip down island, Skyping with the Techie Kids, visiting the community garden and the beach (he wanted to dip a fin in the Pacific Ocean, but we told him it was pretty cold and he changed his mind), riding rides at the fair, egg hunting, getting to know Trev the Kiwi from New Zealand, and spending time with the students!

Gill is on his way to Port Hardy this week where he will make new friends with Mrs. Soltau-Heller’s students. We hope Gill has a fantastic time learning more about the North Island. We’ll be watching G2’s travels on his wiki and have a few last messages for him:

Jordan-I had fun with you when we went to the fair.
Niall-Thanks for coming, Gill. I hope you had a great time!
Sahara-I hope you enjoyed looking at the countryside on our way down island.
Sophie-We’ll miss you!
Ana-I will always remember you and when you came to our class.
Oceana-I hope you have fun on your journey all the way back home.
Lily-I hope you have a good time in Port Hardy.
Fay-Bye Gill, have a safe journey!
Karin-Thanks for visiting us!
Jenny-I hope you have a great time!
Silkence-Have a nice time in Port Hardy.

What do you think Gill’s favourite thing about his visit was?
If you are not from our town, what would you like to see or do if you came for a visit?

Skype with the Techie Kids

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On Thursday, we had a chance to chat with the Techie Kids again. Mrs. Moore and the grade 2’s sent us a very cool book a few weeks ago so that we could try choral reading together. The Techie Kids chose the poem, The Two Mice, for us to work on. We practiced our parts so that we would be ready to read it together. You can hear a bit of the poem in the video at the end of this post.



We also had a chance to find out a little more about each other.   Oceana and Karin did a great job of recording the facts we learned in a back channel on todaysmeet.com. Fay took wonderful pictures and all of the students did a super job of asking and answering questions. Here are a few of the facts we learned about our friends:

*The Techie Kids have 400 students in their school and we only have 46
*There are more students in the second grade than there are students in our whole K-7 school
*They have a much longer school day than we do, they start 20 minutes earlier and finish 50 minutes later
*They don’t have a morning recess and we do
*The Techie kids play first and then eat lunch (We do it the other way around)
*Students in their school can buy lunch in the cafeteria or bring their own. We don’t have a cafeteria. We eat in our classroom or go home for lunch.
*We have a lot of the same wildlife, but one big difference was that we have ocean wildlife
*The Techie kids have a lot of stores and restaurants in their town. We only have a few stores and two restaurants

We can’t wait for our next chance to visit with our friends!

What was the most interesting thing you learned about our buddies?

What do you want to find out in our next call?

Pancakes and Maple Syrup

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Today we made pancakes so that we could sample the delicious maple syrup the Gill-Villeans sent along with G2. It was absolutely delicious! Some students in our class had never tried pure maple syrup before.

We found this video on You Tube showing how maple syrup is made:

Thank you for our special treat, Gill-villeans!

Have you ever tried pure maple syrup before?  What do you like to eat it on?

Two Special Visitors

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On Thursday two very special visitors arrived in our classroom. Our friends, the Super 7 Scoopers from New Zealand, sent their class mascot Trev for a visit. He made a couple stops before coming to see us. We can’t wait to teach him about life on our island before sending him off on his next big adventure. Trev brought all sorts of cool things with him. He has two great bandanas, some pins, New Zealand tattoos, a book about Dunedin and his own scrapbook to keep track of his adventures.
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Gill the goldfish also arrived from our new friends the Gill-Villeans in Ontario, Canada. Gill brought us maple syrup and maple taffy lollipops. On Wednesday we are going to have a class pancake breakfast so that we can sample the maple syrup. Oceana has taken Gill home this weekend and we can’t wait to find out all about their visit on Monday.
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We hope that Trev and Gill will have fun with us and will keep each other company in the classroom each night when we go home.

What do you think Trev and Gill might do when we go home for the evening? Maybe we will write, The Adventures of Trev and Gill 🙂

A Super Special Call

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We love quad blogging and thought it would be fantastic if we could Skype with our new friends in Mrs. Ranney’s class. We had a great time getting to know each other better and learned so many cool facts about their school, community, state, and country.   Jordan and Sahara did an amazing job of back channeling all the great information our quad buddies shared with us.


Here are some of the things we learned from our friends in California:

  • California’s population is 8x larger than British Columbia’s.
  • British Columbia is 2x the size of California.
  • There are 9x more people living in the United States than in Canada even though Canada is a bigger country.
  • Their community has a population of 23,058 and our population is only 800.
  • There are 600 students in their K-5 school and we only have 45 student in grades K-7.
  • In our class we have 17 grade 2/3 students.  Mrs. Ranney’s class of 22 students is one of 5 grade 3 classes in their school.
  • Their state flower is the California poppy and ours is the Pacific Dogwood
  • Their state tree is the California redwood and ours is the Western Red Cedar
  • Their state bird is the quail and ours is the Steller’s Jay
  • Their state animal is the California grizzly bear, even though the only grizzly in their state is on their flag.  Our provincial mammal is the Kermode Bear.
  • Mrs. Ranney’s class have all seen coyotes walking around their neighborhood.  We don’t have coyotes, but we might have a few wolves and occasionally a bear swims over to our island.
  • Both classes love to play games outside.  We both like some of the same games, but have some new ones it would be fun to show each other how to play.
  • We both like a lot of the same foods.

Thanks for the the wonderful call today!  We hope we can Skype again 🙂

Thank You B4!

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This morning we got a fantastic surprise in the mail. Our friends, Mrs. McKenzie and the students in B4, sent us a very special package. We want to thank them for the wonderful book and beautiful bookmark! It was such a huge surprise.

The book is called After Dark: Creatures of the New Zealand Forest. We loved the pictures of all the animals, that it rhymes, that it is a guessing game, and that we got to learn so many cool facts! We hadn’t even heard of most of the animals in the book. We also loved that everyone in the class signed the book.

This book is going to be a very popular addition to our class library!

Here are some of the things we are wondering and want to find out more about:
Jordan-I would like to know how many kakapos are left in New Zealand. Are they endangered?
Sophie-I was wondering how many kiwi birds are in New Zealand. I am also wondering how big they are?
Niall-I was wondering how the kiwi bird got its name. Is it because it kind of looks like a kiwi fruit?
Quang- I think it is cool that the kiwi doesn’t have any wings or a tail. I didn’t know that there were birds without wings!
Justin-I am wondering why kiwi birds have such long beaks.
Lily-I am wondering how big the forest gecko is. I think it is cool that he has no eyelids.
Dante-How many New Zealand animals are endangered?
Sahara-Are there a lot of forest geckos in New Zealand? I think it is cool that they can shed their tail and grow one back!
Fay-I am wondering how the kauri snail doesn’t hurt his own mouth with his tongue being covered in thousands of tiny sharp teeth…OUCH!
Silkence-I think it is cool that the gecko doesn’t lay eggs, but gives birth to live young.
Ana-Do giant wetas get in your houses at night? I would scream if I found one in my bed!
Kennedy-Why does the Archey’s frog not like the water? How do the tadpoles survive without being in water?
Oceana- Why does the Archey’s frog carry tadpoles on his back?
Karin-I am wondering how the kauri snail got his name.

We can’t thank B4 and Mrs. McKenzie enough! We’ll read it again and again and again!