It's Winter Already!

WOW! We had a snow storm this weekend! Today the kids took me out with them at recess so that I could play in the snow. Do you have snow at your school?

Love AlleyCat

The Race that Stops a Nation

“A race that stops a nation or the whole country,” I couldn’t believe it. I arrived at school Tuesday morning and saw all the kids dressed up in fancy clothes. I didn’t know anything about this thing called the Melbourne Cup.

The Melbourne Cup is a horse race that is held on the 2nd Tuesday in November. Most businesses and schools in Melbourne close for the day. My class had to come to school so they dressed up as race-goers, jockeys, horses and strappers. It was a very colourful parade.

At 3 o’clock everyone went to find a TV to watch the race. We went to the Library and cheered our horses on (if they hadn’t been “scratched”). The winner this year was Efficient. The most famous winner was Pharlap.

(Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria in Australia. I am living with the students in Hawkesdale, which is in Vitoria.)

Patch at the Footy

In September I went to the Mininera and District Football Grand Final to watch the footy at Lake Bolac which is a small town near us. Football, or footy as Australians call it, is a game played on a grass oval field, with 22 people on a team and 18 people on the field. The other players are on the bench and can be swapped with someone on the field at any time. AFL football is our national sport.
Netball is also played. Many of the Hawkesdale Macarthur teams were in the grand final and although we lost, I liked being at the footy because I knew some people and Mrs H took lots of photos of us. There were lots of yellow and blue balloons for the team's colours. Overall it was a great and exciting day.
My teacher is having trouble uploading the photos so we shall put them up another time.

Check out my Slide Show!

Snowball in Nevada

Hi,

My name is Snowball. My classmates in Ms. Anderson's class are very strange, all 120 of them! Everyday they put a picture on the whiteboard and they all pull out these notebooks and begin writing in them. After that, they all get a book called, "The Magnificent Mummy Maker" by Elvira Woodruff. They read a chapter or two at a time. Then they work on spelling, prefixes or suffixes. The end of the class is when a bell rings and my classmates gather all of their things and leave me here on top of the overhead waiting for the next group. This all happens seven times a day. It's really confusing for a little dog.

I'll write more soon.

Snowball

Fall

Hello Everyone!

Today we had a great fall activity, Making applesauce! Even though it is fall the temperatures are still nice and warm up here in Canada! This weekend we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. I hope you all are having fun in your classrooms.

Love AlleyCat

Busy Beavers

I'm getting excited to take a virtual field trip with my class. We're going to the Grand Tetons on Oct. 16th! Our first project was to build a beaver dam. Next we are going to go on a wolf hunt. Boy am I scared! There has even been talk of bears. Hope everyone is having as much fun as I am.

Radar

What's Happening Everyone?

Hi Boys, Girls, Webkinz, and Teachers,

I was wondering what new things you have been learning about. It is now Fall in Canada. The leaves on the trees are changing colours, and there are many leaves on the ground now. What is the weather like where you live? Did you know that our last monarch emerged on the weekend? If you go to http://www.therecord.com/classroom you can read newspaper articles by a Monarch Butterfly named Roy. He has a new article each week that tracks his journey from Canada to Mexico. It even shows where he is on a map. As you can see from this picture Mrs. Muller's Boys and Girls are taking very good care of me, and they LOVE playing with me on the Webkinz Website! I really hope to hear from some of you soon! From AlleyCat

My first week!

Hi Everyone! I have had the best week. Every day some new JK students came to school to meet me. They worked at centres, sang songs, and took turns with me. The best part was the morning we watched this Monarch Butterfly emerge from her chrysalis. The children named her Marissa. Isn't she beautiful? From AlleyCat

Patch's first week

Well, I have already spent a week with my new friends in grade 3 and 4. I have been to literacy with them and sat on the computer keyboard while they used my website. Playing bootball was fun and I loved being out in the sunshine. It is now spring so it is great fun now with the blossom coming on the trees. The playground is really cool and the students are about to go on 2 weeks holiday.

Hi from Hawkesdale, Australia

Hi! I am a new webkinz who will live in Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia. We like the sound of the Kinz Exchange project. Most of our students live on farms or in small country towns. An email was sent saying that our class would like to join but we had trouble getting a webkinz pet. When our teacher looked up the internet to see what shops sell webkinz in Australia, we could not find any. So, we decided to look up ebay. Luckily, there is a person on ebay selling them to interested Australians. These pets will come to Australia next year in the shops.

So, after a few problems, our pet has arrived in the post on Friday. I only got it after school, so when the students are at school today, they will open their parcel and give their pet a name. The photo below shows our parcel.

The students are in grades 3 and 4 and have been so excited about it all. The pet seemed to take forever to get to us. Anyway, goodbye for now and we will send another photo of us opening the parcel very soon.

Hello from Sunny Florida

Hi, My name is Spots. I am Mrs. Lees's second grade class pet Webkinz. Here I am with Mrs. Lees's daughter. She is a pro at keeping her Webkinz happy and healthy. She is helping her mom get me set up in cyberspace. Mrs. Lees has brought me to school and the students are so happy to have me there. One student will take me home each Friday and be my host for the weekend. They can help me decorate my room, play games, and take me out into the real world with them. After my adventures, they will write in my traveling journal and maybe even include a picture or two. I can't wait to visit each and every student's home! I will keep you posted on my adventures and can't wait to hear all about yours! Sincerely, Spots, the Leopard

News from Radar

I wanted to share a picture with you showing me with my new friends for this year. Our first day and a half we traveled to five different countries. They were Japan, China, England, Brazil, Australia. We learned how to say hello in all the different languages. We also made a craft that served as our souvenir. For instance, in Mrs. Kerbaugh's class we learned about Japan and did a orgami project. It was a really fun whole school project. The kids are learning how to blog right now. They are having a good time.
Radar

Hello from Northern Nevada

Hello Everyone,

I am a brand new WebKinz that will be joining Ms. Anderson's 6th grade Language Arts classes at Dayton Intermediate School in Dayton, Nevada. I still don't have a name, because Ms. Anderson wants to let her students name me. I look forward to reading all about your classes and experiences.

The other cute dog in the picture with me is Ms. Anderson's dog, Scruffy. He has been a member of her classroom for the past five years. I hope he won't mind sharing the students and adventures with me.

This is going to be a very fun year!

Westie Dog

Look What I Found!

I have been busy exploring the fields around Lake Huron, one of the 5 Great Lakes in Ontario. I have seen many monarch, and swallowtail butterflies on my walks. It is fun to chase the butterflies, but I don't hurt them! Can you see the tiny monarch caterpillar on the milkweed plant?xoxoxo AlleyCat

Radar's on the lookout!

Radar is waiting for the students in Mrs. Kerbaugh's class to arrive this week. Won't they be excited to meet him? We are going to do a travel project with all the classes in our grade school. Watch to see where Radar travels with his new friends.

Say Hi To Meaty!

Hello, to everyone in Webkinz world I am a bull dog that will be joining 3rd grade students this school year at Bonnie Garcia Elem. I will be meeting my new friends on August 27th, the first day of classes. I can not wait to start our adventure together. I bet it'll be lots of fun!

Signing Out,
Meaty

Meet Alley Cat

Hi Boys and Girls,

My name is Alley Cat.
I will be a part of Mrs. Muller's class in the Fall.
I am at the beach in Southampton.
I met this cat while walking along the beach.
He jumped out at me!
I think he wanted to be my friend.
I can't wait to meet you in September.
Please leave me a comment.
Love,
Alley Cat

Hello from Spike

Hello everyone! I'm Spikey Spike. That's the name I was given when adopted by the KinderKids last year. We had a great year together and now I'm on summer vacation. You can visit my own blog to find out what I'm doing this summer.

I can't wait for the new school year to begin so I can meet a new class of KinderKids. I'm also excited about the possibilities of traveling to visit other classrooms. Deerfield, New Hampshire is a great place to call home but it's fun to learn about other places in the world. Guelph, Ontario - woo hoo, I can't wait!

Hoppy Trails,
Spike

Meet Miss Miner

Meet Miss Miner--the official student in Ms. Plummer's first block science/social studies class at Mint Hill Middle School. We look forward to sharing our adventures with all of you.

Our Class Webkin has been chosen

In order to get into the whole Webkin thing, I bought one yesterday. It was rather surreal. I registered her, and when her (Miss Miner--we are the Mint Hill Miners) birthday came up--it is/was the birthday of my only sister!! She is a gorgeous koala. I will be visiting our school some time tomorrow, probably, to see if I can log on through our rather stringent firewall so that we can get to this at school. I sure hope so!! Im leaving everything--room, etc.--up to the beginning of school so that we can all do it together. I know my students are going to really enjoy this. If Miss Miner gets lonely, there was a darling little kitty that I thought wanted to keep her company. (I have cats all over my classroom, being one of those crazy cat ladies.) I'll post more later.
Pat
>^..^<

Eager to participate

Our first day of school will be Augusst 27th for students, August 20th for us. I am at Mint Hill Middle School, teaching exceptional education resource. We are divided into 4 90 minute blocks a day, with 4 minutes passing time and 25 minutes for lunch.

My first block class will be a class of 6th, 7th and 8th grade EC social studies/science students. We meet on alternate days. I am responsible for teaching the grade appropriate standard course of study for these children, so am feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point with 6 preparations here. Using the blogging (hopefully I can access this at school and let the kids write themselves) will be a great tool to help prepare them for their 7th grade writing class (did I mention that I will also be teaching one block of 6th language arts and one 7th language arts--and I have had to become certified in all core subjects at the secondary level in order to teach in NC because of the No Child Left Behind.)

I love the suggestions for the first day of school. I will have our pet with me on back-to-school night (Webkins are in very short supply here. I saw a few yesterday and fell in love with the Panda and Koala.) The students in the first block class will name her and we will go from there.

I forsee this as a great tool for use in my behavior plans also. (My students are learning disabled, ADHD, ADD, high level austistic and beharior/emotional disordered). They will love being able to take "'kin" home for the weekend and/or holidays.

My plan, if they are unable to get into a blog area, is to have them e-mail me with their postings and I will do simple cutting and pasting into the area.

Will we be able to post pictures? I keep my digital camera with me always and usually have some great candids.

Thanks for allowing us to participate!! I'd love to get the locations from all the participants so that we can keep our world map well pinned!!

I am from Charlotte, NC and our school is out in the county, SW of the big city. We are the home of the Carolina Panthers pro football team and the Carolina Bobcats NBA team. Banking/finance is our primary business with HQ for Wachovia and Bank of America being here.