Friday, May 8, 2009

Our day began with morning P.E. It was our last time having Gym City. It’s going to be taken down and going to TZE. Anthony and Rebecca liked going through the tunnel. Zoe , Emily, and Axl like the car wash. Mia liked getting spritzed by Coach Hudson or Coach Steingasser. There was a talking fish on Hudson Highway. Some of the other streets were Tummy Turnpike, Sitting Street, Backwards Drive, Kneeling Street, and Steingasser Street. Darren and others got to act as the police officers in Gym City. Gym City was so much fun!

Next, we videoconferenced with Debbie Dadey, the author of The Bailey School Kids series. Lots of first grade class came to the cafeteria to chat with her. We got to talk to her on a computer but she wasn’t in the room with us. She used her daughter’s laptop to chat with us from her office in her house in Pennsylvania. We learned that Debbie published 145 books. She even wrote one with her daughter. They are trying to publish it soon. Mrs. Dadey showed us her white dog, Skippy. Her other dog was too big to pick up and show us on the webcam. Mrs. Dadey used to be a first grade teacher and then she became a librarian. She decided to write chapter books so that first, second, and third graders could have chapter books to read that weren’t so hard. We found out that her books have taken anywhere from one week to eight years to write! Then she talked about a character that she created for one of her books. The girl turned into a rat because she thought she was so pretty with her fancy clothes, dangly earrings, and pink lipstick. The author did that because she made it up and anything can happen in a story. Debbie Dadey will be appearing at Books and Greetings, a bookstore in Northvale, NJ on Tuesday at 4:30. She asked anyone who stops by to let her know that we talked to her on the videoconference!

During Writer’s Workshop, we looked through our research books for 5 different features from the list we came up with. Next week we are going to combine the bulleted facts that we’ve recorded with the features we found.

We spent a lot of time working on special projects for our Mother’s Day Celebration on Monday.

Have a great weekend and a wonderful Mother’s Day. Hope to see moms on Monday at 1:45!