San Francisco has passed legislation that will prevent McDonalds from including a toy with its Happy Meals. The new regulation will only allow toys to be included in meals that contain less than 600 calories and 35% fat.

The grade 5/6 students at South March Public School offer their opinions about this regulation.

Portable Radio episodes are back.  This year the show is brought to you by students in Mrs. Smith’s 5/6 class at South March Public School and Mr. Toft’s 5/6 class from Berrigan Elementary.  Both schools are located in Ottawa, Canada.

In this episode:

* Asad and Armaan argue about goalies

* James and Isaiah explain the Global Children’s Challenge

* Steven and Tyler talk about mining

* Awo, Kollie and Yahya compete in the “Don’t Say It!” game

* Owen talks about his dog

* R.J. and Tariq talk about a monster survey

* Rahul gives his opinions of the Lightning Thief movie

* Linh and Naana talk about the Vancouver Winter Olympics

* Mrs. Smith’s class perform a rap in French

* Karen and Shannon talk about doing the Cha Cha Slide for Sports Day in Canada

* Sufi, Miikah and Nick talk about the upcoming Ottawa Senators season

* Sehrish and Sarah discuss  A Series of Unfortunate Events

Music used in this episode

WW – Greenroom (Music Alley)

Music Box (Purple Planet Music)

Interloper (Kevin MacLeod)

JewelBeat Royalty Free Music – Funky Riff

Portable Radio’s back for a fifth season of Portable Radio Point of Views.  This time students working on the podcast are from Mr. Toft’s 5/6 class in Berrigan Elementary School in Barrhaven.  Mrs. Smith’s 5/6 class joins us from South March Public School in Kanata.  Both schools are part of the Ottawa Carleton District School Board.

In this first “Point of View” of the season, Mr. Toft’s students debate whether McDonald’s should be allowed to sponsor the school board’s annual “Bus Safety Day”.

P.S. CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning aired our podcast on September 16, 2010.  Congratulations to everyone involved!

In this episode you will hear the Public Service Announcements Mr. Toft’s Grade 5 students created to remind kids to keep their bones healthy.  They first listened to a variety of real public service announcements you hear on the radio.  Next they formed groups and created a script copying the style of one of the commercials they heard. They did their best to make sure an important message about healthy bones was included.  Finally they recorded, edited and mixed music and sound effects into their radio commercials.

Music used in this episode

WW – Greenroom (Music Alley)

In our latest podcast:

* Mrs. Smith’s students teach us about brain food

* an interview with members of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority

* poems by students in Mr. Toft’s class

* Sydney’s report about her trip to Egypt

* voicemail from Mrs. Smith’s students

* Caitlin’s report about Zhu Zhu pets

Music used in this episode

WW – Greenroom (Music Alley)

First Portable Radio Piano Song – Justin Toft (age 7)

Various musical bumpers created by Nathan Toft and Mrs. Smith using Sony’s Acid XPress

Thanks to Maxim and Katherine’s parents for making this video available.  Hopefully, this video will play on school computers as well.

Earth Hour is Saturday, March 27th from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm. This is a time when people are asked to think about how they can conserve the Earth’s natural resources and energy. Our class had a discussion about the value of Earth Hour.

Should Tofino,  British Columbia be able to ban fast-food franchises from setting up in their town?  We discussed this issue today and here are some of our opinions.

In this episode Elisabeth, Ryan and Keegan try their luck at the “Don’t Say It!” game, Evan explains how to dive off a cliff and Talia and Katherine tell us about Sens Skills.  Dillon, Alex and Cameron tell the Ancient Greek story of Odysseus and the Cyclops. Sydney, Kayla and Lauren perform their version of Echo and Narcissus. Calysta, Greg and Sheridan leave Mr. Toft a voice mail.

All Music and sound effects were either created by us or used with permission:

WW – Greenroom (Music Alley)

Heavy Hitter – PurplePlanet.com

The Music Box (Theme) – PurplePlanet.com

The Transcendence of the Ancient Ones – Joe Mejer (MusicAlley.com)

Various Sound Effects – FTC Publishing

The ancient Greek plays were based on scripts available at MrDonn.org.

Last week Canada’s federal government announced they would be changing our paper money to plastic in 2011. Some students in Mr. Toft’s grade 5 class thought this was a good idea but others did not.