Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Happy Veterans Day



★     ★     ★     ★     ★     

On November 11, America celebrates Veterans Day. It is the day we honor the men and women who have served in the armed forces. Veterans Day is a national holiday! 


Photo by Mrs. Yollis









Veterans: Men and women who have served in the armed forces.
Soldiers: Men and women who are currently serving in the armed forces.



★     ★     ★     ★     ★  
   




Here is a link to a wonderful BrainPop video about America's Armed Forces. 


What did you learn about the 
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast guard?





★     ★     ★     ★     ★     


Here is a link to a patriotic Veterans Day blog post by Mrs. Hembree in Seattle, Washington. Read about her father-in-law's service and see photos from his Honor Flight to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.  




Photo honoring veterans at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.


Photo by Joe Hembree





★     ★     ★     ★     ★     



To help us learn about Veterans Day and the men and women who serve, I asked my students if any of their family members are in the military or are veterans. We honor our soldiers with this blog post! 


★     ★     ★     ★     ★     



Meet our district superintendent, Dr. Stepenosky. As you can see, he served in the Navy. From 1990 to 1994, he was on the USS Chancellorsville which was a guided missile cruiser. It was 9,000 tons and had a crew of 330. Notice the destroyer in the background. 






★     ★     ★     ★     ★ 

    

Meet Abigail's Uncle Ming. He is a major in the Air Force and is stationed in Qatar! Today we looked for Qatar on the world map. Where is our soldier located? 









★     ★     ★     ★     ★ 

  


Meet Chris, Abby's uncle. He is in the Air Force stationed at March Air Force Base (AFB). March AFB is located in California. Chris is serving in the 452nd Aerospace Medical Squadron at March AFB and is in his 6th duty station. What is a squadron? What does he mean "6th duty station"?






★     ★     ★     ★     ★  




Meet Kate's grandfather, Elbert. He served in the Marines: 
August 1965 - December 1965 Camp Pendleton, San Diego, California / January 1966 - February 1967 Chulai, Vietnam /
March 1967 - May 1967 Camp LeJune, North Carolina /
June 1967 - June 1968 American Embassy, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic / July 1968 - July 1969 American Embassy, Montevideo, Uruguay / July 1969 - Discharged Camp Pendleton, San Diego, California.

We thank Elbert for his service and for his contributions to our Family Blogging Month post! 






★     ★     ★     ★     ★     

Meet Tom, Nicholas' grandfather. (Nicholas is my former student.) Tom was a Navy officer in World War II. He was a navigator on the USS Shaula in the Pacific Theater. He used celestial navigation to navigate the ship. Today they use satellites, but are going back to the celestial navigation he used 70 years ago. The reason is the threat of attacks on the satellites.





★     ★     ★     ★     ★     


Thank you for reminding the children in your class that many of us served in the military. It would please us greatly as the grandparents of Jock to recognize us for our service. Grandmom was a navy nurse stationed at the San Diego Naval Hospital caring for wounded Marines and Navy personnel from 1962 to 1965. 





I served in the Navy spending one year in Vietnam as a surgeon with combat Marines. I served from 1964 to 1969. 







★     ★     ★     ★     ★ 







Meet Sawyer’s grandfather Thomas. He was an officer in the United States Air Force, with active duty assignments from 1962 to 1969 in the United States, Germany and Southeast Asia. He was actually in Vietnam when Sawyer’s dad was born. He retired as a major after thirteen additional years as a reserve information officer for the 440th Reserve Tactical Airlift Wing in Milwaukee. We honor his service every year on Veteran’s Day.





★     ★     ★     ★     ★ 








Meet Lily's Aunt Eileen, Uncle Steven, cousins Ben and Samantha. Eileen and Steven have served in the Navy for the past 25 years. They met at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Steven is a pilot and flew planes for the Navy.  Eileen is a supply officer and has earned the title of Captain. They current live in Virginia Beach.





★     ★     ★     ★     ★





Meet Lily's great-grandfather, Charles Armond Wright. He served in the Army during WW II in Germany and Italy. He helped free the prisoners from the concentration camps. 



★     ★     ★     ★     ★







Meet lieutenant Ted Fundoukos, Chloe's (Kostaki's sister) Godfather. In the Greek orthodox tradition, he is family. Ted went to the Naval Academy and served in a submarine!

★     ★     ★     ★     ★







Meet Abigail's Uncle Roger. He retired from the Navy last year. He was a Captain in the Medical Corps. Roger served all over the world including the Pacific Rim as well as Europe. Here is a picture of his family from a few years ago. Abigail and her siblings love playing with them at family reunions.





★     ★     ★     ★     ★

Are any of your relatives or friends veterans?



Please tell us about them and thank them for their service to America!



Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Family Blogging Month :: India



Family Blogging Month is a great way to build an online learning community!

Photo by Mrs. Yollis



Heloise's aunt, Gaelle,  lives in India, and she left us an outstanding comment. She shared some information about that Asian country in a comment: 









In her fabulous comment, Gaelle mentioned Diwali and Mahatma Gandhi. BrainPop offers videos about both Indian topics. 


Diwali Video 










You can also learn about India via 



Research some facts about India and share with everyone! Remember, do NOT copy sentences! That is plagiarism!  Instead, take notes and put your facts in your won sentences!


Family Blogging Month :: Palindromes

Family Blogging Month is a great way to build an online learning community!

Abigail's dad, Frank, noticed that he could make a word out of the Family Blogging Month  key. Like any good blogger, I commented back to him. 





Conversations in the comment section help bring the blog to life! Here is the exchange:








That comment led to a comment from Will and Frank's daughter, Abigail:








Those comments lead to a discussion about palindromes. 


pal • in• drome (noun)
a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward, e.g., madam or nurses run.




A numeric palindrome:

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 




Those comments lead to a discussion about aibohphobia, the irrational fear of palindromes!






What are some palindromes that you know?







Sunday, November 1, 2015

November is Family Blogging Month

Mrs. Yollis and her students ♥ to share what they are learning and experiencing. In an effort to include more family members in our online community, we are proclaiming: 


November is Family Blogging Month!




Each student made a list of their family members. After looking through the archive, students selected specific posts tailored to the interest of a particular relative. 









We're inviting everyone to comment: moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, and cousins. 
We welcome friends, too!





Students will be inviting their family and friends to participate in a conversation! 
Maybe we'll get some 2-point comments! 

(We frequently evaluate the comments that our blog has received. In order to earn the 2-points, a comment must be error-free and add something to the post.   Many of Mrs. Yollis' third graders have already met the challenge!)



If you don't know what to say, here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' third graders. 

Learn FIVE tips for writing a quality comment! 








If you don't know How to leave a comment, here is a video tutorial about HOW to leave a comment on our blog.











Here is the key we will use for  Family Blogging Month.





 
What do you think of our idea?

Who are you inviting to be a part of our online community?

Please leave a comment and introduce yourself!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Monstrously Fun Collaboration



Having a classroom blog provides a plethora of opportunities to collaborate and create with classes all over the world. Recently, we were invited by Miss Jordan in Victoria, Australia, to participate in a monstrously creative writing project. 




Miss Jordan's pupils are grade 4 students. 
They have a classroom blog just like us!






The directions for the Monster Project: 

Step 1:  Students draw a monster using their imagination.

Step 2:  Students write a paragraph detailing the monster. 
Important descriptive details to include are color, shape, and size. 

Step 3: Students trade the descriptive paragraphs with a blogging buddy. This was done via Google docs.

Step 4: Students draw their buddy's monster using only the descriptive paragraphs. 

Step 5: Students share and compare the original drawings. We used a Google slide show. As you compare the two drawings, what do you notice? (Sometimes a detail or two gets left out of a paragraph. Sometimes students miss important words when reading. )

Step 6: Publish the results on the class blog and have fun reading and comparing!   







Rulers were employed to be sure the measure was correct. Since our Australian buddies are on the metric system, we used centimeters. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 



Students made a chart of attributes. 

Describe each body part: Color? Shape? Size? 






Although we tried our best, we learned that it is very difficult to give written instructions. It is important to include all relevant details!















Visit our blogging buddies' site with their monstrous slide show!



TODAY, we looked at the monsters in our Google Presentation. In groups, we compared the monster drawn by our Australian buddy to what we actually wrote. We made a T-chart and labeled it Correct or Incorrect. 


















By Thursday, leave a comment! 

What words or phrases did you use that were effective? 

What did you leave out? 

What sentences would you add to make your drawing better? 




Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Teaching Commenting Skills



WHY have a classroom blog?


Here is a video I made with my second and third graders about the value of blogging. I hope it convinces you to start a class blog!







Blogging has many parts: the post, the comments, and the sidebar.

If you do a good job with all of the parts, your blog will be more interesting.

Today we will focus on quality comments!



Content is key!


In our class, we evaluate our blog comments. A one-point comment is a general comment that doesn't add very much to the post.   Example: I like your blog. Please visit mine! 

A two-point comment adds something to the comment conversation. A commenter might compliment the writer in a specific way or add new information. Another idea is to make a connection. Maybe the post reminds you of an experience that you've had. Share that connection!  Try to end your comment with a relevant question. That way, an interesting conversation can develop.


What should I say in my comment?


Here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' students called How to Compose a Quality Comment!  It offers FIVE tips to help you take your comments to the next level!






We like to open our comments with a greeting and end with a closing. We choose to do this as it makes it easier for us to follow the conversation within a comment section.








-For Advanced Bloggers-

Some bloggers like to use HTML code to make their comments better.  Learning to write HTML code, or HTML tags, is a somewhat simple way to take your comment to the next level.


HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a language.



*     *     *     *     *


To write HTML code, use the following symbols:


Important: Do not add a space between the HTML tag and the word or sentence.

 
                                                                                                     

1.  To put text in italics, place this HTML code around the text:

 

 

The sentence will look like this when published:
 

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.



                                                                                                     


2.  To make text bold, place this HTML code around the text:

                           


The sentence will look like this when published: 


Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.


                                                                                                     


 
3.  To make a hyperlink, it gets a little tricky.

Use the following HTML code around the URL and add your own link word/words:







  [The URL is the address of the web page. It starts with http://www…]

The HTML code below:

  



Will become this hyperlink when published:


                                                                 Mrs. Yollis’ Website


Sometimes it is hard to remember the HTML codes. I keep an HTML word document on my desktop with all the common codes, especially the one to create a hyperlink. Here is a video demonstrating how easy it is to a create a hyperlink if you have the code set up in a Word doc.




If you like to add fun shapes...here are those codes!





What did you learn about quality commenting? 
 Why is it important to proofread a comment before pressing publish? 

Have you ever had a conversation in a comment section?

 

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)