Thursday, November 21, 2019

Family Blogging Month: Generational Comments

Our November is Family Blogging Month post has some wonderful exchanges! Some comments are student-to-student. However, some are generational! 

Below are some sample comments that involve students, their parents, and grandparents.   We love our online learning community!


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Ivy's Generations


Here is a comment to all of us from Ivy's mom on Our Emoji Math.  She ends with an algebraic answer for a student sports puzzle. 






Ivy, her mom, and her grandfather have a conversation going on here! 
Everyone loves blogging and math!

















Here is a comment to all of us from Ivy's grandmother in Chicago:




Several students commented back to Ivy's Chicago grandmother.








Ivy's dad has a wonderful conversation with Kate! 





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Evan's Generations

Here is a comment to all of us from Evan's grandmother in Kentucky. We started a comment back to her on the Family Blogging Month post so stay posted!





Evan and friends have commented back to Grandma Alice! 






 Evan's mom has a terrific comment on the Family Blogging Month post.





Emily E. and her grandmother have written a comment together on Dolphins Delight!






 How do you encourage your family members to contribute to Family Blogging Month? Leave some tips to help your classmates.

What are some relatives besides parents and grandparents? 



Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Emoji Math! (Student Blogging Challenge)

This week it is fun with Emojis!




There are a lot of options, but we chose Emoji math!



First, we looked at some sample Emoji Puzzles from Solvemoji. We got ideas about how to set up equations and use known numbers to solve unknown symbols. 



Next, we created three equations on scratch paper. We thought about the unknown numbers and how to solve each equation. Then we made a key to help us solve our own puzzle.  After lots of tries, we were ready to create our Emoji puzzles on a Google Doc. It was fun to pick a theme! 





To create in a Google Doc:

1. Open a Google Doc
2. Go to INSERT in the menu bar
3. Select SPECIAL CHARACTERS
4. Select EMOJI




5. Select the topic or theme to use (See below) There are many!




Here are our first few puzzles. More to come! 





Mrs. Yollis' Emoji Math!

What is the value of the chicken drumstick?




Ivy's Emoji Math!

What is the value of the sun?






Emily E.'s Emoji Math!
What is the value of the green snake?





Evan Emoji Math!


What is the value of the soccer ball?




Kate's Emoji Math!

What is the value of the sunflower?




Emily E.'s  Emoji Math!
What is the value of the bear?






Where you able to solve any of our puzzles? 
If so, leave us a comment with your solution!

If you created a puzzle, please leave your blog address and we will head over and solve yours!

(More puzzles will be added here throughout the week. 
Check back soon!)





Monday, November 11, 2019

Celebrating Veterans Day!




Today 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.






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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.

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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 are some fabulous BrainPop "Make a Map" 
examples made in class!


Make a Map by Tali 





           Make a Map by Kasra






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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 veterans and soldiers with this blog post! 


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Our superintendent




NAVY: 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.


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Meet Archie's grandfather, Master Staff Sargent Schiller. He was drafted in the army during WWII, went to the officers training school in Fort Bragg, and then went to Europe to serve overseas. He was a writer and was very lucky to not see combat. Instead, he worked in office settings and in communications for the troops. He served 1940-1945 and came home at the end of the war. 




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Meet Evan's great-grandpa, Harry Dunstone.  He served in the Army during WWII and was stationed in Belgium. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 91.  



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Meet Emily F's Grandpa Charlie. He was in the Navy from 1952 to 1960. He was stationed at Treasure Island in San Francisco and was also on a big boat that went to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before the Revolution. She said that her Grandpa doesn’t like to admit that he passed up on an opportunity to have lunch with Ernest Hemingway so he could go out to see Havana, the big town in Cuba. While on Treasure Island he worked in Intelligence and found out about the upcoming launch of a Russian satellite called Sputnik 1.



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Meet Darien's great grandpa, James, who served in the Navy in World War II. He is a veteran. He built his own house by himself and he loved to create stained glass art. Darien has many of his creations at home. He passed away before Darien was born. He must have been very brave and creative.



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Are any of your relatives or friends veterans?




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

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Morris

Today we have a special birthday post for our pal in Melbourne, Australia. Happy Birthday, Mrs. Morris!

Mrs. Morris helps run Edublog's Student Blogging Challenge!



 


Mrs. Morris lives in Australia and it is already November 6 there. Here in the United States, it is still November 5! 

What are some other differences between Australia and America?

How are the two nations alike?


Saturday, November 2, 2019

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 of our class blog and our Yollis 365 blog, students selected specific posts tailored to the interest of a particular relative. Selecting a good post for mom and dad, another for grandma.






A dog post is a great one for siblings!




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.




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







How do you get comments typed and published?
Here is a video made by my students explaining how:

  







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!

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Student Blogging Challenge ~ Quality Commenting!

Mrs. Yollis' class is participating in the International Student Blogging Challenge!





The focus of week 2 is composing QUALITY comments!




Parts of a 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! The comment section is where the blog comes to life and a learning community is built. 



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! 

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!




Mrs. Yollis made a poster using the five-steps to writing a quality comment. You are free to use this infographic, but please give credit and link back to this blog.

Comment by Linda Yollis









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.





How do you get comments typed and published?





-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.



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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!



My class, DO NOT sign into anything. Instead, choose NAME/URL


Use FIRST NAMES ONLY. 







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

Here are some comment starters:

What do you use to learn typing?

What are some famous landmarks in your country and have you visited them? 

What are some traditional foods from your area? 

What are some professional teams in your area? 

What languages do you speak?