Family Blogging Winners Announced!

On November 1, Mrs. Yollis announced that it would be Family Blogging Month!
 The project generated lots of enthusiasm and family participation!

In fact,  

359 comments

  were published over the last four weeks!

And the winner is...

Adia with an incredible 61 comments!




 The top three winners!

Hannah composed a whopping 34 comments and Miriam a stupendous 42!

Y

Each girl won a free meal at either Islands or Kings, a free frozen yogurt from the Golden Spoon, and an opportunity to publish a free-choice post on our classroom blog!

Congratulations to our top bloggers! We will be running another Family Blogging Month in the spring! Thank you to all the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends for your participation!
We hope you will continue to participate in our learning community!



♕         ♕     ♕

What did you like most about Family Blogging Month?


Which family members left comments and how did that make you feel?

How did your family enjoy the month?

Skyping With Our Friends Down Under!

Mrs. Yollis' class is friends with Miss McGeady (soon to be Mrs. Morris), Miss Jordan, and their classes in Victoria Australia. We had a fun time connecting yesterday via Skype!

Mrs. Yollis' class understands about time zones, but it was still hard to  comprehend that when it was  

2:00 P.M. on Monday in Los Angeles, it was  at 9:00 A.M. on Tuesday in Victoria!

Funny!

 

Miss Jordan and Miss McGeady greeted the class!

Students were excited to see and learn about the Australian community!

Students shared information about their community. The information was collected on a class poster.

Mrs. Ranney and her class were able to join in the fun!

Adia and Grace were able to record the information as it came in. This was the first time we tried Todaysmeet.



We noticed some similarities and differences!


Similarities:

Our summer and winter climate is very much the same.

We both live close to the beach.

We both are located in the 30˚ latitudes. (We're 34˚ and they are 38˚)


 


Differences: 

We are a half hour drive from the beach, and they are 15 minutes.

Their school year ENDS in three weeks! Ours ends in June!

We have 600 students in our school and they have 700.

They are in the southern hemisphere, and we are in the northern hemisphere.


✵     ✵     ✵     ✵     ✵

Here is a transcript from Grace and Adia.  Thanks, Iman, for being our photographer!

How is the transcript useful? Are there any facts that don't make sense?


What was your favorite part about the connection?

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the time of year when families get together and celebrate Thanksgiving! 

In class, we baked some yummy pumpkin bread, decorated it turkey-style, and wrote clever invitation to Thomas T. Turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving! 2010 on PhotoPeach

How did you like the bread?

Do you have any new word play ideas to include in an invitation to Thomas T. Turkey? 

What are your holiday plans?

Mrs. Yollis' Edublog Award Nominations!

The nominations for the  2010 Edublog Awards are now open! The purpose of the Edublog Awards is to promote and celebrate the achievements and educational value of social media in the classroom.

It was an honor to win First Runner-up for Best Class Blog last year. That acknowledgment brought great pride to our class, and we got to make many new friends throughout the world through the process.

It is very difficult to make choices. As you look through our blogroll, there are so many quality educational bloggers out there making a difference in the classroom. The dedication and innovation demonstrated by the teachers and students is remarkable!

After much deliberation, I nominate:

Best individual blog: Langwitches Blog by Silvia Tolisano

Outstanding blog filled with ideas and resources for teachers. Not only is Silvia Tolisano innovative and creative, she is generous with her work. She regularly publishes links to posters, worksheets, and lesson plans to help teachers meaningfully integrate technology in the classroom.  

Best individual tweeter:  Shannon Miller 
Shannon Miller is the Teacher Librarian and Technology Specialist in Van Meter, Iowa. She tweets/shares about a wide variety of useful teaching resources. A real role model for Teacher Librarians everywhere.

Best group blog:  Challenge Yourself to Blog 
The Student Blogging Challenge is coordinated by Sue Wyatt, Sue Waters and Ronnie Burt. It is a fabulous way to learn and master the skills of blogging with your class. Weekly lessons about creating avatars or using Creative Commons are musts for every educational blogger. Sue Wyatt regularly features quality Student Blogging Challenge posts mid-week so students and teachers get a chance to see model work. Volunteer teachers and students help with weekly challenges and visit the individual blogs and leave comments. 

Best new blog:  Teaching Literacy in the Early Years by Kelly Jordan
Kelly Jordan provides a wealth of lessons targeting literacy in the elementary grades. She includes links to resources, has detailed lesson plans, and includes  worksheets to download for use in the classroom. 

Best class blog:  Mr. Salsich’s Class
Jonah Salsich is a third grade teacher in Connecticut, United States. He regularly shares quality learning posts from his class that integrate technology in meaningful ways. He is a master at tapping into the potential of oral and visual presentation via VoiceThread. 

Best student blog:  BB’s Awesome Blog
Bianca is an excellent student blogger from Kathleen McGeady's grade 2 class in Australia. This young blogger has really developed as a writer, uses Creative Commons attribution with her images,  and has a wonderful way of commenting back to her readers!  
(My students have just started the process of posting and maintaining their own blogs and will eligible for possible nomination next year!)

Best resource sharing blog:  iLearn Technology by Kelly Tenkely
Kelly Tenkely's site offers a gold mine of  quality resources for  teachers. Each educational link answers the questions:  What is it? How to Integrate? Tips?  There are links/resources for every possible educational purpose!

Best teacher blog:  Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom by Kathleen McGeady
Kathleen McGeady is an elementary school teacher in Victoria, Australia. Her weekly blog shares quality resources and practical ideas for classroom teachers. In addition, she publishes thoughtful posts addressing issues facing teachers/administrators today. How Has Teaching Changed?  is a great example of this type of post.

Best educational tech support blog:  The Edublogger by Sue Waters
Sue Waters is a tireless champion of educational blogging! Her Edublogger site offers so much practical advice and helpful tutorials about setting up and maintaining quality educational blogs. Not only are the posts relevant, but she is a wonderful facilitator of the comment section of her blog.

Best educational podcast:  Bit by Bit by Bob Sprankle 
Bob Sprankle is an Elementary Technology Integrator in Maine, USA. His blog and Seedlings podcasts provide access to educators and their ideas for all of us. I've enjoyed listening to his podcasts that cover conferences I was unable to attend. 

Best educational webinar series:  Global Educational Conference 2010 by Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray
This was a wonderful series for educators around the world to share about the projects and programs that globally connect us all.  Their online conference had incredible participation: 15,028 unique logins; 8,372 hours attended; 32,681 website visits this week.

Lifetime achievement:  Sue Waters
Sue Waters is an amazing individual! She is committed to helping teachers and administrators all over the world be successful with integrating technology in the classroom. Sue regularly jumps in and helps people via her Edublogger site, on Twitter, or her own personal blog. Sue Waters has been so helpful to me on my path to become an educational blogger and I know many people share my feelings.

Good luck to all! 

Have you made your nominations?

Important Dates: 

Nominations: Close Friday 3 December!
Voting: Ends Tuesday 14 December!
Award Ceremony: Wednesday 15 December!

Although it is difficult to make choices, how does everyone win through this process?

Link to Recording of the UGP Presentation!

Here is a link to enter the Elluminate room where you can  listen to the recording of  the Ugandan Global Project.

Thank you Sue Wyatt for being our moderator!
She runs the Student Blogging Challenge!

Here is the link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/table/dropin?sid=gec2010&suid=D.0602E52E79F8CA247EC82928D9BBAA

As you enter the room, you will be asked for several things. Please enter and have a listen!

The room will look like this when you are in!

Thank you to all of my students who participated in the online presentation from their homes! 

Thank you: Iman, Hannah, Ileanna, Alexa, Aaron,  Adia, Amitai, and Jaden! 

You are role models for all of us!

What did you like about the experience?

What was your favorite part?

Where's Nonno? In Our Classroom!

Nonno, Ben's grandfather, is a guest blogger for Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog!

He lives in Italy and shares photos and information about Italy.
Here are his posts:
Where's Nonno? Alberobello, Puglia, Italy! 
Where's Nonno? Genoa, Italy!
Where's Nonno? Cisternino, Puglia, Italy!

Today, Nonno was in the classroom!

Students wrote welcome notes!

He brought us a souvenir of a Trulli.

He brought Mrs. Yollis a beautiful wooden rose!

3 generations!

Nonno and the class

A famous Italian toy whistle!

He brought an array of gifts, including 50 centimeters of chocolate!
(Does anyone know what this kind of array means? It's not an array of rows and columns.)


Today he was here in our classroom! 

Everyone loved meeting Nonno in person!

What did you like about meeting Nonno?

What did you learn?

Global Education Conference Presentation: Join Us!

 The Ugandan Global Project! will be presented next week at the Global Education Conference. 

The goal of the conference is to help everyone make connections with other educators and students in order to increase opportunities for globally-connected education activities and initiatives.

 Our session will be presented on Thursday, November 18 at 4:00 P.M. (GMT -8/Los Angeles)  Here is a link to a FIXED CLOCK site. Locate your city, find your time, and please join the presentation!  :-)

Mrs. Yollis and her class joined with several other educational bloggers from around the world to form the
Ugandan Global Project! 

International Members:  
2KM  * 2KJ  * Mrs. Yollis * Mrs. Ranney * Mr. Salsich * Team Toa 

Ugandan Global Project 2010 from mrsyollis on Vimeo.

This projects brings students together from Australia, North America, Asia, and Africa.

Everyone is invited to log in and attend! Students, parents, educators are all welcome! 


*     *     *     *     *




What do you think of this virtual conference? (At a virtual conference, all attendees get on their own individual computers and log into the Internet site. We all attend the conference online.)

Please share your thoughts about the Ugandan Global Project and I will include them in the presentation!

New Collaborative Blog: The Reading Roundup!

Mrs. Yollis and her students love to work and learn alongside other people. They've discovered that when you collaborate, everyone wins!

Today is the launch of a new collaborative blog called The Reading Roundup! 

This blog is open to everyone who loves reading!

Here is the welcome video from Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich!

Please pony up, and ride on over to The Reading Roundup!

We'd like to know...what book do you have in your saddle bag?

Parents, please recommend some good children's books you know! 

Happy Birthday Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog!

On November 6, 2008, this blog published its first post!

On Friday, we had a birthday party, complete with a birthday cake to celebrate! 

Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog is 2 years old!

Thank you, Lexi and her family, for the cake and decorations!  :-) 

Lexi has the honor of being the FIRST student commenter!

The bloggers from each year!

 Class of 2008-2009

Then

Today! They're 5th Graders!

 Class of 2009-2010

Then

Today! They're 4th Graders!

 Class of 2010-2011

Interesting Stats:

♥ 33,000 visitors ♥

♥ 3, 800 Published Comments! ♥

♥     ♥     ♥     ♥     ♥

What is your favorite memory of our blog?

Do you have a favorite post? Tell us what it is! Why is that your favorite post?

Have you ever been to a blog birthday?

Where is Nonno? Cisternino, Puglia, Italy

By Guest Blogger - Nonno (Ben's grandfather)

Nonno currently lives in Italy and will be sharing information with all of us! 

We are back home in Courmayeur in the Italian Alps, and I want to catch up for you students about other places we visited on our trip to Puglia.

On our visit to Puglia on the boot of Italy, we visited the village of Cisternino (Pronounced Chisternino in Italian) Cisternino was selected as on of the most beautiful small towns in Italy.

The village is on a hill with pretty views of the valley, called the Itria Valley. (in Italian: Valle d'Itria).

From the city park, you can see many Trulli at the bottom of the valley. Cisternino is only 12 kilomteres from Alberobello, the village of the Trulli we blogged about earlier.

In Italy, they measure distances in kilometers (km) and not in miles. This is called the metric system. How far is one kilometer?

All of the buildings in the village are painted white and can be seen from great distances.

 Cisternino has a pretty main square called a piazza with a clock tower.

People live on small alleys with steep steps to their houses.

 

In the summer, they decorate the houses and steps with many plants.

Cisternino is known for its "fornelli pronti" (butcher's shops with barbecue grills) serving up such dishes as "bombette" (roasted pork meatballs), sausages, steaks and some of them even serve donkey meat.

We ate in one butcher shop with some friends that live in the village.

We went to the counter, pointed out what we wanted; the butcher weighs the meat you want, then cooks it and brings it to the table.

 

You can only get meat, potatoes and salad. No dessert. :(





But when you finish your dinner you walk down the street for some Gelato!

People in Puglia love pasta. Orecchiete is a favorite pasta. It has its name because it looks like an ear. Some people make Orecchiete the old fashioned way by hand while sitting outside their houses.

In Cisternino, many things are done the old fashioned way like making shoes and repairing them.

Or getting water from a pump!


Can you imagine taking a bath if you had to carry the water up those steep stairs?

What part of Cisternino did you like the best? 

How is Cisternino like your community? 

How is it different?