Learning How to Comment!

Most of Mrs. Yollis' new students are novices to the world of blogging. (A novice is a fancy word for someone who is new or inexperienced at something.) A few students know about blogging because they had a first grade blog with Mrs. Levy. 

Two students are familiar with blogging because their siblings, Hannah and Miriam, were in Mrs. Yollis' class last year. Both girls earned their own blogs by demonstrating responsible work habits and consistently contributing quality comments to the class blog.

Because most students are new, we will devote this post to the skill of composing a quality comment!

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.

Here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' students about How to Compose a Quality Comment!

It offers 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.

Mrs. Smith, from Ontario, Canada, adds another excellent idea:
Give some information about where you are from and what grade you are in.
Thanks for a great tip, Mrs. Smith! 

Bianca, a student blogger from Mrs. Morris' class has a great new post about blogging etiquette. She has some great tips about blogging! Be sure to leave her a quality comment!

-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!

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?

 

Place Value Fun!

Mrs. Yollis' new students are reviewing numbers. 

Today they looked at the different forms a number can take.

They used their ClustrMap for practice!

The symbols 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are digits.

Standard form: A way of writing numbers using digits


Expanded form: A way to write numbers by showing the VALUE  of each digit


Word form:  A way to write numbers using words

Tomorrow, everyone is hoping for this palindrome!
(A palindrome a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward, e.g., madam or nurses run.)

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Several students played Digital Dog Bone at home last night!

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 The class played manual Dog Bone in class. They used their hand to place a number in the correct location on the hundreds chart.

Some numbers were easy to place like:  1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 100. Others numbers were more difficult to place, especially if the hundred chart was empty!

Have you played Dog Bone? If so, how many bones could you place in one minute? 

Which numbers are easy to place and why?

What are some strategies you use to place your number quickly?

Welcome Back 2011

Please leave a comment! 

If you are not sure how to comment on this blog, watch this video tutorial!

If you are a new student, please leave a comment telling me about yourself. What did you do over your summer break? What adventures and experiences did you enjoyed?

If you are one of our blogging buddies, please introduce yourself to my new class. Where are you from? What have you been up to?


Remember to proofread your comment with a parent before you publish! 


:-)

Snorkel With Mrs. Yollis!

As the summer winds down here in the northern hemisphere, I wanted to share one more animal post from my fantastic trip to Hawaii. Snorkeling along the coral reef was a daily activity for me. I got to meet beautiful tropical fish like this bird wrasse and the state fish of Hawaii, the humuhumunukunukuapua'a!  

If you've never had a chance to snorkel, come and glimpse the beauty with me!

This year, the class will be studying animal habitats. The ocean is the largest habitat in the world. 

Here is my video post Moray Eels!
If you want to see my sea turtle video, click here!

Have you ever snorkeled?

Which fish did you enjoy finding?

Did you notice any color adaptations?

(False eyes? Camouflage? Advertising coloration?)

Always Learning: Reform Symposium

Summer is a time for having fun, and that is certainly what Mrs. Yollis has been doing! 

She swam with turtles, observed Moray eels, and many other fish!

Summer, like anytime, is also a time for learning! 

At the end of July, Mrs. Yollis was an online learner at the Reform Symposium e-Conference!

This FREE online conferences had  80 presenters and 12 keynote speakers! Mrs. Yollis was thrilled to be able to learn from incredible teachers located all over the world, and she did it all  

on her laptop computer in her home!

Each online classroom was an elluminate room and looked very similar to this:

Used with permission from @ShellTerrell

Mrs. Yollis attended many session and learned about new innovations and tools that she can use in her own classroom. Because it was an international conference, some of the sessions were scheduled in the middle of the night, Los Angeles time! In addition, there were so many interesting speakers, Mrs. Yollis had to make some tough choices about which sessions to attend.  Luckily, the half hour presentations were recorded and are available for learning to anyone!

 Here is a link to all the sessions!

         

Not only is it important to learn from other people, it is also important to help others. Mrs. Yollis volunteered to be a moderator for her good friend and quad blogging buddy, Mrs. Morris!

Mrs. Morris lives in Australia and has a fantastic class blog called 2KM and 2KJ. In addition, she also has a professional blog called Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom where she shares information for educators.

Mrs. Morris' presentation was called Connecting With Global Blogging Buddies. 

Here is a link to her presenation.

Besides being in the classroom, where are some places that you learn?

What is something you discovered this summer?

Video: Moray Eels!

Mrs. Yollis spent a lovely vacation in Hawaii.

 

 While snorkeling there, she got to  swim with sea turtles! 

In addition, she encountered moray eels on the coral reef from time to time.  Below is a video Mr. Yollis took of two separate eels. 

Here is a link from Enchanted Learning with a diagram of an eel and some interesting information.

Mrs. Yollis noticed that whenever she saw an eel, the peacock grouper was usually nearby. Therefore, whenever she saw a peacock grouper, she would stop swimming and look for an eel. Since she returned home, she's done some reading, and it appears that the groupers and the eel hunt together! 

 

Do you have any fun facts to share about eels?

Have you ever snorkeled? If so, what did you see?