Finally, Family Blogging Month Winners!

Congratulations to our Family Blogging Month winners! Hundreds of comments poured in over the month from students, parents, sibling, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends! 

It was the best Family Blogging Month ever! 

Winners received a crown, a free meal at a local restaurant, and are provided an opportunity to submit a blog post of their choosing! 

Several family members are being honored for their numerous contributions. These special people are being hailed Commenter Extraordinaire! 

We appreciate the interesting connections and the exciting learning opportunities that were provided throughout the month. Clearly, everyone wins during Family Blogging Month!

Meet our Commenters Extraordinaire! 

Bubbe, Bryce's 92 year old great-grandmother

GaGa, Bryce's grandmother

PaPa, Bryce's grandfather

Uncle Irwin, Bryce's relative

Alec's father 

Clare's parents 

Aashi's parents

Heather's mom

Jemma's grandfather

Darius' grandmother contributed several photos from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Here is an example:

Uncle Mike, Samantha's relative 

Thank you all for enriching our online learning community!

What did you enjoy about Family Blogging Month? 

Friendship, Blogging, and Learning

This year has been an exciting one! Back in January, Theo joined our class. He and his family moved here from France, and Theo knew very little English. He has made tremendous progress in a few short months! 

Garland by Chloe

Theo and his mom came in recently, and they shared information about France. Here is a photo from their presentation. Notice his classmates from France in the background! After, everyone enjoyed some homemade crepes!

Photo by Mrs. Yollis

Mrs. Yollis has been getting emails for Theo from his friends in France. His French classmates are learning English as well. Here is one of the letters:

Hello Théophie,

How are you? Do you like living in Los Angeles? What's your favourite colour? My favourite colours are blue and purple. What's your favourite animal? My favourite animals are  dolphin , horse and dog. Do you understand everything  in English?

Perrin



We are hoping that Theo's French classmates will leave comments here, and we can correspond on the blog. To correspond is to communicate, usually via letter. However, we will use our comment section! 

Fabulous Fads!

Currently, Mrs. Yollis' third graders are reading

Ramona Quimby, Age 8 

by the wonderful, well-known author, Beverly Cleary.

We have just finished reading hilarious Chapter 3, "The Hard-Boiled Egg Fad!"

In this chapter, Ramona and all her third grade buddies are having fun with the latest fad: packing a hard-boiled egg in their lunches each day. The fad isn't just about eating a hard-boiled egg, however! It's really all about cracking it on your head before you peel it!





Some of the kids use the timid "rap-rap-rap" method. Others, like Ramona, like to show-off with one big "whack" to the head!

The fad is not so much fun anymore for Ramona, when she finds that the egg she thought was hard-boiled was really raw! Boy, how humiliating!

******************

A fad is something that is very popular for a short time, and fads can be a lot of fun! Fads often involve fashion, an activity, or some kind of toy or trinket.

In your comment, tell us about a fad that you know about.

What is popular right now where you live? 

What has been popular in the past?

Family members and friends, this is a great post for you to get involved in! Tell us about fads that were popular when you were young!

America's Memorial Day

Guest post from Mallory, Mrs. Yollis' former student

This Monday is Memorial Day in the United States. 

It is a national holiday!

LAST YEAR, I celebrated Memorial Day with my mom and my Girl Scout troop in a special way.  We went to the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood to place American flags on the headstones of soldiers who have served our country in the military.   There were so many other troops to help, including Daisies, Brownies, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Eagle Scouts.

Photo by Mallory's Mom

There was very specific way to place the flags.  They had to be put 1 foot away from the headstone and 2 inches into the ground.  Then we were told to stand and have a moment of silence to recognize and honor the soldier for their dedication to our country.

Photo by Mallory's Mom

I was very interested to read each soldier's headstone.  Some fought in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War.  There were many soldiers who even fought in more than one war.

This memorable experience inspired me to come home and learn more about Memorial Day.  I found out many interesting facts on Wikipedia.

Memorial Day Facts:
* Memorial Day used to be called "Decoration Day" during the Civil War.
* It wasn't until after World War II that the name changed to Memorial Day.
* In 1967, it was declared a national holiday.
* There are 88,000 graves in the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Photo by Mallory's Mom

How do you celebrate Memorial Day where you live?

Do you have anyone in your family who has served in the military?

Students Present at Texas Google Summit!

This morning, Mrs. Yollis and a handful of student bloggers went to Texas to participate in the Texas Google Summit! 

Wait, to get from Mrs. Yollis' class to Texas would require a 4.5 hour plane ride and would cost $500 per plane ticket!  

Instead, we presented via Google HangOut On Air! 

Welcome to a video recording of our session!

Blogging is Learning!

To share our presentation we:

1. Accepted the Google HangOut On Air invitation.
2. Screenshared our desktop. (We were worried because we got that tunnel of desktops!)
3. Minimized the GHO screen. (Which removed the tunnel.)
4. Opened our Chrome tab with our Google Presentation.
5. Clicked present...and we were in business!
6. After the presentation, we minimized our Chrome tab.
7. Opened up the GHO window.
8. Stopped the screensharing of our desktop.
9. Answered questions from our fabulous Texan audience.

Here is a link to Mrs. Yollis' Educational Blogging Wiki. It is a great resource for teacher! 

We enjoyed sharing our love of blogging with you!

Thank you, #TxGoo, for the invitation!

Yee haw for #TeamYollis!

What was something you learn from watching our presentation?

Do you have any additional questions we can answer? 

♥ Open House ♥ 2014

Welcome to our Open House!

Which project was your favorite? 

Biography Time Line

Biopoems

Limericks

Kapok Tree

A Rain Forest Habitat!

Can you see the hidden animals? 

Look out! Predators are everywhere! 

Giant Kelp Forest Habitat

Fish!

Animal Color Adaptations

Blogging Biography Comments

Delightful Decimal Educreations

Top 12 visiting countries to our blog!

Delicious Frozen Fractions! 

What is your favorite 3-D Shape? 

Everyone was invited to leave a comment! 

Voluminous Volume 

Everyone enjoyed reading the Writing Binders!

Here is a collaborative, global project we did with our blogging buddies in England. This presentation was available for viewing in the room!

Please leave a comment! 

What was your favorite part of the night? Support your OPINION with a detail sentence or two! 

Twitter Time :: What is Orange?

Mrs. Yollis is nominated for a BAMMY  :: Voting ends May 15! 

We just ended week TWO of our Twitter project with  Mrs. Monaghan from England, Miss Crowther and Mrs. Placek from Victoria, Australia, and Ms. Shannon and her rural school in Darwin, Australia.

The object of the collaborative project is to share original poems, create digital images, and publish through classroom Twitter accounts! Each week a color of the visible spectrum will be showcased! 

ROY  G  BIV 

One way to remember the visible spectrum is the ROY G BIV acronym.  

(red-orange-yellow-green-blue-*indigo-violet) 

Photos and poems from the RED week: 

Below are the results from the ORANGE week: 

Read more about the project here. See how we are using Google Drive to gather our photos and poems.

Teachers, join us next week! 

What is YELLOW? Use the hashtag #clrpoem.