Video: America's Landmarks

Although the school year is coming to an end in the northern hemisphere, we made time to create a wonderful global project with our blogging buddy, Mrs. Morris, and her students in Australia.

This project celebrates TEN years of global collaboration with Mrs. Morris!

Each class wanted to share their country's landmarks, so students researched famous landmarks, created a script, located Creative Commons images, and then filmed a fabulous movie. The Do Ink app was used to take each student to the location being shared.

Enjoy America's Landmarks!

Here is a link to our Australian buddies Landmark Video!

We hope you enjoy visiting these famous American landmarks! 

What questions do you have? 

We will try and answer questions before school gets out this week!

Two TRUTHS & One LIE

We have blogging buddies in the southern hemisphere! Even though they are 8,000 miles away in Australia and we are in California, we love learning with them via blogging and Google Apps For Education, or GAFE! 

Here is a Google Presentation we made for Ms. Jordan and Mrs. Morris' class. Every slide has TWO TRUTHS and ONE LIE. Can you spot the falsehood?

Each team worked collaboratively to create two slides for the Google Presentation. That means everyone contributed to the project. It was a good lesson about how to contribute and how to politely bring in those who are not! 

Acers and World Book Online were used to gather facts. 

Teams research and then discussed options for the truths and lies. 

As teams were ready, representatives came up and typed in their information and inserted an image. 

Be sure to directly address a team if you leave a comment! Here are the teams!

Team NAFTS Thaisand created slides for the Seattle Space Needle and Hoover Dam.

Team Unicorn Pizza Clouds created slides for our school and the Empire State Building.

Team Three Musketeer Sporters created slides for the Rocky Mountains and Mt. Rushmore.

Team Sparkly High Heels created slides for the Liberty Bell and the White House.

Team Watermelon Purple Pizzas created slides for the St. Louis Arch and for Alcatraz Prison.

Team Electrons created slides for the Statue of Liberty and the Lincoln Memorial.

*     *     *     *     *

Please use the comment section to tell us which one is the lie. Be sure to address your comment to the correct team. (See names above.)

Go to Ms. Jordan's blog to see their Two TRUTHS & One LIE about Australia! (It will be published soon!)

What did you learn about the United States?

What did you learn about Google Presentation? 

Vegemite: An Australian Tradition

Mrs. Yollis and her students live in Los Angeles, California. Through blogging, they have connected with a class that is 8,000 miles away in Australia! 

Here are the flags for each nation. 

How are they alike? What do the symbols and colors mean? 

  American Flag

                                                 

  Australian Flag

   

The Australian blogging buddies first connected on International Dot Day. Each class made a Connect the Dots at our School presentation. 

Mrs. Yollis Skyped into Miss Jordan's class at Barwon Heads Primary School. A topic of discussion was Vegemite. 

After the  International Dot Day  post was published, comments started rolling in. Here are some blog comments between the Australian and American classes. The topic of vegemite came up again! 

Will, Jake S., and Mila Replied to Daisy: 

Daisy, From Australia, Replied to Mila and Jake: 

As luck would have it, one of our parents is from the Land Down Under! Sam's father was born in Victoria, Australia, and came to the class to share about Australia and give everyone a sample of Vegemite!

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

First, our Aussie friend talked about his native country. Students looked at a map of Australia. Why do people in the northern hemisphere call Australia the Land Down Under?

Photo by Mrs. Yollis




What did you learn about Australia? 

Next, it was time to have some Vegemite! Sam's father brought in bread, a toaster, butter, and Vegemite.  

Photo by Mrs. Yollis

After tasting the Vegemite, students were surveyed. 

Do you like Vegemite, yes or no?

20 yes

 3  no

Students lined up for seconds! Vegemite was a hit!

A big THANK YOU to Sam and his family for providing this special treat of Vegemite! 

What did you learn about Australia?

Please thank Sam's father for his contribution. (Do not used last names. Always limit personal information on the internet!) 

What would you like to know about Australia?

International Dot Day ~ 2017

Today is International Dot Day!

At the beginning of the week, we created color wheels with our 4-year-old Journeys buddies. We then activated them using the augmented reality iPad app Quiver. Thank you, Mrs. Fuglestad, for the idea!  

Next, we created our own special dots using coffee filters and water. After the dots were dipped, we enhanced the dots using black line Sharpies. 

The night before Dot Day in America, Mrs. Yollis did a Google HangOut with their blogging buddies in Australia. 

Photo by Ms. Jordan

It was Friday in Australia so they were celebrating International Dot Day already! 

Mrs. Morris' and Ms. Jordan's third/fourth graders shared a dot day art project and asked questions of Mrs. Yollis.  Check out their slideshow connecting the dots and their school.

We are making a plan to schedule a Google HangOut with the class. What sorts of questions will you ask?  

Everyone smiled when we learned big bows are a fashion fad in Australia and America!

To culminate the week, we made a DOT-umentary for our blogging buddies in Australia. Connect the dots in our movie and learn about the important people and places at our school!

Do you have any questions for us?

What did you enjoy about International Dot Day?

Our DOT-umentary was our first movie-making experience. What did you learn about the process? 

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?