Ms. Neumeyer Interviews Mrs. Yollis

 Ms. Neumeyer is our online student teacher from Saskatchewan, Canada! (She is a preservice teacher in Dean Shareski's class) 

Ms. Neumeyer has made many contributions to our class. For example, she has reviewed several useful iPad apps for the class. 

  

Check out her iPad reviews!

Virtual Manipulatives 

Toontastic

Hopscotch 

Bill Nye the Science Guy

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One of her college assignments was to interview her mentor. I am her mentor.

men·tor (men-tôr)

noun   An experienced and trusted adviser

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Below is the interview Ms. Neumeyer conducted.

Notice she used open questions. Open questions are questions that cannot be answered YES or NO. Closed questions can be answered with a yes or no. 

Here are some examples: 

Closed question - "Do you like teaching?" The answer is yes or no.
Open question - "When did you first begin to use technology in the classroom?" The question requires a full answer.

Ms. Neumeyer is the interviewer; she asks the questions. 

I am the interviewee; I answer the questions.  

Have you ever been been part of an interview? 

Were you the interviewer or the interviewee?

Do you have any additional questions?

Animals, Announce Your Adaptations

This week, Mrs. Yollis' class is learning about animal adaptations.

An adaptation is a body part or behavior that helps a living thing survive in its environment.

For example, a giraffe's long neck helps it reach the leaves in high trees on the savannas of Africa.

The giraffe's neck is a physical adaptation.

An antelope squirrel stays cool during the hot desert day by staying in its underground burrow.  This is an example of a behavioral adaptation.

Snowshoe Hare: Habitat and Adaptations on PhotoPeach

Many animals have physical or behavioral adaptations. For example, polar bears of the Arctic can 

run on the ice without slipping. 

To learn about the polar bear's physical adaptation, click here!

Here is a fun animal adaptation quiz!

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Use the Online World Book Encyclopedia to research an animal of your choice.

Take notes about two to three adaptations. Be sure to include the animal's habitat. Do they live in the ocean? If so, what zone? Are they desert dwellers?

Write a comment as if you are that animal. 

  

Tell us about two or three of your adaptations! 

What makes your adaptations so useful? 

Use HTML code to bold the facts!

Bill Nye The Science Guy App Review

Guest post by Ms. Neumeyer, our online student teacher from Canada.(Dean Shareski's class) Today Ms. Neumeyer continues her series of iPad app reviews. 

Check out her other reviews! 

Virtual Manipulatives 

Toontastic

Hopscotch 

I don’t know if you have ever heard of Bill Nye- but he was a big part of my learning about and coming to love science. He is an excellent science teacher who really knows how to bring science topics to life for kids through humor and interesting experiments. Here is a picture of this humorous and intelligent guy:

Bill Nye The Science Guy

Disney recently released an app called Bill Nye the Science Guy.  When you first open the app a voice over by Bill Nye exclaims, “You’ve arrived at my desk!” and a desk full of objects is shown.  Users can choose from objects on the desk, such as a rocket, a robot or a sundial, and the app will bring users into a different lesson. There is a huge variety of options to learn from such as: games designed to teach users about the solar system as you take pictures from a rocket, learning about planet Earth’s geological history while digging up a backyard, and cool optical illusions woven into a storyline about alien invasion.

In addition to games, there is also a book of do-it-yourself experiments and the six science experiments require nothing more than everyday household items. Be sure to check out the bobble head. It has interesting science facts to share.

My favourite part about this app is the original videos from the Bill Nye the Science Guy show! A quick tip is that despite the buy button on the right hand side, if a user just taps the video it starts playing.

This app also displays Bill Nye’s typical humour as you can see when you open Bill Nye’s desk drawer and learn when he started wearing bow ties and even how to tie yourself!

Here is a short video of some screenshots I took while trying out this app:

Had you heard of Bill Nye The Science Guy before? 

What part of this app seemed the most interesting to you?

April 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:

April is Family Blogging Month!

Each student will make a list of their family members. After looking through the archive, students will select specific posts tailored to the interest of a particular relative. We're inviting everyone to comment: moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandmas, grandpas, uncles, aunts, and cousins. We welcome friends, too!

Students will be inviting their family and friends to participate in our online spaces. Comments can me left on this classroom blog, our Yollis' 365 Project, our student blogs, or for our blogging buddies around the world. (See the archive) The top three bloggers will be proclaimed Family Blogging Month winners and receive honor and prizes. 

This year, awards will also be given for best commenters! 

The Quality Commenter Extraordinaire 

designation will be by nomination. Who was able to bring about valuable conversations in the comment section? Parents and students are eligible for this high honor!

Parents and friends, try to earn a 2-point comment!

Just in case you don't know what to say, here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' third graders. They have FIVE tips for writing a quality comment! 

Here is the key we used for our last Family Blogging Month~

Who are you inviting to be a part of our online community?

Have you ever run a Family Blogging Month? What are the benefits?

Please leave a comment and introduce yourself!

App Review: Hopscotch

Guest post by Ms. Neumeyer, our online student teacher from Canada.(Dean Shareski's class) Today Ms. Neumeyer continues her series of iPad app reviews. 

Check out her other reviews! 

Virtual Manipulatives 

Toontastic

The reason I picked the Hopscotch app to review is that I saw recently that you had been learning about coding using Scratch.  We talked about this tool during my online college class, and it was also designed for kids to learn about coding. I thought it would be perfect to try out!

Welcome to Hopscotch! 

The first step when opening this app is to pick a character (and they sure have some great ones to pick from).

      Then users are given a list of commands on blocks which they can drag into order. The user can choose from a variety of options such as how far their character moves, the color and size of trail it leaves, creating a line or shape, changing its size and costume, etc.

             Hopscotch is an open-ended program so users can create anything they want. Users can easily experiment with what different commands do and revise their script to make it do what they want. Users then hit the play button to run their script, and if they want they can share it with others over email.

Here is a quick animation

 I made with Hopscotch.

Check out the Sydney Opera House done by an experienced coder. 

 What have you created using code?

Share some tips for making an interesting animation!

Video :: Learn About Text Features!

Mrs. Yollis' class is learning about nonfiction. 

Nonfiction writing is based on facts, real events, and real people. There are many helpful text features found in nonfiction writing. Some common text features are:  headings, subheadings, captions, diagrams, time lines, maps, charts, and the glossary.

Below is a humdinger of a video made by Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich. They hope their video helps you greenhorns learn about about these important reading features!

Yee-haw!

Here it is on Vimeo if YouTube is blocked.

The Nonfiction Trail from Jonah Salsich on Vimeo.

 What are your favorite text features?

(Headings, subheadings, captions, diagrams, time lines, maps, charts, and the glossary.)

Share something you learned from a text feature! Add a hyperlink if appropriate.

Terrific Twitter Time : Bird Detective

It's time for another installment of 

Terrific Twitter Time! 

Here is our last episode: What's the weather like where you live? 

Mrs. Katz found an unusual bird feather on the ground and left it by our door. She knows how much we love nature. She also knows we love to discover unknowns. The detective work started immediately. 

What kind of bird feather is this?

STEP 1: Shoot a picture. We included a ruler in the photo because the length of the feather would be an important piece of information. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

STEP 2: Tweet out the photo to Mrs. Yollis' PLN (Personal Learning Network.) Twitter can put you in touch with people who know! 

What hashtags did we use and why? 

Why did we ask people to RT (retweet) our tweet?

STEP 3:  Read through the tweets and follow the useful links. 



We heard from Jozi in South Africa. The Audubon Society is a great resource for bird facts. Great idea! 







Ms. Felton from Iowa guessed that it was a pheasant feather. 

Mr. Terpsma, from California, teaches fifth grade. His student had a guess.

After learning where we are located, Ms. Harbeck from Maryland, guessed that it was a red-tailed hawk feather. That is a very common bird in our southern California area.

Ms. Wagner, from southern California, thought it was an owl.

Ms. Bates, from North Carolina, mentioned this Feather Atlas of the Fish and Wildlife Service. 

This Feather Atlas of the Fish and Wildlife Service  was new to us and to one of our Twitter helpers! It's fun to learn together!

We have not drawn a conclusion yet. 

What kind of feather do you think this is and why? 

What resources did you use to come to your conclusion? 

Toontastic! Ipad App Review

Guest post by Ms. Neumeyer, our online student teacher from Canada (Dean Shareski's class) Today Ms. Neumeyer continues her series of iPad app reviews. 

Other Review: Virtual Manipulatives 

Toontastic is a great app which teaches and improves storytelling, by allowing users to draw, animate, and share their own cartoons. 

Characters and settings for the cartoons can either be chosen from templates or drawn from scratch. 



Toontastic is very easy to use: after picking out setting and characters, a user just needs to press the record button, move their characters onscreen, and record their story by speaking out loud and using the iPad's built-in microphone. 



Users also have the option of including music to their story by picking an emotion which best suits the story.  Toontasic also has a global storytelling network for kids, called ToonTube, where they can share their stories. Toontastic is a fun tool that skilfully explains the essential aspects of storytelling (character, setting, story arc, etc.), and gives students a great way to practice the storytelling process.  

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Let me share the making of my Toontasic video with you!

First, the app shows the opening screen which shows the arc of a story. Then I picked the setting. Next, I selected the characters or toys. After that, I recorded my voice reciting a poem while the characters appear to be talking! Lastly, I picked music to go with my poem. 

Below is my Toontasic video of one of my favourite childhood poems,  "My Robot" by Shel Silverstein.  

Take a look!

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What did you think of my video?  

How could you use this Toontastic app?

What is the arc of a story?