Internet Weather Day Project!

By Taylor S. and James

Today Mrs.Yollis' and Mrs. Ranney's classes participated in an Internet weather project sponsored by Switlik Elementary School in Jackson, New Jersey. There were 24 classes involved, including four international schools.

At exactly 12:00 P.M. on February 17, we went outside to discover what the weather was like.

The sky was partly cloudy.
(Who can name that cloud type in the comment section?)


Students paired up to read their thermometers. The temperature was between 64˚ and 65˚F.

Although the air seemed still, we were able to get a reading on the wind meter.

The white ball registered approximately 2.5 m.p.h.

It had rained cats and dogs over the long Presidents' Day weekend,


but the rain gauge was dry.

* * * * *

In preparation for the big day,

students charted all the U. S. school locations. We used the big map for the international schools.

Students learned about weather from some links on Mrs. Yollis' Website.

Many students played on this link to create a weather map.

Our weather data was sent to Switlik Elementary School, and they will post the results on their website.

We will look forward to comparing the unique weather!

Here are the results!

Here are the pictures sent in from all the participants.

Be Our Valentine!

"Fancy Nancy" Party Pictures!

Students created music on the Internet...

...and a conga line formed!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Winter Break Fun!

This post is about telling a story using an interesting image.

Strong verbs help bring a story to life!

* * * * *

For this post, each blogger emailed Mrs. Yollis a jpg image that represented something fun they had experienced over winter break. Rather than using boring images of people standing around, each student tried to find or create an image that told a story about what they did. Some of the images were altered or cropped in class to create the perfect blog post image.

Next, specific verbs were chosen to complement each blogger's image.

Behold our high level vocabulary!


Enjoy!

JungleGym
By Clementine

During winter break I played on my brown jungle gym. When I was hanging on my bar I got tangled and flipped over. I swooped down to the muddy dirt and climbed back up. I experienced a magnificent time on my jungle gym.

Party 2009!

By Taylor S.

One of my favorite things that I did on winter break was a cool New Year's party that I attended. I played with other girls that were at the party, and we were able to elude the boys. We sneaked into the boy's room to scare them.

Snowman

By Jonah

During my winter break, my family and I ventured to June Lake. One of the things we did was celebrate New Year's Eve by molding a jolly snowman. We created it with not only snow, but snow and food! It had juicy grape eyes, a crunchy pretzel mouth, raisin buttons and the snowman also had sleeves! I enjoyed the snowman that I made with my relatives.

Super Sled
By Taylor G.

Over winter break, I went to snowy Big Bear. When I got there, the first thing I did was rush to the garage and grab a sled. Then I ran to a slope, leaped in the air, and clung to the sled and slid down the snowy slope! Everyday, I had so much fun!

Snow!
By James

Over winter break, I traveled to snowy Illinois. My family dashed to build a magnificent snowman and then we all started a freezing snowball fight. I pitched a snowball at my brother and he returned one back to me. It was my favorite experience with snow.

Snowboarding Me!
By Chloe

On winter break I drove to Mt.High and I snowboarded. When I started off, I fell and then I tumbled around. Right after, I crashed and vanished in the thick white snow.
(O.k. ...It's not really Chloe. She did not have a picture, so she used this image to represent what she did. Photo by Kevin Lamb.)

By Emily

Over my winter break,I played with my Nintendo D.S. I flicked, tapped, and dragged the stylis. When I was blowing on the mic during Mario Party, I got light-headed. I experienced a tremendous winter break!

Smiling on Stage

By Lexi

During winter break, I sparkled on stage in the well-known musical, "Annie". As Lilly St. Regous, an enemy of the little girl named Annie, I acted and danced on the stage. My favorite part was belting out the song "Easy Street" I felt like I was on Broadway!

Twirling

By Shane F.

When the gate opened I dashed to a red and gold cup because it's USC colors. When the ride started I spun around and around. When the ride ended, I almost fell while I was walking. I had a fantastic time at Disneyland.

Rock Climbing
By Behyan

At the Los Angeles County Fair I venured up a rock climbing mountain. I climbed up to the top. When I descended, I crashed to the ground, but survived.

Guitar Fun!
By Sean

During winter break I practiced guitar with my friends. When I played the guitar, I felt like I was in the great band, Led Zepplin. We rocked so hard that we were asked to play outside!

Basketball Fun!

During winter break, I experienced a wonderful basketball practice. For warm-ups, we dashed around the court. After that, we stretched and then we practiced great layups. During layups I scored every shot. It was the best practice ever!

By Shane J.

Over winter break, my family and I drove to a secret beach. At the shore, I sparked a fire because it was so cold. The waves were so cold, and they crashed on the beach. Then the temperature climbed and I extinguished the fire. An hour later, I thought the coals were out and I stomped them. I burned my feet so I darted to the water.

A Mountain of Excitement
By Kyle

Over winter break, I drove to Magic Mountain with my friend, Elijah. We rushed to get the tickets. Then, we darted to Ninja, a scary ride. On the rides my body dropped,
snaked, turned, and crashed into the side of the vehicle I was in. I experienced lots of excitement!

The San Diego Yacht Club
By Matthew

One cool night, I noticed some really dazzling lights on some boats at the San Diego Yacht Club. My grandparents reside in sandy San Diego. The boat owners decorated their vessels with sparkly Christmas lights.







Here I am climbing a tall wall. I flew around the air like I was in space. I wore a harness.

What is Community Service?

By Jonah

Community service is doing something to help your city. I’m part of a group called “Boys in Action” that does community service and nice things for our citizens. In the past, my group has picked up trash and fed the homeless.



On Tuesday, February 10, 2009, we visited to the senior citizens' home and entertained the people there.






















My brother played a song called Rhapsody Piano, and I played a song called Spanish Nocturne on the piano. Another boy, named Ben, played the guitar.


We also told jokes, trivia, and sang songs. Making the seniors happy gave me a great feeling inside and everyone enjoyed it.

I think it is important to tell about this because it might inspire other people to do nice things.

Visit Lake Tahoe

Chloe visited Lake Tahoe with her family. She created a beautiful travel blog of her trip. Learn about Lake Tahoe through her pictures and information!

Behind me is Emerald Bay located on the south side of Lake Tahoe.
Emerald Bay State Park is located around Emerald Bay; a National Landmark at Lake Tahoe. Emerald Bay is one of Lake Tahoe's most photographed and popular locations. This is a very beautiful place to visit.

This is a view from the gondola coming down from the Heavenly ski school. The view is of south shore Lake Tahoe. My mom was really terrified while taking this picture because she does not like heights.

Lake Tahoe is the second deepest lake in the United States, with a maximum depth of 1,645 feet, trailing only Oregon's Crater Lake at 1,949 feet. Tahoe is also the 16th deepest lake in the world, and the fifth deepest in average depth. It is about 22 miles long and 12 miles wide. It has 72 miles of shoreline and a surface area of 191 square miles.

This is my dad and me on the top of Heavenly ski slopes. He is a great skier, and he is very advanced. We went up so that he could teach me to be a great skier just like him. We skied on both the California side as well as the Nevada side. It is really fun to ski with my awesome dad!

Above is a picture of an area called Sandy Harbor which is located in the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.
The sand is from years of erosion of sandstone and granite rock.



Native People


The area around Lake Tahoe was originally inhabited by the Washoe tribe of Native Americans. Lake Tahoe was the center and heart of Washoe Indian territory, including the upper valleys of the Walker, Carson, and Truckee Rivers. The English name for Lake Tahoe derives from the Washo dá’aw, "lake".

President Obama's Inauguration

Today in Mrs. Yollis' class we watched Barack Obama's historic inauguration. We followed the ceremony on T.V. and on the U. S. links on Mrs. Yollis' Website.

Here are some of the comments and observations from the students...

Lexi: I cheered when President Obama came out!

Clementine: I loved when he said "...still river of peace..." in his speech.

Matthew: I liked the transforming schools part because some school aren't really as great as others, and he said he would transform that.

Emily: I liked when he said, "Yes, we can." It makes me feel like we can accomplish a lot of things.

Shane J: I liked when he said, "we can do and we will do," because whatever you want to do...you can do it, if you put your mind to it.

Bethany: I liked when he said "We the people..." because it made me feel like we have plenty of freedom.

Kyle: When he said "still water of peace..." it made my mind open.

James: When he said, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up..." means that we can do things that we have never done before.

Shane F: When he said, "Yes we can." That felt very strong and powerful and it made me think that if you try, you can do it.

Taylor G: I liked when he said, "...challenges will be met," because it made me feel stronger.

Behyan: I like when he said "timeless words" when he was talking about George Washington.

Sean: When he said, "We are all free." I liked that because some African-Americans used to not be free, and now everyone is free.

Garrison: I loved his inauguration speech because it was really heart-soaring.

Jonah: I enjoyed when he said "...for the world has changed and we must change with it."

* * * * *

We read about President Obama in our Weekly Reader.

Mrs. Levenson brought in a coloring sheet with the oath and the flag on it.

After the ceremony, the class wrote letters to President Obama. Many included advice for the President and quotes they enjoyed from his speech.

We invite people to leave comments about the Inauguration! Tell us about what you liked or learned!


For example, Sean taught us that Obama automatically became President at 12:00, even if he wasn't sworn in. That happened!

* * * * *

In the comment section, Bethany shared great information about the five flags that were hanging in front of the Capitol. Here is a link to an interactive site where you can see the flags and stars for yourself!

Navigate through the site to the Capitol hot spot:
The Capitol

* * * * *

The class was talking about how many people attended the ceremony. Here are some satellite photos. Can you see the people gathered around the giant T.V. screens?


Does anyone know how many people attended the event?

Circling the Sun

By Lexi

Mrs. Yollis’ class was talking about how the Earth orbits, or goes around, the sun while spinning itself!


That topic interested me, so I made a model at home to help inform the class about how this system works. I researched using books and the Science links on Mrs. Yollis’ Website.



Here is what I have learned. The sun is approximately 4 billion years old and is a star made of gas. In fact, it is made up of 70% hydrogen and 28% helium. The Earth is one of eight planets that make up the Solar System. It takes a year, or 365 days, for the Earth to travel around the sun.

On my model, the Earth is colored blue and green. Blue stands for the oceans, and the green is for the continents. There are seven continents on our planet: North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Antarctica, Africa, and Australia. I made the sun small so it looks far away.

I love the solar system, and I hope you do too!

Mr. Mann Hits a High Note

By Clementine

About a month ago, the setting for one of our stories was Italy. Mrs. Yollis played some Italian opera in class. Mr. Mann, an opera expert, came to our class and taught us about the opera, La Boheme. It’s a story about four friends who were very poor and lived in Paris. One of them met a girl and fell in love with her. But she got sick and died. Mr. Mann played music from the opera for us and brought pictures of a few scenes.


Some of the songs were happy songs like when everyone was out at a parade. Some of the songs were beautiful, mushy, love songs. There were very depressing songs too at the end when the girl died. All of the songs helped tell the story and set the mood of the opera.



I interviewed Mr. Mann over the phone after the lecture and asked him a couple of questions.

C – “What did you think about coming in to lecture to our class?”

MM – “I was looking forward to it and I enjoyed it very much.”

C – “ How did you think the kids behaved?”

MM – “ I thought I would only talk for 15 minutes, but I went much longer because everyone was paying such good attention. They were so smart and so wonderful. This was my first time speaking to children and it was a treat.”

C – “Have you gone to a lot of operas?’

MM – “Yes, I have.”

C - “What was your favorite?”

MM – “La Boheme – the one I talked about.”

C – “ Is there really a fat lady with a hat with horns on it that sings in an opera?”

MM – “Sometimes.”

Thanks for reading!

Multiplication Property Games

By Shane F., Sean, and Matthew

In our multiplication unit we have been playing games to help us learn the properties of multiplication.

Order Property of Multiplication Game

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Yollis made two yellow factor cards, and she picked two people to be "factors". The "factors" chose a number from her box of digits.

Next, they hid their number under their yellow factor card.

When Mrs. Yollis yelled, "Name the product!" the two factors revealed the factors to the class.

The class wrote down the multiplication sentence with the correct product.

Students with the correct product could then be chosen to be part of the game.

We learned that if you switch the order of the factors, the product stays the same.

8 x 9 = 9 x 8

Grouping Property of Multiplication Game

Today, we learned to multiply three factors! Mrs. Yollis made another yellow factor card and a set of cardboard parentheses. We learned a new game for this property.

* * *

Three students were chosen to be the "factors". They hid a number under their factor card. One at a time the numbers were shown. When all three factors were revealed, Mrs. Yollis allowed one person to be the grouper. (An organizer, not the fish!)

That grouper came up and grouped two of the factors with the parentheses. The class wrote the newly grouped factors in a number sentence on their white boards and solved the equation.

Students with the correct product could become a new "factor" or the grouper.

We learned that it doesn't matter how you group the factors.

(1 x 2) x 5 = 1 x (2 x 5)

The product will always be the same.
We also learned that grouping certain factors together made it easier to come up with the product.

Perhaps you would like to play the games too!