Skyping With B4 in New Zealand!

On Monday, we Skyped with our blogging buddies, Open the Door to B4 in New Zealand! We often leave comments for each other so it was nice to get a chance to talk face to face!

Locating Reefton in New Zealand.

Placing an orange marker to show we have Skyped with a class in that country.

TodaysMeet is a great website for students to record what they've learned.

Similarities

We both have classroom blogs and like to use HTML code in our comments.
Both have around 20 students (Yollis-23/McKenzie-22)
The elevation in our community averages 800 feet above sea level and in Reefton, New Zealand, it is around 650 feet.
Students everywhere enjoy having pets!

Differences

They have a Pets Day!
They live in a rural area, and we live in a suburban area.
Our population is around 24,000, while their population is around 1,000.
Their annual rainfall is approximately  86 inches (218 cm), and we get a mere 14 inches (36 cm)! Wow!
It was Monday for us, and Tuesday for our new friends!
Their school year ends this week, and our year ends in June!

Thank you Miriam for being our photographer. Thank you Jaden, Iman, and Adia for being our recorders on TodaysMeet. Here is the transcript.    (The computer was responding slowly, so a few lines got repeated accidentally. )


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What fact surprised you the most? 

Which animal did you enjoy seeing at their Pets Day?

What do you like about Skyping other classrooms around the world?  

Family Blogging Month Winner ~ Miriam Plays the Piano!

Family Blogging Month just ended and Miriam was one of the top three commenters. Each student won their own post here on Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog! Here is a video post Miriam created with her family about the piano.

The pianoforte originated around the year 1700 in Florence, Italy. It was the invention of an Italian harpsichord maker. It has since undergone many changes in appearance and sound. The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which comes from the original Italian name for the instrument.

What instrument do you play?

What kind of music do you like to listen to and how does it make you feel?

Do you have any questions for Miriam?

Where is Nonno? (Dove e' Nonno) - Barletta

This week Mrs. Yollis' class continues with their unit on fantasy. The story of the week is called The Mysterious Giant of Barletta by Tomie dePaola.

As luck would have it, Nonno's been to see the giant!

(Nonno is our guest blogger.  He is Ben's grandfather and currently lives in Italy.   

He shares his Italian travels with all of us! Enjoy his guest post!)

We visited Barletta during our trip to Puglia after Mrs. Yollis told us you would be hearing a story about the Mysterious Giant of Barletta. We wanted to see the giant and take some pictures to share with you.

Barletta is also in Puglia, on the heel of Italy.

The giant statue is located right in the city on a busy street.

People park their cars in front of the statue, ride their bicycles past and also wait for the bus right by the statue.

The statue is more than five meters tall. Five meters is more than 16 feet. Here is a picture of Cecca right next to the base, or pedestal, of the statue so you can judge how tall the statue is.

And also took one of her standing on the pedistal near his leg. Cecca is one meter 54 centimeters tall.

Barletta has many farms and fields around the city where they grow grapes and olives. (Can you imagine the giant meeting Captain Minekion out here in one of these fields?)



Very close to Barletta is a place where they make salt from sea water.

Barletta is now a modern city, but years ago it was a city of the Roman Empire. Years ago the coast was often invaded so the people built a huge fort for protection. Now it has a modern harbor that is overlooked by the huge fort where people can visit.



Is That Luigi?

Movie stars can be seen near the statue.



Now the statue is called The Colossus of Barletta. Here is what the people of Barletta tell us about it.

The Colossus of Barletta is a bronze statue of the Early Middle Ages, hollow on the inside and over 5 meters high. It most probably represents an emperor or famous warrior as shown by his military uniform, his rich, imperial robe and the bejeweled crown on his head, trimmed with two strings of pearls. Maybe Hercules, maybe not.

We are not sure how the statue arrived in Barletta. According to one story the Venetians stole the statue from Constantinople. On the journey back to Venice, the ship was wrecked in a storm and the statue was found on the beach near Barletta. According to another story, the Colossus was discovered in Ravenna, north of Barletta. Transported by ship, it was brought to Barletta’s harbor, probably to be used in some celebration.  When the statue came to Barletta it did not have a base, that was built later so it would seem even taller.

Did you remember the statue is hollow?

Do you think it floated to the beach because it is hollow?

In the story you heard the giant went to the fields and cried, I wonder if the giant went to one of the fields like these.

We've Earned Four Edublog Nominations!

I am very proud that our classroom blog has received four
Edublog Award Nominations!

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Voting is open until 12 P.M./ U.S. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday December 14th.

Below are links for viewing the nominations and casting your vote.
We hoped we've earned your vote!

Vote Here:  Best Class Blog!

Vote Here:   Best Educational Use of Video/Visual

Vote Here:  Best Group Blog - The Reading Round-Up!

(Mrs. Yollis / Mr. Salsich)

Vote Here:  Lifetime Achievement - Linda Yollis

★     ★     ★     ★     ★     ★     ★

It is a great honor to be nominated and we are all thrilled!

One vote per computer!
Family and friends are invited to vote as well!

National Geographic's Giant Traveling Map of Africa: Resources

Mrs. Yollis is passionate about teaching geography!
  In fact, she is the coordinator of the Giant Traveling Maps program for her school district.  Starting in January, each elementary school will have the
 26’ x 35’ Giant Traveling Map of Africa for one week.

To find out when it will be at your school, see your principal. 

To find out how to get one for your district, click here.

Information About the Maps from National Geographic:
 

National Geographic Giant Traveling Maps are enormously entertaining and educationally powerful tools for introducing geography and map reading skills to students, grades K-8.

What better way to teach young people the power of maps and the limitless depth of geography than a basketball court-sized map of a continent on which they can explore, travel from country to country, hop around, compete, collaborate and have lots of fun?

National Geographic’s Giant Traveling Maps, produced by National Geographic Live, tour the country’s schools, bringing hands- and feet-on geography education to 300,000 students each year. Designed to promote geographic literacy by igniting interest in geography, the maps and accompanying activities incorporate physical movement and games to teach students place names, physical geography, and cultural geography as well as map reading skills.

These floor maps of Africa, Asia, North America, and South America are available for loan, each accompanied by a complete teacher guide, activities, game props, and educational resources.

Information About Using the Map: 

I recommend giving all students a 5 minute exploration time BEFORE beginning any directed lessons. This gives the students a chance to walk the map and familiarize themselves with the legend, the colors, and whatever locations interest them. 

Photograph by Trent Cambell

Lesson Plans from National Geographic:  

A binder with the following lessons will be available for you to use. However, to make the most of your time on the map, please review the lessons ahead of time. Feel free to modify the lessons to fit your class. A trunk filled with needed materials will be in the MPR for use. Depending on the size of your school, there could be opportunities to visit the map more than once.

Let’s Explore Africa (PDF)

• Recommended for K-2, but these lessons offer some great introductory information about geography. These lessons could be modified for older students.
• Materials: Scavenger Hunt Cards, yellow rope, cones
  
• Vocabulary:  tropical areas, deserts, rivers, Nile-longest river, animal locations, Mt. Kilimanjaro -tallest mountain, coast, cape, towns, capitals, lakes, elevation -shaded relief used for illustration, borders, countries, and islands
• Scavenger Hunt Game:  Students with parent helpers or older students are given cards. They place a cone on the location listed on the card.
  

Simon Says…Explore! (PDF)

• Recommended for K-8
• Vocabulary/locations: political boundaries, coast, cardinal directions, capital citiies, Sahara Desert, Kalahari Desert, Nile River, Okavango Delta, Atlas Mountains, Congo Basin, Lake Victoria, Atalntic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Gabon, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Madagascar, and Egypt.
• Materials: Simon Says cards (2-sided) and colored lanyards
• Simon Says statements are provided on the lessons plans.
  

How Big Is Africa? (PDF)

•  Recommended for grade 3-6
•  Materials: blue nylon straps

1.  How wide and how long is Africa? Students lie on their stomachs, head to toe, across Africa along its widest area. Another group does the same with the southern most coast to the northernmost coast. 
2. Use blue nylon straps for the exact. (Each strap = 500 miles)
3. The East – West distance from the coast of Gabon to the coast of Somalia is 4,655 miles. The
   North – South distance from the coast of Tunisia to the tip of South Africa is 4,989 miles – only
   334 miles difference.
4. Make comparisons by sharing these facts with the students:
   • Distance from New York City to Los Angeles, California is 2,462 miles.
   • The total area of Africa is 11,686,111 square miles.
   • The total area of the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) is 3,537,438 square miles.
   Africa is more than three times the size of the U.S.

• Lesson plan has a table included:  Size of Africa in Relation to the U.S. States

Cardinal Directions (PDF)

•  Recommended for 2-6
• Materials: colored cones, large hoops, map legends, cardinal directions game cards, teacher set-up key
•  Vocabulary: cardinal directions
• Students are divided up into teams. Student navigators draw a cardinal direction card and guide the student explorers  to the location on the card. Each explorer can only take one step at a time in the direction given by the team navigator. 
• See lesson plan PDF above for more details.

A Legend-ary Exploration (PDF)

•  Recommended for 4-8
•  Materials: 4 map legends/keys, 4 sets of photographs, metal photo holder, teacher key
• Vocabulary: regions, symbols, tropical rain forest, desert, savanna, uban area, legend/key
• Students are divided up into 4 teams and use the information they learn from exploring the regions of the map to correctly place regional photographs. (Photographs: dunes, pyramids, animals, people, aerial views, rivers...)

African Population (PDF)

•  Recommended for 4-8
•  Materials: country cards, laminated climate and vegetation maps, colored plastic chains (5), plastic colored chips, orange polyspot
• Vocabulary:  region, population, culture, economy, physical characteristics, political identity,  religion, biome, climate, landforms, vegetation.

1. Divide students into 5 groups (Red Team • Western Africa,  Green Team • Northern Africa,  Yellow Team • Middle Africa,  Blue Team • Eastern Africa, Orange Team • Southern Africa)
2. Teams are given plastic chains to mark each region and plastic chips to represent population. Each chip = 1 million people
3. See lesson plan PDF above for more details.

Additional Activities (PDF)

•  Geo-Gym! Collaborate with a Physical Education teacher to create fun games on the map that combine exercise with geography! Use school Nerf balls, hoops, and flag football equipment to invent your own games! Remember: No shoes on the map! Running on the map is not recommended.
• Music!  Invite a music teacher to lead an activity on the map using the sounds and instruments of Africa. Go to http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com or play the compact disc included in the trunk to sample music from Africa.
• Hemisphere Jumping! Place nylon strap on Equator. Jump from northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere. They'll get warm like they are at the Equator!
• Ocean, Coast, Boundary, and Landlocked! Stand in the ocean, jump to the coast! Examine the lines that form countries. Are they straight or formed by a river? Look for landlocked countries! Explore!
• Find It Fast! Divide class into teams. Students are given country cards and must locate the country within a given time.
• Team Quiz! (See above PDF link.)

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Two years ago we had the Giant Traveling Map of Asia. 

Here is a movie we made!

One year ago, we had the Giant Traveling Map of North America. 

Here is a movie we made!

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What place do you want to locate on the Giant  Map of Africa? 

Do you have any other ideas about what we could do on the map? 

Can you share any facts about Africa?

We ♥ learning!

Skyping With Our Friends in the East!

 Mrs. Yollis, Mr. Salsich, and their classes are friends! They have a shared reading blog called

The Reading Round-Up!

Today Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich connected the west and east coasts of the United States through Skype!

Ryan and Hannah typed the facts in TodaysMeet, our backchannel.

Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich circled the wagons at the meeting post.

Miriam and Jaden shared facts about our community.

Here we have collected facts about our community.

Good bye! Happy trails!

Lindsay:  I liked how everyone spoke clearly.

Iman:  They have way more snow that us. We get zero inches and they get 10 inches annually.

Grace:  It was nice speaking with them because we've never seen them in real life. We only know them through our blogs.

Hannah:  They have much more rain than us. We only get 14 inches of rain a year and they get 50 inches! (We are very close to being a desert which only get 10 inches of rain per year.)

Jaden: Our winter climates are VERY different! They get snow, and  they even have snow days!

Adia: They live closer to the ocean than us and have a lower elevation. We are about 800 feet above sea level and they are only 14 feet. 

Finn: They live near the Atlantic Ocean and we are near the Pacific Ocean. 

Nicole: Their population is 18,000 and ours is 24,000 people.

Ryan: Their school population is about 100 less than our population. Ours is 611 students. 

Amitai:  Our community is 13 square miles, while theirs is a vast  50 square miles. (We just learned the word vast.  :-)

Nick:  We are 34˚ N and they are 41˚ N of the equator. 

Alexa: Our summer climate is similar to theirs. We are 60˚ to 90˚ F. However, their summers are sticky and humid.      

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Here is the transcript for TodaysMeet from Hannah and Ryan!

Thank you Ben for being our photographer!

Have you ever been to the Atlantic or Pacific coast?

Do you know any facts about your community?

What is your favorite fact and why?

Have you ever Skyped before? Tell us about it!

Family Blogging Winners Announced!

On November 1, Mrs. Yollis announced that it would be Family Blogging Month!
 The project generated lots of enthusiasm and family participation!

In fact,  

359 comments

  were published over the last four weeks!

And the winner is...

Adia with an incredible 61 comments!




 The top three winners!

Hannah composed a whopping 34 comments and Miriam a stupendous 42!

Y

Each girl won a free meal at either Islands or Kings, a free frozen yogurt from the Golden Spoon, and an opportunity to publish a free-choice post on our classroom blog!

Congratulations to our top bloggers! We will be running another Family Blogging Month in the spring! Thank you to all the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends for your participation!
We hope you will continue to participate in our learning community!



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What did you like most about Family Blogging Month?


Which family members left comments and how did that make you feel?

How did your family enjoy the month?

Skyping With Our Friends Down Under!

Mrs. Yollis' class is friends with Miss McGeady (soon to be Mrs. Morris), Miss Jordan, and their classes in Victoria Australia. We had a fun time connecting yesterday via Skype!

Mrs. Yollis' class understands about time zones, but it was still hard to  comprehend that when it was  

2:00 P.M. on Monday in Los Angeles, it was  at 9:00 A.M. on Tuesday in Victoria!

Funny!

 

Miss Jordan and Miss McGeady greeted the class!

Students were excited to see and learn about the Australian community!

Students shared information about their community. The information was collected on a class poster.

Mrs. Ranney and her class were able to join in the fun!

Adia and Grace were able to record the information as it came in. This was the first time we tried Todaysmeet.



We noticed some similarities and differences!


Similarities:

Our summer and winter climate is very much the same.

We both live close to the beach.

We both are located in the 30˚ latitudes. (We're 34˚ and they are 38˚)


 


Differences: 

We are a half hour drive from the beach, and they are 15 minutes.

Their school year ENDS in three weeks! Ours ends in June!

We have 600 students in our school and they have 700.

They are in the southern hemisphere, and we are in the northern hemisphere.


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Here is a transcript from Grace and Adia.  Thanks, Iman, for being our photographer!

How is the transcript useful? Are there any facts that don't make sense?


What was your favorite part about the connection?

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the time of year when families get together and celebrate Thanksgiving! 

In class, we baked some yummy pumpkin bread, decorated it turkey-style, and wrote clever invitation to Thomas T. Turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving! 2010 on PhotoPeach

How did you like the bread?

Do you have any new word play ideas to include in an invitation to Thomas T. Turkey? 

What are your holiday plans?

Mrs. Yollis' Edublog Award Nominations!

The nominations for the  2010 Edublog Awards are now open! The purpose of the Edublog Awards is to promote and celebrate the achievements and educational value of social media in the classroom.

It was an honor to win First Runner-up for Best Class Blog last year. That acknowledgment brought great pride to our class, and we got to make many new friends throughout the world through the process.

It is very difficult to make choices. As you look through our blogroll, there are so many quality educational bloggers out there making a difference in the classroom. The dedication and innovation demonstrated by the teachers and students is remarkable!

After much deliberation, I nominate:

Best individual blog: Langwitches Blog by Silvia Tolisano

Outstanding blog filled with ideas and resources for teachers. Not only is Silvia Tolisano innovative and creative, she is generous with her work. She regularly publishes links to posters, worksheets, and lesson plans to help teachers meaningfully integrate technology in the classroom.  

Best individual tweeter:  Shannon Miller 
Shannon Miller is the Teacher Librarian and Technology Specialist in Van Meter, Iowa. She tweets/shares about a wide variety of useful teaching resources. A real role model for Teacher Librarians everywhere.

Best group blog:  Challenge Yourself to Blog 
The Student Blogging Challenge is coordinated by Sue Wyatt, Sue Waters and Ronnie Burt. It is a fabulous way to learn and master the skills of blogging with your class. Weekly lessons about creating avatars or using Creative Commons are musts for every educational blogger. Sue Wyatt regularly features quality Student Blogging Challenge posts mid-week so students and teachers get a chance to see model work. Volunteer teachers and students help with weekly challenges and visit the individual blogs and leave comments. 

Best new blog:  Teaching Literacy in the Early Years by Kelly Jordan
Kelly Jordan provides a wealth of lessons targeting literacy in the elementary grades. She includes links to resources, has detailed lesson plans, and includes  worksheets to download for use in the classroom. 

Best class blog:  Mr. Salsich’s Class
Jonah Salsich is a third grade teacher in Connecticut, United States. He regularly shares quality learning posts from his class that integrate technology in meaningful ways. He is a master at tapping into the potential of oral and visual presentation via VoiceThread. 

Best student blog:  BB’s Awesome Blog
Bianca is an excellent student blogger from Kathleen McGeady's grade 2 class in Australia. This young blogger has really developed as a writer, uses Creative Commons attribution with her images,  and has a wonderful way of commenting back to her readers!  
(My students have just started the process of posting and maintaining their own blogs and will eligible for possible nomination next year!)

Best resource sharing blog:  iLearn Technology by Kelly Tenkely
Kelly Tenkely's site offers a gold mine of  quality resources for  teachers. Each educational link answers the questions:  What is it? How to Integrate? Tips?  There are links/resources for every possible educational purpose!

Best teacher blog:  Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom by Kathleen McGeady
Kathleen McGeady is an elementary school teacher in Victoria, Australia. Her weekly blog shares quality resources and practical ideas for classroom teachers. In addition, she publishes thoughtful posts addressing issues facing teachers/administrators today. How Has Teaching Changed?  is a great example of this type of post.

Best educational tech support blog:  The Edublogger by Sue Waters
Sue Waters is a tireless champion of educational blogging! Her Edublogger site offers so much practical advice and helpful tutorials about setting up and maintaining quality educational blogs. Not only are the posts relevant, but she is a wonderful facilitator of the comment section of her blog.

Best educational podcast:  Bit by Bit by Bob Sprankle 
Bob Sprankle is an Elementary Technology Integrator in Maine, USA. His blog and Seedlings podcasts provide access to educators and their ideas for all of us. I've enjoyed listening to his podcasts that cover conferences I was unable to attend. 

Best educational webinar series:  Global Educational Conference 2010 by Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray
This was a wonderful series for educators around the world to share about the projects and programs that globally connect us all.  Their online conference had incredible participation: 15,028 unique logins; 8,372 hours attended; 32,681 website visits this week.

Lifetime achievement:  Sue Waters
Sue Waters is an amazing individual! She is committed to helping teachers and administrators all over the world be successful with integrating technology in the classroom. Sue regularly jumps in and helps people via her Edublogger site, on Twitter, or her own personal blog. Sue Waters has been so helpful to me on my path to become an educational blogger and I know many people share my feelings.

Good luck to all! 

Have you made your nominations?

Important Dates: 

Nominations: Close Friday 3 December!
Voting: Ends Tuesday 14 December!
Award Ceremony: Wednesday 15 December!

Although it is difficult to make choices, how does everyone win through this process?