Starry Nights

Saw this on Facebook today and wanted to put it where I could see it over and over and share it with others. Amazing demonstration of muscle memory.

Look at the center of this image for 30sec. Then watch Van Gogh's *Starry Night* come to life.
Posted by Popstar! Magazine on Monday, February 23, 2015

Free Tumblebook a Day

Did you know... you can add a free 'book of the day' e-book to your website for the summer from Tumblebooks?
 

 Find out how you can do it here.

Week One - Mystery Location, QR Codes, Daily5 and Brain Breaks

On Friday, August 8, I got to meet my new 4th graders. It was the first day of our new school year and I was in for quite a surprise. We planned for only three sections of fourth grade becasue we didn't have enough students registered to warrant four sections. Well, by the end of the day each teacher had over 36 students in her homeroom. Yikes!

A request has been put in for another teacher, but it takes a while to be processed. In the meantime we jumped right in to our new year. Friday was moslty about getting supplies organized and labeled, doing some teambuilding, and getting to know our procedures.

When Monday rolled around we were ready to switch classes and start implementing the Daily 5 in ELA and the Daily 3 in math. I love that we are teaching our students to build stamina during the read to self block of Daily5. My students managed to get to thirteen minutes of stamina by Friday. We used this Word Work Choice Board with our weekly spelling unit for that section of Daily5.

During the Work on Writing part of the Daily5, my students started writing their first personal narrative of the year. Most chose to write about something they did this summer. No one has completed all of the 6 Traits steps to get their work to publication yet, but I hope by early next week they will. The students also enjoyed hearing the following read alouds during the Listen to Reading part of the Daily5 structure. I put the YouTube URLs through safeshare.tv to eliminate the "clutter" from the YouTube videos and then created QR codes using goo.gl.com URL shortner. Here is the document. 

One of the activities my students enjoyed doing was making posters about how to be a bucket filler after we listened to Have You Filled a Bucket Today? They did a great job working in a collaboartive group to create their posters. Here are a couple of examples. 

In math class we have worked on standard, word, and expanded form of numbers up to the millions. We also sharpened our addition and subtraction skills with larger numbers. Getting to play games was a big hit this week and even with all those students in our room. they kept the noise down to an acceptable level. We are using the classroom computers to complete a math placement test on MobyMax and will then be able to add computer time to our math daily rotations. 

This week in social studies we learned about the continents and oceans and practiced our mapping skills. One of the best ways I know to get kids to love learning about the geography of the United States is by playing Mystery Location via a video conference call using Skype or Google Hangout with another class. We were able to do just that with Mrs. Regruth's class located in Indiana. Over Skype using a series of yes/no questions they guessed our location first. My students had a blast and were thrilled when they figured out their location too.

We had a super first week, worked hard, learned new things, cooperated and collaborated nicely with our classmates. and even took quite a few brain breaks using one of our favorite sites - GoNoodle. So far our favorite GoNoodle brain break is Ice Cream and Guacamole.

Working on My "Flipped" Math Homework

One of the things I will continue to work on over the summer is my version of "flipped" homework. I began doing this in November last school year and want to start out the 2014-2015 school year with all of my weekly homework sheets ready to go.

"Flipped" math homework simply means that my students were given time in class (I had a 90 minute math block) to complete their HW. Why? Well, first of all they had support in the classroom if they got stuck. They could ask me or another student for help. Second, they got the valuable practice time they needed on the types of questions they would be having on their quarterly assessments. Third there were no more excuses for why homework was not completed.

Each Monday my students received their weekly math homework sheet which had problems for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on it aligned to the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) for math that were being coverd on the next interval assessment. These included new standards and review standards. Below is an example of a weekly homework sheet. (Click here to see full size Google doc.)

Here is another example of one of my homework sheets showing new skills and review skills on it. 

During my math block, my students rotated through math stations. I used the word MATH to set up our stations. A and H were done every day by every student. M and T were done as needed or as time allowed, usually three times a week.

       M - Manipulatives - Students work with hands-on materials or play games to reinforce skills.

       A - At the Computer - Students complete work on websites such as IXL, LearnZillion, TenMarks

       T - Teacher Time - This is where they meet with me for small group instruction.

       H - Have a Go - This is where they work on their assignment and homework for the day.  

By allowing my students to work on their math homework in class, I was there to offer support and correct misconceptions that arose. If for some reason a student didn't finish their homework during class then it had to be completed at home. I had my students show their homework to their parents each night and had the parents sign it.  Each day we checked the previous day's work via our interactive whiteboard. I pulled up the Google document and we annotated right over it to show solutions. 

Using this type of formative assessment allowed me to see each day how my students were doing in math. It also eliminated so many of the stresses that traditional homework can cause. Each and every one of my students had their needs met on a daily basis. Once a skill was taught and tested, my students knew they would be held accountable to remember it. 

It will be great to start the 2014-2015 having all of my "flipped" math homework sheets ready to go. 

Have you considered, or do you "flip" homework? What do you use for formative assessment? Please share in the comment section below. 

Happy 2014

Happy New Year! I am excited to get back to blogging which I've sadly neglected this school year as I spent my free time learning how to properly implement Common Core State Standards (CCSS). While I thought I was prepared after a year of transition last school year, I soon realized that I had so much to learn. It was definitley a struggle during the beginning weeks of school and stressed me out a lot, to the point where I even stated out loud that this would be my last year of teaching.

Luckily after the disasterous first round of ANET interval testing, I found my stride with regards to CCSS and figured out how to teach my students math in a way that would make me happy and my students successful.  Read about my "flipped" homework here. I have settled down and there is no more talk of retiring!

Tomorrow I return to school after a nice two week vacation where I was able to relax and recharge my batteries. I also accomplished a few things that had been moved to the back burner of my busy life. I have missed my teammates and other faculty members, but most of all, I have missed each and every one of my wonderful students.

http://www.donorschoose.org/ 

I have exciting news to share with all of you. I finally got a DonorsChoose project written, accepted, and posted. But the best news of all is it was fully funded in less than 24 hours. (Thank you to those who made donations.) Shortly after we return to school we will be receiving a package - a new Chromebook! I can't wait to see all of the wonderful ways we will put this computer to use. (My second project is up and almost half of the funds have been donated, so hopefully a second Chromebook will arrive in February.) Happy New Year to us!!!

The 2013-2014 School Year Begins

Friday, August 9, was our first day of school for this school year. It was exciting to meet the new members of my homeroom, most of whom I will teach math, science, and social studies. We spent the morning in homeroom organizing our classroom supplies, getting our cubbies labled and organized with our new books. The students also wrote a paper called Three Truths and a Lie, which they shared with the whole class, as we tried to figure out which of the four statements was untrue. They also created a "mini-me" which holds a notecard telling important facts about them.

During the afternoon, we fired up the netbooks and learned how to create a PowerPoint slideshow. Ms. Naugle demonstrated by using our Promethean board how to open PPT, create a title slide, add new slides, add imagines, and save the work. Then the students had a chance to create a three slide PPT about their passon. The students also learned how to create a folder on the computer's desktop so that they can save all of their creations to their personal folder. Everyone did an awesome job with our first tech assignments of the year.

Before heading to PE (our last period of the day), they had a chance to flex their math brains by completing fact games on www.multiplication.com.

I can't wait to meet the rest of my class who didn't come on Friday. Hopefully everyone will be present and accounted for on Monday. I have created fun and engaging lessons for us to do next week.

What a great start we had to our new school year! 

Earth Day 2013

Well as luck would have it our Spring Break (April 18 - April 22) fell right when I'm usually in full swing for Earth Day activities in our classroom. I've had to modify my usual Earth Day celebration and will extend it until the end of April, which is the end of Earth Month. We did not take part in the Earth Day Groceries Project because of when state testing and our Spring Break occurred and that makes me sad. I have loved being a part of this project for the past 5 years.


Instead my students are creating  Earth Day mini posters, writing acrostic poems on their blogs, and are completing my Environmental Heroes Web Quest. I created this web qquest as one of the artifacts for a graduate class in took in 2010. Since it is a mini research project, I think is aligns quite nicely to CCSS. 

Please feel free to share my web quest with your students. I will be posting pictures and inks to their other work for Earth Day when we return from Spring Break.

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day? Please share by leaving a comment. 

Images from Free Clip Art  from Hubpages

Hello Round 4 Quadblogging Buddies

Welcome to our class blog. We are so excited to be part of this blogging quad. We are a fourth grade classroom just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, and in Ms. Naugle's class we learn math, science, and social studies. Let us give you a peek into some things we are doing in our classes.

We are learning how to write short research papers in science class. Each one of us had to select an animal we wanted to learn more about and research it online. We wrote notes in our notebook and put down where we got our information from for our bibliography. We have a set of netbooks in our classroom, so we each share a computer with another student. Soon we will share our individual blogs with you. That is where we are going to write our final reports.

One of the things we love doing is connecting with others by using video-conferencing tools like Skype or Google Hangouts. Last week we were visited by author Jeff Rivera via Skype. Jeff read his new children's book to us and we definitely are fans. His books are available as Kindle books from Amazon. Guess what the title of his book is? Um...Mommy I Think I Flushed My Brother Down the Toilet.

In math class, we are learning about fractions and decimals. We have learned how to show a fraction as an area model, a set, and on a number line. One of the sites we use to learn about this is LearnZillion. Ms. Naugle also put a Google document into Edmodo for us that has some other websites on fractions for us to check out. 

Well that gives you some information about us. We look forward to learning more about you and reading your comments. We'll be checking out your blogs in the coming weeks. Happy Blogging!

Anchor Charts and Exit Slips - Great Low-tech Tools

While we love integrating technology into our lessons, sometimes we go low-tech. I introduced our division unit by using an anchor chart and exit slips. 

I created this anchor chart to share with my students as we began the unit. They can refer to it when they need the proper vocabulary word for their written math responses. They also like to use different strategies that are listed on the chart. Doing a search on Pinterest for anchor chart is a great way to find some inspiration. 

Want an easy way to assess what your students got from your lesson? Try using exit slips. Hand the student an index card or half sheet of paper and have them respond to a prompt like this:

• What are five things you  learned in class today?
• Write three things you learned, two things you found interesting, and one question you have.
• What do we need to discuss in the next class?

Or you might prefer using printed ones such as these:

• My Math Class Exit Ticket from Paula Naugle
• 3-2-1 Exit Slip from Paula Naugle
• Exit Slips from Adlit.org

• Exit Slips from ReadWriteThink
• Cute Elementary Exit Slips from Mandy

Either way using exit slips is a quick and easy classroom strategy.

When I recently used them with my students at the end of a math lesson I discovered that several were struggling with division equation that are written in algebraic form. Why is it that variables unnerve them? Well, I used the information from the exit slips to teach further lessons on division where each equation was written as an algebraic expression. Several also informed me that they still needed to learn the vocabulary associated with a division problem. We started the next class with a review of my division anchor chart.

My students were required to write a sentence about their learning or ask a question on the back of their exit slip. They handed them to me on their way to lunch.

Do you use anchor charts or exit slips? Please share links in the comment section.

Taylor Swift Webcast

Today we were so excited to watch the webcast with Taylor Swift speaking about reading. The live webcast which lasted about 30 minutes, was sponsored by Scholastic and hosted by national radio personality Trey Morgan. Taylor was interviewed about her favorite childhood books and she shared how reading influences her song writing. Several students from around the country were even able to ask Taylor a question during the webcast.

Here are some pictures of us watching the webcast.

I learned that both Taylor and I grew up on a Christmas tree farm. How cool it that? 

If you missed the live webcast, you can watched the recording here. 

Did Taylor inspire you to go RED - Read Every Day? 

Our First Mystery Location Call Using Google Hangout

Today we did our first Mystery Location call of the year. While most teachers use Skype for doing Mystery calls, we used Google Hangout instead. Mr. Krakower's class sent us a GHO invite and we accepted it and joined his hangout. We had several groups that we worked in as we participated in the Mystery Location call.

One group used our netbooks and were logged into a collaborative Edmodo group called Flattening the World, that we will be using this year with many other classes. This is known as "backchanneling". Gabby wrote a welcome message to Mr. K's class.

Another group were using the atlas in our social studies book to figure out what yes/no questions we should ask Mr. K.'s to help us discover where they are located. They also had a paper copy of a US map and were crossing off states as our questions were answered and some states were being eliminated.

A third group of students were the ones who sat in the "hot seat" in front of the webcam and asked the questions of Mr. K's class. They had to use the previous information and the work of the researchers to come up with the next question to ask.

In the end Mr. K.'s class guessed our location, right before we finally figured out their location. I love that my students cheered when the other class was successful.

As we ended the hangout, our students were commenting on how much fun this activity was. They really enjoyed the "learning" call and improved their geography skills, research skills, writing skills, and speaking and listening skills too.

Thank you Mr. Krakower. We enjoyed meeting you and your students today, and look forward to more collaboration with you during the year.

Have you done a Mystery Location call? Do you prefer using Skype or Google Hangouts? 

**Update - I edited this post after writing this one since I am now using the term Mystery Location call. **

Greetings to Our Quadblogging Buddies

Hello from New Orleans, Louisiana. I am Ms. Paula Naugle and I teach two groups of fourth graders (9 and 10 year olds) math, science, and social studies. I have 19 students in my morning block and 24 students in my afternoon block. This is the first time we have participated in quad blogging. I am writing this post because we missed a whole week of school due to Hurricane Isaac and are on vacation today because it is Labor Day.

Do you have hurricanes where you live? Let me tell you a little bit about this last week. Isaac started as a tropical depression off the coast of Africa two weeks ago and traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf forms the southern border of Louisiana. As he got closer to us, he became a tropical storm. The weather forecasters predicted he would become a category 1 hurricane and was headed directly for the mouth of the Mississippi River and New Orleans. We have a system of levees which were built to keep flood waters from the storm surge out of most of the city and surrounding suburbs. But there are many low lying areas which are not protected by the levee system. People in the low areas were told to evacuate because the flood waters could be as high as 15 feet.

Several of my students evacuated to Texas because they did not want to be here after the hurricane blew through because we would probably be without electricity for several days due to the high winds knocking down power lines. Isaac came onshore late Tuesday night and continued to have strong wind gusts and rain until late Wednesday.

I lost my electricity at my house at 1:11am on Wednesday morning. It is very scary to hear the wind gusting up to 100 miles per hour and not have any lights. Luckily my house was cool through Wednesday because the temperature outside didn't get too high. We were also lucky that Hurricane Isaac didn't dump too much rain on us, so it did not flood where I live. The worst damage at my house was part of my backyard fence was blown down.

My electricity was not restored until late in the afternoon on Saturday. Living in a house with no air conditioning when the temperatures outside get over 90 degrees is not a pleasant experience. Luckily we were able to plug our refrigerator into a generator one of my neighbors had, so we did not lose all of our food. Close to 600,000 people lost electricity during Hurricane Isaac. Homes in some of the unprotected areas got as much as twelve feet of water in them.

Slowly our area is returning to normal. School is due to reopen tomorrow and I hope all of my students have returned safe and sound. We'll write more about their experiences next time. By the way hurricane season is not over until November 1. I hope we don't get another one this year.

What is the longest amount of time you ever had to go without electricity? What is the worst kind of weather your area experiences? 

A Summer Face-Lift for My Classroom Blog - Part 1

I was doing some web surfing and came to a spot where teachers were sharing their classroom blogs and sharing ways to improve them. Well, that made me what to update my much neglected classroom blog. I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since March. I guess that what happens when I put more time and energy into my students' blogs, my gets neglected.

Well, now that I'm on summer vacation and I'm reflecting on how best to keep my blog a resource that my students will want to keep coming back to. I had an online friend suggest adding the Wonderopolis widget to our classroom blog, so I did. I went here to get the HTML code from Wonderopolis and then went into the design mode for my blog. On the right side I clicked on add a widget and selected the HTML - Java script one from the options that opened. I named the widget, pasted the code in that I had copied and clicked on save. When I clicked on View Blog, I saw that it was too big to display properly in the right sidebar. So I went back into design and clicked on the Wonderopolis widget and changed the width and height in the code. I set the width for 200 and the height for 400 and saved the changes. When I viewed the blog this time it looked great in the sidebar.

I have a feeling that I will be making more updates to the look of my blog, but I feel a late afternoon nap coming on.

Are you giving your classroom blog a face-lift this summer? Share in the comments any other suggestions you might have to improve my classroom blog. 

They're Back - Decorah Eagle Cam

I learn many things from my PLN members, either on Twitter and from their blog posts. I share many of these "gems" with others at my school, but most of them don't cause much of a stir. Well, one of my discovered "gems" caused quite a stir last year in our school. The eagle cam!

I learned about the eagle cam from this post by Nancy Carroll and I was hooked the first time I logged on. I spent much of that weekend checking in on the eagles' nest and couldn't wait to share this discovery at school on Monday You can read about how we used the eagle cam and some of the things we learned last year in this post.

I have checked in a couple of times over the last several weeks hoping that the eagles had returned. They have and I'm excited to begin watching this drama unfold for us again this year. We missed the egg laying, but we will be able to experience all of the eggs hatching this year. This is such a great learning experience. I hope you and your students will be among those that follow this adventure.

What can you learn from watching the eagle cam? Do you know of any other cams like this?

Day 1 of Mardi Gras Skype Calls

There was a definite buzz in the air today in HR222. Purple, green, and gold was everywhere you looked. The back of the classroom looked like an annex for Beads by the Dozen. Today was going to be a great day of collaboration and communication for us. We had five Skype calls planned back to back from 8:45 until 10:30. The students had researched, created Glogsters, practiced their parts, and learned how to properly do a "second line" all in preparation for today's Mardi Gras Skype calls. They were now the "experts" who were going to educate other classrooms around the country about Mardi Gras.

Our first call was with Mrs. Grayson's 4th grade in Virginia. We loved the fact that Mrs. Grayson donned a wonderful Mardi Gras themed hat for the call. Her students and mine backchanneled on an Skype Collaboration group I had set up in Edmodo during the call. The students in Virginia learned about Mardi Gras through both the presentation done via Skype and by viewing the Glogsters my students had embedded into the Edmodo group. What a great way to start a day of learning.

We then traveled virtually to Minnesota, and connected with Mr. Kruger's 3rd graders. Unfortunately there were some technically difficulties with this Skype connection, but Mr. Kruger assured me through Twitter that our presentation sparked a lot of follow up conversation among his students. We wrapped up this call with our closing second line, and we know this class in Minnesota learned a lot about Mardi Gras when they answered our verbal quiz questions with flying colors. Check out Mr. Kruger's post about the call.                                                                      

Mrs. Mercier's 3rd grade class in Connecticut was not able to connect with us today due to a scheduling conflict. We hope to be able to connect with them at some date in the future. Ah, the life of an elementary school teacher. We have to remain flexible because schedules can change quickly. During the time we would have been Skyping with Mrs; Mercier's class, my students took their social studies test.

Our next connection was with Mrs. Seibel's 4th grade class in Kansas. My students' level of confidence had greatly increased from the first call, and they spoke with more assured voices during this call. We showed them various trinkets that are prized "catches" from different Mardi Gras krewes - a play sword, a Mardi Gras football, and a prized Zulu coconut.

We rounded out our Skype collaboration with Mrs. Yollis' 3rd graders in California. We were greeted by Mrs. Yollis and one of her students who was wearing a Mardi Gras mask. We had to disconnect and place the call a couple of times before we had a stable connection. Mrs. Yollis' students are Skype experts and have various jobs they perform during Skype calls. Read about the Mardi Gras Skype Call from their perspective on her blog here.

Her students also had a few questions they were dying to ask us, so we did a Q&A about non-Mardi Gras things at the end of our presentation. One of her students wanted to know if my students had ever seen an alligator up close and personal. Imagine his excitement when Raegan told him that she went alligator hunting with her grandpa and caught a 12 foot gator. She also shared that she is related to one of the featured people on The History Channel series "Swamp People". Another question was about our Hurricane Katrina experience. Mrs. Yollis' students learned that every one of my students had to evacuate the city during the storm and that at least three of them were gone for more than two years before they returned.

(Lesson learned - take a picture of the Skype call on the computer screen instead of the imagine displayed on the Promethean board. While what we saw during the calls was very clear, the photos leave a lot to be desired.)

So are you ready to let the good times roll? What celebration is unique to your area?

Let the Good Times Roll

I'm so excited to announce that my 4th graders with be sharing their Mardi Gras expertise with at least 14 other classes in the United States and Canada. While my students have been busy doing research, writing, creating Glogsters, writing blog posts, and gathering props to share during our Skype calls, I've been busy getting our Skype call schedule set.

My part was pretty easy. First I decided which days we could Skype. Then I created a Google doc to have others sign up, and tweeted about it on Twitter.

Viola, in less than 24 hours we had 14 eager participants. My students will also be back channeling on our Skype Collaboration group in Edmodo. If the other class wants to join in on that activity, I will share the code to join the group with them.

I will be adding updates to our blog as this awesome activity unfolds. So stay tuned.

Skype Call with Ramona and Beezus Star, Joey King

Today we had a really special guest Skype into our 4th period math class. Joey King, the star of the Disney movie Ramona and Beezus Skyped with us. She was on the set of her new movie, Oz, The Beginning in Detriot, Michigan and she Skyped us from her trailer while she was on a break.

I had seen a tweet at the end of September telling teachers that they could sign up to get a celebrity to Skype into their classroom during October to talk about bullying. I signed up and after several emails between myself and Jeff Rivera, the coordinator of this project, we were fortunate enough to schedule Joey for our Skype call.

My students were thrilled and did a fantastic job of being a great audience and asked Joey lots of good questions. Below is a small part of the half hour Skype call. Joey King is so adorable and my students learned from her how to deal with bullies. Thanks, Joey.

We Hosted a Blog Commenting Party

This past Wednesday from 3:30-6:00 after school, my students and I held a Blog Commenting Party. What is that you might ask? Well let me explain what it is and how it came about.

Last year for the first time I had my fourth graders blogging using kidblog.org. This is something I have wanted to do for a couple of years and finally felt I had found the right platform for us to use since the students don't need email addresses and everything is moderated through a teacher dashboard.

Since I teach math and social studies, not English, I had to find a way to use blogging with my students. I decided they would use their blogs as reflective learning journals. I wanted them to post about once a week, telling about something they learned in our classes. I don't grade their posts, but we set up blogging guidelines. It was agreed upon that proper English would be used when they posted. Yes, I do make small corrections to their spelling and punctuation before I make their posts "live", but it was understood that I would send back posts that didn't make sense or didn't contain enough information for the reader to understand what they were talking about.

I learned about using the hashtag #comments4kids to generate over 1,800 comments for my students' blogs last year. And while that was very exciting, I was disappointed that the parents were not commenting on their kids' blogs. As I reflected on the year of blogging over the summer I decided to try and get more parents involved this year.

That is when the Blog Commenting Party idea was hatched. I realized that maybe the parents didn't really know how to comment. So I decided to work on fixing that this year.

This year we began blogging during the first week of school by doing a paper blogging activity. My students are writing about their passions as well as using their blogs as reflective learning journals. My students and I learned how to leave a quality comment by viewing a video from Linda Yollis. She had her third graders make an excellent video that teaches others how to comment. My students created our own version of her video to share with our parents. I put together a flyer to send home to the parents inviting them to our party. We asked everyone who came to bring a snack or something to drink.

I was excited that 12 parents came and so did our principal, Brenda Breithaupt. In fact she was our official photographer. (Thank you, Brenda.)

First we showed them our video. Then I explained the safety features of the kidblog.org platform. The parents were visibly relieved when I told them that I moderate everything - posts and comments have to be approved by me before they appear on our blogs. I also showed them TweeetDeck on our interactive white board and explained the #comments4kids column. Next, we showed them our paper blogs that were on the bulletin board and I explained the lesson I taught to introduce blogging to my students. Then I shared my classroom blog with them and showed them the posts and comments I have gotten since school started. Finally the kids got out the netbooks and shared their blogs with their parents. You can view our blogs here and here.

As I circulated around the room, I loved the comments I was hearing.
"Son, I didn't know you knew how to do this."
"Wow, you know how to add a picture to your post!"
"I didn't know you remembered that. You were so little when that happened."
"You're going to have to show me how to do this. Maybe I'll start a blog."

There was so much pride flowing from both the parents and the students. My heart was singing. The parents read the posts and the kids showed them how to add comments.

I was supposed to Skype in our best commenter, JoAnn Jacobs from Hawaii. JoAnn leaves such great comments on all of our blogs and we wanted to personally thank her, but I totally messed up that one. We didn't connect with her because I got confused with the time zones. I did Skype with Jodi Judd in California for a few minutes to show the parents how a Skype call works.

As the party was winding down, I had several conversations with different parents about how much I love learning about my students' passions by reading their blogs. Several parents said they had learned something new about their child by reading their blogs too.

Needless to say, I left school that day like I was walking on a cloud. Our Blog Commenting Party had been a great success. How do you encourage parents to comment on your students' blogs? What else do you think I should add to the list of activities for our next party?

Our Video - How to Leave a Comment

We made this video to teach our parents how to leave a quality comment when they visit our blogs. We are hosting a Blog Commenting Party for our parents today after school. We will show them this movie and then help them get on our blogs to leave us comments.

Our First Mystery Skype Call

On Friday the students in my 5th period math class got to participate in our first Mystery Skype call this year. Joan Young, a 4th grade teacher and member of my PLN (personal learning network), and I planned our call via Twitter and email. We used this post and this post to help us learn how to do a Mystery Skype call.

About half hour before the Skype call, Joan sent me an IM on Skype reminding me to remove my city and state from my profile. I quickly did so. The Mystery Skype call would not have been much fun if I had placed the Skype call and Mrs. Young's students could see where I was located. This is how my Skype profile looks now. (Click on imagine to enlarge.)


We decided which students would be greeters and questioners, and which students would be researchers and helpers. Then the call was placed and the questioning began.

Mrs. Young's class graciously let us go first. We asked if they were located in the United States. Yes, they answered. Are you located east of the Mississippi River? They answered no, and I was so caught up in the game that I forgot a no meant our turn was over. As we tried to ask another question, Mrs. Young reminded us of the rules. So it was their turn. They asked if our state touched an ocean. We answered no and got a turn again. And so it went back and forth.

Mrs. Young's class asked such great questions, they were quickly able to determine that we were located in Louisiana. It took us a little longer to discover that they are located in California. We tried to extend the activity by trying to figure out the city each other is located in. Again, Mrs. Young's fourth graders beat us and zeroed in on New Orleans rather quickly. My kids kept commenting about how well they played and how smart they were.

Mrs. Young's Class Cheer Their Victory

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and learned some important geography skills along the way. We can't wait until our next Mystery Skype call.

If you are looking for a class to connect with to do a Mystery Skype call check here or here.