This week the entire class chose our “POSTS” of the week!  They each had their blogging RUBRIC and they scored each post individually.  Then, they tallied the totals and turned them in.  Next, I added up all of their totals for each individual student.  The top three highest scores became our posts of the week.  Congratulations to Zoe, Zachary, and Rebecca.  Each one of these students used great descriptions, details, proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, along with multi-media, hyperlinks and great organization.  Keep up the great writing.

Have you ever thought about if you had to live in one place for the rest of your life where you would live? Well, to narrow it down a bit, you have three options, a library, a museum, or a zoo. Which would you choose? Why would you choose it? Would it be relaxing, exciting, or educational? Would it be fun or always something new to see or do? Would it always have adventures? Do you love reading or animals? Do you love exploring and learning? Do you love having fun? Well, I am going to tell you which I chose and why.

 

If I had to pick to live in a library, museum, or zoo for the rest of my life, I would choose museum. I had a pretty hard time deciding between museum and library. I like animals because I have a dog, but a zoo isn’t the life for me. With library, I love books, but life would be pretty dull. Eventually, I would have read all the books. With a museum, I would have learned all about the old things that happened in history, and even seen things from them. Now I will tell you a few more reasons why I would choose museum.

I would choose museum because of all the interesting things I could learn about that is to do with history. I would become an expert! It would also be very educational. Can you imagine living in a museum? I would always have something to do and explore and it would be so much fun! There would always be new things to explore. There would be so many cool exhibits! The museum would also be a great place to play games like hide and seek. I have been to the Louvre in Paris, France and I loved all the paintings, especially the Mona Lisa. I also love the statues and old artifacts. At night, I would sleep in a small hidden room with paintings on the walls. I would get food and water from the museum cafe. It would be so cool to live in a museum for the rest of my life! If you had to live in a museum, a library, or a zoo for the rest of your life which would you choose and why?

Image Credits: Microsoft Clip Art

Click here to read more of Zoe’s work.

 

If You Had To Pick Someone to be President I would choose Alvin Brown

Posted on May 3, 2012 by zacharys

 

 Mrs. Teitelbaum asigned us a blog post about if you could choose someone to be president. If you got to choose anyone to be president who would it be? Who would you choose? Why would you choose that person? I know who I would choose guess if you said, choose Alvin Brown . Why would I choose Alvin Brown? I chose Alvin Brown to be president because he is fair he would treat everyone the same not just one religion       http://dragonartz.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/religious-symbols-vector-set-1/      

but, every religion. Alvin Brown is the first African American to be mayor of Jacksonville. Alvin is great with finance because he handles the money of Jacksonville.Alvin Brown has alot of   integrity  because he is honest about a lot such as, the money of Jacksonville. Alvin Brown once came to our school to watch fourth, fifth, and six sing Lean On Me. After I got to meet Alvin Brown and his kids after singing. I gave Alvin Brown a Artis Gilmore card. Those are the reasons why I picked Alvin Brown to be president of the United States. Who would choose Why?

Alvin Brown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mayor_Alvin_Brown.jpg

Click here to read more of Zachary’s work.

If You Were Forced To Live The Rest Of Your Life In A Library, Zoo, Or Museum

03
MAY 2012

Rebecca

Zoe found this topic on this spectacular website.

I would want to live in a zoo, but not just any zoo. There is an indoor zoo in Montreal, Canada. The animals can walk free out of their little cages and walk where the people walk. I would be able to swim with penguins, climb with the monkeys, and even play in the gift shop. Plus, I enjoy reading and studying about biology. That indoor zoo is paradise. Here are some other reasons why I would want to live at that particular zoo and other zoos.

Well, let’s start with the animals. I would treasure being in a zoo because of animals. What’s a zoo without animals? There can be proboscis monkeys. Now a proboscis monkey is endangered so it is extremely rare to see one. You can see lions and tigers. One of my personal favorites is the reptile and amphibian house. That’s where snakes, turtles, toads, and frogs stay at. There can also be elephants, giraffes, zebras, and antelope. I also admire the crocodilians and alligators. Crocodilians are a different species of crocodiles. I personally absolutely enjoy watching the penguins. The beautiful birds like the parrots and cockatoos flying in the air make me feel like I am able to fly. Another one of my personal favorites are the butterflies.

Proboscis monkey

                                                   http://www.flickr.com/photos/88087720@N00/3048152122/                                                                                                                          

Cockatoo

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rggoldie/4131811953/      

I would play and sleep in the gift shop. There would be toys, more toys, and even more toys. There aren’t just toys in the gift shop. There are clothes and books. The clothes would keep me warm and the books would help my education explode! That’s why I’d want to have the gift shop be part of my “zoo house”. Have you been to the Florida Zoo? The Florida Zoo has a water park and a playground. I could play all day!

This is why I’d treasure living in a zoo for the rest of my life. See you there! If you were forced to live the rest of your life in a library, a zoo, or a museum, which would you choose and why?

Go on to Flickr for some more amazing photos.

Click here to read more of Rebecca’s work.

 

This week we tried a different method for teaching our wordly wise words.  Typically the students create a slide using the laptops to teach their classmates the meanings, synonyms, antonyms, and a visual interpretation of their wordly wise word.  This week, I paired the students with a partner and had them create a “game” to teach the class the words.  They came up with games using dice, charades, a jeopardy style game and others.  It was a fun way for them to learn the words and include everyone in the process.

We have been learning division with decimals.  The students have been doing a great job completing examples in class.  Today they had a chance for an unusual form of assessment.  Ms.Tolisano came in to show them a variety of apps on the iPad for them to choose from to show “how” to solve a division problem using decimals.  Take a look at the students at work and their finished products.

Itamar’s example.

Rebecca’s example.

Zoe’s example.

Yoni’s example.

Zachary’s example.

Ben’s example.

Elior’s example.

Mrs.Teitelbaum’s example.

Jamie’s example.

Today, Jamie, taught the class how to use iMovie.  Our multi-media projects are coming up and many students were interested in doing a movie.  Jamie is our “expert” in this area, so she volunteered to do a lesson.  She taught all of the different steps to creating a movie.  She showed how to video, record voices, add music, add transition, choose a theme and add text.  It was only about a 30 minute lesson, but most of the students felt really comfortable following through with all of the steps.  Jamie said, “the way I learned was just by experimenting and trying it out.”

We celebrated Ben’s birthday in class, which is always a treat!  We were very grateful for special visitors, Ben’s parents and his grandmother, who brought in fresh bananas and strawberries for an afternoon treat.  Todah Robah and Happy Birthday to Ben!

This week my class used the iPads to introduce a new tool for the use of writing, blogging and completing reports.   I discussed the idea with Silvia and we decided to teach a new method of “dictation” to everyone in the class and allow them to decide if they liked using it and if it helped them with their writing assignments.

We started with an introduction of the app “Dragon Dictation” and we explained its purpose.  Many students had seen or heard of it before.  Once we went over the rules and discussed how to use the app, we allowed them some time to “play” and “explore”.  Their assignment was to use the dictation app and to reflect on how useful they found it to be and give their honest opinion of the app.

Here are a few of the things the students dictated:

My name is Zachary and I am going to talk about this app Dragon dictation to me I love this because it tonight when you’re doing my research project can help you. It can help you because when you’re like not even typing this app can help you make with typing everything that you want to send a research project and then all you have to do is just go back in like the way.

Right now I am on Dragon dictation! On Dragon dictation, you say things and it types it for you. Now my whole class is on Dragon dictation. It is useful because you can say anything you want to, e-mail it to yourself, and put it on your blog! I told you that this app is interesting.

Right now I am using an iPad two. I am using the app Dragon Dictation. I do not like this app. It does not work. It never gets one word correct.  I do not need this app. I know how to type very fast.

What I noticed was that a few students  were not interested in using this app.  They found it frustrating and time consuming because the app didn’t always understand what they were saying. My students who have difficulty typing and/or getting their thoughts on paper (or on computer) really liked it a lot and they were completely engaged.  I’m sure it will be a tool used by a few of my students on a regular basis and I’m glad they were able to be introduced to something new.

These past couple of weeks we have had some specialized lessons on “researching.”  Ms.Hallett, our new librarian, showed the class how to research using databases, and she also taught everyone how to find other search engines that would be more specific to their topic.  We all learned about a search engine called “sweet search” which was helpful to everyone.  She modeled how to properly utilize the resources that are available on her library blog.  Once on her blog, we learned to go to resources in the top right corner and then click on Florida Electronic Library.  It was very helpful to all of us during our current research project.

Choose one of the two topics below to use as your post of the week.

This past week, our class was invited to Mrs. Burkhart’s Science Lab for an introductory lesson on electricity.  The students learned what conductors and insulators were and had the ability to test examples of each using a circuit.  The students were then assigned to write a blog post about their experience.  They were to include what they learned, what the experiment included, hyperlinks, and images.  They were also supposed to use their Blogging Rubric to make sure they included all aspects of “Expert Blogging”.  They needed to have accurate information, many details, worthwhile links, and proper use of punctuation, grammar and spelling.  Based on the RUBRIC I chose a few of their posts to share.

The first one which I chose as “Blog of the Week” is Ben‘s post.

 There’s “Shocking in the Science Lab” by Ben

On Tuesday, my class went to the Science Lab where we learned about insulators and conductors.  When we got there, Mrs. Burkhart was waiting for us and taught us the science lesson.  When we went in we saw incomplete circuits on the tables with some other stuff.

When we learned about conductors and insulators, we tested them on “incomplete circuits” to see if electricity would flow through the circuit.  We tested these objects with the following results:

We also learned about what helps a plasma ball light up in such an out of this world way.  The energy that is sent from the middle to the outside is made by a chemical reaction.  This chemical reaction is caused by the types of gases that are put inside the ball.  Those gases can include helium and neon.  The light that comes from helium is blue-purple and neon makes orange-red.  Looking online, I found that other gases that can be used, with widespread different colors, are also nitrogen, carbon dioxide, xenon, argon, krypton, and even oxygen.  A really well known example of a ball made from plasma is the sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plasma-lamp_2.jpg

Ben used details of what our experiment included, what he learned, proper grammar usage, punctuation and spelling, and proper use of links and images.  He also included a unique title.

I chose Liam‘s blog post to share because I was overly impressed with the links he found to use on his blog.  Each one is unique and very educational.  He spent quality time looking for the best links to include.