Month: November 2013

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Hi there its Mrs Layfield from a school in England.

Wow it sounds an amazing place where you live. Our school is in small village called Gee Cross just outside of Manchester in the North of England.
Our year 5 is made up of two classes each with 30 children in each class. We are 9 and 10 year old.
We are very busy at the moment getting ready for Christmas – we are due to have a lot of snow this winter so we may get a white Christmas. Very different to your Christmases on the beach in the sun.
We would love to hear from you – you can write on our chat page.
I have spoken to your teacher but we would love to hear from the children as well.
Speak to you soon

http://www.dowson.tameside.sch.uk/year5blog/

 

Edublogs Awards 2013 – Class Blog

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The Edublog Awards started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes.  The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media.

 

Here are the categories in full – nominations are open from now through Sunday, December 1st

  • Awards_170px_02Best individual blog
  • Best group blog
  • Best new blog
  • Best class blog
  • Best student blog
  • Best ed tech / resource sharing blog
  • Best teacher blog
  • Best library / librarian blog
  • Best administrator blog
  • Most influential blog post of the year
  • Best individual tweeter
  • Best twitter hashtag
  • Best free web tool
  • Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast
  • Best educational wiki
  • Best open PD / unconference / webinar series
  • Best educational use of a social network
  • Best mobile app
  • Lifetime achievement

How To Nominate

  1. Write a post with your nominations on your blog, link to them and link to this site
  2. Use this form here to send us a link to your nominations

Nomination tips:

  1.  Nominate in as many categories as you want!
  2. You can’t nominate yourself ;)
  3. Nominations must be made somewhere public – your blog, a forum on a ning, a school website, etc.
  4. Even if you see your favorite has already been nominated, it is best to nominate them again
  5. Categories are competitive, and only the most nominated will make it to the voting round
  6. Share your nominations using twitter (#eddies13), facebook, Google+ and email

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20 Something Kids and 1 Kooky Teacher

I began the blogging and twitter journey not only to promote 5SK’s learning but also to find other teachers with similar interests and to keep up to date with advancements in education. I have followed one class blog in particular all year and its author continues to inspire and motivate me daily. Jennifer Bearden at http://20somethingkidsand1kookyteacher.com/ is amazing!

Jennifer’s blog showcases her wonderful writing skills and promotes student centred learning. I loved her letter to the students to introduce herself and her expectations of them and our students have watched the two greeting videos MANY times. The school district looks like an amazing place to work.

I OFTEN talk to my teaching partner (we share a class) about the programs run in Jennifer’s class. “Jennifer wrote today” often comes out of my mouth. 🙂 I have made a list of programs to run in 2014 and can’t wait to start. If you have a chance, look at the reading challenge. We have found this year that students often choose one type of reader and this is not beneficial to expanding their overall schema. Jennifer’s idea of 40 books in a variety of genres is fantastic.

You are an inspiration Jennifer Bearden!

http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/

Math Skype Lessons

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5SK participated in 4 Skype math lessons with students from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School yesterday morning. A huge thank you to Miss Immel, her students and their wonderful caregivers. We are ahead of Mount Vernon School by 15 hours as they are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Our session started at 8:30am Thursday morning which in Atlanta time was Wednesday afternoon at 5:30pm. Very cool!

Our math lessons were student created and run. They were broken up into 4 mini lessons. Two created by students at Mount Vernon and two were created by our students. Along with Skype, our students created PowerPoints, handouts and games for their lessons and we emailed our resources prior to the session.

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of using Skype as a lesson tool in the classroom and look forward to doing it again. Thank you again to Miss Immel, the students and families at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School for including us in this fantastic learning experience.

 

Edublogs Challenge 9A – A Great Post

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Soccer

I am a big soccer fan and player. My top 3 teams are:

  1. Barcelona FC
  2. Manchester United
  3. Brazil

I play social soccer and my team are winning the competition so far. I also play competition soccer and we made it to the Grand Final but the scoreline ended 4-2 to the opposition. I might be going to the Asian Cup and see Australia play.

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Our Trip

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As most of you know, I was away last week. I was very lucky to visit Noumea, Lifou and Port Vila with friends and three other teachers from our school. This was a holiday (Long Service) though I may have snuck in visits to the blog to see what you were all up to. 🙂

We sailed out of Brisbane on Saturday 9 November very excited for our adventures ahead. Out trip in total was eight days and seven nights. We had two days sailing on either end of our journey and the days in between were spent visiting beautiful locations.

I came back from my holiday feeling very blessed for what we have here in Australia. I often chat to our students about how lucky they are being able to get a free education. Our last visit on the trip was to Port Vila. Children of Port Vila are only able to attend school if their parents can afford it. Nearly 80% of the population are out of work and there is no welfare in place. This means that a huge percentage of children are unable to attend school. Sometimes it is important to remember what we have and how lucky we really are.

All of the people we met were so warm and friendly. We were greeted with smiles everywhere we went. I have so many great stories to share with you all and will as time allows.

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Eureka Stockade

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Our students have been studying the Eureka Stockade this semester. We have learnt so many interesting facts about mining in the early days and the hardships faced by the miners. 5SK can now see why this event was so significant to Australia and the changes it brought to our way of life.

After our unit concluded our students still had many questions that they wanted to learn about. We were very lucky to come across Mr Peter Beckwith, an education officer at the Sovereign Hill Museum. Two of our students sent an email requesting more information and Mr Beckwith along with the other members of the education team were able to respond.

I would like to thank Mr Beckwith and his team for their contribution to our learning. We are very appreciative of the time you have taken to research our questions.

 I am sure that there are many other year 5 classes  who would like to access information for their classes. Mr Beckwith can be contacted at:

Peter Beckwith
Education officer
Sovereign Hill Museums Association
Ballarat, Vic 3350
Email: pbeckwith@sovereignhill.com.au
Web: www.sovereignhill.com.au/education
Twitter: @PNBeckwith @GoldfieldsEd

 

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Edublogs Challenge 9A – A Great Post

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A Chinese Pug in a Himalayan Rug

Here is my post about what interests me the most.

‘Pug, pug!’ I hear my thoughts whisper, a small black, brown, cream or apricot dog with wrinkles spread on his face. A curly tail hits my ankle as I stroke his soft coat. A few minutes later I hear a rumble down the staircase. Sprinting down I see my gorgeous pug trying to wrap himself up in a blue and black rug twice the size of him! I say to myself, ‘what an adorable dog I own.’ I love pugs! What do you like about pugs? Who would be caught dead without one! Definetly not me!

Shahnti

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Edublogs Challenge 9A – A Great Post

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One of my Passions

Guinea pigs are one of the best pets available. For people who are allergic to hair, there are Skinnys which are hairless and are unfortunately found in other countries. For people who are not allergic to hair, there are normal ones. Here are all the breeds of cavies/guinea pigs: Shebas, Roans, Dalmatians, Agoutis, Argents, Self, Dabb, Rex, Swiss (found only in Switzerland), Alpacas, Texels, Shelties, Abbasinians, Perivians, Crested, Coronets, Teddies (only in America) and Himalayans. Every one of these breeds are unique. Females are called sows and males are called boars. A sow can have up to ten babies per litter.

Mikki

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Edublogs Challenge 9A – A Great Post

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My Passion – Horses

Today I’d like to talk about my number one passion, horses. Did you know that there are 350 breeds of horses in the world? Here are a few of my favourites: Welch Ponies, Appaloosas, Palominos, Arabians, Quarter Horse and last but not least the Connemara.  When I go and see Zoe’s two mares, I hear whinnies of greeting and I see them trotting down to see me and Zoe. I smell the fresh smell of manure and horse fur.  I taste excitement  and I touch their soft, velvety noses and their smooth coats. These animals are big and powerful but they are gentle. Whether you know lots about them or you are discovering them after many years, the horse is a creature to be treasured.

Mikki

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