Do You Feel Lucky?

Posted on 03/10/2010 by Mrs. Cranford

170px-Four-leaf_clover As spring begins to sprout and clover appears around my mailbox, I start to think about St. Patrick’s Day, leprechauns, pots of gold, and four-leaf clovers. I am always tempted to go digging around in that dark grass looking for the lucky “sprig”. Four-leaf clovers are uncommon indeed. There are 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every single four-leaf clover. According to Irish tradition, such leaves bring good luck to their finders, especially if found accidentally. According to legend, each leaflet represents something: the first is for hope, the second is for faith, the third is for love, and the fourth is for luck.

If this is true, I wonder just how much luck the Japanese farmer who found this 21-leaf clover had on his very lucky year? 21clover What other items do you associate with good luck? What was your luckiest day? Write us a comment and tell us all about it.

Words of Love

Posted on 01/26/2010 by Mrs. Cranford

You may not “carrot” all for me

The way I care for you.

You may “turnip” your nose

When I plead with you

But if your “heart” should “beet” with mine

Forever “lettuce” hope

There is no reason in the world

Why we two “cantaloupe.”

There are many words you can use to express your feelings of love at Valentine’s Day. How many words can you find in the Red Heart above? How about writing a short Valentine rhyme back to us in a comment? We would love to read it.

Wishing for a Snow Day

Posted on 01/12/2010 by Mrs. Cranford

Snow just doesn’t happen that often in East Texas, but this past week we found our little town right in the middle of a deep freeze. Every student (and teacher) was hoping for snow. Even a single flake would have thrown the campus into a frenzy, but alas it was not to be.

Let’s not let that stop us! If the snow will not come to us, then we will just go to the snow. I would like for you to visit SnowDays and create a snowflake using online scissors. Add ONLY your first name – Remember our internet safety rules! Be sure to list your city and state. Next, visit Flurrious and create a different kind of snowflake using geometric lines and shapes. You may then add a message to your flake and add it to the online blizzard.

What a beautiful sight, and you did not even need to put on a sweater!

You Make Me Proud!

Posted on 10/31/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

Yes, I am very proud. This is my grandson, Tyler. This is the first time he has ever sung in public, and I know it takes a lot of courage to get up in front of a large group and perform. He has many talents, and you can read about some of those on his blog, Tyler’s Talking. He is also a member of Mrs. Carrington’s Bright Spots, Gifted and Talented group. You make me smile with pride!

Brittany Brings Down the House

Posted on 10/31/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

One of our students entered the Talent Show this past Friday, and we just wanted to say how proud we are of you, Brittany.

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow: Sing It, Brittany!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The End of October

Posted on 10/30/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

The end of October is a special time for children and that holds true here at White Oak Elementary. We celebrated Red Ribbon Week all five days with special activities like crazy sock, sunglasses, red chains, hats, team jersey, and today was camouflage day. The intermediate students even put on a talent show that lasted well over two hours. We have so much talent among our students. Here are just a few shots of the events that transpired on our campus today. We are wishing everyone a Happy Halloween weekend. How will YOU spend Halloween?

Click to play this Smilebox scrapbook: Fall Fun at School

Count Out Three #8

Posted on 10/26/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

2288210324_280aa3069a As a part of the Blog Challenge09 #8, we were asked to complete a task called “Count Out Three”. We were to visit one of the participant’s blogs and leave a comment. Then we were to visit one of the blogs listed in their blogroll and leave a comment. The third blog visit was to come from the second’s blogroll. This quest was really rewarding.

We first visited Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog a third grade class from California. There we read paragraphs written by the students about their Halloween costumes. The students are very good writers. In fact they have a badge widget that says that they won the 2009 Digital Voice Award. We also visited Mrs. Yollis’ website, which is awesome!

From her blogroll we linked to Mr. Salsich’s Class, Connecticutt. We were especially intrigued by a blog post there about a Nature Scape field trip. We are in the process of building a Nature Center on a piece of land adjacent to our intermediate school. We are excited about its completion. One of our classes just released passion butterflies into the Nature Center. The page links were very helpful and contained a lot of good information.

Our Count Three took us to a New Zealand blog called Pt England Scribes. The recordings of the students stories were well read and has given us some good ideas about story retelling.

This blog challenge took us out of our boundaries and into the world of student bloggers.

Blog Challenge09 #8

Posted on 10/26/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

kid thumbing fingers

The students at White Oak Intermediate are becoming aware of our digital footprint and how important it is for us to watch what we post online for the world to view. We have discussions prior to ever accessing the internet about internet safety and the problems that can result because of its misuse. While our classroom teachers stress these guidelines, it is our computer lab teacher that really brings meaning to the concept.

We have the best computer teacher in the world. She begins the first of every year talking to us about digital citizenship and commenting guidelines. Her name is Nina Peery, and you can find all kinds of helpful information on her technology blog, Keystrokes. After two weeks of internet safety, we review our what we have learned by playing Internet Safety Games that Mrs. Peery designed.