Challenge09 #11 – It’s An Honor to Volunteer

Posted on 05/21/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

Memorial Day started as a remembrance of the Civil War soldiers, both Union and Confederate. It is first credited to the women of Columbus, Mississippi, where the women’s association went to the local cemeteries and decorated the graves of both the Confederate and Union soldiers buried there on April 25th, 1866.

The date for Memorial Day was changed to be the last Monday in May in 1971, as part of the national Holiday Act to make all National Holidays into three day weekends.

On this Memorial Day, the local scout troops volunteered to visit local cemeteries and place flags on the graves of our service men. Under the directions of their scout leaders, they met at Lakeview Memorial Gardens at 7:00 a.m. to begin this task. We thank them for the respect and honor they have shown today with their actions.

What actions of respect and honor for the history of your state or country can you write about? We would love to hear about it.

In the News

Posted on 05/17/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

ani-wow ani-wedidit

Recently our local newspaper stopped by to interview some of our student bloggers. The students were eager to share their views on blogging and how it has improved their writing skills and motivated them to read more.

Blogging has truly changed our class. It has connected us with some wonderful classrooms and presented opportunities that we would never have encountered otherwise.

We WON!!

Posted on 05/11/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

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That’s right!! We WON! Boy, were we ever excited. Monday brought about several surprises for our students. First of all, we received an email from Sue Waters, Edubloggers, letting us know that we had won in the Embedded Media Division of the Blog Challenge09 Competition. Whoa!

Next, the newspaper came out to do a feature piece on us because only recently did we ship a package to Myles Webb’s Class, http://melvilleroom8.blogspot.com/ in New Zealand, and they responded with some awesome posts. We shared their website with him and answered all of his questions.

The reported asked how blogging had improved our writing skills and then he asked the students how they felt about blogging. They were certainly NOT at a loss for words to share their thoughts.

How do you feel about blogging? How do you think it affects all of your school subjects?

Will you continue to blog over the summer months? We want to know.

Challenge09 #10 – Enticing the Reader

Posted on 05/09/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

School's Out May 29th! See you again in August.

I think we are going to make it! We have successfully maintained participation in Miss Wyatt’s Blog Challenge 09 thus far. This is the tenth challenge with only two more to come. We are to entice our readers. What better way to do that right here at summertime than with some talk of SUMMER. We will be adding posts over the summer on the subject of Summer FUN. We hope that you will continue to follow us throughout our summer break and make comments along the way.

Some of the plans that our students have for the summer include:

Six Flags Over Texas

Great Wolf Lodge

Destin, Florida

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Nashville, Tennessee

What will YOU do during your break? We want to know. Please share that information with us in a comment.

Challenge09 #9 – Do You Know a Hero?

Posted on 05/07/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

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Our class has read many books this year, and after brainstorming what we felt were qualities of a hero, we began to think back about some of those books and the heroes and heroines in each.

We just finished reading The Chalk Box Kid by Clyde Robert Bulla. In this story, Ivy showed the characteristic of selflessness. She was a heroine to Gregory when he needed a friend. F.N. Monjo wrote in Follow the Drinking Gourd Follow the Drinking Gourd about the various risks involved to help slaves escape to the north. Those risk takers were certainly heroes. A Girl Named Helen Keller by Margo Lundell introduced us to Anne Sullivan, a teacher who went above and beyond the call of her duty to help Helen. Earlier in the year, we read Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles in which we thought both the Old One and Annie were heroines. The Old One was brave in the way she faced death and Annie showed great courage by accepting this unavoidable event. The Legend of the Bluebonnet by DePaola is an example of ultimate sacrifice by a little girl when her village is in dying due to a drought. She was truly a heroine to the village to the point where even her named changed to honor her actions. On a much lighter note, Grandma proves to be the heroine by being helpful in The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins.

We then asked each student to name their personal hero. Here is a list of the results:

Mrs. Cranford: My dad is my hero. Even though I lost him in 2002, he remains to this day the person who continues to shape my life daily.

Brittany: My Ant Sallie is my hero. She helps older people. She took me in and loves me.

Brian: My hero is me because I servived cancer and I almost died. And my grandpa because he was in the war.

Colton: My hero is Papa Don because heis tough and he is a good person. He was in the Navy so he knows how to protect me and keeps me safe. Papa Don is cool because he keeps people from harming others. I love my Papa Don because he helps people with money problems.

Adrian: My dad is a hero. He works so hard and he is the best dad. I love my family and my brother. We are a family.

Jennifer: My hero is Patsy because she takes care of me and Lizzy and Mamat. She loves me. I love Nany. She is a caring person.

>Alex: My hero is my step dad because he is a shairf and is helpful. He is nice and playful.

So we want to know, “Do YOU know a hero?” If so, please leave a comment and let us know who it is and why.

Earth Day – April 22nd

Posted on 04/26/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

earth-day

We have added a new podcast to the Virtual Roughneck podcasting blog and wanted to be sure that our visitors were aware of its posting. Rather than repost the content here, we will simply link to it so that you can watch our presentation.

Be sure to follow the links on our sidebar under the heading, “Hometown Connections”, to Our Class Website (It is an excellent resource! You must check out the Student Websites links), Cranford’s Podcasts, Roughneck Moodle (Our elementary online courses), our Monthly PDF Assignments (a research database that we regularly use with pdf assignments that are changed monthly), and our Holiday Heyday activities (which provide varied monthly links and a pdf calendar skills practice drill) .

Let us know what you find helpful here. We would love to have your feedback.

Challenge09 #8 Animals in the Wild – Continued…

Posted on 04/25/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

What wonderful timing! We were asked to link to websites or videos to THE animal we would prefer to see in the wild rather than in a zoo. Our class had made a list researched on Facts4Me, but we were having a really hard time narrowing the selection down to the one we would choose above the rest.

Meanwhile, just outside our classroom, the third graders in Mrs. Blankenship’s room were in the middle of a measurement lesson which combined both Science and Math. We watched the development of this project with great anticipation and curiosity. These students first measured the average length of the blue whale (Thanks to Mr. Webb and Room 8 Melville for this awesome link) and hung crepe paper from the ceiling tiles to equal that length. They then predicted whether or not the combined height of the total students in the classroom would equal the length of the whale’s body. Lying along a tape measure, each student’s data was recorded and tagged with the name and total feet/inches. It was proven that the total height of students was sufficient to equal the length of a blue whale. Students were then asked to lie on the floor along the tape measure, head to foot, to give them a true understanding of the magnitude of this great mammal.

This made such an impact on my students that without hesitation they have choosen as the animal they would love to see in the wild would be the blue whale.

Thank you for this Blog Challenge.

We have Blog Visitors from all over the world, and we would like to know….Are there whales where you live? If so, have you ever had the privilege of seeing one in the wild? We would love to know!

Challenge09 #8 – Animals in the Wild?

Posted on 04/21/2009 by Mrs. Cranford

Picture from Heritage Park Zoological Sanctuary

Above you will see a picture taken from the Heritage Park Zoological Sanctuary. If you visit their site, you will discover that this is not a typical zoo, but instead its residents have been rescued from one kind of disaster or another.

The challenge posed to our class by the Blog Challenge 09 was to “write a post about an animal that you would like to see in the wild. See if you can add a link in your post to a webcam or video and some websites about your animal. Why do you want to see that animal in the wild rather than at a zoo?”

Our students are going to use Facts4Me to research this possibility, and we will be updating this post within the next few days. Please check back to read about our findings.