Student Blogging Challenge – Activities #3 & #7

©2014 ClipartPanda.com (free clipart)

©2014 ClipartPanda.com
(free clipart)

It is Week Four of the Student Blogging Challenge, and we’ve been a hustling, bustling class of sixth-grade bloggers. Next week is Spring Break, so my students worked overtime this past Monday through Friday to draft several blog posts, including choosing at least one of Miss W’s listed activities. Most students, like Trang and Hannahfound themselves accumulating grains of rice on FreeRice.comAshley wrote about a southeast Asian holiday, and Sammy challenged us to guess a holiday celebrated in India. Emma tackled global warming and embedded a compelling Morgan Freeman-narrated video. Maggie created her own Read Local holiday.

We also backtracked into last week’s activities because we lost another day to snow. I introduced two new photo sources, Getty Images and MorgueFile. We discussed why it’s important to credit sources–and only use images we have permission to use for free on our blogs. For yesterday’s Five Minute Photo Friday assignment, students drew their writing inspiration from one of five photographs. Ramya crafted a poem based on a photo of painted hands. Abhi gave his frog-inspired post the tongue-twisting title, Ten Things Toads Think About. Clare used a smartphone pic to reflect on the drawbacks of cellphone overuse. Using the same photo, Sarah started a story about our school’s Bring Your Own Technology initiative (and she’s hoping you’ll add a sentence or two). Then there’s Patrick’s post on his family’s furry friends, inspired by a dog and cat photo.

I’m proud of the writing my students are turning out, and I can’t wait to read about their Spring Break adventures when we all return in April. Oh! We also made new blog avatars…which was quite fun on the final day of the third quarter.

Activity #3 – Visit at least five blogs from around the globe.

1. Mrs. Petsnick’s Grade 7 class in Ontatio, Canada knows how to bust a move. Her post about groovy dance moves had me chuckling out loud before sunrise today.

2. In The Learning Palace, Miss Morris presents a weekly Perseverance Cup to one of her 27 outstanding students. This week, Jaela took home the trophy for “always doing her best.” In addition to reading about Jaela’s successes, I tried out several links in Miss Morris’s sidebar and commented on three of her students’ blogs. I hope we can exchange comments with this New Zealand class soon.

3. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and my eyes were happy campers when I stopped by Mr. Lee’s Canadian classroom to see his student’s stunning animal eye portraits. If you haven’t visited Mr. Lee’s blog, go directly there now and let your eyes feast on a foursome of fine pencil drawings.

4. When I clicked on a 9th grade class blog in Honduras, I wasn’t expecting the author to be a teacher from Colorado. I like how Ashley is using the blog as a forum for her students to not only write, but to comment on one another’s writing. I’ll definitely borrow her idea for this blog.

5. I learned how students at the NRH School in Ireland celebrate “Pancake Day”. From learning about Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an Italian artist who painted fruit and vegetable portraits of humans to making their own pancake art, these students cooked up a stack of edible fun.

6. For the final stop of my international blogging tour, I returned to Mrs. Gado’s class in Hong Kong. Mrs. Gado started a worldwide conversation when she posted her avatar and asked visitors to make inferences based on how she outfitted her avatar. Since that initial exchange, Mrs. Gado and I have continued the conversation–and our students have been trading comments, too.

 

Activity # 7 – Add at least five international blogs to your blog roll.

I am regularly updating our blogroll to reflect the global connections we’re making with friends around the world. We’re ready for game time. If you’re a teacher or student visiting our class blog and would like us to add you to our blogroll, kindly leave us a comment with your blog URL. We’re a comment-leaving, post-drafting, world-stretching blogging classroom, and we’d love to connect with you and your students!

 

 

8 thoughts on “Student Blogging Challenge – Activities #3 & #7

  1. Hi Mrs.Rombach!

    I have gotten some great comments from your students lately! Except, they are forgetting one important key to commenting! LEAVING THEIR URL!!!!! So please remind them if you can and I will find their blogs on your scroll list. Thank you!!!! Have a great beginning of 4th quarter!

    Stay Happy 🙂
    Quynh-Thi http://eatsweet.edublogs.org

  2. Hi Mrs.Rombach,

    Thanks, it took me all week to finish my about me page! Some of my friends say I should have been highlighted, but it didn’t bother me I knew I was going to get highlighted some week. I LOVE your theme, I’ve seen that on many blogs and it never gets old (to me at least), I always wonder how do you do it. Absolutely Almost sounds interesting what is it about? My school district will be on Spring Break on April 11-18 2015. This year my school is doing an online testing called SBAC, It address you by the answers you get right. I heard there are other schools in the U.S. are doing the same test, is your class doing it or have your class already done it? My class is doing it next week, I’m kind of scared because some kids already done their test and they say it’s boring, tiring, and it’s worst then the states test we used to take called NECAPS.

    • Hi Marilyn,

      I’ll add a link to the Absolutely Almost trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwjigsnY_8M. We’re on spring break all this week and return the Tuesday after Easter (teacher workday on Monday). We aren’t using the SBAC test, as Virginia doesn’t participate in the Common Core curriculum yet. We have what’s known as SOLs–Standards of Learning. These tests are reading intensive with multiple choice or essay responses. They are long–and our students have to take them in testing rooms. I don’t know if there’s any good standardized test. These kinds of assessments are required by the state and federal government, but no one likes them much. Hang in there and just do your best. Definitely don’t stress about them. 🙂

      Enjoy your break!
      Mrs. Rombach
      http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org

    • I think I find the time because it’s something I really enjoy and feel challenged by. 🙂 Thanks for checking in! 🙂

  3. Hi Mrs Rombach,
    I am still participateing in the student blogging challenge but I thought you could only do at school:)
    So it is nice to see you care:)

    • Chloe-
      You can participate in the Student Blogging Challenge from home or school. 🙂 I’ll be looking forward to more posts from you soon.

      Mrs. Rombach

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