STUCO

Here is a picture of our new student council. We met for the first time today. Mrs. Burton and I are really looking forward to working with these great people!

The Hobbit Posters and Riddles

As we read through the hobbit we are doing some creating. Below are two posters my students made that represented their favorite scene from the first 15% of The Hobbit book. 

After Bilbo bests Gollum in a riddle contest (completely through luck and a bit of cheating) we decided to make our own riddles. Here is mine, see if you can guess the correct answer.

It's long, it's short, it's gone. When you are young you want it where it isn't. When you are old you have it where you don't want it. 

Julissa's riddle:

You never know when it will grow or shrink.  

Nicole's riddle:

What grows old and loses it's color but comes back new in the next summer?

Tie Tuesday Returns!

Here we are showing our swag at our first Tie Tuesday of the year. The purpose of tie Tuesday is to have a special day where we dress up and look fine. Every day we have together is special, but when we dress up and look nice it can be extra special!

Breast Cancer Awareness Day

Our school had a breast cancer awareness day where students were encouraged to wear pink. There was a fundraiser and our principal, Mr. Nichols, agreed to wear pink if enough money was raised. Do you think we raised enough?

Aviary: Another Photo Editing Site

Here is another editing software site to check out. It is called Aviary.  What is different about this than other programs we used?

Pivet Stick Figure Animator

Pivot Stick Figure Animator is freeware I downloaded after seeing examples created by students.

One great feature is you can add your own background and make interesting videos.

There are a few things to consider if you want to post the video to your blog. First you have to save your movie as a .gif file. This is a moving picture file (not to be confused with a .mov file) You have the option in the save menu of the program.

After I saved it as a .gif I uploaded it to the blog as a picture, but it was not animated. I did a Google search on "uploading gifs to blogger" and found this post from the blog Blogger Tips and Tricks. In it the author suggested using Photobucket to host the picture and using the html code to post the picture. As you can see above it worked!

Build Your Own Snowman from Yahoo

Here is a fun little site that lets you build your own snowman. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of different choices you can make with the snowman and the ways they have for you to share your creation are extremely limited. To save your picture you will have to do a screen capture!

Science Fair Ideas

Below are some science fair project sites. While these are not inclusive, you can still use them to get some ideas. When you have picked out your project make sure you fill out the form below. You will not be allowed to duplicate other ideas so act fast or you may not get to do the project you want.

All Science Fair Projects

Science Buddies

Science Bob

Science Club

Science Fair Central

Check out the spreadsheet to make sure your idea hasn't already been taken.

BeFunky: Keyboarding App of the Week

BeFunky.com is a picture editor that allows you to put "filters" on your picture. It is a pretty basic editing site for your pictures. Go to the site, upload your picture and try out the different filters. When you have decided on a picture or two, click save and choose download to the desktop. Then you will upload the picture to the class Ning.

Samorost 1: A Point and Click, Critical Thinking, Trial and Error Adventure Game!

Samorost 1 is a crazy cool game. The idea is to get the character, Samorost, to explore the space ship that he finds flying towards his planet. To play this game you simply point and click until you find out how to progress. You will have to collaborate on this one, don't be selfish we you figure out the puzzles!

Now for your assignment: I want you to write Samorost's story. Why is scared when he sees the spaceship? Why does he decide to explore it? What does he find along the way? You will need to take notes as you travel with Samorost. You will be posting Samorost's story to the class ning.

I will leave you this picture as a clue for the first puzzle. Can you see what has changed?

BigHugeLabs: Make a Movie Poster

Today we are going to look at BigHugeLabs. Make sure you get your user name and password for me. I want you to make a movie poster for me first. After you create it you need to post it on your blog and the ning. Make sure it is school appropriate.

After you have finished, you can check out some of the other

Yendarra School Kiwis

While doing my usual snooping around for new blogs to read and comment on I came upon this wonderful site, the Yendarra School Kiwis.

What caught my eye was a post on several of the teachers of the school visiting Samoa to learn about the island. I also learned from the post that a tsunami had recently hit Samoa.

I left a comment asking about the Samoan schools compared to the schools in New Zealand. Soon I received this email.

Hi Mr C

Just thought I would answer the questions you left on our blog about Samoa. First of all, thank you for leaving the comment. My name is Vanessa Venturi and I am the classroom teacher here in Room 14. Yendarra School is in Auckland, New Zealand. The ethnic make up of our school is 70% Pacific Island (mainly Samoan, but also Tongan, Cook Island and Niuean) and 30% Maori (native New Zealanders). Earlier in the year, some of the staff went to Samoa to gain a better understanding of where our Samoan children come from and to better enable ourselves to transition children who move from Samoa to Auckland. What an eye opener! The schools there have little in the way of resources, no equipment, very little paper, some classes had no desks or chairs. Some of the classrooms had up to 45 students and some teachers taught two classes at the same time, just running between two rooms. Because of the heat, the classrooms have no windows. Because of the huge number of children in each class, we didn't see any group work happening. The teachers teach in both Samoan and English. It was amazing to see what they can do with so little, the children were incredibly happy and very proud of their schools. The Samoan people are incredibly musically talented and their performances were stunning.

Schools in Auckland are very similar to yours, I would imagine. We have lots in the way of resources, computers, books, internet access, interactive whiteboards, playgrounds etc. We work very hard to be at the cutting edge of education in New Zealand. Visiting Samoa has really helped me to understand where my students and their families come from and relate to them more effectively. We were very lucky that we didn't lose any of our students in the tsunami because we were on school holiday when it hit and many students were at home in Samoa. Families at our school lost a lot of extended family members, auntys, uncles and cousins etc. The other question you had was about karakia, karakia is the Maori word for prayer. At the end of each day, one child stands up and leads the class in a karakia. This isn't something we have to do, but one of my boys asked at the beginning of the year if we could do it and its become a really special way to end each day together.

Thanks so much for commenting on our blog, I hope I've answered your questions for you. Please let me know if you have any others!

Have a great week :)
Vanessa Venturi and Room 14

What a wonderful surprise for me. I suspect most people think that most of the learning in school (and especially in my lab) happens with the students. This is obviously not the case today! Again, our ability to communicate and learn from people all over the world is amazing. Thank you Vanessa!

Fear Factor 2009

On Friday we held our annual Fear Factor challenge for the fifth grade. I started this six years when I found I had some extra beef stick and cheese packages that I found to be pretty nasty. As I am wont to do, I solved my problem by having students compete in a contest. It originally was something I did in my homeroom, but the response was so good I expanded to the whole fifth grade the next year.

Fear Factor consists of three "tasks" which students have to complete. First we draw three student names from each classroom. (Students are asked first if they would like to participate.) Then I assign them the first task. This year it was a repeat of a task introduced four years ago, wearing their shoes around the neck. Some shoes smell so bad that it can be a difficult task to complete.

The second task this year was a variation on something we did last year. During the junior high dance the students had to sing karaoke to Michael Jackson's song "Thriller".

Students love to watch the final task, the eating and/or drinking of whatever nasty food we come up with.

Finally at the end of the day the remaining contestants had to eat something nasty, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean. These particular beans came in such wonderful flavors as vomit, soap, and booger.
At the end of the bean eating, the students had to drink buttermilk. Treyton won the competition and was crowned this years Fear Factor Champion!

Pictures of Halloween at Noel School

Here are some pictures of costumes worn by faculty and students today.

Red Ribbon Week Drug Awareness

Here are some things we are doing for Red Ribbon Week. What activities does your school do?

Noel History Club Trip to Eureka Springs

The History Club took a trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas last Friday. On the itinerary was the ES&NA Railroad. We ate lunch in the dining car and enjoyed a ride on the tracks. Here is a picture of the Lett's waiting for their lunch.

Here is a video of the train pulling in to the station.Although I don't know much about trains, I grew up in Noel which has a train run through the middle of town. Although the train can be a nuisance, it is still really fun to ride in one just like my mother used to do when she would ride from Noel to Kansas City to visit her grandmother.

After the train ride we wandered through the shops in town and enjoyed looking at some of the artwork and architecture of the city.

At night we visited the Crescent Hotel and took the ghost tour. I had taken the tour before so I spent the time watching the students (and some teachers) run around the hallways trying to spook up some ghosts.

Since Eureka Springs is only an hour and a half away from town, it seems a natural place to spend time learning about history and culture. I will definitely make sure to visit more often in the future.

Fourth Grade PowerPoints

Fourth grade students were introduced to creating PowerPoint presentations last Friday. They learned how to log in to our network with their own user name and password. They learned how to make new slides in the program and how to save their PowerPoint's to their desktop.
Mr. Howerton, the social studies teacher in fourth grade, had the students create the PowerPoint on the three branches of government.

Yessy Was Red Hot at the Chile Pepper Festival

Yessy Dominguez medalled at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival on Saturday. She came in 15! This was the first time a McDonald County junior high student has medalled there. Also impressive was the girls team sixth place finish! Here is Yessy talking about running.

Also impressive was the junior high boys team finish of ninth!

Writing Math Word Problems in Fourth Grade

The fourth grade spent a couple class periods working on writing their own word problems. They are using the problem solving method adopted by the school to help them make sure they have all of the information they need. The students are benefiting from creating their own word problems because it forces them to consider the elements of a good word problem. Because they are gaining the experience of creating, they are also becoming more proficient at being able to understand how to solve them as well.

Mrs. Fisher explains what the students are doing.

Here is Saylor explaining the benefit of creating her own word problem.

Fall Bulletin Board Decorations

Here is a slideshow of some of our fall bulletin board and hallway decorations. The Cat in the Hat balloon was for our fall book fair.