Welcome to a new school year. We are going to have some great experiences together. I feel so fortunate to be a part of White Oak School and have the wonderful privilege of being a part of your life. We will learn some great new facts this year and get to use technology in a way we have not yet been able to. The most important thing we will do this year is realize we are an important part of each others’ lives. We have the awesome opportunity to make someone’s day or break someone’s day. Let us decide together we are going to strive to be the one to make someone’s day…by a kind word, an understanding heart, or a gracious gesture. After all, we are all in this together! Have a great year! I know I plan to.

I came across this animal next to my house this morning after noticing a very bad smell when walking out of my front door. Can you identify this animal by its tail? The first person to comment on this post with the correct name (and spelling) will have a racquetball with their name on it waiting for them in the computer lab when school starts. Please leave your first name and your former teacher’s name so I can identify you. I hope you are having a great summer!

While cleaning out the back room of my house, I found this insect on the sidewalk. I quickly grabbed my camera to get a picture. I do not believe I have ever witnessed this before. The challenge is to name the insect and tell me what it is doing in this picture. The first student of mine (you had to be at White Oak Intermediate or White Oak Primary School last year) to comment with the correct answer will have a racquetball with their name on it waiting when you return to school in the fall. In the comment, please leave your first name only and the name of your classroom teacher last year. I hope you are having a great summer!

Summer Challenge Insect

I have had more than one student come across my path this summer and tell me they had been to the Keystrokes blog. I decided I would post some challenges for those students who venture here over the summer. I discovered the insect pictured above in the parking lot of my church this morning. Identify the type of insect by looking at its silhouette or the outline its body makes. The student who is the first to post the correct answer in the comments will have a racquetball with their name on it waiting in the computer lab when they return to school. For me to properly identify you, please leave your first name only and the name of your classroom teacher last year. I hope to post many more challenges before your summer vacation comes to a close.

The above design is the 2009 National winner of the Doodle 4 Google contest.  Click on the picture above.  It will take you to the Doodle 4 Google website where you can view other winners and read all about contest rules and prizes.  If you get bored this summer, you can play around with your own google doodle and possibly enter the contest next year. The contest usually opens in March.  Check back to see what the theme for next year will be.  Who knows, maybe a White Oak student will be next year’s winner.

Students did a great job last week creating games to review their 30 technology terms.  View the short video captured with Mrs. Cranford’s flip video and hosted on http://www.schooltube.com to see the students’ excitement.  When the year winds down and time allows, I will try to post the games the students created. I also created a jeopardy game using http://jeopardylabs.com to review some technology facts.  The game can be found under Student Websites called Technology Jeopardy.  The students are having a great time playing this week.  My electrical engineer husband built a light box with a green, red, and yellow light with clickers so we could play with three teams.  Each member of the winning team gets to put their name on a ticket for a drawing.  Each correct answer also wins that student a ticket.  At the end of the period, a student draws one ticket and the winner leaves with a racquetball from Walmart.  All the intermediate students love racquetballs because they use them to play wall ball against the brick on the playground.

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This week students will be grouped into teams of three to four students.  Each group will be responsible for creating a technology term  game to review the 30 technology words that are on our Tool Shed wall.  The students will play the games next week as time allows.  Students may choose one of the game formats listed at http://www.education-world.com/a_special/vocabulary or come up with their own.

The resulting slide shows from the “Get to Know My Class”  project are posted for everyone to enjoy.  The students completed their slide with their avatar, wordart of their name, and text boxes of their descriptive words and uploaded them using google docs.  A huge thank you goes out to Mr. Floyd for taking such good care of us and setting up google accounts for all the Intermediate School students.