Student Blogging Challenge Week 5

Posted on April 1, 2013 by bdonofrio

Hey, Kids!

I hope everyone is having a great Easter break! Did any of you watch The Bible miniseries on The History Channel over the last 10 weeks? It ended last night. Very moving and inspiring. If you watched it, what did you think?

Photo Credit: paul bica via Compfight cc

Miss W. has decided to give everyone a week off from challenges due to Easter vacation, however, she did post LOTS of your names on her challenge site this week. See if you can find your name, and then visit the blogs of kids you have not met before. It’s great to see you getting noticed in the blogosphere!

What are you doing for vacation? Extra credit for anyone who writes a post about their Easter break! You could also write another Teddy post and email it to me so I can put it on Teddy’s blog.

See you next week!

Student Blogging Challenge Week 4

Posted on March 26, 2013 by bdonofrio

Welcome to Week 4 of the Student Blogging Challenge! This week you have a “freebie” and can write about anything you’d like. Photos with attribution are encouraged.

Perhaps some of you will write about Guys and Dolls. GREAT JOB by everyone in the cast! I am so proud of you! I wish I could post a photo, but I don’t want to break the copyright law. Be seeing you

Here’s the link to Challenge #3. Previous posts on our class blog have links to Challenges 1 and 2. Please make sure you have completed at least one challenge. Check out the blogs of your schoolmates who have been noticed in the challenges! Check out your friends’ blogs. Read the list of kids around the globe who are participating in the challenge and visit one of their blogs. Leave a grammatically correct, thoughtful comment with a question and a link to your blog so that you can continue the conversation. Add a Student Blogging Challenge Widget to your sidebar.

Let me know when you have 100 visitors. That is our third blogging goal this year. When we reach our goal, we’ll plan our third blogging party!

Photo Credit: Olivander via Compfight cc

Student Blogging Challenges

Posted on March 11, 2013 by bdonofrio

Hey, Kids!

Kudos to Franklin, John, Cogan, and Hannah for completing the Blogging Challenge for week 1. You kids chose interesting people and thought up very intriguing questions. I was impressed!

In light of the novel we are reading this month, Under the Blood Red Sun, and in response to the Blogging Challenge from week 1, here is a letter written by an unnamed sailor from Pearl Harbor. Think about what we have read/learned about the attack so far, and read this letter.

Photo Credit: Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections via Compfight cc

What questions would you ask this soldier?

Here is the link to Blogging Challenge Week 2. You have lots of options, but one is to write about something you are passionate about. I’ll be working on this challenge, too! Deadline is next Sunday. Make sure you check out some of the blogs from other students around the world who are participating as well. Have fun! I’m looking forward to reading your posts.

Parade Magazine ran their annual “What People Earn” issue this week. They included a 27-year-old blogger who makes $18,000 a year. That could be you!

What do you think are the pros and cons of blogging for a living?

Blogging Challenges

Posted on March 4, 2013 by bdonofrio

Winners of First Annual Family Blogging Month Challenge

We instituted Family Blogging Month in February here at Hey, Kids! Each week we entered the names of everyone whose family member or friend commented on his/her blog. On Fridays in February, we drew the name of one lucky winner who received a few tasty treats and a No Homework Pass for language arts as well. At the end of the month, we gave prizes to the students with the:

Most Visitors (567)
Most Comments (200)
Farthest Visitor (Australia- multiple winners in this category. We had to draw a name again.)

These lucky winners received the No Homework Pass, some treats, AND a No Uniform Pass to use at their discretion.

Right on the heels of February’s Family Blogging Month is the Student Blogging Challenge in March. All my Kids should click on the link and write about this month’s challenge on their blogs. We hope to make some stellar connections with new friends around the globe.

What contests have you entered? What prizes have you won?

The Writing Life

Posted on February 15, 2013 by bdonofrio

Do you know anyone who makes his or her living by writing?

Some people make their livings as bloggers. Blogging is a type of writing gaining great popularity in the technologically driven modern world.

Other people make their livings as authors of books. They could write fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama.

Others write educational materials to help teachers and students learn as much as possible about the world around them.

We are investigating all these types of writing in our classroom this month.

In addition to launching our student blogs, we are writing stories, poems, dramas, biographies, essays, and even recipes about topics we love and then including complementary activities for teachers to use in their classes every year. This writing will be published in traditional, hard cover books. Our deadline is the Ides of March.

This week we divided ourselves into publishing houses. Each house will research, author, edit, illustrate, and publish its own book.

Here are some photos of us organizing our teams. After deciding on the subjects of our books, each author chose a topic, a genre, and an activity. Our upcoming books include:

Hoop Legends: Look for essays, biographies, and stories featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Dr. J, and Magic Johnson.
World Myths: You’ll find retellings of ancient myths from six of the seven continents.
Fabulous Food: Reach for this cookbook when you want a healthy recipe and an entertaining story about the dish.
Teddy Tours Ancient Greece: Teddy escapes his family again in the third book of the series Teddy Tours . This time the crazy canine cavorts around ancient artifacts in Athens.
Sports Around the World: Learn about the history, regulations, and athletes of netball, lacrosse, jai alai, motorcross, soccer, and baseball.

What do you think is the best part of being a professional writer?

What do you think is the most difficult part of being a professional writer?

Welcome, Grandparents!

Posted on February 3, 2013 by bdonofrio

Grandparents visited our classroom and toured the school to complete our celebration of Catholic Schools Week. We shared our blog with them, especially our slide show of Buddy Day. We also invited them to particpate with us in our first annual Family Blogging Month. Our goals are to encourage excellent writing skills and to facilitate the learning connection between home and school.

Let the blogging commence!

Blog launch

Posted on January 29, 2013 by bdonofrio

Our blogs are beginning to take shape. We have learned how to add photos to our posts and a ClustrMap to our blog. Both are fun to see. In the weeks to come, we will clean up the sample information, write a new About page, read other student pages, and begin a system of responding to comments. We are striving to do our very best at all times.

What do you think makes a great blog? What is your favorite blog?

Reaching our Goals, Top Ten, and Extra Credit

Posted on January 20, 2013 by bdonofrio

: Making friends around the world

After blogging for five months, we have attained our second goal: at least one visitor from all 50 states. Vermont was the last hold out. We are so excited! YAHOO! Here are some other HIGHLIGHTS from our blogging adventures:

10. We had a blogging party to celebrate reaching our goal. We set up the cafeteria like a movie theater with a concession stand. We had a theater style popcorn maker, soda, candy and chips. We watched a great movie, Facing the Giants. (We give it 5 stars.)

Extra Credit: What was your favorite scene in the movie? Why did you like it?

9. Also, as of today, Hey, Kids! has: 3429 visitors from 97 countries.

8. All 70 Kids have their own student blogs.

7. We’ve been consistently corresponding with the students and Mrs. Smith at Huzzah! and with Mrs. Krebs’ Class.

6. We’re getting ready for our first Family Blogging Month in February.

5. With the help of Hey, Kids! students and our blogging buddies at Huzzah!, Mrs. Donofrio gave a presentation about blogging at a conference at Disney World.

4. We are improving our writing and map skills. Check out the photo of our push pin map.

3. Our Teddy blog has 210 visitors from 8 states and 8 countries.

2. PhotoPeach slideshows.

and our number one highlight:

1. After 20 years, Mrs. Chonody reconnected with her friend due to our blog! See the comments in “A Diagram Race”.

Have you ever set and attained a goal? Tell us about your goal and how, or if, you celebrated your accomplishment.

Blue Ribbon Blogging

Posted on December 6, 2012 by bdonofrio

Hey Kids,

Thanks so much for writing comments on the last Disney post. I shared them with the participants at my blogging presentation, and I could see that they were visibly impressed with your writing as well as your thoughts. They also really liked our ClustrMap and talked aloud about our 1800+ visitors. They thought it was pretty cool just like we do. They enjoyed your Christmas oral reports and the Teddy book also. In fact, Mrs. Brennan asked for a copy of the Teddy Tours Venice book for her granddaughter.

Here are few more photos of what happened at the conference today. Our first speaker was Mrs. Deborah Phelps, the mother of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. She has been an educator for over 30 years. She has been a middle school principal. Neat, huh? I also attended a workshop about using iPads in the classroom; I will work on that over Christmas vacation so we can get that going in January. The other session I attended was about inclusion. That means that kids with all different learning abilities or disabilities come together in one classroom. Tomorrow Mrs. Gunther, Mrs. Brennan and I are visiting a middle school, and then we have one more session before it’s time to come home.

Meeting Mrs. Debbie Phelps at the Blue Ribbon conference

If you were a teacher, what would you teach other teachers at a conference?

I miss you! See you Friday,

~Mrs. Donofrio

Hey Kids! Wish you were here!

Posted on December 5, 2012 by bdonofrio

Hey Kids,
I am at Disney World now and am reading all of your Teddy comments. They are really nice, and I can see your writing progress. I have a balcony off my room that overlooks the Magic Kingdom. At 9:30 we saw a fireworks show in the sky above Cinderella’s castle and listened to music that was synchronized to the fireworks. Wish you were here!

Tomorrow I will present at the conference. I am a little nervous. It’s harder to talk to adults than to kids. Plus, I am little out of my element not being in my own classsroom. However, I am speaking about a topic I really like: writing, a.k.a. blogging! This is like an oral report for me!

Have you ever done something that was exciting but a little nervewracking? How did you overcome your nervousness? Did your event go as planned?

Hey Kids!

Reading+writing+thinking+learning+sharing= Blogging

Category Archives: Blogging