Turn off The Screen, Kind of Ironic...

In our 21st century class, we've been having a unit on being healthy, (remember the flu videos?). To wrap up the year, we made websites. On healthy living for kids. Mine is called, Turn Off  The Screen And Go Out And PLAY! Kind of ironic for a website... Anyways, enjoy my website.

Longer School=Less Homework, Right?

         In my opinion, homework is the absolute worst thing about school. If it weren't for that darn homework, I really wouldn't mind school one bit. Here's my plan. We eliminate homework altogether by making school an hour or so longer. Here's why. That last hour of school could be more of a study hall time (Which any of the kids in band in my school don't get, which we think is bogus.) The teachers could be there to help us when we ran into problems with our homework, so we don't have to stay up until 1 am trying to do our math.

       It could work like this. Teachers could assign homework just like they always do, and then an hour before school was over, all the students and teachers could head down to the cafeteria and have a huge study hall. This way, if you don't understand something, you could get it explained to you, by the teacher who assigned it to you. Then, if you still don't finish your homework, you could take it home and do it there, (and at least you'd have a better understanding of it.)

        Some people are totally against this plan. I can kind of see their points, but I sure do not agree with them. A lot of people against this plan think that homework should be done at home, and that's just the way learning is. Some of them also would rather have more of their after-school time free to do other things (it's not really free if you have buckets of homework...) And lastly, some of them just like doing their homework in the quiet of their own home without lots of other kids there.

       So, who's with me? Who'd rather have more school and less/no homework? It'd help you to make sure you got it done, and understood it, and it frees up the rest of your evening. I think it's a great plan... how about you?

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What do you think? Do you like my plan? Do you have a different (possibly) better idea? Do you already do something like this at your school? Are you already out for summer vacation? Please post your answers in a comment, because I sincerely do care about your opinions.

Into the Wild

What happens when you add:
    34 teens +
     5 annoyed adults +
     A WHOLE lot of chips and salsa +
     and a dorm room cut off from everyone else's =

    An amazing week at an environmental learning center (and some hi-larious Man Vs. Wild remixes....) Last week my eighth grade class went on a week long over night trip to an environmental learning center in northern Minnesota. It was absolutely fantabulousyawesome (If that's even a word). Anyways, there was never time to be bored, because we were:

That's me on the ropes course ☺

• Rock-Climbing
• Ropes-Coursing
• Hiking
• well... learning :)
• Chips and salsa eating
• Truth or Dare playing
• Star tipping
• Endless talking.....
• Picture taking (duh ☺)
• Getting Lost
• Playing Frisbee

        This list goes on and on and on. One of the best things at ELC wasn't a class. It was our liaison, Danny. Danny was very interesting to say the least. He just came to Minnesota in August from England, and he looked like Harry Potter! (Maybe he was secretly Daniel Radcliffe) Danny also taught our birds class, and showed us his bird mating dance. We were about to pee ourselves with laughter.

I'm the short one on the end

        One of my other favorite things at ELC was a class called Voyageur life. We all got a character and had to remain completely in character for the whole three hour class. (Lucky for me I got to play the only American character because everyone else had to attempt to use French accents.) My character was Mr. Daniel Harmon, the American clerk for the Northwest Company. We hiked in sleet to this replica voyageur camp and made biscuits and played voyageur games. It was really fun, but my toes were very numb afterwards.☺
Speaking of coldness, the weather there was really weird. The first day it was almost 70 and we were wearing shorts, the next morning we woke up and it was snowing. Only in Minnesota...

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Have you ever been on a field trip where you've stayed over for a week? Does where you live have as wacky of weather as Minnesota? Have you ever been to an enviromental learning center? Do you like my blog's new make-over? Please comment with your answers! ♥♥♥♥

Photo Websites

This Photo is from Pics4Learning

When I was younger and we'd have to get a picture for something, I'd always just go to Google Images search it, and copy/paste it into my Word Document. I didn't realize that some of those photos could've been copyrighted, and I was plagiarizing. Of course though, they are not going to fine a fourth grader. For our assingment today we had to go to several copyright-free photo websites. My favorite was comp fight, because it reminded me of google images. It feels a lot easier to me, and seems to have more selection than flickr creative commons. The only problem I faced on that site was that it kept freezing up. (That could've just been my computer though) I also liked the site Pics4Learning. It has a lot of photos that are availible for students to use on projects. It nicely narrows the pictures down into categories that make the ones you need easy to find.

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Do you have any copyright free photo sights you like to use? Did you enjoy this post? After reading this, do you feel that you have ever plagerized? Please answer these questions in your comments!

Joining Up

In today's world, when the Internet is a huge thing, social networks are huge. I mean, if you're reading this, you're on one right now! Out of my class of 40 something, I think about all but five of my classmates have Facebooks. Half of them have blogs, and every one of my classmates has an email. That's a lot. For part of the Blogging Challenge, we were to answer these questions... Enjoy :)




Photo By: Asthma Helper



Q. What Internet sites have you joined?

A. A LOT! I'm on Blogger (duh), Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Neopets, Snapfish, Piknik, Youtube and probably twenty more...

Q. How much info do you give out on those sites?

A. Umm.. I try not to give out much. I normally stick to my first name, state, and age.

Q. Have you filled in the asterisk questions? (with this*)

A.Sometimes. Not if it seems usless/dangerous.

I then websearched my name and my town to see what I could find.

Q. What did you find?

A. I found out that I am in the paper... a lot. Sports stuff, honor roll, and random things from when I was little. I was also apparently in some ads for my school when I was like five.

Q. How many footprints are you leaving behind?

A. I'm not sure. Probably a lot. A lot of times when you're little, people say that your parents can start the footprints for you, but my parents aren't online very often, and I'm not sure if they even had a computer when I was born, so I'm almost positive that they wern't posting baby pictures online. :)

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 What about you? Do you have a Facebook? What sites have you joined? Are you careful about how much info you give your viewers? Search Yourself, and try to answer the following questions in a comment please :)

Visit These

Hi Guys... Yesterday I went out visiting blogs. I found some very cool ones that I want you to see:

•  Okay, the first blog you should look at is Kara's. I really like her blog, and she put an interesting post in Swedish :) Her blog is http://shskaraf.global2.vic.edu.au/ Check it out!
•  Another blog that I like is Megan's. (She's in my class) She always has interesting posts and videos, and Meagn has a really cool background. Megan's URL is http://ritzcrackermegan.blogspot.com/ 
•  Okay, the last blog I found yesterday that I liked was Weyshan's. She lives in Vietnam and uses her blog to tell more about Asia. I learned that where she lives, they only have two seasons! Her blog is http://shanyung2015.edublogs.org/ 

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I'm sure these guys would really appreaciate your comments, so visit their blogs. (They are all in the Student Blogging Challenge) Go out and check out some blogs, and let me know if you find any cool ones. Just add their URL as a comment so I can visit them. Have fun, and you might just find something in common with someone!

Enjoy my strange little sister... lol

My Blog in Review...

This week for the Student Blogging Challenge, I am going over this past history of my blog. I've written some funny things:

• Fred the hot-tempered mouse...

I've written some interesting things

• Construction Work Go Away!

I've also written the straight facts.

• Another Recount?
  Of course though, if am going to recommend a post to you, it has to be my favorite post of all time All Because of a Cookie. It is the interesting story of me, my mom, and my grandma, trapped in a car behind an accident in a blizzard coming back from the Mall of America, all because of a cookie. If you are going to take time out of your day to read it though, you should really read Hooky first, and the read She Still Gets That Cookie. Confusing? Good.

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Do you have any interesting posts that you've written? Any interesting shopping trips with your grandmothers? :) Comment letting me know what posts you have that i should read, and why I should read them...

Doodle 4 Google

            Last week, our teacher decided that we are going to enter the Doodle for Google contest. You design a logo for Google following the theme, " What I'd like to do someday..." We saw the winners from past years, and they got to go to the Google Studio in New York. They also won a college scholarship a graphic design tablet and a laptop computer. I really want to to win... but I'm not going to get my hopes up. I think being in this contest will be a great experience.

Hello My Name is ______ and I'm a Shopaholic.

Photo By: zoenet

          This week in 21st Century, We are learning about spending money. That is something I like to do. Unfortunately, a lot. There are two kinds of people in this world, spenders or savers, and I think we all know what category I'm in. We went to the U.S. mint website, and played some games and took quizzes on spending money. Go to tips for teens, and try the Spending Challenge. It was a challenge for me alright. You're supposed to see how much money you have left after a certain amount of weeks. I think I went into the negatives. I took the Money Quiz, and got Spender. Like I didn't already know that. H\ello, My name is Hannah, and I am a shopaholic.

This Year in School...

By Bart Everson

            This year in school, I have been doing pretty well. I definitely did better than last year. I mostly like all my classes, except for math. I think math is boring. I’m not bad at it, but I really don’t like it. Right now in math we are learning about factoring polynomials. Blech.

           I like religion, because it's really fun, and right now we are making soap operas. (Long story… will post them later) They class I hate most though, is band. I like playing my instrument, but that’s all I want to do, I don’t want composers worksheets, and I really don’t want to practice. Double Blech. Other than that, I pretty much like all my classes.

Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Do you have a special Valentine?

National Debt....

             As you probably know, our national debt is huge. Really huge. If we spilt up our debt, there would be $200,000 for every man, woman and child to pay. But Why?

We are self indulgent

We spend money we don't have

We need to lower our debt, or else other countries will stop lending us money, and we'll be even worse off. 68% of our borrowed money is from other countries, and they are getting impatient.

Obama refuses to pass this problem on to another generation

Doing nothing is not an option, and we need to lower the national debt.

But what I don't get is:

Why’s the deficit so high?

What is it we are paying for?

Was there something huge that started the debt?

When we were in the green with Clinton, why?

How can we pay back other countries without raising taxes?

 

TACKLE THE FLU!

http://www.lincolncountyhealth.com/PH/FluPage.htm

        This past month for class, we've had to make flu prevention related public service announcements. I was in a group with Megan, Jacob and Tim. We definitely had an interesting time. Tim played our flu germ, but we couldn't figure out how to portray the flu. We ended up just making a giant paper germ and hanging it around his neck. We weren't sure people would be able to tell what he was, so we had to make a sign too. Unfortunately, Tim's costume kept ripping and we had to use packing tape to fix it. Paper probably wasn't the best choice. 

       I hope you enjoy our video, we spent a long time on it. If you want to see some of our classmate's videos as well, they are on http://vimeo.com. Just search flu prevention under groups. These videos were made for a contest online. The winners get $1,000 for their school. Wish our group luck! Winners are announced February 11th. Enjoy our video:

 

Tackle the Flu from sharleen berg on Vimeo.

Catholic School's Week

         This week is Catholic School's Week. It's like spirit week for Catholic School kids, but ironically we have spirit week, too. The real reason for Catholic School's Week is so the staff can try to get a whole bunch of people to register for St. Mary's next year. My mom and I came in on Sunday to lead tours of the school. We only got to lead one tour in the hour and a half because the people asked so many questions. We were successful though, because right after the tour, they registered! During Catholic School's Week, we do lots of fun things. Today, for example, we have to dress up as book characters. I'm Jesus. Sadly, only three people in my whole grade dressed up. Party Poopers. Tomorrow is Era Day, and I'm wearing a poodle skirt and saddle shoes. Wednesday, each grade is wearing either red, white, or blue and then when we are at church, someone will go up in the choir loft and take our picture, because we'll look like an American flag. Thursday we'll be in camo, because it's support our troops day. Friday, we're wearing sports  clothing. Look's like fun!

Why I Love Going to St. Mary's!

     
        Yes, I go to St. Mary's...I think its a great school. I've been going to St. Mary's since preschool, so I've been there for ten years, and that's a lot of my life! I wouldn't spend that much time at someplace I didn't like (unless my parents made me...)  I like St. Mary's for the obvious reasons... small class sizes...Catholic teaching...etc. But I also enjoy St. Mary's for other reasons. My friends are there, and if I went to public school, I'd probably be an invisible nobody. At St. Mary's, there are less than 40 eighth graders, so everybody knows everything about everybody. That can be a positive or a negative thing, because good and bad things about you can spread quickly. Overall, St. Mary's is a great school, and I will be very sad when I go to the public High School next year.

I'm... Czechoslovakian

http://www.everyculture.com/Cr-Ga/Czech-Republic.html

   
     Most of my family came from Czechoslovakia. In Czechoslovakia people eat a lot of different things, that I find gross and funny looking, but I'm sure that most of them think the food we eat in america is weird too.
Here's some some food that I think sounds most interesting:

• Smetane: sour cream 
• Pudink: pudding
• Kapr: carp
• Kynute Houscove Knedliky: yeast dumplings with sauteed bread cubes blended into the batter before steaming.
• Husa: goose
• Bramborove Knedliky: potato dumplings

Well... pudding and sour cream sounds okay to me, but the rest not so much. For sports, they have a lot of the same sports as America. Czechoslovakia has football, baseball, some tennis players (woo!!) and a nice ice hockey team. On another note, the most popular name for a boy in Czechoslovakia is Jakub, and for a girl, its Tereza. In America, the most popular baby name for a boy is Aidan, but for a girl its Sophia.

So.. that's my ethnic heritage! I'm am also a mix of...

1.  Irish
2.  Norwegian
3.  German

So that just proves that America is a great big mixing pot :)

Prezi...

Nanobots on Prezi

Fred, The Hot-Tempered Mouse

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21599153@N00/123885782
by: Andi

       In my house, there lives a hot tempered mouse. His name's Fred. Fred G. Baker. He works part time for minimum wage at a shoe string factory in the crummy part of town, in the hole under the bathroom sink.  Every morning he makes his commute up the stairs, over three rooms, through the kitchen and into the bathroom.  He was a wife and five children, and as you can imagine, with a part-time, minimum wage job, it's not easy to make ends meet. Everyday at work his task is to put the plastic ends on the tip of the shoestrings. That seems like a pretty simple job, but noting is ever simple for a mouse. One day, he registers his name being called. FRED!! FRED G. BAKER!!! It was is his boss, Mr. K. Ratt. Fred has been assigned a job. He is to go and get extra wax from the neighboring factory. That means (gulp) that Fred has to cross... the yard. Fred sets off across the yard cautiously. He is wondering why the yard seems so quiet. Then as if out of nowhere... Stacey, the neighbor's black and white cat appears.(double gulp) There's a meow and a flash of claws and fur. Poor Fred the hot tempered mouse is never heard from again.

Once Upon a Snowman

The End.....

Photo Fun!

      Why should we use photos when blogging? Well like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words... and when you add pictures to your post, it makes it much easier to understand the point that they are trying to get across. Such as if I say, Becca ate cookie monster, you wouldn't know what I meant, but if I said Becca ate cookie monster and then included this photo of my little sister devouring her cookie, it makes it much easier to understand:

 

See? Now you get what I mean! If you didn't, I'd say you are pretty clueless... just kidding.

Another thing to keep in mind when blogging is attribution. I didn't put any attribution on the photo above, because I took it. That doesn't really mean its mine though, because I don't have it copyrighted. If someone wanted to, they could just take it off my blog. I'd be mad if they didn't use attribution...keep that in mind. :)

Here's an example, let's say I'm posting about something random (as I usually am), and for some odd reason, I just have to have a picture of a glass of water (don't ask me why), and I went on and posted a photo like this:

Now that's a great picture, but I didn't do it right, because I didn't add attribution. Now let's try again:

Photo taken by Greg Riegler

See, that's better! Get it now??

And She Still Gets That Cookie...

          After all of our trauma on Friday, I just assumed that Becca wouldn't be getting her cookie. I assumed wrong. As soon as we got home from our wickedly long drive back, the first thing out of little Becca's mouth was, "Where's my cookie?" Of course. We just drove for four hours and got stuck behind an accident because of your stupid cookie, but before you know it Mom is off to Hy-Vee. Becca is now happily enjoying her cookie. She is so freakishly protective of it, she didn't even want me to take a picture of it. It might "ruin" it.

          I don't really think Becca needs that cookie. I mean she obviously has more than enough sugar and energy for three kids. And come on, look at it. That monster has at least two inches thick of frosting in it. As my mom calls it, "A frosting sandwich." As I call it, "A heart attack between two cookies." Becca calls it her little frosting baby. You  have to admit though, its a pretty cute cookie.

AAAHH!!! I'm being eaten alive! I'm too cute to die!!