Student Blogs

Here are two blogs created by students. Click on the links below.

https://writereadfun.blogspot.com/

http://crislife2005.blogspot.com/

The Day The Crayons Quit Read Aloud with Students and Teacher

My students and I created a Camtasia project. We read aloud the book entitled The Day the Crayons Quit.  They captured video with my phone and I produced this video using Camtasia Studios. It was a a blast producing it. They did a great job reading aloud with prosody and expression!

TodaysMeet and Reading Response

I created a screencast using Camtasia to show how my class used TodaysMeet and Edmodo to record our reading responses to the book The Magician's Nephew.

Top 5 Goals!

Please take a gander at the link below. One of my students is a great soccer fan. He loves to watch soccer and play it. He produced his top five goals using Stupeflix and then brought it over to Camtasia to add voice narration. He chose the music and the sequence. He cut out the video pieces and edited them. Wow! It is so great to see him take this project and run with it. It is  definitely a GOLAZO!

http://uclesm.edublogs.org/2016/06/27/top-5-goals/

Summer

This is my last week of summer school. It has been good so far. I am really in the mood for some summer though. I am ready to rejuvenate and get back to little projects at home. I need to clean out my garage, go through papers and books, and clean up the place. I would like to have a garage sale, if possible. We will see.

The other part of my mini vacation will be to get some books read that I have been putting off. I would also like to travel a bit. We will see how all of this goes. Right now, I am feeling a little blah. The NBA Finals are over. There's only baseball to watch, and I don't watch it much at all. This is the meh season for sports. I will find something to get into.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

My beautiful and talented daughter has taken to blogging like me.  Recently, she submitted a blog post The Odyssey. It was published recently. This post was to serve as her present. What a great gift...the gift of her wonderful words.She shared it on Face Book and I decided to share the link of this post today on my blog. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/happy-fathers-day-to-mom  I hope you enjoy the post.

Making Memes and Connecting Them To Tuck Everlasting and The Magician's Nephew

Here are some memes that my students made today in summer school. Most of them are based on the books that we have been reading. We finished reading Tuck Everlasting and are now reading The Magician's Nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia.  They shared them on Edmodo. We are using the Chromebooks so it was super easy to share from their Google Drive.  We used imgflip meme maker to make our memes. They were so funny!

From The Point Of View Of Uncle Andrew

From the Point of View of Polly from the Magician's Nephew

From the Point of View of Digory.

From the Point of View from Kevin Durant

From the Point of View of Uncle Andrew.

Student Opinion

From the Point of View of Digory

From the Reader's Point of View from Tuck Everlasting

Reader's Point of View after reading Tuck Everlasting

Out of Sorts

Out of Sorts

by M Ucles

Summertime

No routine

to speak of

No craziness

No chaos

Not being pulled

a thousand places

in the blink of an eye

not here, nor there

feeling

rather

out of sorts

Top Ten Things To Do In Houston To Beat The Heat from Edublog

Top Ten Things To Do In Houston To Beat The Heat
My students and I have been posting on Edublog during this summer school session. Some have been posting top ten lists and other commentary on books that are reading and activities that they are experiencing.
In the link above, you will encounter my original post or just read below.  (Please note that these are the activities that I would do. Being outside on high ozone days is not good for my health.)

Top Ten Things To Do In Houston To Beat The Heat

Houston’s summers can be quite brutal. From 10 am to 8 pm, you feel like you are in a sauna or a conventional oven.  The humidity is down right offensive. The heat index may rise to 110! UGH! If you live in Houston, you really want to find ways to enjoy the summer, and most importantly, beat the stinkin’ heat!  Here are some cool ways to have some fun and beat the suffocating heat:

1. Make sure you stay in the air conditioning. So if that is the case, then going to the air conditioned museums would be a nice thing to do. The Houston Museum of the Arts is a great place to go to enjoy some great art work.  The Houston Museum of Natural Science is another great place to get away.
2. If you want to save some money, then go to one of the libraries in Houston. Spend some quiet time on the computer or browse some great books and magazines. There are come comfy places to lounge and be taken away to some other cool place in the world.  The air conditioning is to die for.
3. Catching a matinee at any of the movie theaters is a great idea. Don’t forget to bring along a sweater. It get really cold in the theaters. Some theaters are even offering discounted pricing for the old flicks. Chow down on some Goobers and popcorn. The Icy’s are waiting. Ahhh!  It is a great way to beat the heat.
4. Go to summer school at Westwood. We are offering a great way to get away from the heat in my class called the Blitz. You can browse the internet, create video productions, blog, and share your ideas with a wonderful learning community. Don’t forget about book club and poetry after lunch!  What a nice cool way to spend the day. Oh, and we have some indoor cool basketball to play just before lunch. Don’t sweat the heat! Join The Blitz.
5. The YMCA around Houston have indoor and outdoor swimming pools. You might want to take a dip earlier in the day or in the evening to beat Houston’s scorching heat.
6. Go out to breakfast at Las Locas Fajitas. They have the best breakfast tacos alive! My favorite is the egg, ham, cheese, and potato taco with a flour tortilla. Don’t forget the salsita and huge cup of refreshing iced tea!  Delicious and filling!
7. There are a zillion and a half restaurants in Houston that will allow you to beat the heat and get your grub on. If you are in the mood for some great fajitas and salsa that you could literally drink, I strongly recommend you going to Pappacitos. They have the most tender beef and chicken fajitas. The chips and salsa is to die for. The salsa can be used for the chips, but also to make some great fajitas mini burritos with the tortillas de harina(flour tortillas.)  The flour tortillas are made fresh daily and come piping hot to your table. 
8. If you want to go out to dinner and you have a hankering for some hamburgers, then I highly recommend Fuddruckers. Their hamburgers are enormous and their wide cut fries are perfect. Don’t forget to go to the toppings bar to get all of the pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes that your little heart desires. Plus, they have queso to put on the fries. One type of queso is normal and the other has jalapenos in it. I like the kick the jalapenos give it, I drench my fries in it instead of the usually ketchup. The air conditioning is wonderful too!
9. If the spirit is moving inside your bones, Houston’s churches, synagogues, and mosques all are air conditioned. It is another way to beat the heat and add some prayer to your life!
10. To beat the heat, you might want to go to the Memorial City Mall. There are a zillion stores to visit and an ice skating rink! You will get lost in all of the shops that it has to offer. Don’t forget to add a smoothie or some frozen custard to your agenda that day. It will definitely cool you off!

Camtasia and Google Slides-Magnolia's Pancakes

I made this screencast using Camtasia and Google Slides in presentation mode. I made it to show my students how to continue to screencast using different media to share on their blogs. As I was making the screencast, I noticed that I needed to revise my poem. I will send an update later on today.

Just Write, Baby! One...Two...Three...Go!: Summer School Blast

Just Write, Baby! One...Two...Three...Go!: Summer School Blast: I enjoy teaching summer school. I will allow you to have a peek into one of the classes that I teach for the summer school program. Each day...

Just Write, Baby! One...Two...Three...Go!: Magnolia's Pancakes

Just Write, Baby! One...Two...Three...Go!: Magnolia's Pancakes

Just Write, Baby! One...Two...Three...Go!: Top Five Plays

Just Write, Baby! One...Two...Three...Go!: Top Five: I made this video using Stupeflix Top Ten template. My students are having fun playing basketball. I tried to capture them making some bas...

Magnolia's Pancakes

Top Five

I made this video using Stupeflix Top Ten template. My students are having fun playing basketball. I tried to capture them making some baskets. This is what I have so far!

Summer School Blast

I enjoy teaching summer school. I will allow you to have a peek into one of the classes that I teach for the summer school program. Each day my students get to play some basketball games. They love to play Knock Out, Layup and Jumper Drills, and Pig, Chicken, and our favorite barnyard animal, Horse. Today they enjoyed shooting drills and Knock Out!  Here is the glimpse. (They are really improving!)

Journeying Notebooks and Media

Abydos Reading Week-Stretch to Sketch

I had the privilege to work with some students during summer school. I decided to embed in my summer school plans some Abydos Reading, Writing, and Grammar work. One of the ways that we experienced Abydos Reading Week was going through Sketch to Stretch. It is an reading activity that comes from the Compendium of Reading Strategies. Basically, the reader reads their text alone. Then he/she decides how he/she could better represent the themes in what he/she read. The reader interprets and then draws sketches and icons to represent metaphorically what he/she read. The reader then shows the small group audience his/her sketch. The audience then, one by one, interprets the icons and symbols. Then at the end, the reader explains his/her sketch. Basically, as readers we have to stretch our thinking. Each time that we read, we should be changed somewhat in our thinking. I complied a visual journey with photos and videos of my students working in small groups and sharing their thinking in Sketch to Stretch.

Basketball Video and Gif

I made these two media pieces using Stupeflix and Imgflip. It is my way to capture our time in summer school. Each day, my students cannot wait to walk to the gym and play some basketball games. Their favorite is horse. Today they played knock out and loved it. I tried to capture their enthusiasm.

Reciting Poetry Brought To You By The Blitz Crew

My students recited some poetry after lunch today. I caught it on video. It was written by Jim Hall. He took the perspective of Spider Man ranting with a speech impediment. I hope you enjoy!

Edublogs and Summer School

I used Edublogs all year with my class. I am continuing to use it with my summer school class called The Blitz. My students have created some videos using Camtasia that they are featuring on their Edublogs. They are having a great time getting footage to use in their digital journeys. Dr. Muri came in my classroom today when they were blogging. They were able to explain what they were doing. It was so much fun seeing them use  media. Here is a link to my Edublog http://uclesm.edublogs.org/  if you are interested in seeing some of their work.

Summer School So Far-The Blitz-Reading, Writing, Reflecting, Basketball, Making Video and Science

When I signed up to teach summer school, I liked the idea of it. You can make up your own curriculum and invite students. Sounds fun and not so difficult. Actually, it sounded great! I could make up my own curriculum and chose the students who I knew would love it. The problem I had though was I had to do invite during a time of high testing. I was hyper focused on prepping my students for the test and getting reading for the end of the year paper work extravaganza.

I invited students, but a little later than others who were more experienced with summer schools past. They were recruiting the students that I wanted to attend. I invited all the ones that I wanted, but some were going to other classes. In the end, I did get most of the ones that I asked.

I called it The Blitz. I thought the name apropos because we would do many exciting things in one day. I wanted to take advantage of ludic reading and writing. I also wanted to bring in my love of basketball, creating digital products and showcasing them on my students's blogs. If time would allow, we would also get in some hands on Science.

I am two days in and I really love this type of summer school. We decorated our multifunction notebooks. We have been reading and sharing our love of books. We write about what we want and share our writing too. In addition to that, we take about 45 minutes out of our morning to play basketball. My students get to shoot around and then we play horse. They love playing horse. I also am going to sprinkle in some skill lessons of dribbling, passing, jump shots, foul shots, layups, and a figure eight. I also have some other drills and games that they enjoyed in my after school basketball classes.  Then we have lunch. (They don't much care for the summer school lunches.) We come back for some poetry after lunch. (This idea comes from the Abydos Literacy Institute). We read a poem and analyze it. Then my students are working on making a video using Camtasia. They will take the footage that they gathered during the day with their cameras and produce a video to be uploaded on their blogs. They made their first Camtasia video today. I can't wait for them to showcase it tomorrow in their Edublog.  It will be so exciting for them. Finally, I leave a little extra time for them to play group games.  Then, poof! It is time to go!  Wow!  On some days, if there is time, we will work on magnets, circuits, creating crystals and chemical reactions.  They can take footage of that too!  We will see where we go!  I love this kind of summer school! So do my students!

The Forty Book Challenge

Here are some photos that I took of my students at the end of the school year. They were very proud to take the Forty Book Challenge. Many of them met the challenge. Some did not, but they read more than they ever thought possible. They became wild readers. That is what is most important. After reading Donalyn Miller's Book Reading in the Wild, I felt inspired to take the Forty Book Challenge and to use some of her ideas to share with my class this year. It has been a great journey. In addition to Donalyn's book, I used many ideas from Abydos Reading Week. These book are based on solid classroom research.