Expedition Music

Today we watched this video made by polar explorer Mark Wood:

We are so excited about his Skype in the Classroom   project where he continues his journey from the South and North Poles all the way to to the 'third pole' Mount Everest, in Nepal.  Mark is using this amazing adventure to speak on issues related to climate change and it's affects on the people of Nepal as well as around the world.

While Mark will be part of a team in Nepal, this video gives us a real idea of what it is like to go on a solo expedition...alone...for 50 days at a time...we did notice that he listened to lots of music...

So, for this week's Blogger Challenge I asked my students to write about what songs they would bring if they were going on an extreme solo expedition.
Check out their ideas here:
Ms Melanie's Class on Kidblog

What songs would you bring along and why?

This week we've started our Weekly Blogger Challenge.  Inspired by this post: Student Blogging Challenges written by blogging teacher extraordinaire Mrs. Ripp, we've decided to start our weekly after school activity with a Challenge.  The students are using their Kidblogs to share ideas...this week's challenge is motivated by this exciting Skype in the Classroom project with polar explorer Mark Wood.

Check out our comments:

http://kidblog.org/MsMelaniesClass/
 
What would you do if you were a polar explorer?

We've added Speakpipe to our blog which is a Voicemail widget where blog visitors can leave live recordings.
We were excited to discover two new voice messages this week.  One from Mr Richards--the Headmaster of our school and another one from the students in Room 7 from New Zealand.  You can hear their recordings here:

listen to ‘Mr Richards--Headteacher at BIS, Phuket’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Room 7--Vardon School New Zealand’ on Audioboo


Would you like to leave a live voice message for us?

Chinese New Year Celebrations

On Friday we celebrated Chinese New Year in school. A local dance troop came to school and put on a lion dance show for students.

Each lion is controlled by two men who move the head and body. Sometimes one man jumps on the other man's shoulders to make the lion look tall. The lions dance to rhythmic drumming that is very loud!

2013 is the year of the snake.  The snake is wise and can sometimes be greedy.

In Thailand we celebrate the new year with loud crackers in the streets!

What is your Chinese zodiac?

Quadblogging

Today we talked about Quadblogging and shared a student created video as well as this video by Quadblogging creator, Dave Mitchell, to give us a better idea of what it means to 'Quadblog.'


We talked about quality comments and brainstormed ways to create quality comments including:

• asking questions
• using full sentences
• making connections to your own life

We added our quadblog timetable to this blog and made our first official visit to Davyhulme Primary School in England; we also had a go at making some of our own quality comments. I think Quadblogging is a great way to share ideas and I enjoy seeing the fantastic ways teachers are using blogs in their classrooms for creative learning.
What do you like about Quadblogging?