Mrs. Goucher's Class Blog

For challenge #10 we decided to write about our blog by evaluating our classroom blog so far. http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2011/11/21/challenge-10-evaluating-and-nominating/

So far this year we have created 13 posts on our classroom blog.  We changed our theme one time to make it different and so it would fit the personality of the classroom.  We really like the themes, but would like to have more to choose from.  It seems like there could be better use of space on the page of our blog.  There would be more room for widgets and other links.  We only have four widgets on our blog right now.  We do not want to crowd the page.   Anyways, we are working on some other projects that will eventually be posted to our blog.  Most of our posts are due to the Edublogs student challenge.  We have six posts that are projects our classroom did and we wanted to add to our blog.  Eight of our posts came from the student challenge, and one other post was in the beginning when we were just learning to blog.  We have recieved 108 comments so far this year from people around the world.  Our teacher challenged us to have our friends and family post comments and it worked!  Several family members from different states have posted comments!  Unfortunately we do not have any students or classrooms from other countries on our blogroll yet.  Could you help us out?  If you are from a country other than the United States, could you post a comment on our blog?  That way we can track you back and maybe add you to our blogroll!

We have some popular posts too.  Two posts get the most comments, Passionate Prickly Pear Jelly and Pueblo Villages of the Southwest.  Will and Kimberly did some research to create the Pueblo post and Mrs. Goucher worked on our Passionate Prickly Pear Jelly post.  We made the video though.  We think that these posts are popular because they are really interesting and people are interested in the Pueblo villages and making prickly pear jelly.  Plus we used some pretty cool technology resources.

We are all working on different posts, but Kimberly and Will’s post is the best.  They really enjoyed doing the research and posting cool facts about the natives.

Please help our class out.  If you are from another country and visit our site please leave a comment so we can find your blog and maybe add you to our blogroll!

by student bloggers Nicolas and Soledad, and photographer Rudy, written for Edublogs Student Challenge #6: Global Issues 

How do coupons benefit the consumer? How much money can you save on one shopping trip? These are the questions we are asked to explore in our coupon project. Our coupon project can help Project Help by getting household items we can donate.

Our class is doing a coupon project to see which two stores you can get the most items for free. We want to see which route cost the least amount of gas to help the environment at the same time. Our math teacher is also an extreme coupon-er. She has gotten lots of items for free to donate.

by student bloggers Rudy and Soledad for Blogging Challenge #8: Are you connecting?

We are in different fourth grade classes and this our first year involved in blogging. “I like that we get to meet a lot of new friends on the Internet,” says Soledad. Rudy added, “I like that you get to see a lot of comments that people make, and that you can see what other classes are doing and their special projects they are working on.” They both love that their families comment on their class blogs. Their families comment frequently, including parents and all their different aunts and uncles.

Their families learned about the blogs because the teachers have informed the parents, and because it was easy to find the blogs because they frequently link to each other. Then the relatives heard about all the cool things they are learning, so they wanted to see it too… and then they started commenting about their projects.

Does your family like to hear about what you are learning? If so, you should have them comment on the blog.

How do you get family participation on your blog?

by Izabell, Melissa, and Richard G.

Our class wrote a post last week about Arizona’s Natural Resources. Our challenge this week, is to be creative with our blog post. So, we used the ShowMe App on the iPad to create our post. Turn up your volume and listen to our discussion on the 5C’s:

What do you think would happen if Arizona had a shortage of one of their 5 C’s?

How does this relate to conservation of resources?

This post is written by the students of Mrs. Goucher’s class for Student Blogging Challenge #6 about global issues. The global issue that we are most affected by is about natural resources.

In Arizona we have 5 main resources that the state is known for called the 5 C’s.  They are cotton, cattle, citrus, climate, and copper.  Students researched each resource to find information about the topic.  We then discussed the importance of conserving our resources.  Here’s what each group had to say about their “C”.

Olivia’s group researched cattle.  Here’s what they found about cattle in Arizona:

The first cattle that were discovered were probably a few Andalusian heifers and a young bull  brought into America by a man named Gregorio De Villalobos in 1521.

Gregario De Villalobos originally got the in Santo Domingo, west, indies, where they had been bred from the original  Spanish herds.

Apache raids and the out break of the civil war put an end to early cattle ventures.

Hannah’s group researched cotton.  Sarah brought in some cotton she picked from a field! 

Cotton

Cotton is a versatile crop that has long been in demand for its unique qualities.  Arizona grows a variety called Pima Long Staple cotton witch was named as Native Americans of central Arizona.  Cotton can be made in to variety and fabric.  Cotton is the third c of Arizona.  The United State is the biggest exporter of cotton in the world.  More than one quarter of the cotton international commerce comes from the United States.  Cotton as far back a 100 A. D.  Arizona farmers grow enough cotton to make clothes for every man and women and child in the United States.

Here’s what Bailey’s group said about citrus:

Did you now citrus was the last of  the 5 C’s that contributed to growth in Arizona?

Columbus planted the the first citrus in the now world on his second voyage in 1493 to Haiti.

The west was the next region of the continental United States to grow citrus.

Did you now that AZ grows 170 oranges and lemons for every AZ residents ever year.

Did you now citrus in 1929 and 1930 made over $100,000 dollars?
The salt river valley was a good  location to grow citrus.

The first C of Arizona is cattle.  As you learned above it was introduced to Arizona along time ago.  It is an important resource that we must conserve.  As we grow as a state the cattle grounds are depleted.  We also have to worry about disease.  It’s a hard job to raise cattle.

The students discussed the importance of conserving copper, the second C of Arizona, and they said that  they felt that it is important to conserve copper because it  is used in everyday life.  The average human uses 1500 pounds of it in their lifetime.  We also discussed the importance of copper as an income source for many miners.  It’s important to conserve resources  so we have jobs for the people who work at the mine.

by Kimberly and Will

Our Edublogs Student Challenge #4 is to share what we want to learn more about and why. We chose to learn more about the Pueblo culture because we might learn about our own culture, and who inhabited our country before we became the United States.

The Pueblo lived in the “four corners” of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. The Pueblos were good at bonding with others, especially in hard times.

They went to war with the Spaniards who moved into their land and were ruling the area. In 1680, the Pueblo decided to join up with other Native American tribes to battle the Spaniards. It didn’t work because the Spaniards took over all of the Pecos Pueblo land, in 1692.

The Spaniards burned down all the statues of their gods and buildings. Many Native Americans were taken prisoners and later executed.

What did you learn about the Pueblos?

How do you think they influenced our culture?

What does it mean to be a good citizen? It means being safe, responsible, polite, and helping others in our world.

What does it mean to be a good digital citizen? It means being safe, responsible, polite, and helping others in our digital world.

We are learning about digital citizenship as part of the Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge #3. Blogging is brand new to us, and we are learning how important digital citizenship is. Here’s our video to share some of what we’ve learned so far:

What do think it means to be a good digital citizen?

What are some examples of digital citizenship?

Some rights reserved by dotlizard

If we could visit anywhere in the world, here are our choices:

Cierra wants to visit the Rain Forest because, she wants to see the animals, plants, and the different kinds of insects.

Kimmy wants to visit the rain forest because there are a lot of animals, rain, and we could learn a lot of animals names and were they come from, what they eat drink and how they survive in the wild, and it would be great.

Zoe wants to visit San Diego because I can see my friend, Jessica, and my brother.  I can go to the seashore and see my family and that is my dream.

Hunter wants to visit Africa because I have never been there.

Will wants to visit the movies because they do special occasions for schools.

Jessica wants to visit Paris, because she wants to see the huge, tall Eiffel Tower, that’s why she wants to go to Paris.

Annelyse wants to visit Chicago because her whole family lives there.

Some rights reserved by laszlo-photo

Sarah wants to visit Hawaii. It will be like a tropical and I could go snorkeling.

Melissa wants to visit California because it has lots of beaches and cool weather.

Rudy wants to visit Hawaii because he wants to go to the beach. It is a tropical island and they have cool volcanoes.

Faith would like to visit Hawaii because you can enjoy on the beach also you can have a fun day  to spent with your family.

Izabell would like to visit Hawaii because you can go to the beach.

Hannah wants to visit Los Angeles to go to the beach and hang out with my family and go to the clubs and see statues.

Zack would like to visit California because you can go to the beach.

Richard C wants to go to Spingerville because he has family that lives there that he hasn’t seen in a long time.

Richard G would like to visit Spain because he has never been there before so it will be awesome. He would like to see their soccer team.

Heath wants to visit China because he thinks it is interesting. He wants to see the Great Wall of China.

Some rights reserved by Jakob Montrasio

Jonathan would like to visit the moon because he can bounce in his space suit and he can drive in his space shuttle. He also can drive the space cars.

Jack would like to go to outer space because we could really learn about space.

Bailey would like to visit the zoo because she wants to see all the animals.

Ethan wants to go to the Phoenix Zoo because it’s fun.

Brandon would like to visit Magic Mountain because there are Looney Toon Characters there.

Do you want to visit any of the places we want to visit?