How to write a quality comment

Today Miss H's writing group was looking at what makes a good comment - we'll be commenting both on blogs and in KnowledgeNET so it's important that we know how to do it!

We'll share our success criteria once we finish with you tomorrow but in the meantime, check out this video from America that we found through one of our quad blogging friends. 

Here are some things to think about:

1. Compliment the writer.
2. Add new information.
3. Make a connection with the writer.
4. End with a question.
5. Re-read your comment and check it!

Quad blogging has begun again!

Hi everyone,

Today is the first day back to quad blogging for the year!!

Check out Bradford Moor Primary, UK and leave them some awesome comments introducing yourselves!

Hub 3's package from St johns Vianny

Hi everybody!

Last term we were quad blogging with St John Vianny, as some of you know, we skyped and asked them decided to exchange packages with them. We were so excited to get inside that package! Just to let you guys know we are working very hard to get this package together. We want to get this package over to you as soon as possible!

Thanks Guys so much!

P.S those lollies look yummy!

we hope you enjoy ours!

Dasha, Dani and Ollie

New shade for the playground!!

Hi i'm Michelle and i'm one of the year 5s in Hub 3.

I'm here to talk to you about the new shade on top of the playground. The FOSS have been working really hard to get this shade for the playground.  They had to get lots and lots of donations. Everyone in the school is really excited to have this shade because it will stop us getting sunburnt!  Here are some photos I took of the shade and the playground.

Darkling Beetles

Hi guys it's Ben here,

I've just been researching about Darkling Beetles.
Darkling female beetles lay anywhere from 400-800 eggs!
The adult lives for a few months. The entire life cycle takes about a year.

Isn't that interesting!

Day One, 2012

Hello,

We are Matthew (Matty - year 7), Jackson (year 7) and Bodhi (year 5) and we're here to tell you about our first day at school in 2012!  For two of us (Bodhi and Jackson) it's our very first proper day at Stonefields but Matty started here at the end of 2011.

We have had heaps of fun so far today and are hoping to have an even better time throughout the year!!

When we woke up this morning some of us were feeling a bit nervous and excited.  It was great for some of us to see the people we already knew and catching up with each other.

Today we talked about what we need for the day and the year and organised our things.  We had to be detectives and really got to know lots about each other.  We had a fun time introducing ourselves.

Later in the day we did a maths test and a lot of people showed determination to do their best!

We're looking forward to this year continuing and getting to know each other better.

How was your day?  Ours was FANTASTIC, AWESOME and BRILLIANT!

See you later Aligator, Jackon, Bodhi and Matthew

The pupa have transformed into BEETLES!

Hi everyone, it's Ben and Tobias here.

We arrived back at school today and we checked the mealworms (which had been living with Miss H). We saw over 100 beetles! We also gathered around 20 pupa that are going to turn into beetles.

We were excited to finally see some beetles and were extremely surprised about the number of beetles!

When the beetles are first born, they are a light colour and then they turn brown before turning black. We noticed that the beetles like to hide in the dark places - the egg cartons make great homes for them, where they like to live in big groups.

We have to be careful because if we leave the pupa or beetles in with the lavae, because they might eat them!

The next step in the process is the reproduction. Soon they will lay eggs (they might have already because they're so small we can't see them!) and they'll turn into baby mealworms for us to feed our bearded dragon, Sid.

Thanks for reading - we'll tell you more soon.

Tobias and Ben

Knowledge or Imagination?

Spreading the blogging love...

This time last year, many of us in LH3 were brand new to blogging (myself included!)  It's amazing to think back on how much we've learnt and benefited from sharing our learning with the world in less than a year.

With that in mind, I'm especially proud to share this message with you all...

What do you think LH3?  Are we up to the challenge of helping a new class get their blog established?

You've all learnt so much and will have great ideas and hints to share.  Some of you might even like to put together a presentation (edu.glogster, wordle/tagxedo, prezi, google presentation, video message... the possibilities are limitless!) that could be shared with Room 15 (a year 7/8 class down in Wellington) ahead of talking with them.  

I'm sure they'll have lots of questions for you too, so we'll need to think back to the questions we had when we first started blogging and try to foresee what they might ask us.  What information is most important to share with them in your opinion?

How exciting!

Banana 2.0

Here's a bit of light-hearted humour for you!

A little bit silly but I thought some of you might enjoy this graphic showing the many uses for a banana.  

I wonder who can work out what a 'covert operation' is?

Do you know what 'potassium' is and why they've placed it here?

This graphic was put together by a friend of mine who studied graphic design - what a neat job getting to put together a whole lot of fun images!!

She's suggested it's best viewed whilst listening to this song...

Stephen Wiltshire: The Human Camera

Well it's just about that time of year again - we've been in at school (the teachers and our fabulous Office Wizard) getting organised for 2012 and can't wait for you all to join us!

We've been talking quite a bit about strengths and talents... of course everyone has certain things that they're particularly interested in and special talents and skills.

I came across a photograph of some artwork by Stephen Wiltshire tonight and was instantly taken aback.  I won't say much more but I suggest you watch these videos.

Have a think for a moment about what an amazing talent Mr Wiltshire has - I know I certainly couldn't do what he does!  

Skills and talents come in all shapes and sizes... be brave enough to keep pushing to discover and better yours.

Enjoy the last of your holidays everyone.  See you on Tuesday!