Photo Caption Contest

One of my favorite writing activities to do with students is to provide them with a photo and ask them to write a caption for it. Yesterday, I shared a photo of a squirrel that I found on Pinterest (of course!) and asked them to write away. Not only did they love the activity, we all loved the captions they came up with.

I told my students that I would choose a few of their captions and ask the world to vote for a winner. Unfortunately, there were just too many to narrow down the choices to even a top five. So, dear reader, I need your help. Would you be so kind as to select your two favorite captions in the form below? If there is no clear winner, then I’ll create a second form with fewer choices.

Thanks so much for your help!

The Teacher’s Desk 8-28-14

The Teacher’s Desk 8-27-14

The Teacher’s Desk 8-26-14

I decided to try something new with my teacher’s desk this year. One of the student jobs that I have for my students to do each week is Quote Writer. One pair of students has to find at least one inspirational quote each week to share with the class. Last year, students were supposed to find a quote and add it to a Tumblr blog that I had created. That proved to be rather painful. I spent too much time trying to get students to do that job.

Then inspiration struck! I decided to paint my teacher’s desk with chalkboard paint and then ask my Quote Writers to write their quote on the teacher’s desk with chalk. How motivating is that! And it looks fabulous!

Thanks to Lindsey and Katie H. for being the first to add a quote to the teacher’s desk!

Welcome Back!

You know it’s going to be a great first day back at school when God welcomes you back in a blaze of glory!

The Results Are In

More than 100 people from around the world voted in our Photo Captions Contest last week.  I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to vote on our captions and share with you the winning captions.

Congratulations to the students whose captions were chosen!

Photo Captions Contest

Recently, my seventh graders were asked to write one caption for each of the seven photos in the Google Presentation below. I explained to my students that I would select five captions for each photo and then ask people to vote for their favorites. We hope you’ll take a moment and vote for your favorites in the Google Form located below the photos.

Thank you!

Drop It Here!

In case you haven’t seen this posted on Edmodo yet, I thought I would also share this screencast here (you know how much I love to make screencasts!). If you have been unable to bring your camera or memory card back to school with you (or perhaps you have memory issues of your own), try using Drop.io. It’s a website that allows you to share large files or large quantities of files without the need of a flash drive or multiple (highly annoying) emails to your teacher! You can learn more about this website in this screencast:

Spring Has Sprung

I’m sure this will come as a shock to everyone, but my favorite newspaper, online or off, is the Boston Globe. One feature that I especially enjoy is called The Big Picture where they present a story using a series of amazing photographs. Monday’s edition of The Big Picture was a beautiful look at spring using photos from around the world.

One of my favorites is this colorful picture of pure joy:

Photo by Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian

You can check out the rest of the Globe’s spring photos on their website: Signs of Spring. Don’t miss the photo of the adorable twin brown bears!

Mauritania?

I don’t have my list with me for our seventh grade Africa project, but if anyone has Mauritania for their country you should love this! One of the astronauts currently orbiting our planet in the International Space Station took a picture of western Africa this morning.

If you click on the photo you’ll be taken to a larger and clearer view of the image.

For those who have other countries to research, or if you’re interested in viewing any images taken from space, be sure to visit the Nasa Images site. They have some absolutely amazing photographs on their site!