Congratulations to the winners in our Cats in Hats Contest!
Funniest
Bulos (7th Grade)
Most Creative
Samantha (6th Grade)
Most Dr. Seuss Like
Trinity (6th Grade)
Cats in Hats Winners!
Reply
Cats in Hats
In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, the 6th & 7th graders created animated Cats in Hats. Using an image of the Cat in the Hat without a hat that was shared by Becky C. on Elementary Tech Teachers, each student used Paint.NET to create from 3-10 different hats for the cat. Once the hats were complete, students headed over to Picasion and uploaded their images to create their animated GIF.
Which do you think are the funniest? The most Dr. Seuss-like? The most creative?
Vote for your favorites!
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If you want to see a larger version of an animation, right click on an image and View or Open Image. You may need to use the back button on the browser to return to this page.
Have you voted for your favorites? Please Vote!
In addition to creating Cats in Hats, students also wrote a poem in the style of Dr. Seuss to describe their hats. If you want to check out the poems just click on any of the animated images and you will be taken to the student’s post on their ePortfolio site.
2012-13: Quarter 1
Here’s a recap of what 7th grade did during the 1st Quarter of the 2012-2013 year:
- Self Portraits: The first thing that classes do every year is to create their self-portrait and 7th grade is no exception. In 7th grade, self-portraits are used as avatars in Edmodo.
- Keyboarding Speed Assessment: At the beginning of each year students take a series of speed tests and calculate their average speed to see what their current typing speed is. They will be taking additional assessments during the year to see if their speed has improved.
- International Dot Day: All grades (Kindergarten-8th) participated in International Dot Day this year. In 7th grade, students had to create a dot that represented how they wished to make their mark in life and then they wrote a short essay about what their dot represented, how they planned to achieve their goals and who they felt might mentor them in the process.
- Excel Crossword Puzzle: Middle School students are required to create a crossword puzzle for an English assignment. To help them with this, they learn how to create a crossword using Excel.
- PowerPoint Animal: As a fun activity, 2nd grade through 8th grade, used PowerPoint to create animals using simple shapes based on the How to Draw Funny Cartoons site. This was a good review of using the shape tools and background formatting tools in PowerPoint.
If you are interested in more details about any of the assignments for the 1st Quarter, you can read more about them on our wiki. If you’re interested in what our finished projects looked like, check out our 7th Grade Quarter 1 posts on our ePortfolio sites:
Favorite Middle School High-Tech Hearts
The top two winners from each class are now in the Middle School Favorite Valentine Hearts final! Review the winners from each class (click on image to see a larger version) and then vote for your favorite!
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Weekly Opinion: Social Media & Age 13
According to Facebook’s Terms of Service, “You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.” and according to Tumblr’s Terms of Service, “Subscriber certifies to Tumblr that if Subscriber is an individual (i.e., not a corporate entity), Subscriber is at least 13 years of age. No one under the age of 13 may provide any personal information to or on Tumblr (including, for example, a name, address, telephone number or email address). ” and according to Xbox LIVE’s Terms of Use, “The Service is not intended for use by children under 13 without adult supervision“. Almost every site that requires registration of any kind will have terms of service similar to these and in fact, some require users to be 16 or 18.
Add a reply to this post and talk about why you think these sites have set 13 as the age where you are allowed to set up your own account? Do you think it is fair that you are either not allowed to use an Internet site or must be supervised on the site until you are 13 years old? Why or why not? Make sure you reply in complete sentences using proper grammar and spelling.
Weekly Opinion: Plagiarism
Take a look at the infographic below (click on it for a larger image) and then add a reply to this post and answer the following questions:
- What is plagiarism?
- Why does plagiarism and academic honesty matter?
- How could plagiarism effect your life and the lives of others?
Courtesy of: Schools.com
Favorite 7th Grade High-Tech Hearts
Each year billions of Conversation Hearts are sold for Valentine’s Day. Since food and computers don’t mix, St. Martin’s 7th graders created their own High Tech version of conversation hearts! Please visit each of the 7th graders High-Tech Hearts posts below and then vote for your favorite High-Tech Conversation Hearts. If you are a St. Martin’s 7th Grader, vote for your favorite that are NOT yours! If you are using Google Chrome as your browser, you may get a security warning about insecure content; it is okay to load the content.
Our High-Tech Hearts
Weekly Opinion: Tweeting on a Field Trip
We have talked about the fact that what you post online is often much more public than you might intend it to be. Read this article and/or view this video about a teen who was thrust into the national spotlight because of a joking comment she made on Twitter.
What do you think about this? Do you think this was a private or public matter? Do you think the Governor’s office overreacted? Would you have apologized if this had been you? How private do you think things that you post online are? Add a comment on this post and voice your opinion.
If you are interested in what happened, check out this article and this one.
Weekly Opinion: Favorite 1st Semester Assignment
Visit your ePortfolio site and check out the assignments that you completed in the first semester to decide which was your favorite. Don’t forget that creating your ePortfolio site was also a first semester assignment!
Decide which was your favorite and add a reply to this post telling me which was your favorite and why. Use only your first name and do not enter an email address. Remember to use complete sentences and proper grammar and spelling.
Our ePortfolio Sites
We are showcasing our work this year on ePortfolio sites that we are creating using Google Sites. Please visit and let us know what you think about our sites and our work. Click on our names to visit our sites and please leave your comments here because you can’t comment on our sites directly.