January
13
Looking Forward to 2022!
My students recently created a Vision Board for the new year. Do you share a vision? If so, leave a comment on the Padlet wall!
January
13
Looking Forward to 2022!
December
6
Teenage Years…Difficult?
October
28
And…we’re BACK!
To say that the past 18 months have been a little crazy would be an understatement. Like every part of the world, our community and school have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately for us, with safety measures in place, our school district has been in session!
We have now ended our first 9-weeks for the 2021-2022 school year. Routines have been established in my class and we are moving along with reading and writing. My Advanced Language Arts students are beginning their blogging experience. View this slide show to learn a little bit about them. I invite you to take a look at their blogs and check back often!
February
8
Student Portfolios
Hello! Welcome to my class blog. I welcome you to check out this Wakelet to see my students’ digital portfolios.
You are also invited to view my students’ individual blogs, linked in the sidebar to the right. 
September
21
Who has the best students?
September
17
💭💻Blogging Experience & Pointers!!💻💭
Hello Bloggers!
If you didn’t know already, my name is Alivia. I have participated in the Student Blogging Challenge twice, with one of my posts being featured the second time. The Student Blogging Challenge is a friendly competition where you have your own blog and create posts that collide with the prompt along with the week’s topic. In this post, I am going to be sharing my past experience and some pointers for you to look out for when competing.
Blogging Experience
During my first year of competing in the Student Blogging Challenge, I honestly wasn’t very into it. Back then, I was not as passionate about writing as I am now. But, I participated and I followed every prompt and topic. It wasn’t until my second time participating where I strived to be featured on their site.
When my second time taking part in the challenge took place, all I wanted was to get featured on the Student Blogging Challenge site. And I did, eventually. But before that, there were some really fun posts where I was able to put my hardest work into. Like the emoji week, Earth Day week, and the Schools Around the World week.
The topic of the week when I got featured was Catch Up or Free Choice. For that prompt, I created a post about my dog – who is now six – Nikki. I wrote about when I got her or when her birthday is or and this one absolutely amazing trick she can do. This was, that she was able to climb up the ladder of my treehouse (It’s not actually a treehouse, it’s on the ground but that’s not important. I just wanted to clarify that because I am politically correct😊) and go down the slide. In that post, I incorporated a video of her doing that, which led me to be featured on the STUBC site.
Blogging Pointers
I briefly mentioned earlier about giving some pointers about the challenge and blogging itself. This could be anywhere from punctuation to the material used in a post. In this section, I will be giving some tips on how you can get featured on the Student Blogging Challenge site. These are pointers I think will benefit when you enter the challenge.
Grammar is Key
When writing a post to submit to the challenge, proofread every single word. You want to sound like you know what you’re doing. If it sounds choppy or unprofessional, revise it. Or, you can use grammar-checking software like Grammarly. I, personally, use Grammarly for everything in writing. I think it definitely helps a lot.
Stay On-Topic
Let’s say you’re writing a topic on plastic pollution for the Earth Day prompt. You have two paragraphs already, written about how it’s important and to recycle. But then, you start writing about climate change and how it affects the Earth. Don’t do that. You want to stay on-topic at ALL times.
Tech-Savy
One way to get featured is by showing off your amazing techy skills. You can do something completely crazy like make a coded game on a coding site and incorporate the game in your post. Or, you could do what I did, which was add a video. But, you can do whatever you want if you’re techy like that.
I hope this post gave you some idea of my experience the two times I’ve competed in the challenge and that it gave you some tips beforehand. Everyone, have a GREAT challenge this year! Remember to wash your hands! Have a great day!
-Alivia😇💙✌🏻
March
5
McDowell Jr High Wrestling Season
This year we had a pretty good Wrestling season. Though we didn’t place 1st at any tournament we made some big achievements for the size of our team. The reason I say “for the size of our team” is because we didn’t have 8 or 7 wrestlers, that like half of a team. Even with the disadvantage of the small team we still wrestled hard and came in top 5 or 10 in most of our tournaments. Tournaments that we went to often had around 20 teams. We only had problems with not being on weight with a couple of kids and only one problem with ringworm.
Even though we went to tournaments with 20 teams or more with a lot of competition when districts came around we faced some real good wrestlers. When some of the team went to districts we didn’t do so well, most of us were done wrestling by the 2nd round but some of us went to the 3rd and 4th round. But that was at OAC Districts and there were still other districts that you could go to. That’s what two of our wrestlers did, they went to OHWAY Districts and won both of there weight classes. So we only have two wrestlers going to state but we have until next season to improve.
(TeamPic)
March
3
Fun Facts Of Cattle
Cows first descended from a bull-like creature called an aurochs. Aurochs originated in India, then spread to China and the Middle East, eventually spreading into Northern Africa and Europe. The people started domesticating aurochs about 9,000 years ago, around 7,000 B.C.
The first cattle were brought to America by Christopher Columbus in 1493. Columbus took the cattle to the western hemisphere. Also, Hernando Cortez, another explorer, took offspring of the same cattle that Columbus took, to Mexico. Furthermore, Juan Batista de Anza brought 200 cattle to California so he could supply the California missions.
Today cattle are used for two main purposes. These purposes are meat and milk. Did you know that cattle produce about 25 billion pounds of meat each year? Holy cow, that is a lot! Cattle also provide people with leather and other by-products that are used to make different things. The hide from a full grown cow can make 144 baseballs, 20 footballs, or 12 basketballs. If you think that is a lot, think about this. The average American eats around 65 pounds of beef a year. Since there are around 327.2 million people in the U.S.A, that means there is around 21.268 billion pounds of meat consumed each year in the U.S.A!
Cattle have one stomach with four separate compartments. Each stomach has a different job that allows the cattle to digest their food. The digestive process of a cow is continuously regurgitating and chewing it again as cud. Since cattle thrive on grass, vegetation, and feed, they have to have this special digestive system. Cattle chew their cud for about 8 hours each day. When cattle are chewing their cud this means that they are healthy and happy.
The basic terms of cattle are:
Cow- Adult female that has produced a calf
Bull- Male animal
Steer- Male animal that has been castrated
Heifer- Young female that has not produced a calf
Hope you enjoyed these fun facts about cattle!
March
2
It Approaches
Spring, the time of year where you get to put away your heavy winter coats in favor of your nice jacket. We will finally be able to say goodbye to those cold, dark mornings of winter and welcome the warmer, brighter mornings of spring instead. Well, that’s if you live in the northern hemisphere.
Just two weeks until we get to bask in the warmth of that giant ball of fire for longer and longer. No longer will we have to deal with ladybug impostors sneaking into our homes for warmth. However, everything has its equal. Instead we will get to deal with more insects as it gets warmer, like flies and bumblebees. Of course, those are the easier ones to deal with. The real terrors of the sky are the wasps and hornets that will come back from the dead and give us the sting of death. You know, the one that feels like someone jammed acid into your skin. It isn’t very far from the truth though. When wasps sting you they inject a basic venom when they sting you that would be much deadlier if we were smaller, or allergic.
Now, if you haven’t learned about the handy dandy ph levels in science yet, or have completely forgotten about the subject because it isn’t relevant anymore, I’ll explain it to you really quick. The ph levels are a way to measure how corrosive something can be. Essentially the more acidic or basic something is that you touch, the worse it is going to hurt. Luckily, wasp sting are pretty mild when looked at on a scale, a simple addition of soap will take the pain away.
Thankfully, wasps are probably the worst things about spring, so we don’t have too much to worry about. Aside from the insects that seem to come out of nowhere, the pools will start to open up. So, get ready to dig out your favorite swimsuit and goggles, because soon the pools will start opening up, even that really nice underground one that everyone loves. Maybe they’ll even get out the really big floaties everyone loves.
Hopefully everyone is looking forward to the arrival of spring, we all know those few people that won’t shut up about how cold it is. If you aren’t looking forward to the bright, sunshine season that will come knocking at our door in less than two weeks, maybe you should buy a ticket to Australia. They’re just about to end their summertime fun with a big bang.