Edublog Nominations 2012

I am very excited to be part of the Edublog nomination process.  I have been blogging for one and half years and have made many friends from all of the world.

Here is my list of blogs that I nominated:

 

Best Class Blog

Mrs Yollis’ Classroom Blog

Mrs. Yollis helps make her classroom interesting through blogging. She has a new interesting post up almost every week and supports her student bloggers by leaving comments on their blogs.  She also comments back to many of her readers on her blog.

 

 Best Student Blog

Miriam's Magical Moments

One of my favorite student bloggers is my older sister Miriam. She was a finalist last year for the best student blog. She has been blogging for two and a half years and has taught me many things about blogging. She has a new and interesting post up a couple times a month and always responds to all her comments.

Best Twitter Hashtag

#comments4kids

I love the #comments4kids hashtag! When I publish a new post, Mrs. Yollis tweets it out using this hashtag.  I always receive many comments from teachers and students.

Library/Librarian Blog

The Bulldog Readers By: Mrs Hembree

Mrs. Hembree is a great librarian who inspires children everywhere to read. She has interesting posts about  books I can read. I also really like her Summer reading contest. She wanted to see us reading in the most interesting places and ways. All we had to do is send her a photo of us reading and she posted it on her blog. 

Check out these great blogs!

Two Fall Piano Pieces

During the end of summer and beginning of fall, I learned two new pieces. They are both composed from different periods of music. The first piece is Invention No. 8 by Bach. He is a German composer and was born in the baroque period. I have played many pieces by him that were slow. This piece is very fast and it sounds like a bird flying in nature.


 The second song is Sonatina in C Major (Op. 20 No. 1) by Kuhlau. He was born in Germany, but was a Danish composers during the Classical and Romantic period.When he was seven, he lost his right eye when he slipped on ice. Even though he was born to a poor family, they still afforded to pay for piano lessons. Kuhlau escaped to Denmark to avoid going to Napoleon's army, and in 1813 he became a Danish citizen. During his lifetime, Kuhlau was known as a concert pianist and composer of a very famous Danish opera and other pieces for the piano. He composed over 200 published works and probably even more would have been published if his house didn't burn down with many of his unpublished pieces. This Sonatina consists of 3 movements. The first and third movement are fast. The second movement is slow and only has a few lines of music.

Can you tell when a movement ends and another begins? 
Which movement was your favorite?

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Hannah's Fall Concert

In the past two months, Hannah learned 4 new pieces, all written by different composers.She learns new pieces really quickly and memorizes them fast as well after playing them a few times. Her hand is still small and it is sometimes hard for her to reach all the notes and play fast. She is getting better with practice.

Her first piece is Sonatina in C major by M. Clementi. Clementi wrote during the Classical period. This piece has 3 movements, a fast movement, a slower lyrical movement with a beautiful melody, and a fast lively movement.  Of the 4 pieces she played, this one was probably the hardest.Which was your favorite movement?

The second piece is Sonatina in G major by Beethoven. Beethoven also wrote during the classical period. This piece has two movements and they are both fast with a very nice melody.  It is a very famous piece and both Miriam and I played it 2 years ago. This piece is probably my favorite.

The third piece is called Wild Horseman by Schumann. Schumann was a German composer, who composed during the Romantic period (1810-1856).  When Hannah plays this piece, I think of people riding horses in a horse shows.

Finally, the last piece she played is called Musette in D major by Bach. Bach is also a German composer who composed in the Baroque period. When I think of this song I think of waves hitting the shore at the beach. This piece has a gorgeous melody and Hannah plays it beautifully. Our piano teacher believes that it is important for us to play Bach, so we are always playing at least one new Bach piece.

Which piece was your favorite?

A Trip to the Orchard

On day a day when we had no school, my friend and I went fruit picking in an orchard. The owner of the orchard invited my friend and I to pick fruits from their trees. They had red apples, Granny Smith apples, lemons, avocado, oranges, and tangerines.

Apples all over the ground

Most of the trees were dwarf trees so we were able to reach the fruit and pick it right off the tree. Many of the of the apples fell on the floor, and were bitten by squirrels and other animals.  When we were finished picking the apples, we had a bag full of them. The apples were much sweeter than the ones from the store. However, the avocados weren't  ripe enough to eat, but we still still picked them and brought them home to ripen. When they were ready, my dad made guacamole from them. we made some lemonade with the lemons that we picked. The lemonade was  was very sour, but adding some sugar made it taste delicious. As we were walking back to our car carrying all the fruits, we saw tangerine trees. Tangerines are one of my favorite fruits and we get some too. When we started picking them, we realized that we were extremely hungry, so we ate almost all the tangerines that we picked! 

picking apples

Granny Smith Apples

Oranges

Look at all that we collected!

Tangerines

All the trees planted in a row

Have you ever picked your own fruit or vegetables? 

Did it taste better than from the store?

Fun in the Sun

Our pool

The teachers at our school had a staff development day, and all the students had a day off from school. In the summer, it was really hot, and we went to the beach many times. Surprisingly, the weather has still been very hot, and we decided to spend the day at the beach.

When we arrived, it was already noon, and the tide was high. Usually, the weather at the beach is colder, and there is a nice breeze.  Today, however, the sun was shining and the air was very still. We spent most of the time in the water to cool off . Soon the tide went back and left us with soft wet sand. This left us plenty of room to make a pool large enough to fit everyone. We also went boogie boarding on the waves.  I practiced some gymnastics and played frisbee with my mom and brother. Best of all, we laid down on the cool sand and let the sun warm us up. It was a splendid way of spending time off of school.

Laying out in the sun

The weather has been really strange. Just last week it was raining and my aunt took this fabulous photo of a rainbow.

Photo by my aunt Elana

What do you you like to do on your day off?

Piano Pieces I learned Over the Summer

Over the summer, I learned many pieces that are composed in different periods, of music. The first piece is called Bourree II from French Overture by Bach. Bach is a German composer from the Baroque Period (1685-1750). To read more about Bach, you can visit my sister Miriam's two earlier posts. One post describes counterpoint, which is when you can hear two melodies in one piece. The other post is about Bach's life.

The piece that I am playing is a bourrée, which is a French dance from the 1600's. It is very slow for a dance, but it has a very beautiful melody.

My next piece is called Fur Elise by Beethoven. Beethoven was born in the Classical period (1770-1827). Nobody knew who Elise was, but they believe her name was Therese whom Beethoven loved.  Beethoven wrote this piece in the year 1810 when he was almost deaf, and in 1817 he became deaf. It is sad that Fur Elise was not published until 1865 when he was already dead. Miriam also played Fur Elise.

My final piece is called Valse Melancolique by Vladimir Rebikov. Vladimir Rebikov was born in the late Romantic period (1815-1910). He learned how to play the piano from his mother. This piece has a beautiful melody with a lot of feeling.

Which is your favorite period of music?

Tide Pools at Leo Carillo State Beach

Sarah on top of a huge rock

On Sunday morning, we went to Leo Carillo State Beach. This is special beach that has tide pools. Tide pools are rocky pools of ocean water.  The only time you could see the tide poles is when it is low tide. Tide pools usually have star fish, mussels, and clams. When we arrived to Leo Carrillo State Beach, it was high tide, and we couldn't see any tide pools. Then, we played and swam in the ocean and I climbed a big rock all the way to the top.

Low tide

A couple of hours later, it became low tide and we were able to see the tide pools.  We found many interesting shaped and colored rocks. On the sand, we also found a long piece of kelp which is a type of seaweed. Kelp grow in shallow oceans. Kelp can grow up to 110 feet tall. That is as tall as a 10 story building! The leaves are called blades and they have gas-filled bladders growing next to them. The air bladders make the kelp float to the top of the ocean so it could get sunlight. My sister and I were jumping rope with the kelp. When it was low tide, we still couldn't find any animals, but we still had a great time at the beach.

Kelp

Gas-filled bladders

Miriam jumping rope with kelp

beautiful rocks

Have you visited tide pools?

What did you see?