Baby Animal Alphabet

Sooo cute. Here is a Baby Animals Alphabet link I am sure you will enjoy that gives you the all the animals in alphabetical order.

A New Hot Counter Map

Mr H has this map on his blog and I wondered how it would look on ours. It shows where in the world people are looking at our blog from so if there are two stars in different places you can see where in the world the other person is- live!

If you want one of these on your blog just click on the little green circle on the bottom right of the map to take you to the map website. Choose what kind of map you want- copy the html code into your blog posting page and then click compose and it should be sweet.

17,000 Hits

Things have slowed down a fair bit on this blog seeing I haven't been teaching this year but it is noce to see things still ticking over we are set to pass 17,000 hits very soon. Not a bad effort.

Storm Videos

This week you would have seen all the storms around New Zealand. Children from Meadowbank School in Auckland made a video all about it. It reminded me of our Hurricane Katrina video we made a while back so I have posted them both on our blog.

Here is our video that highlights the effect of the Hurricane.



Here is the video from room 23 at Meadowbank School.

More from San Francisco

Miss K has been working really hard while she was in San Francisco. Here she is with her new Adobe brand jacket looking out from a rooftop restaurant.





Mini-Dylan went out on the water in San Francisco Bay to view the Golden Gate Bridge. Enjoy the video!

Miss K

Sausalito

Today we thought we had pretty much done San Francisco city apart from girl shopping that I didn't want to inflict on Colin as we wandered downtown to catch a transit bus to Sausalito. It was a short trip but interesting to drive through ordinary suburbs of the city. Sausalito was a lovely smaller centre on the coast without the feel of noise like downtown- it reminded me a little of Day's Bay in Wellington with all the craft shops and the like.
We caught the ferry back into the city. Here is me with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.


Little Mini-Dylan is enjoying the trip with me. Today the Adobe Summit starts and work begins.

How is school going???

San Francisco Day Three

Today after a lazy start we wandered about looking for a cable car to catch into downtown.After that adventure we started to chat with a couple of nice policeman. From TV shows we get in NZ you would think that USA policemen would be mean types but these guys were very happy to chat and laugh.And then I started chatting to a very talkative homeless guy who was going to college and waiting for subsidised housing. I was evidently sitting in the his spot on some steps taking a rest from all the sightseeing. We were suprised at how together this homeless guy was and wondered why he was spending his days asking for money on the streets and going through rubbish bins and sleeping in doorways. He said he was a US armed forces veteran waiting for subsidised housing. I hope he gets it soon. He seemed like a nice person.
We enjoyed wandering through China Town as well. Mini-Dylan enjoyed chatting with some very pretty Chinese ladies. Chinatown is full of bustle and noise.

Then up to the 52 floor of the Bank of America Building for pina colada cocktails and a look at the misty view. We met with a couple of lovely local ladies who enjoyed chatting with a couple of leg weary kiwis.

Mini-Dylan enjoyed a small pina colada as we look out over the bay. The journey to the 'bathroom' was the poshest in my 51 years. A lovely Asian woman welcomed me and directed me to an empty cubicle. As I left she turned the gold faucet on for me and showed me where to source the soap. On washing my hands she passed me a warmed towel to dry my hands. I don't think tipping is a good idea but if I had taken a penny to the dunny she would have got it!

Have a great day back at school todayand be nice to Mrs P.

Miss k

San Francisco Day Two

Today we did the tourist bus thing around San Francisco on an open top double decker bus.It was a great tour and we learnt a lot about the city and ists past from his talk. I took lots and lots of photos from the bus as it went over the Golden Gate Bridge and when I get on a decent internet connection I will post the video. Here am I at one end of the bridge looking back over the city views.

Then it was off for a spot of shopping- you should see this one shop called Nostrum Westfield. It was HUGE with nine floors of shopping and interlinked escalators all over the place.

THEN- I saw the big APPLE and a queue of people waiting to get an iPhone. I went inside and spoke to an Apple Genius- that is what their job is called. He helped me buy an 8GB iP od Touch- it is SO cool.
I can't wait to surf the internet from it through a wireless connection.

The stetch limo is what I neede to carry all my shopping home to the hotel!!

San Francisco- We Are Here!

My computer clock tells me it 12.09am in NZ time but we're flying through the time zones and have just flown back into yesterday.

I have never crossed the international date line before and will cross the equator into the northern hemisphere some time on our trip across the Pacific Ocean. Remember our study Comparing Hemisphere's from last year.

Well now I will get to see for myself what the the northern hemisphere is like- I will look for swirling water, gravity, where the sun is in the sky and what the seasons will be like. Here is a photo of me at Sydney airport with a visual dictionary of Aussie words. It made us laugh.

We booked the cheapest flights we could which meant I had to fly to Auckland, then to Sydney and then the last leg to San Francisco. The plane is packed full of people all trying to sleep sitting upright- we have seen three stink movies in a row so I thought I would start a blog post and hopefully will get the opportunity to post it when we get to America!

Fellow teacher, Colin, from Marina View School in Auckland and I are on an adventure to
fly to San Francisco to represent New Zealand at the Adobe Educational Leaders' Summit
next week.

We are flying over early so we can have a bit of a good look around before the
summit starts.

Mini-Dylan is on this adventure with me and we hope to get out and about seeing some of
the sights and sounds of the big city.
Mini-Dylan had a quick Budweiser beer to quench his thirst as it is summer in San Francisco, California.

Maybe you can go on Google Earth and have a look at the path we are taking across the
Pacific Ocean- look for the Golden Gate Bridge as we hope to go for a bike ride over it on
Monday.

Any questions you want to ask or things you would like me to do write them in the
comments and I will see what I can do.

The next few days are open as to what we want to to but on Monday we intend to hire
push bikes and bike over the Golden gate bridge and get a boat back to the city- that
sounds like a fun idea. I want to go shopping in a big department store, maybe go to
Yosemite National Park and generally soak up the atmosphere of being in a totally
different culture. I have been to Australia a few times before and it feels like when I visit I
am visiting my cousin- staying in America is really new territory for me.

Cuddly Kiwi goes to San Antonio, USA

Cuddly Kiwi lives the high life!

Cuddly Kiwi, a cousin of Mini-Dylan and Mr H are on a global journey to a really big computer conference in San Antonio in Texas, USA. They stop at a Starbucks for a quick coffee along the way. They heard that Tiny Ted has been sighted and we hope to have some photos before too long.
They all got into the airport at around 7.15pm Central Standard Time
As with all bloggers and geeky people Mr H got all the cabling sorted out at the hotel...
Enough time to fire off this blog post before looking to eat!

Cuddly Kiwi and Mini Dylan 'The Dragon' have a quick chat while preparing their journey to NECC08 in San Antonio on Saturday 28th June. They have let Paul into some of their travel plans, however some things they are keeping very much to themselves.

One thing that they are hoping to do is catch up with another friend of theirs, Tiny Ted who has been travelling the world since leaving Wales in October 2006.

Running for President of USA

When I go to San Francisco for the Adobe Educational Leaders' Summit I hope that I don't get mobbed by political interviewers.

Mini-Dylan visits the Sydney Opera House

Mini-Dylan and I have finished the workshops at Adobe and are now having a look at the tourist spots of downtown Sydney.The Sydney Harbour Bridge is something that you can recognise all over the world. Mini-Dylan found a good spot to look at the view.
Mini-Dylan and I posed in front of the Sydney Opera House. It is a magnificent building.
We walked through the Botanic Gardens and Mini-Dylan liked this puff-ball plant as their colours matched perfectly.
On the way home we stopped at a wonderful viewing spot for a look at the Opera House at sunset from across the harbour. Miss K couldn't resist taking this video to show her day.

Mini Dylan and I are in Sydney

Mini-Dylan and Miss K are in Sydney and we are at an Adobe Educational Leaders get together. Adobe is paying for it and we are very exciting.
We are going to be learning more about lots of exciting things that we can use in the classroom and to communicate with other children and teachers around the world. We have just been given a set of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection which is a heap of extra cool software applications- all for free.

We are going to have a ball.

Miss K

Dovedale School explores Comic Life

This is what I have been doing!

Today Allanah, our ICT facilitator, came into Room 1 to teach Miss W and us how to make a slideshow in Kidpix, using photos. We are going to make a slideshow about Wild Hair Day all by ourselves. Today we made a background for our page. Look at how clever we are.

While I was at Upper Moutere School today Rachael W took a photo of me helping the five year olds have a play with Kid Pix. Then she blogged it on her class blog. Do have a look. It is a really cool new blog for 2008. Leave the class a comment. They would love to hear from you.

Miss K

Miriam Sings for Assembly

Appleby School has just re-published their website and had a Golden Mouse Awards afternoon to celebrate. Miriam sung for assembly. Isn't she great.

Kieran's Boat

Kieran has recently blogged about his new boat that he built. He made it out of wood, fishing line, Coke bottles, corks, fabric and string. Very cool Kieran.

Marvin

While I was up in Auckland earlier this term at the Learnng At School conference in Rotorua I was given a trial version of this Marvin software by Micosoft. You get to make avatars that you can animate and make speak. I think it is very cool. What do you think?

It is taking ages to upload as I have used all of my 10GB of broadband allowance for the month so I am on dial-up speeds.

Miss K

Introducing Kyle- a new Moturoa blogger

Kyle has always been a keen blogger and now he has his own blog using Blogspot. I have put a link to Kyle's blog in the side bar . I am sure he would like lots of welcoming comments .I now have my own blog thanks to Miss K.
This is an old photo of my caterpillars and seeing as I have my own blog I thought you would like to see it. I now have more caterpillars on my swan plant and I also have more in cocoons.

By Kyle

Kieran's Hunting and Fishing

"I've got one. I've got one. YAHOO! Whoa that thing can pull." We went fishing a couple of months ago. Boy it was fun. Look at this snapper! Do you know how much it weighs. It said 17 pounds. A lot, eh?

AND we got up to a little bit of hunting as well. We caught 3 BOARS. I don't know how much but I think around 1oo pounds but the pig that is only a head was only about 50.