C4K Summary for November

Vivienne’s Blog
Week 1, Vivienne:
Vivienne is a 6th grader at Pt. England School in Auckland, New Zealand. Her blog post told us one version of what Halloween is supposed to be about, according to the research that the 7th and 8th graders at her school did. The Celtic Calendar has one light half and one dark half. The Celtic tribe celebrated a harvest festival called Samhain near the beginning of the dark half of the calendar. To us, this is when Halloween Occurs. Several people feared this festival because it was a matter of life or death. If the food they were harvesting weren’t ready, they would starve and die. When it was the harvest time, the days would get shorter while the night were getting longer. When it was time to change from light to dark, a veil was in between life and death was thin so this made it easier for people from both worlds to pass through. On May 13th, pagans would have a celebration called “Lemuria”. This was where Christians would convert Pagans. Romans would go to graveyards and pour milk and offer soul cakes to the Christian souls. The name then changed to “All Saints Day” or “All Hallows Day”. They also changed the date to November 1st to drain the Pagan Samhain. Since the Samhain festival was before “All Hallows Day”, they started calling it “All Hallows Eve”. This soon shortened to “Halloween”. This explanation of the holiday is confusing to me, but this is what Vivienne understood from the upper grades that did the research.

Riley’s Blog
Week 2, Riley:

Riley is Mrs. Cassidy's first Grade class in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. In Riley's blog, one of his most recent posts were a program that I have pictured here. He was able to record himself speaking his numbers and record himself actually writing out his numbers. So as he counted out loud, it showed the actual drawing process of his numbers too. Then he was able to embed it into his blog for everyone to see and hear. I really like this program, especially for younger grades who maybe can't write well. Using this program a child could record their blog post instead of having to type it out.

Riley’s Blog
Week 2, Riley's Second Blog Post:

Riley is Mrs. Cassidy's first Grade class in Moose Jaw, Sakatchewan, Canada. This is the same Riley as mentioned above, just another post by him. On his blog he colored the picture that I have shown and wrote, "I colored happy." I am guessing that green is Riley's favorite color and that it makes him happy. The color green could maybe remind Riley of different memories or objects that he is familiar with.