Today, those of us who wanted to made cards for Brookey Sligh and her family. We will get them out to her tomorrow afternoon. We also worked on our Hobbit newspapers. The deadline has been moved to Monday, February 27th. If groups are finished before that they will be able to turn their papers in early.
Homework: Make sure you are working on the pieces of your newspaper that were assigned to you.
Today was very busy. Students received their Alice Animation grades, their corrected pronoun quizzes, their funny story presentation grade and to top it all off, an updated progress report. The 3rd quarter IR presentation/project, the i-movie commercial, was briefly introduced. We will go over the specifics tomorrow in class. Then we began to read The Giver. In this society, the precision of language is very important. We saw that Jonah’s friend Asher misuses language quite often.
For the blog readers: Be sure to know the word that accurately reflects Jonas’ feeling about December’s approach as you prepare for the quiz on Chapter 1.
Homework:
1) Read & highlight Chapter 1 of THE GIVER.
2) Prepare for a 5-point quiz on Chapter 1.
3) Get a parent signature on your progress report.
UPCOMING PROJECTS/TESTS:
Friday, 3/2: The script for your i-movie commercial is due.
Tuesday, 3/6: The i-move commercial is due.
Today students learned the winners of the 2012 Tucker Tales storytelling competition. It was an AMAZING group of stories/storytellers (Ms. Tucker is VERY glad that she didn’t have to vote.) For period 3, the winner was Allyson Kemp. For period 4, the winner was Caroline Downs. For period 6, the winner was Emma Wilson and finally,in period 7, the winner was Madison Herndon. Congratulations!
Homework: Please finish the assignment that your group gave you for your newspaper.
**Remember the due date for the newspaper is Thursday, February 23rd!
In today’s class, as an inspirational activity in preparation for reading THE GIVER, students took turns choosing cards describing BEST AND WORST jobs, which were composed by their classmates. It was interesting to consider what it would be like to live in a society where your job is chosen for you. The choices were creative and funny, and we shared lots of laughs, but we all agreed that the freedom to make your own choices is important to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Homework:
1) Try to finish at least one IR book for the third quarter over this weekend.
2) Bring in THE GIVER. Write your name in marker on the inside front cover.
UPCOMING PROJECTS/TESTS:
Independent reading projects for the 3rd quarter will be announced next week. They will be due the second week in March.
Today students participated in the Tucker Tales Storytelling Contest Finals! Wow! What an amazing group of stories we experienced. Ms. Tucker will announce the winners during our 7th grade assembly on Thursday morning.
Homework: Complete the assignment that you were given by your newspaper group.
In today’s class, we finished up our storytelling project – what a great group of entertainers! The homework for tomorrow is meant to prepare students for our next novel, THE GIVER.
Homework: You need to prepare three 3×5 cards. Write job descriptions for your idea of the best and worst possible jobs. Use imagination, vivid adjectives, action verbs and complete sentences. Write “The BEST Job: _________________” on the top of the first card. Then write at least three or four good sentences describing the best job. Write your name in the lower right-hand corner of the card. Then write a second card for “The WORST Job: _______________________.” On the third and final card, please write the definitions for the following two words – UTOPIA and DYSTOPIA.
Monday is blog day! The focus of today’s blog entry was to reflect upon the Tucker Tales storytelling contest. Students had to write two paragraphs – one describing the process of writing their story and the second describing how they felt being an audience member. While the class wrote, Ms. Tucker met with individuals about their previous blog entry and helped them change to be verbs into action verbs.
Homework: Finish your Tucker Tales reflection if you did not do so in class. The guidelines are as follows:
Paragraph One: Describe the process of writing your tale. How did you choose your topic? Why? Did you read it to anyone first before reading it to the class? When presenting to the class how did you feel about their reaction? What would you change in your story? Why?
Paragraph Two: Describe what it was like being an audience member. Which story was your favorite? Why? (It does note have to be one of the finalists). What should Ms. Tucker change about the presentation process?
In today’s class, after reviewing the Storytelling rubric, students practiced telling their stories to a friend who gave them feedback. (Having a good organization of ideas, making eye contact, connecting with the audience, and displaying emotion are all part of the successful storyteller’s craft.) The official storytelling begins tomorrow!
Homework:
1) Make a “Buddy Invitation” card with a colored picture or decoration on the front of the card. Be sure to put your buddy’s name (first and last) on the front of the card.
Inside the card, be sure to include:
- 3rd Annual ALICE Animation Festival in the Andrews Assembly Room
- Wednesday, February 15th from 2:00 to 3:00
- Sign your name.
- P.S. Let’s sit together! (You may also want to mention one of the animations that they will see…)
2) PRACTICE TELLING YOUR STORY!
Today we finished discussing The Hobbit. Students were able to make connections between some of the events in this novel to similar events in April Morning. Ms. Tucker surprised the classes with the announcement that this quarter’s book critique is to be a part of their newspaper project, therefore, not everyone needs to write their own; it will be a group effort. Afterwards, students got into their newspaper groups in order to start planning the articles and “extras” that will be a part of their layout.
Homework: Complete the assignment that your newspaper group gave you.
PS – Thank you for all of the songs, cards and treats today! You helped make my birthday very special!
In today’s class, students started out by hiding in the dark and surprising Ms. Tucker with a birthday song! Thank you! After the students took a quiz on prepositions, prepositional phrases, subjects and predicates, they began to work on their funny stories, the comedy writing challenge for The Core, our Middle School magazine.
Homework:
1) Using your laptop and double spacing the font, write a one-to-two page story about the funniest thing that has ever happened to you.
- Set up your paper with a three-line heading and a clever title.
- The first sentence should be dialogue: a signal phrase followed by dialogue in quotation marks. (Try to avoid the word “said.” There are countless words that are more interesting…)
- Include interesting details, vivid adjectives and dynamic verbs to make the situation come alive!
- End the story with a final line of dialogue. (Don’t forget the signal phrase and quotation marks.)
2) Share the story with your parents. It is fine for them to make some recommendations as long as you underline where their contributions are in your story.
3) Practice reading/telling the story because you will be presenting it to the class, and your purpose is to entertain your audience. USE LOTS OF EXPRESSION!
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