What Will Next Year Be Like?

The soon-to-be 8th graders (but now 7th graders) created these "vision videos" to create how they plan to operate during their 8th grade year to make the school the best place it can be!

Vocab Words

Students,

Today in the lab you'll be posting a sentence with a vocab word so that we can talk about it.

The links:
6th http://linoit.com/users/rajewski/canvases/6th%20Vocab
7th  http://linoit.com/users/rajewski/canvases/7th%20Vocab
8th http://linoit.com/users/rajewski/canvases/8th%20Vocab

Enjoy.

Comic Creation

Students,

You can use either of these sites. If you find another that you'd like to use, let me know!

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/
(In case that one didn't work try (http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/comic-creator-30021.html)
http://www.bitstrips.com/create/comic/\
(If you're wanting to create an account to save your comic, which means you would have to talk/be with your parents http://www.bitstrips.com/signup)

*In class tomorrow, I'll give you my username and password in case you don't feel comfortable or don't want to create your own.
*There is no option to print from bitstrips, but you can print the page that you are on.


Your comic must be at least 6 frames long. Remember to read your directions sheet.

Writing Workshop

Today five students and I attended a writing workshop. We worked on poetry, short stories, song lyrics, and nonfiction writing. They did a great job.

At the end of the day, two of the students were brave enough to share their writing in the room of over 100 students!

Pages Party Update

The third quarter reading totals are in. Twelve students read over 3,000 pages!

Creating some FANBOYS

We've been working in 7th and 8th grade to remember what a compound sentence is. To remind us, we have the acronym FANBOYS to help with the coordinating conjuctions (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So). Compound sentences add some spice to our writing!

Each side has a setence that can stand alone, and a comma and conjunction divide the two sides.

The 8th graders made their own FANBOYS to help us remember, and they are works of art! :)

We have 14 total FANBOYS hanging in the class, 7 for each hour. 

An example of a compound sentence using or

We had fun making the drawings on the day back from our snow day!

We're this excited to have our vocab tests done!

Vocab tests are finished and graded for this quarter! We only need to finish our portfolios and another essay that we'll be working on in class. Can you believe the year is 3/4 over?

Vocab Survey

Students,

Please tell me how you think you learn (and remember so you can use later) your vocabulary words. I do appreciate your input. It helps me know what helps you. 

Click here. 

Thanks! 

Optional Survey

Students and families,

The Library of Congress is looking for your opinion. What book has most shaped the world and why? If you want to participate in their really brief survey, feel free!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BTSW2013
Though it's cliche for an English teacher to say so, I really do believe that books have the power to change us and the world around us. :)

How We Use Our Gifts

"Let no one despise your gifts, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity ... Do not neglect the gifts you have." -- St. Paul in the First Letter to Timothy (1 Tim. 4:12-14)

Our students wrote about personality traits that they have, certain ways that God made them as children of God. They come up with some wonderful reflections. We are blessed at Sacred Heart to have so many different gifts represented. 

Vocab Boards

Students, today we'll be using a website called Lino. You'll be leaving 4 of your vocab sentences underneath the chosen 10 vocab words for this week. Hopefully this will help us study for next week!

Please click on the link for your grade:

8th
7th
6th

Story Discussion

8th graders discussed the fantasy stories they had written with a seminar discussion. After we finished, we reflected on ways we could improve if we had another seminar in the future!

Vocab Poetry

7th graders created and presented poems this week using their vocabulary words for the week!

Capsize: One student shared a variety of things that could capsize!

Treacherous: Hopefully homework isn't too dangerous. :)

Predicament: We wouldn't want many of these to happen!

 

Valentine's Mad Libs

For Valentine's Day, we reviewed parts of speech -- specifically adverbs and adjectives. We filled in examples of each to make some funny poems!

Students filled in the blanks on the boards with words they had come up with. We had some funny Valentine's day couples in our poems! :)

Vocab Videos

To try using some of the words, we created short video stories today with our time in the lab. Tomorrow, we'll watch them and see how we could improve our use of the words!

1^st Hour:

http://animoto.com/play/711pqrzp99lcVH0afKqK1g

http://animoto.com/play/MDQm2zm7IOzBCfjOqZfbng

http://animoto.com/play/xAsRi65owKfbRf3aBS4vcg

http://animoto.com/play/192hk7j6LYYAVhmsPtStKg

http://animoto.com/play/mrTwhxDPQ3ODwgp817Zv4w

http://animoto.com/play/QWbDHQeP7bOL0OZWidJEbQ

http://animoto.com/play/jxrVx3UBLgD9PL56vJYzDQ

http://animoto.com/play/pMTLmL6FJdr4hBlsHNIMng

http://animoto.com/play/ZBMdc1jpJEXeMWkERwbLYg

http://animoto.com/play/kYK4LelLndaGixuO405Pqw

 2^nd Hour:

http://animoto.com/play/SVl4QWAwAquoZz0AoXgrOw

http://animoto.com/play/YOLFjs5EqVc6gj90ZVPL1g

http://animoto.com/play/jCa3dIxPOgbfTP8ydZTbPg

http://animoto.com/play/XHzUmahyNeKC1zvFy0UMtw

http://animoto.com/play/eenhaN03B9BDMba4QuAVzA

http://animoto.com/play/Ng1R2MfMJylazepr1M09nA

http://animoto.com/play/zJnrFEJxcWQDrN8a0cZbZQ

http://animoto.com/play/awM6xIJz7Q1eqOTcl6XAPQ

http://animoto.com/play/Ge7TefDhCOUVMxPMm2JRAg

 3^rd Hour:

http://animoto.com/play/p40XwV3y9HMFXLstqKdLxQ

http://animoto.com/play/8m9HTk78bKWl5lK3gYEANg

http://animoto.com/play/Pppiek8pMXlVQL6xCyXgWg

http://animoto.com/play/9ZcNApADSIqxc4CgHhQZXQ

http://animoto.com/play/lMiaiFf2IJabP3qWhppVAA

http://animoto.com/play/Dd9pOfmbSYHm4vVt121jXw

http://animoto.com/play/08FUJ6fnxdBBn1e883NCCA

http://animoto.com/play/7A6f9UpL3YO9elWS7oJ0CA

http://animoto.com/play/ReZYWZ5hC0y3MUHfMhqxHw

4^th Hour:

http://animoto.com/play/kOzcj2zH110cEM6RZQmjrw

http://animoto.com/play/dWW1YZhtrcIldFQeLULg0w

http://animoto.com/play/e0KsnNenGCQ0ZRgDsPGiqw

http://animoto.com/play/DkTCQwyq7Zi9N7Wy8yA8Hw

http://animoto.com/play/7vd0n6UQr0FFdyUWckVe3w

http://animoto.com/play/OegYa8AqrH9q7PnmiwNONA

http://animoto.com/play/eCeAQitYWCrUUj1b0SsmcQ

http://animoto.com/play/x7eLDbuuc1XyJFJcgfk6cA

http://animoto.com/play/fmRQFD1fCNSFDZ6BZjcn7A

5^th Hour:

http://animoto.com/play/v1hqHSI1H9MNuUeeLt7sYw

http://animoto.com/play/aVNAmJtwbLUDR4jul5p7cA

http://animoto.com/play/AVTZ003bxq9kbHp29l0OTw

http://animoto.com/play/ApebonSq8YTWwJgi3I73MA

http://animoto.com/play/4FdDUS2dqaQujxb9flPU6Q

http://animoto.com/play/Zl8hnwKTrsfj8mT9lHL1Tg

http://animoto.com/play/UD93aP01kKz1XrKDyzkyvw

http://animoto.com/play/X2G2E3bqnhDcpSCNAbbYQw

http://animoto.com/play/0dvNc2KhO06Bzr6IquPEUw

http://animoto.com/play/Ve7HxCrOTELppEuiAyUgEw

http://animoto.com/play/KJDL10g5FAVmyK053xPNZg

6^th Hour:
http://animoto.com/play/RTBRsJoNaUOF07mjE3CjjQ

http://animoto.com/play/hbTV3K5r6DKV1YxV6Kv42Q

http://animoto.com/play/1vp2i3706G7R8ocdKJcD2w

http://animoto.com/play/nizrRnZFL4fn2pqmn4HBqg

http://animoto.com/play/NE474HxvztzIAqC3lWyhsA

http://animoto.com/play/CbMO1iejQGzJI8EaF2EyPw

http://animoto.com/play/0DX2G5vK32Zp61qiIRWreQ

http://animoto.com/play/CNCKHj7cRBSfpi0TJxS2CQ

http://animoto.com/play/xLxuQy1MCOpFikQ2RNFm2w

http://animoto.com/play/MYeFA0kY4DCxd7HUzC2vxA

http://animoto.com/play/zbIp1yLT1qv0DLYi9gsjQQ

http://animoto.com/play/LtfU4pZw0UyzZjSX0ecjjA

Finishing Catholic Schools Week

Thursday was a day full of games for my homeroom. We played Bingo with the younger grades and Spoons as a homeroom. We had a great time!

A Peaceful Snowy Day

It's a great day for students to work on their in-class writing. Sixth graders are writing a story of realistic fiction, pretending they are stranded somewhere like the book for Miss Brown's class. Also in connection with their novel, eighth graders are writing a fantasy story. Seventh graders are working on description essays.

They did a great job focusing, as we watched the snow fall!

Fair Use Friday Collages

After spending time before break learning to cite sources, students revisited the topic of giving credit by discussing the concept of fair use -- which means that there are certain cases (like education, parodies, criticisms, commentaries, and news reports) where people are allowed to use copyrighted material without receiving permission, though they should still give credit. In case you have any questions, check out these parent tips sheets about copyright, fair use, and piracy.

Digital Piracy
Respecting Creative Work

Students took time today to practice transforming pictures into new purposes, like we do when we use written information. Their challenge was to find pictures from magazines/newspapers and rework them. There were some pretty great results!

Each class voted on the student who changed their pictures the most. This was a seventh-grade winner.

 

We had lots of men and women and animals with different heads and bodies today! Lots of funny switches. :)

I had lots of students use only the colors/shapes of certain pictures to completely change the content. 

Some students chose to create new scenes from the pictures they found.

 

Many of the students made some great products!

Polishing Your Writing

Students, while we're working on our blogs today, we are going to work with parallel structure. See the great infographic below from this website. This goes great with what we reviewed yesterday about commas.

Browse more Education infographics.

Source

Reading Tallies Quarter 2

The Pages Party is progressing! Students totaled their reading logs this week. The class averages range from almost 3,000 pages per student for this school year to 1,500. Way to go! :)

"If I Were in Charge of the World"

Happy 2013! Your students all wrote and shared about how they would change the world if they were in charge. Many of them chose to cancel school. :) Below are several pictures of 8th graders sharing their ideas with the class.

Saint Presentations

Thanks to Mrs. Engen who donated saint medals to our students. My homeroom students enjoyed choosing one to have. They created posters and shared what they learned about four different saints. Ask your student to see what they learned!

St. Maximilian Kolbe



Our Lady of Medjugorje

St. Blaise

St. Germaine

Citing Books

While we were covering plagiarism, we practiced giving credit to other sources through a Works Cited page. We practiced in groups and cited six different books that we had in class. The format and these examples can be found at Purdue University's Online Writing Lab:

Basic Format – If there is no author, start with title

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

Book with One Author

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.

Book with More Than One Author

Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Boston: Allyn, 2000. Print.



Seventh graders practice citing a book using MLA format.

 



Students also learned that apps or websites like EasyBib.com, which help students format Works Cited pages (but not always correctly, which is why they must know the format!)

 

Vocab Wall Winners

Congrats to my 2nd hour class of 6th graders who found the most vocabulary words in their reading and in context in the world! They found almost 50 words for our word wall. We celebrated with brownies before break!

Students bring in notecards to fill up the word wall. 

6th graders have some fun while eating their brownies before break!