Diamante Poems

Here is the interactive on Read-Write-Think.

Mustang Award

I am sending home a copy of the Mustang Award tracking sheet.

Here are some resource documents for some of the "do at home" items.

List of presidents.

Historic/Patriotic Passages (can have the text in front of you for support, but please don't just stand there and read it - be expressive, be theatrical)
Paul Revere's Ride
The Gettysburg Address
Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence
Preamble to the Constitution
Casey at the Bat
Excerpt from "I Have a Dream"

You can also choose to an excerpt (approximately 3-5 minutes) from any of the speeches found on American Rhetoric.

There are some famous speeches by American Women listed here. I don't have the texts linked at this time. But these are all useable as well.

How NOT to sound while reciting! (funny)

Sam Waterston reciting the Gettysburg Address

States and capitals resources:
50States.com
Map Game
State Capital Quiz
List of states and capitals
Funbrain

Thursday April 29

Start by taking your electricity quiz using this Google form.


Then, please go to this link and answer as many of the questions as possible. After you submit, print your results and turn them in to Mrs. Buttars.

Your SP Guy

Click here for the character creator.

When you are done, you will take a screen shot of your guy. shift-command-4

Click and drag the screen shot into your folder in the school folder.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

To make your poster, you will open a new Word document. Click and drag your guy in first, then your acrostic poem from last week. Click on them and resize them to make them fit on the page. Command-A and center align before you print on lab color.

All About Me Poem

Click on this link to type in your poem.

When you are done you will click the "create" button.

Use command-p to bring up the print menu.

Save as PDF again. Make sure you name it aboutmename and put it in your folder.

Thanks!

All About Me Acrostic Poem

Please go to this link to create your acrostic poem.

When you are done, click the picture of the printer.

Click pdf.

Save as pdf.

Save into your folder in the school folder.

Something NOT Fun

It has to be said - I am NOT a fan of missing work.

This past week when I sent home progress reports, I had three parents all write me a note asking if I could send home the 20 or so assignments their child was missing.

It broke my heart, but I (tried to gently) said no.

Why?! Well, here we go:

1- It's one thing to find an assignment from within the past week and get an extra copy made or pull together a quick alternative, usually my files are still out, there may be a copy in recycling, and (most importantly) the assignment and what I am trying to assess with it is fresh in my mind.

2- I have been sending home a weekly progress report all of Term 3 (4 weeks). It is not reasonable to wait this long to ask for help.

3- Now that many of the assignments and materials have been put back away, it will take me at least a half hour to pull it all together into a neat package. I wish I HAD 30 minutes to devote to ONE student. Now let's remember that there FIVE students with this number of missing assignments (only three of their parents wrote me back, but that's another story). Five times 30 equals two and a half hours.

4- Even if it wouldn't take me that long to pull together all those missing assignments, let's say it took an HOUR. I only "get" six and half hours of planning/prep time per week. That's it for making copies, gathering materials, organizing materials, etc. Believe me, I use EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. Plus, I take home roughly two hours of grading per weekend. For an average class of 30, I have about 5 minutes to devote to 1:1 needs.

5- What message does it really send to your child if we wait this long before we decide to work on his/her grades? Who owns the problem?

So, it's late and I've got kids to put to bed, dishes to do, laundry to fold and I'm going to pretend (at least until tomorrow morning) that I don't have four more assignments to put into Skyward that have DISMAL turn in rates from those fantastic five....

Good night!