Thinking & Writing Wrinkles

Throw your hat in the ring!

Well, Jennifer has a feather in her cap.  Did you all enjoy seeing her artwork displayed on the weblog?  She is on top of the world and we are all tickled pink that she will be representing us at the capitol.  Now, are you all ears?  Of course we all know that nothing ventured, nothing gained so we are out to prove that the pen is mightier than the sword.  The way we will do that is to hitch our wagon to the stars and hang in there until we are great writers.  We will pull out all the stops, put our best foot forward, and make no bones about our desire to become better writers. I sure get a kick out of watching you write.  Are you ready to throw your hat in the ring?  OK, super writers, penny for your thoughts?

How did you like my little idiom story?  I had fun writing it and I am so proud that some of you took the challenge I made today!  I know you are thinking about topics this week.  We'll discuss it some more next week.

Good blogging today!  Also, excellent thinking on the homework writing process list.  I will post that a little later.

I'm proud of each and every one of you!  More later!

Dare to be Different!

Boys and girls, you are something else!  I like our brief discussion time before we head to the lab.  It gives us a chance to talk and make connections to our learning.  You are improving so much on your communication skills. REMEMBER, it is OK to be LOUD!  You will not hear that from too many teachers so take advantage! Speak clearly, speak distinctly and SPEAK with conviction!  It's OK if your opinion is different.  Dare to be different!  That's what keeps us engaged and learning.  Toss those ideas out and we will have great discussions.  All this will help us when we write on our weblogs.

It was nice to have the needed time for you to reply to comments you had received.  You did a good job of adding your additional navigation links, too!  It was fun to observe you as you browsed the many news articles as you were trying to make choices on what articles you would read.  We didn't have time to actually blog but you have two articles to work on for homework. Next week we'll get to that!

Suggestions for you for your homework:

1. Read your article.


2. Take a hi-liter and mark the important parts of the article.


3. Think about the article.


4. Tell someone what the article was all about.  This will help you further understand what you have read.


5. Think about descriptive words and how to make your writing more interesting.


6. Be sure relevant details are included - who, what, where, when, why, how.


7. Be sure the lead for your article will hook the readers.


8. Write your article.


9. Be sure to think of a short, catchy title.


10. Proof the article  yourself.


11. Ask someone else to proof it.


12. Make corrections and any changes that you think would make your writing better.


13. Reread it one more time!

Yes, writing is hard work but it is worth it.  I know many of you will not have a chance to read this before class next week but we will go over it as a group and probably even re-write it based on your input.

Have a great weekend!

Jennifer's and Mayra's Artwork at Capitol!

Don't you love it?  Two J. H. House Elementary School students have had their artwork selected for the Capitol Art Exhibit and our Jennifer is one of them!  Way to go, Jenny!!!!  The Capitol Art Exhibit is co-sponsored by the Georgia Art Education Association and the office of the sevcreteary of state and is the premier event of Youth Art Month.  Mayra was the other student and here is her artwork:

Both students will be attending a Feb. 11 reception at the Capitol with their parents and art teacher to view the work and meet with legislators. 

Wow!  We are so very proud of them.  Way to go, girls!  Educate those legislators about the importance of art in our curriculum!!!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

It was wonderful to get back together.  The two hour sessions just zip by!  How I would love to have more time!  The dicussion time is so important and helps the students so much.  We always spend the first half hour reviewing what we have done and talking about what we will be doing.  Today the students were beginning the process of actually  blogging!  They followed these steps:

1. read news stories
   
2. wrote about what they read
   
3. published their news item to the home page and are hoping for responses
   
4. will read more next week

The process will work but I have to work on the time element.  Students could go to one of the following news sites:

Time for Kids

CNN Student News

studentnewsnet

Scholastic News

They enjoyed this step.  In fact, they liked it so much that they kept wanting to read more and then decide which one was of most interest to them.  I hate having to rush them at this step but I need to think on a way to expedite the reading here due to our short class time. 

I had told them to give credit to the source with a link and that I would help them here but I didn't get to them as I was spending time with them on the writing and helping Cristian with his English.  Soooooo, I need to show that first thing next week.  I did show them how to have the article open along with their weblog so they could toggle back and forth.  That's a needed skill!

They proofed themselves, had a peer proof, and then published.  This took time - again, an important step!

And, we squeezed in time to work on the Idioms Are Fun weblog - created some good sentences!!

See what I mean about time..... but we will work it out!  I have to remind myself that I told them "Patience is a virtue". They had not heard that expression before so I explained the meaning.  Now, I need to remember that explanation and apply it myself in class!

We did not get to reply to the wonderful comments that the kids had received from SuperThinker and others last week.  Some of the kids did manage to answer them but I want them to be able to enjoy that part more and for it to be less hurried!!  I have lots to think about but we'll all put our heads together and figure it out!  I have a week to think about it!  I can't miss with such a great group of students!

Great writers will bloom this year!

Welcome back!  I hope all of you had a grand holiday, got lots of rest, and are super charged and ready to write! 

A new idiom has been posted - this time by Luz.  You'll like her choice.  You will be surprised and pleased with some of the new comments we got on our Idioms Are Fun weblog.

I've really missed all of you and we're going to blog away tomorrow!  Get ready to exercise those brains - new wrinkless are coming!  I've got a great day planned for you and even some special surprises, but you will just have to wait to discover them. Patience is a virtue. (Hope someone can tell me what that means - how about you?)  See you early in the morning.....

Christmas Wishes

from

MerryChristmas

Questions Galore!

The room was just buzzing this morning and the excitement was in the air!  Questions galore!  Of course, all of them centered on Super Thinker!  Many thought that I was the Super Thinker!  Can you imagine?  They also seem convinced that she must be a teacher and boy, did they zero in on each and every clue Super Thinker left!  Wonder why they are so sure Super Thinker is a teacher. They know I know but I told them that when you give your word, you are honor bound to keep it.  And keep it, I will!  They have asked Super Thinker lots and lots of questions so we'll see how good they are at wading through the clues!  I hope they get lots more clues! 

Smiles were everywhere today and everyone was giving it their best!  They want so to be good writers - we don't want any egg on any faces around here, at least not because of our writing, right?

Jerry, we missed you today and we are so sorry you are sick.  Hope you get well soon!  Juana will be attending other classes for a while so we hope she can perhaps come back to the group a little later in the year.  We also gained a new member today - Noe! Welcome Noe! He is good friends with Cristian and they make a dynamite team.  Cristian is helping Noe with his Spanish and Noe is helping Cristian with his English.

I am proud of each and every one of you.  I wish you a wonderful holiday season.  I'm going to miss you but it is going to be so much fun getting back together next year!!

If you have some spare moments - write, write, write!!!  Also, think, think, think!!

Till next year......

WHOOSH!!!!

Good morning, boys & girls!  WHOOSH!!!  Did you hear that sound last week?  I heard it not once, not twice, but several times.  I was on the Internet and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Super Thinker- superhero to bloggers everywhere!  Why, I believe Super Thinker even made the ten posts of Christmas! One or sometimes even more for each one of our amazing Wrinkles group!  My goodness, what to our wondering eyes should appear but this powerful writer who uses superpowers to inspire emerging webloggers everywhere!  Who is Super Thinker?  Where did Super Thinker come from?  How did Super Thinker find us?  What do you think?  Quick!  Go read those comments and post your thoughts - oh, tis the season to be thinking about the power of the written word!!!

Give comments for Christmas!

Student weblogs are up now!  We have been working on them for the past couple of weeks.  Today was a productive one and you could hear the clicking of keys throughout the room.  Students made their introductions with poems.  They liked this activity - said it was hard at first, then with more writing, it got easier.  They gathered up their different writing pieces and began to publish.  Everyone had been thinking about names and tag lines for their weblogs.  Most of those are done, but some are still thinking. Yes, Jackie, I know you are pondering and will have a clever name next week!

I have created an "Idioms Are Fun" weblog where idioms chosen by the students will be defined and then used in a sentence to show understanding.  The first idiom we spotlighted was "apple of my eye" by Yoceline.  This is going to be a weekly activity.  The students loved it and are getting ready to create some good illustrations that we will post later. 

Our writing community is off to a great start! I am proud of all of them!  Take a look at this good-looking crew......

And then treat yourself to a look at their weblogs listed to the right!  I'm sure they'd love a comment or two on their writing!  Give a little Christmas gift to a great group of kids!  Give comments for Christmas!!!!