Ms. Foley and Ms. Kulkarni have their students demonstrate Newtonian physics through building rollercoasters. Not only must the coaster work with a dropped marble, it must be cost efficient. Each piece, including the tape, has a fictional dollar value that they must defend to a board of investors. This is another great example of our staff challenging students in rigor and relevance.
I was reading an article about the history of the Oregon Trail video game and learned that it was the result of two Math teachers and a History teacher being roommates. All three were in their first years of teaching and wanted a way to grab students’ attentions when learning about western expansion in the United States.
They programmed the whole thing in two weeks. That’s what reminded me of Verb Volley, a game I created one Fall Break to help my students review parts of speech.
Here’s my game:
Normally when you see a link for ESSAYS ON THE INTERNET, it’s a money-making scheme to sell desperate students poorly written essays.
The Concord Review, though, publishes the top research papers from around the world as a showcase for colleges/future employers to look at. If you want to submit your essay, here are the guidelines. I will say this, though: there is a fee associated with submissions and the essays all deal with history.
I think the site is great to show off examples of well-written student work and definitely being published here would make for a nice addition to your college application.
Part of what I enjoy about reading great books are the discussions that I have with other readers.
Ms. Hofmann is doing a pretty cool experiment with AR reading. She paired up students based on an interest survey and I pulled all of my books that I have two copies of. Tomorrow I’ll booktalk a few and we’ll let students choose from there. The goal is to get good books into the hands of students and to have a little bit more interactivity with their reading.
The other fun bit is that for the library to have two copies of the book, it has to be a good book. I’m excited to see how it turns out. If you look at the above photo, that’s just a small sampling of the awesomeness.
I’m a fan of experiential learning to build connections and help students find the relevance, hopefully remembering some of what they learned. (If they truly learned it, they will remember. If it’s just storing the information in working memory, then you can wave bye-bye.)
Many times we ask students to find information using multiple sources, but we don’t coach them on how to do it. 7th grade Language Arts teacher Mrs. Clerke and I created a quick scavenger hunt to familiarize students with print references. If we were to jump straight into a big research assignment, the students wouldn’t quite know where to look. Add that confusion to students not realizing what information they really need for their project and a research unit becomes more exhausting than it should be.
Below is a copy of the handout we gave them for the scavenger hunt race. (This is also for Clerke’s and my reference in case the district wipes our computer user accounts and e-mail in the same year. What are the odds of that happening, right?)
Research Scavenger Hunt
Find a biography of a president. What’s the title of the book? Who’s the author?
Is Warsaw, Poland north or south of Prague, Czech Republic? What’s the title of the book? When was it published?
Let’s say you’re writing an essay and you want to start it with a quote about winter. Find a quote about winter. What’s the title of the book? Copy the quote about winter. Which page was it on?
Your teacher has asked you to make a travel brochure to visit Guyana from the story “Three Skeleton Key”. Draw the flag from Guyana. What is the title of the book you found the flag in?
What are two synonyms for the word “sovereign”? Which book did you use?
What part of speech is the word “jealousy”? How do you spell its plural form? Which book did you use?
Who invented the Geiger counter? When did that person invent it? What country was that person from?
Name a type of fluke worm. What does it do? What’s the title of the book? Who published the book?
*Bonus Point: Draw the flag from Libya.
Many stories have similar elements, similar characters, that author Joseph Campbell believes is common to the human experience. If you look at the plot lines for Harry Potter, the Lightning Thief, Eragon, Star Wars, and King Arthur legends (Dumbledore/Chiron/Brom/Obi Wan/Merlin), you’ll see that there are shared aspects of popular stories.
You’ll be exploring those similarities today in Ms. Redden’s Language Arts class. The online Hero’s Journey organizer can be found by clicking here.
This is a collection of websites for Ms. Cuppage’s career research unit.
Here’s a link to how to cite the Career Opportunities book.
Field, Shelly. “Sportscaster/Radio”. Career Opportunities in the Sports Industry. New York: Checkmark Books. 1999
Here’s information from the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Announcer
Athletic Trainer
Chiropractor
Coach
Dancer
Dietitian and Nutritionist
Doctor
News Analyst, Reporter, and Correspondent
Nurse
Professional Athlete
Recreation and Fitness Worker
Recreational Therapist
Sports Business and Administration
Account Exec for Special – Risk Insurance – Sports
Athletics, and Recreation
Sports Event Coordinator
Coaching and Education
Coach or Manage – Professional Sports Team
Physical Education (PE) Teacher – College, HS, JHS, Ele.
Officiating Sports Teams
Umpire/ Referee-Pro, college, HS, JHS, Rec Leagues
Sports Journalism
Recreation and Fitness
Sports and Fitness Program Coordinator
Health Club Manager, Assistant Manager
Tennis Director
Tennis Teaching Professional
Golf Pro
Lifeguard
Horse Racing
Harness Driver (pull carts behind horses competitively)
Harness Racing Judge
Racing Secretary
Racetrack Announcer
Sports Medicine
Sports and Fitness Nutritionist
Specialties:
Strength and Conditioning Specialist
Sports Acupuncture and related therapy
And all the assistants to these positions.
Wholesaling and Retailing
Manufacturer’s Representative – Sporting Goods
Boxing and Wrestling
Matchmaker
Boxing Referee
Professional Boxing Judge
Boxing Trainer
Boxing Manager
Boxing Trainer
Ring Announcer
Professional Wrestling Referee
This is a re-posting of an activity we did last year. It has been updated to include the 2010 Time List.
This is for Ms. Redden’s 7th grade Language Arts class. We’ll be looking at leadership characteristics in both a modern day setting and in the novel The Girl Who Owned a City.
The first site to look at is the Time Magazine Top 100 Influential People of 2010. You can find the site by clicking here.
Click on a person’s name from the list. Read through the person’s description looking specifically for leadership qualities.
Look at the Venn diagram side of your handout. In the middle of the diagram, write down qualities that Lisa and your person share.
On the left-hand side of the diagram, write down qualities that Lisa has as a leader that your person does not have.
On the right-hand side of the diagram, write down qualities that your person has that Lisa does not have.
The next site you’ll look at is the Top 10 Leadership Qualities from HR World. You can get to the site by clicking here.
On your own, answer the three questions on your handout in complete sentences.
ToonDoo had been blocked by our district’s Internet filter for a long time. It’s now open for use, so I thought I’d highlight it.
ToonDoo gives you a selection of comic layouts that you can add text and pictures to. It’s a perfect set-up for a quick classroom lesson in the computer lab. I can see its application as a jigsaw activity, where students become experts on one area of the content and other students view their comics. It could work as a final assessment where students have to prove that they learned something in the unit.
You won’t make complex comics with ToonDoo (Kazu Kibuishi, you don’t have anything to fear), but you can create some pretty decent ones. Here’s one that I made in five minutes:
Your jokes don’t have to be so bad. That’s optional.
First off, I’m excited for this 8th grade Social Studies project.
Students will be creating the next verse to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. (Click here for a history teacher’s explanation of the lyrics. Scroll past the ‘terrific video tribute’.)
What I love about this song is that very soon a new generation of students will come through HJHS and your present day life will be history to them. How would the song sound to include modern history?
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
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