August Update

Hello to my students! A bit of time has passed since I last updated my blog.  I've been taking short trips to Tahoe/Reno and San Francisco. California has much to offer.  However, I've noticed this is the first of August, and school will be starting before we know it. Hopefully, you've thought about doing some summer extra credit.  In the middle of February when the second trimester grades are due, some of you will be wishing that you had completed some summer projects.

I was on campus a couple of weeks ago, and the inside of the classes have been painted and the floors waxed.  They were still working on painting the outside of the buildings.  I'm looking forward to rearranging the room to accommodate the new Whiteboards.  I have to go to class to learn how to use them!  We should never stop learning. By the way sixth grade girls who were in my Cunning Creations class, the lovely faces outside the sixth grade room are still looking at those who pass by.

I've been working on the WASC accreditation this summer. I noticed one thing as I had to write to the "educational writing prompts" I was given.  It was difficult to make sense of what was expected of me. The writing prompts were unclear, full of words I needed to look up to make sure I had the right definition, and frustrating.  I wondered how many of you feel that way with the writing prompts you're given during the course of the school year.  I would like to have some feedback from you.  Please know that if anything is unclear during class, ask for help and clarification. I don't like to feel frustrated, and I'm sure you don't either.

I'm going to be  posting some questions to the readers of my blog over the next couple of weeks. Here is your opportunity to contribute to what we will be learning this year.  I'm making lesson plans over the next couple of weeks. I'm open to some changes; it seems natural since we're changing the room around and using new Whiteboards. Respond/comment on the blog.  Let me know you're reading this.  (It will be one of the ways I will give you extra credit for following my blog.)

QUESTION for TODAY: What would make the LITERATURE units more interesting for you?  Please be specific.  

I've been playing with the settings on my camera.  I've got to start thinking about the 2012 Yearbook. I thought it might be fun to try some new techniques.  I took this picture at our hotel one night in San Francisco not far from the airport.  I rather like the image. 

"Fire Dancers"

Cunning Creations - Part 3

 This will be my last post about Summer Enrichment classes.  I am beginning to feel like summer vacation has finally started - and then it rained today.  That's pretty unusual for this part of the country.  It reminded me of when I lived in the Midwest.  It was easy to smell the rain before we even knew it was raining.

Thursday in our summer classes we made bubbles and sidewalk chalk.  The bubbles were easy.  Here is what you need for that.  Bubble Blowing Solution:    *1 c. water   *1/3 c. Joy dishwashing liquid   *2 tbsp. light corn syrup.  Mix and allow to sit for 1 hour before using. I had made some earlier so we could blow bubbles immediately.  We made blowers out of pipe cleaners and wire, but everyone preferred to use their fingers held in circles.  They seemed to make bigger bubbles.


I thought the sidewalk chalk would be easy to make with tempera paint and plaster of Paris.  Silly me - tempera paint can be expensive now, and I had to look all over to find plaster of Paris (which I found at Ace Hardware).  I decided to buy the primary colors of blue, yellow, and red.  I would let the kids mix the colors to get green, orange, and purple.  We had to work quickly with the plaster or it would set fast especially since it was hot that week.   Sidewalk Chalk  *1 cup Plaster of Paris   *1/2 cup Cool water   *tempera paints.  Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and then pour into molds, such as baking cups. We used small paper drinking cups. When it dried, we peeled the paper off.   


Friday found us meeting challenges with candy sculptures.  In the first challenge, students were given a bag with 2 large marshmallows, 7 small marshmallows, and 6 thin pretzel sticks.  They could have 5 gummy bears in a variety of colors.  Toothpicks were available to use in their sculptures.  After I took a picture of their creations, they could eat what they made.  The second challenge was a baggie full of candy like Dum-Dums, red licorice, bubble gum, and jar breakers.  They could build on the marshmallow challenge.  They had access to Popsicle sticks, googlie eyes, toothpicks, and pipe cleaners.  After I got a picture of their interesting creations, they were allowed to eat the sculpture.  By the third challenge, it didn't really matter what kind of candy was in the bag.  I think we had lost the essence of the creative element, since all anyone really wanted to do was to eat the candy.  We sure did go through a bunch of gummy bears.  For some reason, the green bears were the favorite.
Here are some pictures of our creations. 

Lovely aren't they?

 Here's an interesting question for you.  Have you ever passed someone driving a car and could have sworn it was a dog driving?  That happened to me today, and we were passing a dog park when it happened.  I grew up watching The Shaggy Dog, but it wasn't that kind of dog, but it really did look like a dog with long droopy ears.  I suppose there could be a story in that somewhere.

Cunning Creations - Part 2

In my afternoon classes during Summer Enrichment on Tuesday we made a variety of dough art.  On Wednesday we made slime and goofy putty. 

The recipe for basic dough is:
Clay Jewelry Mix
*3/4 c. flour        *1/2 c. cornstarch            *1/2 c. salt          *Warm water

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Gradually add warm water until mixture can be kneaded into a stiff dough. To reduce stickiness, dust with flour.

I did make some dough using a lemonade powder mix.  It made the dough a pretty yellow, and it smelled good.

I tried making some dough with oil and food coloring.  The food coloring was fun, but using the oil made the dough very slimy.  It did stay moist though.

Here are the recipes I used for slime and putty.

Slime
*1 cup water      *1/2 cup white glue        *2 cups Borax (found in detergent aisle in grocery store)
Mix 1/2 cup water with 1/2 cup glue. In a separate container mix 1/2 cup water with the Borax. Now stir the Borax mixture while slowly adding the glue mixture. It should immediately come together to make slime. If it isn't quite right try adding more of the Borax and water.
 I found the recipe for Goofy Putty on a web site by Steven Spangler
*Elmer's White Glue       *1 tb Borax         *Food Coloring      *1 c Water      *Empty plastic bottle with cap
*Zipper-lock bag (quart size)
"Making The Borax Water: Borax is a type of powder soap that is available in most grocery stores. Add 1 tablespoon Borax powder to 1 cup of Water. Stir until most of the powder dissolves. Store the Borax Water in a jar or bottle, and label the container "BORAX & WATER MIXTURE". Remember that one cup of Borax water will make many batches of Goofy Putty.
Preparing The Glue: Measure 1 tablespoon of Elmer's Glue into a zipper-lock bag. Add 1 teaspoon of plain water to the bag and mix. The additional water makes the glue flow better. Add a drop of food coloring to spice up the experiment.

Making Goofy Putty: Add 1 tablespoon of Borax Water to the bag of watered-down glue. Seal the bag and squeeze for 2 minutes in order to thoroughly mix the liquids. Notice that the liquids are starting to form a putty-like substance. Remove the putty from the bag and continue to squeeze."

We might have made a bit of a mess, but I think we all had some fun with it.

VOCABULARY Word for the DAY:

 Remuneration: payment for work done

Synonyms : payment, compensation, reward

Remuneration rhymes with accommodation, accumulation, abbreviation, abomination, dramatization

Check out   http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remuneration  to find out more.

This is a picture I took a few years ago on vacation.
I think this looks like a Hobbit hut.
Might make an interesting setting for a story.

For my next post, I'll include the recipes for bubbles and sidewalk chalk we made on Thursday.  I also have some pictures of the great sculpture challenges we completed with candy on the last day of Summer Enrichment.

I hope somebody out there is reading some of these posts.  It seems weird to be sending my thoughts out into cyberspace.....

Mrs. Watson

Cunning Creations - Part 1

I promised in my last post that I would tell you about my afternoon Summer Enrichment class last week which was Cunning Creations.  Last year I taught interested learners about how to make paper which was a great way to recycle.  This year I thought I would try doing something different every day.  I was always spending my summers as a kid making something out of basically nothing, so I pulled out some of the crazy things I used to do.  I had 30 kids sign-up, so I divided the class into two sessions.

Monday we made ink.  I brought in some quills (duck feathers) so we could make our own quill pens for writing.  I had some examples of ink I had made out of charcoal and some made out of dark berries.  We had fun searching the playground looking for "materials" like berries, flowers, and other natural objects.  It is rather fun to play on the playground in the middle of summer.  I don't know how successful it was, but I hope everyone had some fun making the ink.

Here are some of the recipes I used for making the ink.

MONDAY: Making Ink
Show students examples of ink already made.
Field Trip to playground to find possible items to make ink - Then crush items, mix stuff, and make what I can from what is available.
Brown Ink:
*1/2 cup boiling water     *4-5 teabags (or 4 tsp of loose tea)      *1 tsp gum Arabic

Pour boiling water over the tea bags in a large bowl, add gum Arabic. Steep for 15 minutes. Squeeze teabags to extract as much tannic acid as possible. Strain and allow to cool before bottling. Use handmade quill pen.                                                                                                                                        

Dark Berry Ink:                                                                                                                                                       To prepare ink from any dark berries, crush them and strain to extract the juice. Add some vinegar and salt mix well and store.

Here are some ideas for colors you could achieve from natural objects:

- cranberries, beets or red onion skins (RED)
- dandelion petals (YELLOW)
- yellow onion skins (GOLD)
- tea leaves (use only four opened tea bags to one cup water) (BROWN)
- parsley, carrot tops or spinach (GREEN)
- blueberries (BLUE)
- tomato skins (ROSE)

You can use lemon juice for invisible ink.  Write the secret message with the lemon juice.  When you want to see it, hold it over an open flame to heat it and your writing with invisible ink will appear.  You must be very careful not to catch the paper on fire - you may want to try a blow dryer.

Next time, I'll give you my recipes for dough and clay.

I hope you're taking time to do something entertaining today!

Mrs. Watson

You KNOW it is summer when no one wears shoes.....

Why not try writing a Haiku about that?

Green grass and flowers

I can feel between my toes

Summer - free of shoes

Summer Enrichment

This seems to be the first official week of summer! Last week found me teaching summer enrichment at St. Albans. The morning class for me was Drama with Mr. Cook. We decided to focus on improvisational acting and Commedia dell'arte in particular. We thought it would be fun to create our own masks, too.
Commedia dell'arte began in Italy in the 14th century. It means "comedy of craft" and focuses on improvisation of reoccurring scenes with stock characters. Traveling acting companies would tour and perform in the countryside. Each actor had a special character they would play, and their masks would be indicative of the personality. The actors were given a basic outline for the scene; from there they would improvise dialogue including jokes and gags.
We had our actors doing the same thing over the course of the week. We discussed how the characters were divided into three groups.
Il Vecchi - (the old men)
These were the Il Dottore (the Doctor), Pantalone (Big Pants), and Il Capitano (the Captain).
Il Zanni (the “zany” servants)
These included characters like Arlecchino or “Harlequin” the tricky servant; Brighella or the “Brawler”, and Columbina the “Little dove” who was the wise-cracking maid.
Gli innamorati - which we call "the lovers". They had names like Flavio and Isabella.

The Il Vecchi would try to keep the lovers apart while the Zanni would just cause trouble.

The kids did a great job with their presentations which I caught on video. I've included some pictures of the morning classes.

In my next post, I'll tell you about the great time I had in my two afternoon classes of "Cunning Creations". I'll include the recipes for making ink, glue, dough, slime, chalk, and a few other fun things we made.

I hope you all are enjoying your summer!

Mrs. Watson

Summer Extra Credit 2011

I took a few days off...not thinking about school. I'll bet many of you have done the same thing. I guess it's been a week since school was out for me, and I'm ready to think about summer activities. I've been working in my garden. We've planted tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, beans, zucchini-monster size, and a extremely large potato plant.

Next week I'll be back at school doing our version of Summer School. In the morning I'll be doing drama with Mr. Cook, and in the afternoon, I'll be doing two sessions of "Cunning Creations". It's a different craft each day: making ink, clay, dough, paste, chalk, and anything else that seems like fun.

Don't forget to do some summer extra credit. Here are some web sites I think you would have fun checking out.
* Check out your local LIBRARY for their Summer Reading Program.
* Take a class this summer that includes reading, writing or performing!
* Check out these web sites:
http://www.scholastic.com/kids/stacks/games/
http://www.kwarp.com/portfolio/grammarninja.html
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/basketball/index.html
http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/
http://www.chompchomp.com/exercises.htm
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/adventure/index.htm
http://www.spellingbeethegame.com/
http://www.spellingbee.com/

I will try to stay focused on writing regularly this summer. Let me know if you stop by and read something. There's a poll at the end of the blog. Leave a comment if you have any questions. I'll see some of you next week!

Mrs. Watson

Back in School

We're past the third week of school. We've finished Back to School, the upper grade retreats, and our first official day off - Labor Day. I'm getting ready to go to Ashland, Oregon and the Shakespeare Festival with the 8th grade. It is always a good time, and I'm expecting it will continue to be.

We completed a couple of units in vocabulary and grammar in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. We've begun reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry in 6th and A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg in 7th. When I return with the 8th grade we will begin reading Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

Election Week for Student Council will begin when we return; we'll have our first Dress-up day the week after, and there were many students who signed up to help with the yearbook last week.

Without a doubt, we are back in school. I hope everyone else is back to the routine.
Mrs. Watson