April Update

Gracie: Music and drama are now joined on Thursdays. Linda's and Katrina's classes are working together on the Rock 'n Roll play for Arts Festival.  The play includes songs such as: Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay, Tutti-Frutti, I Want to Hold Your Hand, and Surfin' USA. All of the songs have choreography.  Everyone in the play has to memorize their lines by April 27, along with the songs.  Elvis Presley, Little Richard and the Beatles will be performing at the Arts Festival.

Declan:  In Language Arts we are all doing book projects.  I read about the Titanic.  I wrote a paper about the story and the actual event.  I am also making a model at home.  The projects will be presented next week.  The Titanic books were really good.

Caroline: In Spanish we are doing verb tests and learning verbs.  Every week we have to turn in Spanish journals or sentences.  We work in a workbook.  Our class will be going to El Rodeo on the 21st of May.  We have to order in Spanish.

Sophie: In art we are making Japanese silk paddle fans.  We have been practicing writing our names in Japanese and painting with textile paint on scraps of silk.  I think that it is very educational because we learn about Japanese culture.

Parker: Right now in Computer class we are learning programming skills using the program Scratch.  In Scratch you have sprites (characters) and a stage (background).  The sprites have different looks called costumes, as well as a selection of backgrounds.  With Scratch you can make movies, e-cards, games, and slide shows.  You can get Scratch for free at http://www.scratch.com/.


Linda: Please sign up for your shift(s) for Strawberry Festival, if you have not done so already.  There are still about 190 shifts to fill.   Some Middle School students will be working in the food booth on Friday, May 4. Other students need to be at school in the morning for play practice.  Please let me know if you plan to take your child out of school on Thursday or Friday to work with you.

Tory's and Gracie's Views

Gracie: In computer,our teacher Karen set up a Twitter account for Linda's class. We learned a little about stars and their patterns. We used a ball thrown back and forth to simulate how long it takes for light to travel from a certain area and back to earth again. Then Karen taught us to make a PowerPoint-how to operate the slides and so on. We also saw a video of computer safety.

Tory: We had a Valentine's Day party on Tuesday, hosted by Katrina's class. Yesterday we had "Barter Day", where students brought in things they'd like to trade. They set up a table or a blanket to trade their stuff for other stuff.

Danielle's Entry

In language arts, we are getting ready to read To Kill a Mockingbird or The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had.
My class will be reading for the next month.  We will work on a packet full of detailed questions.   This process is slow going to get the full impact the book has made.

Linda's Two Cents:  Conferences are this Friday, January 27th.  Students will be getting ready this week to share their work with parents.  Two payments have been collected for the Spring trip- thank you for sending payments in on time.
We just started new Friday groups.  Ask your child what he/she is doing.

Sophie's Side

Last week Linda's class performed skits that we wrote. Our class split up into two groups and practiced teamwork skills to write our own plays. One half of the class did a skit as a talk show and the other half did a mystery.  Other middle school plays included neutral masks and other student composed plays. I thought that the plays went very well and I think that everyone enjoyed them.

Declan's View

In the Speakeasy, kids had to get into costumes that looked like a character from the 1920's.  They had to talk about their character and have everyone else guess who they were.  Everyone also did a research paper and wrote a biography of the famous person.  After the presentations we went outside to play and then we got a password to enter the Speakeasy.  It was in Katrina's room and there were snacks, sodas and music. 
At the end, Holly and Michi came in and acted like the police.  All the kids ran out.  I thought it was fun and a little bit crazy!

1920's Biography Presentations

Last Tuesday, middle school students presented biographies of iconic figures of the 1920's.Check out the pictures!

More Fall Fibs

Snakes
are
very
dumb-they get
in the way of bikes!
My bike wheel ran over a snake.
I also saw some otters swimming and they were cute!
I tried to chase a big deer with a pointed stick, but it was too fast and got away.
By Declan

Wet
Cold
Hiking
Pocket knife
Very long, wet night
Woodpeckers are very stupid.
I was relieved when we got back to a warm school.
All my stuff was very wet and stinky when I got back home to Hollins on Thursday.
The sun never ever came out of the clouds with its bright, warm ,yellow light so we made the best of it , but it was very cold and so wet.
By Parker


Wet
Hard
Camping
In the rain
Carving with a knife
Making a spear to chase deer with
Going nine long miles to Marlington and back again.
Going through a very, very, very, very dark long and dry tunnel-it was really hard.
It was extremely long and hard on the eighteen mile ride to the tunnel and back-
when I got back I collapsed next to my bike,  what a ride!
By Max