Spelling, Similes, Metaphors, & Shorts??

It's hard to get into the Christmas spirit when I feel like wearing shorts outside.  It's NOT beginning to look a lot like Christmas....yet. It definitely doesn't FEEL like Christmas.  But we do still have a couple of weeks until the season is upon us. 

Today in class we finished up Unit 3 in our Buckle Down textbooks.  We did the spelling lessons and all the practice activities that go along with the lessons.  Students did work together as a class and handed in for a participation grade.

Students also turned in their proofreading assignment from yesterday.  We graded their Vocab Wb. Less. #16.  The vocab quiz is tomorrow.

We also talked about their upcoming 9 weeks test next week.  They will work in partners and they will make a Prezi over Similes & Metaphors used in songs.  Bonus points will be awarded if at least one of their song choices is a Christmas song.  Prezi's are due Monday, Dec. 17th. This will count as their 9 weeks test.  I will give them a criteria sheet as to how I will grade their Prezi's.

Good News----Josh came home last Friday!!!!  We were so glad and relieved as a class to hear the news.  We went outside that day and cheered him and his family on as they drove by the school on their way home.  He will be coming to school just a few days a week for part of a day.  He has really recovered quickly and is doing quite well considering the extent of his injuries.  We need to continue to think and pray for him and his family.  He still has quite a few challenges ahead of him.  But he is finally home!!!

Hump Day--C'mon Friday!!

Today in class we continued with our peer reviews of our persuasive essays.  The final copy is due Friday at the end of class.  Vocab. wb less. #14 is due tomo.  Quiz is on Friday.  Students can work on revising and re-writing their rough drafts tomorrow and Friday.  We are having a 1,000 blog hits party tomorrow during the last 20 minutes of class.  I also told the students I'd like for them to write another letter to Josh.  This is optional.  I need those though by Friday.

And my story continues......

     "Well, I don't care what the reason is--I'm just glad your free tonight and you can go to town with us!!"exclaimed Randi, leaning over in her chair and giving me a quick hug.
     I could always count on Randi to make me feel better.
     "Yeah, I think I can," I said, "but I'll have to do my chores first.  What time are you guys wanting to go?"  I was hoping they would say 8:00 p.m.  That would give me plenty of time for the fresh cows to come in for milking, so I would have enough milk to bottle feed our 20 baby calves.  We had a lot of baby calves right now, all heifers, which means when you live on a dairy farm, you keep them 'cuz that's money in the milk tank down the road.  We usually sold the bull baby calves, and my dear old dad did NOT believe in feeding any of the babies milk replacer.  He believed, and was of course right, that the milk from the Momma cows was way healthier and better digestively for the baby calves than the powdered-junk you could buy at the Co-op.  But for me, as a 16 year old girl, anxiously wanting to get to Kingfishy to drag main with my friends, I hated waiting for those darned old cows to come into the milk barn.  I swear it's like they had radar and knew when it was a Saturday night that I didn't have a ballgame and purposely came in towards the last! My mom would then have to milk them in the bucket, seperate from the big tank, which took extra time.  All that hooking up the hoses and adjusting the bowls, while flipping certain levers on our milking system was just another process that slowed me down.  Real milk--just so those dad-burned baby holsteins and guernsey calves could be healthy!  It took forever doing it the right way.  Little did I know this was just one of many lessons on the farm that would later translate to basketball, as well as my adult life.  Sometimes doing things right isn't nearly as quick or as fun, but it is usually what's best and necessary.

Monday, Monday...

So thankful for the RAIN over the weekend!!!!!  And the cooler weather.  I like Fall to feel like Fall because it's definitely starting to look like Fall.  The colors this time of year are another thing I am very thankful for. 

This week in class we are learning how to revise and edit with the Process of Writing.  We went over Less. #11 in Buckle Down books and also looked at the persuasive rubric in the Write Source textbook on p.256-257.  I will pass out their persuasive 5 paragraph essays from last week tomorrow.  They will pick a peer to read their essay and start peer revisions.  We will do peer and self-revisions tomorrow and Wednesday.  Then start re-writting our rough drafts on Thursday.  Final copies are due Friday.  Vocab Wb Less. #14 due Thurs and quiz Friday.  We will have 6 academic vocabulary words this week as well.

Josh update:
He had a bit of a set back over weekend.  He was throwing up--doctors not sure why, so they moved him back to ICU for a day or two.  He is going to be moved to Children's Hospital where they will start his rehab.  He has been in a wheelchair a few times.  Josh was texting me some last night.  He read all of the 8th graders letters.  He and his mom were very moved by them.  And they made him smile and laugh.  :)

Thrilling Thursday

Here it is Thursday already.  It seems as if the week has trekked by again with blinding speed.  Both JH boys and girls basketball teams play at Cheyenne tonight in the semi-finals round of the Hammon/Cheyenne Tournament.  Good luck to them.  Today they 8th graders got to hear my soap box speech about their attitudes and behaviors toward my substitute yesterday.  Frustrating to say the least.  I don't know why certain students act they way they act.  Hmmmm---puzzling.

***We graded the 2 worksheets I left for them yesterday.  We graded the Vocab wb Less. #13.  Vocab quiz is tomorrow.

Josh update:  I saw Josh yesterday when I was in OKC for my doctor's appt.  He was asleep though.  He had just taken some pain meds.  He looked pretty good though; much better than he had looked on Saturday.  He's even been up in his wheelchair scooting around.  We were going to talk to him today in class via Skype, but something happened and we didn't get to.  Maybe tomo....

And now continuing on with my story....

     We liked being farm kids, or I did anyway, for the most part.  But if I'm being honest, I'd have to admit that during the time when I was supposed to be doing my chores, like filling up the big water troughs for our heifer calves in the north lot or maybe even when I was bottle feeding the baby holsteins at the chicken house, my mind would wander and I longed for and dreamed of the day when I could leave the farm and live the high life in the big city. Those dreams though seemed like eons of years away, and I was just struggling to get through basketball practice and survive the pressures of high school.

    "So are you going to town tonight or you got a date with precious Bobby?"  Randi asked, mostly just joking, but also letting me know that she and Shawna, my two best friends in the whole universe, missed me and really wanted to hang out.

     "Precious Bobby wants to hang with the boys," I answered.  "That's what he told me last night on the phone.  I think that just 'code' for there's a party and he wants to go.  He knows I won't go with him.  He knows I'm not into that."

     "Well, why is it when he wants to hang with the boys, you let him.  But when we want you to hang out with us, you never do.  You always pick him over us.  Why is that?"  retorted Shawna, with more of a hurt look in her eyes than her sarcastice tone would let on.

     And she did have a valid point.  Why did I let Bobby control my free time, what little bit I had, like that?  If he said "Jump!" I said "how high?" but when I said "Jump!" he would just looked at me like I was stupid.  And then I would start to feel stupid.  And self-conscious.  And unworthy.  I considered myself to be a very confident and fiercely independant teenage girl, but when it came to Bobby....I don't know.  It's like he had some type of hold over me.


Until tomo....... :)

We Miss You Josh!!!

It has been a week since I blogged, but a lot has happened that caused this.  One of the 8th grade boys was in a tragic car accident Tuesday evening southwest of Leedey.  He had to be medflighted by helicopter from the pasture and dirt road where the accident occurred to OU Medical Trauma Center in Oklahoma City.  This has affected my 8th graders and myself BIG TIME!!  Halloween, on that next day, Wednesday, just wasn't as jovial and festive as normal.  We have all been worried sick about Joshua.  He is still in ICU, but he is doing much better.  Here is a list of Josh's injuries:  broken collar bone; broken cheekbone; 2 spots on the brain that the CAT scan shows as looking ok, but the doctors are watching closely, although they don't think there is major brain trauma; both legs broken and he has had numerous long surgeries putting rods and pins in legs; a huge rod in his broken pelvis; numerous broken ribs; and  a punctured (but not collapsed) lung.  He was taken off of the ventilator Sunday and he started talking some Sunday evening--definitely good signs!!! Josh definitely has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but we are thankful he is alive and eventually going to be ok.  We need to keep him and his family in our thoughts and prayers.

The last two days the 8th graders were given a Persuasive Writing Prompt about whether or not classes in school should be boys and girls together or just same sex classes.  Students must write a 5 paragraph essay, picking a side and giving details to support their opinions.  Students will get a grade on their pre-writing notes and a grade on their rough draft, which is all due tomorrow. 

Tomorrow I will blog again and continue on with my little story that I'm writing.

All Hallow's Eve Right Around the Bend...

Spooks and goblins and ghosts galore are quickly approaching the town of Leedey.  Halloween is my favy fav holiday.  I love the season it comes in, the colors, the smells, the fact that is has a HUGE association with chocolate candy, and the scariness of it all!!  So in keeping with the Halloween mood, I've assigned a 3 paragraph Halloween essay to my 8th graders.  After picking their own partner, they can pick any topic relating to Halloween. They must have two online sources and write the essay in pen or pencil, skipping lines. It's due Wednesday. We will work on them today and tomorrow.   We will read them aloud to the class on All Hallow's Eve day.

And now, the continuation of my story.  Dr. Kennedy suggested that if I write a paragraph each day that I blog, by the end of a school year, I might have written a novel.

"Oh great," I thought, as visions of a no-ball practiced whirred around in my 17 year old blonde head.  "Oh well, just try to make the best of it.  Things can always get worse!" I muttered as I hurredly joined the rest of my teammates, jumping rope and stretching as we got loose and warmed-up.

The "she" we were referring to was none other than the legendary Gina Allen, small school girls' basketball coach in western Oklahoma.  She was the reason we all had a love/hate relationship with the game and a lot of times even, with her as our coach.  She was, quite frankly, the best that ever  coached the game of girls' basketball, and her demeanor, style of play, and coaching techniques are comparable to few, if any, then or now.  My teammates and I all grew up watching her teams, our older sisters and cousins, dreaming of the one day when it would be our turn to take the court in our royal blue and white suits, representing her and our cherrished Leweyville.  Basketball was all we knew in our small rural school, well, that and farming chores.  Most all of the kids in Leweyville came from a farm home where hard work and harsh words were as common as dusty roads and waving wheat fields. 

To be continued.......