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.......

Long Time No Blog!!

Gosh!!  Not sure what happened as to why I haven't been blogging.  It's been forever or so it seems!!  I guess just busy with life and then thinking my students aren't reading my blog.  Recently a complete stranger that I met at an educational conference told me she had read my blog!!!  She gave me a few suggestions as to how to get the kids to read it and none the less, she has inspired me to start blogging consitantly again!!  Shout out to Dr. Kennedy!! :)

The last 2 days in 8th English class:
We graded Vocab Wb Less. #12.  There is no quiz for this lesson.
We did Tween Tribune which is an online website.  By Monday, the students must have read 3 articles.  On one, they comment like normal and submitt online.  The 2nd one, they write a compare/contrast essay and submitt online.  The 3rd article they must do a 3-2-1 on a piece of paper and hand in to me.
Today we read a Kelley Gallagher Article of the Week about over use with our cell phones.  We did paired reading with the MAXX teaching theories.  They had to do a 3-2-1 together and answer 2 questions at the end of the article.  Due Mon.

I'm heeding Dr. Kennedy's advice.  So here goes:

"Well, what kind of a mood do you think she's in?  Scheesh, I hope it's a good one.  I didn't get to eat lunch today because our class is on the last bell, and I stayed up too late talking to Bobby.  I'm tired and I don't want to have a hard miserable practice!"  Karen exclaimed as she frantically double knotted her blue laces on her white with blue swoosh Nike hi-top basketball shoes, all the while jerking her hair up into a messy pony tail bun.

"I'm telling ya, the jh made her mad!!  That's what Krystal said.  Ran the whole hour. I guess Michelle Youngblood kept dropping the ball in 3 man weave.  Everyone was ready to choke Michelle by the time they ran their 3rd 5 in 1:10,"  Sheela explained, as she dabbed on a bit of deodorant and ran out the small baby blue door of our locker room.

To be continued.........

Baseball and Softball Districts This Week

Highschool baseball and softball districts start this week.  The girls actually play today at Vici, while the boys start Thursday at Cimarron. Good luck to both teams in their quest for State Tourney!!
 The JH baseball boys play their last game tonight here.  The JH softball girls finished last week. 

In class today, we wrote in our journals about having a super power.  Next we graded the Unit One Vocab Test P.33-40 in their vocab wb.  Finally we discussed in our Write Source textbook p.17-21, which was about Linda's first, second, and third revisions of her rough draft.We did the "Try It" on p.17 for a grade.

Vocab Less.#7 due Thursday.  Quiz on Friday.

Thursday That Feels Like Friday!!!

Even though today is Thursday, it really felt like Friday b/c we have no school tomorrow due to P.T. Conf. from 9:00-noon.  We also have them tonight from 4-8.  Hope parents can attend either day, as communication between teacher, student, and parent is vital to overall success.  It's nice having another 4 day week--well almost.  I guess really 4.5 days for us teachers.  lol  :)
 And I must comment on the rain.  Love the rain!!!  We needed it so badly.  Plus the cooler temps--just wonderful.  I'm truthfully excited about running tomorrow morning in 50ish degree weather.  I've been so sick of the heat!!

Today in 8th English we graded our Vocab wb less. #6.  We also worked on and hopefully finished our Article of the Week partner project with the reflective paragraph at the end.  It is due Monday.

I assigned the Unit 1 Vocab Tests 1-4 (p.33-40.)  Due Monday.

Don't forget to be reading.  Each student must give me two oral book reports over a book of their choice before this 9wk grading period is up.  Not very many have even given me one book report yet!!  Uh-oh. 

Have a great 3 day weekend!!!!!

Learning the Writing Process

In class today, we continued with learning the Writing Process from our Write Source textbooks (p.9-17).  Yesterday we discussed pre-writing and how to get ideas about our topic.  Today we organized those ideas and learned how to write our first rough draft.  We are going through one writer's process, fictitional Linda, as she writes a personal narrative over an experince she had last summer on the Freedom Schooner Amistad.  We did "Try It" on p.16 and turned it in for a grade.



Get Monday Done Right!!!

If you want to get your week started off on the right note, it's important to look forward to Monday and get it done right!!  I had a great day today, and it started out with waking up early to run, which is a challenge, but always puts me in a positive mood for the day.  Time flew by today, but I was able to get a lot of "rat killing" done so to speak.  That always makes a person feel good.  And I got my Monday done right!! :)

Today in class we did our Journal—Sept. is Nat. Self-Improvement Month.  Name 3 ways you could improve yourself.

Then we discussed “One Writer’s Process” p.9-17 from textbook.  We did all of the “Try It’s” on p.12, 13, and 14, which mostly dealt with the Pre-Writing step of the Writing Process. Handed those in for a grade. Will continue tomo with “Try It’s” on p.15, 16, & 17.

I LOVE FRIDAYS!!!!!!!

Yea!!!!!  Finally Friday and for this only being a 4 day week, it really trudged along.  Seemed like the week crawled by!!
 Congrats to both HS softball girls and baseball boys for their victories last night over Mangum and Cheyenne respectively.  The JH boys game against Arnett was post-poned until tonight.  So today after school I'm making the long boring trek out to Arnett and back.  Big Friday night plans.  :)


In class today we handed in the 3-2-1 over the sports magazine article.  I will grade those.  We also took a grade over the reading comprehension worksheets from yesterday.  We took and graded Vocab. Quiz #5.  I was going to take grades over the online assignment that I made yesterday, but the grades didn't look so good. :(   I'm thinking we better go over it together again and re-take the quiz.  It was over punctuation with direct quotes. No homework over the weekend.

Hope you have a great weekend!!!  :)