Tag Archives: sneeze

8.25.14 – A

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Welcome to Vistas! This first day of school was pretty uneventful, but I’m excited for all of my classes. It may take me a little bit to get all of your names, but just bear with me. Especially if I have already messed up your name.

Today, we only worked on the character sheet and did normal first day activities. If you missed today, this is the first grade in the gradebook. You can get a Character Sheet from me. You will need to fill in the following:

  • Name
  • Nature
  • Deameanor
  • the 4 R’s (Respect, Relationships, Responsibility, Rigor)

To fill in your Nature and Demeanor, go First Day Stuff in Blackboard. Find the list of Nature and Demeanor Archetypes. Read through them. Find one that is your TRUE SELF – your NATURE. This is the CORE of your being, it never changes. People may not always SEE it, but this is who you truly are.

You demeanor is the mask you wear. You will find there are lots of masks you wear – choose the one you most often wear at school.

For example, my nature is Architect and my demeanor is Jester.

The the four R’s, you have 10 dots to spread among the four categories, YOU CAN ONLY USE TEN DOTS – NO MORE. This may be confusing, so either ask me or ask a classmate if this isn’t making sense.

We then did the First Day survey – this can also be found in the First Day folder on Blackboard.

In first block, we were able to watch Wear Sunscreen and Sneeze about it, and we were also able to do the #’s Activity. We’ll try to do those things in Second Block tomorrow.

Please note that I am teaching an A and a B section at the same time, so don’t assume that all of these posts apply to you.

8/28/13 – A

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Today, we sneezed. I gave you a choice between boogers and paper cuts. Let me just say that I am the queen of gross out, and some of you topped me. Y’all are funny!

Then, after we discovered that the dragon didn’t actually *eat* Alma, we decided to do a little reconnaissance work. We know now WHERE we are, but we don’t know anything about these people. So, your Captain split you into teams (based on your personality) and sent you out to investigate.Peanut Butter Jelly Time It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

You are either a Peanut, a Butter, a Jelly, or a Time.

Read your sections from the textbook, highlight the important items, and then DRAW them on the index cards you were given. An index card for each section (that’s why you have three index cards.

Tomorrow, we will get back together with our groups and teach them what we learned, explain what we drew and why.

1/31/2012

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We started out making a prediction – what do you think is going to happen today based on the list of words that Riley gave us in class:

Beowulf Prediction

 Then we read The Monster’s Lair and the Battle with Grendel’s Mother – GRRR! FIGHTING! ATTACK!

We then sneezed about snow, and then we worked on a snow globe:

 

This is a Disney snowglobe with elements that show the setting of Disney.

Choose either Herot or Grendel’s Mother’s swamp and create a snow globe with at least five objects that show you understand the setting.

When we finished, we worked on our Foil Flip Doll.

3/30/2012

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Aaaachooo! We sneezed out Sneeze #5 today, and then we spent about ten minutes editing and revising ONE of those sneezes so that Cap’n Riley can grade it. Edit it so that it is mechanically sound (spelling, grammar, punctuation, run ons, sentence structure, etc) and revise it to fix confusing sentences, take away unnecessary stuff, or add to it.

We then read The Battle with Grendel – it took about twelve minutes. Not bad at all. And it made me hungry for chicken legs – that’s actually what I had for lunch today! It was FATED!

We ended the day doing an Open Mind Diagram for Beowulf.

  • Do this in PowerPoint. Make sure it is Portrait, not Landscaped.
  • Find an outline of a head or profile.
  • Find three images that represent Beowulf.
  • Around each image, write four words or phrases. If you use phrases, I want no more than 3 words in the phrase. (3 images X 4 words = 12 words total).
  • Two quotes that are correctly cited that show Beowulf’s personality or his actions.

 

The rubric is in LMS if you want to see specifics.

1/20/2012

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We are all now officially pirates with Cap’n Riley. We tried on chain mail today – check it out:

Riley is known for unprovoked attacks on students
 

Vistas students are just as creepy as Cap’n Riley.

We then did a Word Storm, which means we generated as many words as pissbole about the Anglo-Saxons. We sorted them by syllables. The group that gets the most words gets awarded booty on Monday!

 
We ended the day with a sneeze. About peanut butter.
 

Term Three

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I love the start of a new term: it’s another new beginning. And after last term, I need a new beginning. The problem with new beginnings is that while people look forward to them, they often don’t change. What’s the point of a new beginning if you aren’t going to do anything thing differently?

So, things that I’m going to do differently this term:

  • I’m going to bring the game aspect back to the classroom this term. I just didn’t have it in me to do it for Term 2.
  • I’m going to bring back the Sneezes for Term 3. Students liked it. I liked it.
  • I need to start posting my objectives and all that jazz on the board for The Man.
  • I’m going to have to start being a cell phone Nazi. If I ask you to put your phone away, do it. If I ask you to drop the phone off in the Brig, do it. Don’t waste time by making me get the Ekster to get the phone from you.
  • I want to use the blog more. Not only with more Scribes, but with other things as well. Just more posts. Like this one. Maybe even for Term 4, I’ll give my pirate wannabes a blog of their own. At least once a week.
  • And Survey Monkey. I loved Survey Monkey. Why did I stop using it?
  • And I think I’m going to start making at least one happy phone home a week. I was going to say day, but then I remembered to keep my goals reasonable. Will you be the call of the week?

In any case, I’m looking forward to Term 3 and hope you guys are, too. Remember – the work isn’t hard and it isn’t excessive, but I do require you to think. If you wait until the last week of school, it’s going to be really hard to pass. My class is really about time management: use it wisely! 🙂