May - August 2017

Spelling - Word study

List 1: only, give, any, but, shoe, could, gone, new, saw, put

List 2: again, egg, push, eye, pull, pour, they, has, sew, pretty

List 3: the, where, do, have, she, come, does, says, said, one

List 4: no, of, was, too, what, there, some, your, four, get

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

You can listen to The Phantom Tollbooth on YouTube (no pictures).

Or, you can listen to this set of audio recordings which give the characters separate voices. Here's chapter 1 (no pictures) (6:40). Here's chapter 2 (no pictures) (16:39). Here's chapter 3 (no pictures) (12:31).

Maurice Sendak wrote the "An Appreciation" to the 30th anniversary issue. His three-page tribute is full of difficult words. Here are just a few of the words we explored: midst, didactic, dialogue, ingenuity, lunatic, acrobatics, prophetic, fantastical, excessive, conformity, cupidity, allegorical, clamber, menschkeit, flukes. What other words are difficult in Sendak's piece?

Learn more about Norton Juster and The Phantom Tollbooth.

Hear Juster & Feiffer's story about The Phantom Tollbooth got started (3:00) in this video celebrating the 50th year of this book (2011).

Solar Eclipse

Here's what you need to see this eclipse on Monday (about 11am) 8/21 - We'll be watching.

How to make a solar viewer from a cereal box (5:52).

Study strategies

Watch this video to learn how to create the best flashcards (8:43).

Watch this video about spaced practice: what it is and how to use it to study (7:46).

Sheets - Building a Reading Habit

Watch this video about some tips for building your reading habit (5:03).

Watch this video to find out how to learn new skills in less time (23:27).

Watch this video to hear some misconceptions about reading (2:41).

Watch this video to learn about 5 benefits of reading (5:07). (shared 8/9/17)

First Aid

Review the four parts of an emergency system, then take notes about what you should do when you approach a victim. See the attached powerpoint for this information. The powerpoint First Aid.interview victim.Jly17 is attached to the bottom of this section.

Scientists

This week we worked on writing our introductory paragraphs about our scientists. See possibilities in Here are sample first paragraphs for our scientist papers.pdf posted below.

On Wednesday mornings, individuals (and some partners) have chosen scientists they want to know more about. This list includes Galileo (Kuku), Newton (Ray), Franklin (Ellen), Tesla (Danny), Bell (Spring), Einstein (Tyson), Earhart (Fartun), Drew (Ray), Edison (Garth, Max, Ken, & Shane), & Hawking (Deb).

Weeks ago, we brainstormed a list of questions we'd each find out about our selected scientist. We've been adding to information through google.docs. Read the pdf attached below called Questions about Scientist_jun17 for list of specific questions.

Last week, we talked about how to share information about our scientist without turning each question into a paragraph. We talked about selecting something specific about the person that we think our audience should know more about. That information is to be used to develop a 1 to 2 page paper. During our discussion, I tried to show you how the information about Stephen Hawking could lend itself to several very different papers depending on what information was chosen. Review the answers to the questions in the pdf below called Stephen Hawking Questions_jun17. Now to see how this information can be turned into two very different essays, read the two drafts saved in pdf format below: Stephen Hawking: Live's Work_draft1_jun17 and Stephen Hawking: Making of a Scientist_draft1_jun17.

Now that you've compared these three documents. Look at your own questions. What is the story you want your discovery to tell? Remember, the research you have already done will not all get used. And, you'll need to do more specific research on your scientist as you write your paper and think about what you need to finish telling the story.

Literature - poetry & stories and their authors

The short story "Most Dangerous Game," written by Richard Connell (1893-1949), pits two hunters against each. The winner lives. What would you do to survive? Find out what these two hunters do. He started as a reporter in high school and continued reporting during WWI. He published more than 300 stories. (Share 8/29/17)

Harry Pope had a snake on his stomach. One that would kill him instantly if he moved. What would you do? Read "Poison" by Roald Dahl to find out what he did. Roald Dahl (1916-1990), a British writer, is the author of such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. He wrote his first children's story for Walt Disney (The Gremlins) in 1942. The stories he told his five children every night were the source of many of his books. (Share 8/31/17)

"The Birds" is a short story by Daphne Du Maurier (1907-1989), which was turned into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock in 1963. She writes very visual stories. As you read "The Birds," can you see the birds in the trees and in the skies? Can you see Nat's work, and what he sees? What words does Du Maurier use that makes these scenes come alive? Will the Hockens be rescued? (Share 8/29/17)

Isaac Bashavis Singer (1902-1991) was born in Warsaw, Poland. Singer was a Nobel-prize winning novelist and short-story writer. His brother and sister also became writers. His first book, The Family Moskat (1950), about a Jewish family growing up in a ghetto in pre-World War II Warsaw caught people's attention. He is also well-known for his short-story Gimpel the Fool.

Li-Young Lee, born in Indonesia in 1957 to Chinese parents who had been kicked out of China, arrived in the U.S. in 1964. His father had been a high-ranking Chinese person's doctor. When they moved to the U.S., his father retrained as a Presbyterian minister. Li-Young started writing poetry in college. Today, he is considered a prize-winning, Chinese-American poet. Read his poem "Eating Together." Li-Young Lee's autobiography, The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (1995), is his first of three books about his life. The book begins with Lee talking about his dream of his father coming to him from the grave with pockets full of seeds and a jar of blood. Are you interested? You can read more about the story here.

William Stafford (1914-1993) was an American poet. Read some of his collection of poems.

Read "Oranges" by Gary Soto. This poem takes you on a boy's first date. For an interesting experience, you can watch images that have been paired with "Oranges" as someone reads the poem aloud. What do you think of this final product? Do this with your favorite poem. Share the results with us. Read "Snake" by Emily Dickinson - What do you think her words mean? Read about Gary Soto's life.

Celtic myths from Scotland and Ireland were preserved by Christian monks who wrote down these stories.

Walt Whitman wrote this poem about an astronomer. Read and explain his message.

Making a mini-documentary

Listen to Kevin Knoblock talk about all documentaries being composed of 3-acts. Watch this video where Knoblock talks about "creating a character" so that our audience understands the problem or issue we are talking about in our documentary.

Here are 4 ways to look at putting together a documentary. Read and watch for more information and specific ideas.

Check out this source for a brief description of the tasks we have to do to create our documentary.

Watch this video for tips for shooting a video (2:20).

Disability Law

Watch - Dr. Russel Barkley explains ADHD and executive functioning (7:01). He shares some strategies. We are working on understanding the content of this video by practicing note-taking from a lecture. We will learn about and use the Cornell method for taking notes from this video. Click here to read about this method. (share 8/29/17)

Take the "unofficial" ADHD test for adults (21:07). (Shared 8/15/17.)

Section 504 - disability law - is important to more than the child in school. Section 504 is an important tool and resource for all adults with disabilities, too.

Accommodations - How do I get help with college or work? (shared 8/8/17)

Section 504 Plan - Here are ideas for plans.

This guidebook on disability law lists information you need to know in several areas of your life.

Beginnings of U.S. Schools

1800s-1930s+ U.S. experienced an immense number of nonEnglish Catholic and Jewish immigrants. U.S. citizens were scared that the new immigrants would bring intolerance, crime, and violence with them. Where did many of these immigrants come from? From what countries? For what reasons did they come here? Check out these sources: Emigration to and Within US in the 1800s and Immigration to the U.S. 1876-1900s.

Social and political leaders wanted a way to get these impoverished immigrants to adopt the values and ideals of the U.S. Horace Mann came up with the solution in 1837. Read about his idea for creating common schools. The bottom line was that we must use tax dollars to run schools for all. Educating children of different social, religious, and economic backgrounds was supposed to support all children accepting each other. Children would learn values, self-discipline, and tolerance.

Educators noted that impoverished (poor) children were often delinquent, quit at early ages, or didn't go to school at all. For Mann's plan to succeed, these children needed to be in school. Thus school authorities got legislators to make school compulsory. Parents could be punished if their children weren't in school.

Once we get factories in US, the reasons for schools appear to be directly related to getting the masses to be obedient and disciplined so that they will be good factory workers. What is your impression?

Four Cases

Our focus is to review these 4 cases - pulling out similarities and differences among the cases - to present each case. These presentations will require notetaking, presenting skills, slide preparation, and question posing. The information shared and learned from these cases will be tested through kahoots. (Questions will be written by group members. Answers will have been part of the presentations.}

PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Take notes from these two videos about how children with learning issues should be treated in schools: PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2:32) and PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (5:7).

Mills v. Board of Education. This video types words on the screen with music in the background (1:49}. To read the screen, stop the action until you understand. Then continue the action. This video has more details but no sound - no talking (1:20}.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. One of the most basic laws that began to move people to think about disabilities was not a law about disabilities but a basic law about education in general. This set of court cases about children who had to walk to another neighborhood to go to school went to the US Supreme Court as a single court case. Watch this video about how the set of cases known as Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, came to be. Watch this second video to fill in some of the details about the case. Find out more about Brown v. Board of Education by reading and exploring Landmark Cases web site.

Plessy v. Ferguson. This video explains about how the law for separate but equal set us up for discrimination (3:38). This second video also explains this case with more details (2:06). Watch both. Take notes.