Kings of the Keyboard!

This year the 6th grade technology class has been busy learning many different apps and web tools.  They have also spent the first 15 minutes of class all year learning to keyboard.

Our top keyboarder currently is Chase typing a rapid 45 words per minute, but most of the class is on his heels, regularly hitting the 30 words per minute mark and speeding up every day!

6th graders have learned to use various apps such as Keynote, iMovie, Pages, Comic Life, Blogger and many others.  All of the 6th graders have their own class blogs (see the right side of this blog for links to student blogs).  6th graders have also read several books this year in which they were able to incorporate Minecraft and collaboratively build worlds based on their reading comprehension.  These have included Jack London's To Build a Fire, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

8th Grade - Bigger or Better

In 8th grade English, students have begun reading the book One Red Paperclip, a memoir by Kyle MacDonald. The book details Kyle's journey of trades that began with one red paperclip and ended a year later with a house. The fact that Kyle ended up with a house is not really the point of the book. Although it's significant, what he also learned was that along the way he met many good and interesting people, that if he remained open to new ideas good things happened, and that he had a lot of fun along the way.

 The most important thing he realized was that these things would not happen to him - he needed to make them happen by taking positive steps. So in the spirit of open-mindedness, meeting new and friendly people, having fun, and by the way acquiring something cool, the 8th graders are undertaking a version of Bigger or Better. See the links below for each student's update on their trades and their reflections.

Leeanna's Trades
1st Trade

Madalynn's Trades
1st Trade

Shelby's Trades
1st Trade

Trevor's Trades
1st Trade

Trinity's Trades
1st Trade

Kyleigh's Trades
1st Trade

Jesse's Trades
1st Trade

Ms. Weisz's Trades
1st Trade
2nd Trade