Monday, October 30, 2017

Research Papers!

     The art of outlining to prepare a research paper is a difficult one, but it is so important!  The "Awesome" students moved on to putting 5 paragraphs together to create a research paper on their Backwards Animal.  The research, of course, came from their imaginations!
     The first part of this lesson was to teach how to outline.  A sample outline looked something like this:

I. Intro- introduce your subject

II. Body Paragraph One (appearance)

III. Body Paragraph Two (diet)

IV. Body Paragraph Three (habitat)

V. Conclusion- restate important information-- no new info allowed!

     The students had at least one paragraph to work with from Assignment #2, which proved to be helpful in their research and writing.  Here are some samples of students who really stretched themselves to tell us MORE about their amazing, creative creatures!

     The Regit, by Tyler (3rd grade)
     The Regit is an interesting animal.  He has an amazing appearance.  The Regit has one of the weirdest diets in the world.  It is extremely wet and always rainy where the Regit lives.

     The Regit has a unique appearance.  His ears are soft and pointy, just like a cat's.  The Regit has two enormous brown eyes, with short, straight eyelashes.  The tail of the Regit is striped with black and blue lines.  It has a fluffy tail because it has a lot of fur.

     The Regit has a very interesting diet.  The Regit is a very picky eater.  It will only eat bats and dolphin meat.  It is weird because it only eats live animals.  It is disgusting to come across it when it is eating.  It makes a lot of noise when it eats.

     The Regit lives in a very cool habitat.  The tall, jagged mountains that he lives in are amazing.  It is always misting and raining there.
     The Regit has an interesting diet, and a misty habitat.  His appearance is cool.  He is an amazing creature!

The Magnificent Arbez, by Caren (4th grade)
     The Arbez is an interesting animal.  It has a miniature appearance with a diet of crumbs.  With a city as a habitat, find out how these Arbezes live.
     The appearance of this animal is miniature and small, from its little shaded wings, to its soft, tiny body.  The wings are shaded from hot red to light pink.  Its small wings are so tiny that they can't pick up the Arbez, so it can't fly.  But once a year, the wings of the Arbez are strong enough to carry it!  The feeling of the Arbez is fluffy, like a soft dog, but also soft like a pillow.
     The Arbez's diet is quite right for its size.  Crumbs are its diet.  When an Arbez finds a crumb, it will sit on the crumb and start eating it with its wings.  The Arbez eats all crumbs, but its favorites are the pink crumbs.
     The habitat of an Arbez is quite unusual for an endangered animal.  The city is a great place for an Arbez.  People drop many crumbs for the Arbez to eat.  Parks make a great home for an Arbez.  Trees in parks are often strong and healthier than the ones in the forest.  Also, in cities, there are trash cans. Lots of trash cans are around the city, so the Arbez will jump on something lower than the trash can and then leap into the air.  Once the Arbez gets on the trash can, it will dig to the bottom of the trash can to find crumbs.
     The appearance, strange habitat, and unusual diet helps keep the Arbez alive.  Truly, the Arbez is a magnificent animal!

Examining the Nihplod, by Flo (6th grade)


The Nihplod is an unusual animal. Its confusing behavior and mish-mash of everything appearance will have you dizzy. When you hear about its oddball diet, please refrain from screaming “EW!” as it might offend any nearby creatures. Although it would be difficult to keep as a pet, once you hear about how loving it can be, you'll be clamoring to catch one. Plus you'll definitely want to make this species’ future better than its history.

The Nihplod’s behavior is confusing in many ways. It waddles awkwardly on land, but in the water is swift and graceful. Sadly, it is plagued with daily spells of hiccups made of fire. Because of its odd behavior, it is often labeled as “mysterious,” though it only hides from humans who do not show it kindness. Despite its contradictory behavior, the Nihplod would make a loving and cuddly pet.



The appearance of the Nihplod is also quite strange. For the most part, it is round-bodied and covered in green fur, except for its human-like nose. Its curved horns command the attention of anyone who behold this beautiful animal. These horns have similar properties to that of the unicorn. While it does have awkward ovular feet, it has no arms or outer ear at all. Even though the Nihplod may look like the work of Picasso, some find it charming.


Unsurprisingly, the Nihplod’s diet is just as atypical as its appearance. Its favorite food is twigs and wood chips, but it will settle for pebbles. In terms of what it drinks, it loves to guzzle up puddles off the rainforest floor. When it hasn’t rained for a while, the Nihplod can go for up to two months without water. Anyone would agree that the it has an eccentric diet!

When it comes to owning a Nihplod, there are both pros and cons. On the pros side, it is easy to feed, loves to cuddle, and, if you show it kindness, it will be more loyal than a dog. On the cons side, you would have to deal with the fire hiccups. If you don’t think you can handle it, you might change your mind after hearing its terrible history.
Historically, the Nihplod has always been neglected. It is known for its majestic horns, which are the reason why the animal is widely hunted, even today. This why it has always stayed a predominantly wild species, and why it is known as mysterious. As you can see the Nihplod’s history is not pleasant.

Obviously the Nihplod is quite unique, with its confusing behavior, atypical diet, and a appearance that resembles a work of cubism. When you consider its troubling history anyone would agree that Nihplod is an animal worth studying.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Powerful Paragraph Writing!

     Assignment #2 was a lesson in Powerful Paragraph Writing.  While the Budding Authors and Artists class focused on doing their best with 3-5 sentences, the Awesome Authors and Artists were given a format to follow in order to teach the art of varying one's sentence patterns.  In their samples, you will find a wonderful variety of sentences:
~Vivid verbs
~Sentences beginning with clauses such as "where," "when," and "Because"
~Replacing nouns with pronouns to avoid redundancy
~Fabulous conclusions that tie it all up

     The topic for these fabulous paragraphs?  Animals, of course!  But not just any animals.... these animals were created in our imaginations by spelling real animal names backwards!  This would lay the groundwork for many upcoming assignments.  We've learned how to write vivid, clear sentences with various grammatical patterns, and now it is time to put many sentences together, stay on topic, and have fun describing this animal to our readers.  Enjoy these samples from across the ages!

The Peehs, by Brendan (1st grade)
     The Peehs' colors are blue, green, and red.  This animal has curvy horns and long scaly legs.  The peehs eats a table!  The peehs lives in my shoe.

The Tanhpele, by Nathan (2nd grade)
     My animal's colors are red, green, gray, and blue.  My animal has wings, two tails, and two noses. My animal eats grass.  My animal lives in the wild.  My creature sprays water.  My tanhpele is fat!


The Enarc Denworc Nacifra, by Larsen (3rd grade)
     The enarc denworc nacifra is a graceful ballerina.  It looks like a crowned ballerina.  It wears a shiny gold medal that glistens in the bright yellow sun.  At a recital, the enarc denworc nacifra wears a pink fluffy tutu.  At the end, the creature takes off her tutu and puts on her jammies.

The Yeknom, by Noah (4th grade)
     The yeknom is a good builder.  It's a good builder because it's really strong and smart.  The yeknom has really thick fur in case its building collapses on it.  Because the yeknom has thick fur, it will not feel pain as much as a normal animal would.  As you can see, the yeknom is a very good constructor.

The Noil, by Cassia (5th grade)
     The noil is a musical animal.  It has several kinds of musical instruments on its body.  With all of those instruments, the noil doesn't talk; instead, it sings and dances!  Whenever it sings, its noise disturbs neighboring villages.  The noil is a musically unique animal!


The Rotagilla, by Nikhil (6th grade)
     The rotagilla is a medium-sized and furious beast.  It is very dangerous, and it likes to scare people and other animals.  With its powerful and sharp teeth, it consumes its prey with ease.  When the rotagilla finds its prey, it swims slowly toward it, in an attempt to intimidate, while its prey tries to swim away.  The rotagilla is an animal that anyone would want to stay away from, because of its very aggressive and malicious nature.






Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Superb sentences!

We are off to another great start in the "Authors and Artists" classes!  The "Budding Authors and Artists" are in 1st and 2nd grade, and the "Awesome" class includes 3rd, 4th, 5th, and at one school, 6th graders.  I love starting every session with a strong sentence writing activity.  This year, the "Budding" students took the base sentence "The Sun Shines" and turned it into a sentence that had adjectives, adverbs, where's, and when's!  This is actually an amazing feat for 6 and 7 year olds!  The "Awesome" class picked their own noun and verb, and made what we call a "boring" sentence.  They added phrases, clauses, adjectives, adverbs, and even learned how to correctly start a sentence with "Because."  The "Budding" class tried this in a simpler form, on Week 2.  It was also fun to do art to match!  Enjoy these samples.

by Jeff, 1st grade

 by Kayla, 2nd grade

by Natalie, 2nd grade

 by Neel, 3rd grade

By Sophia, 4th grade

by Claire, 5th grade