Light at the End of the Tunnel

I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel this past week for my National Boards. I successfully finished and shipped my portfolio on Wednesday (it was ready to ship Tuesday), and now all I have to do is take the assessment portion. It was quite a relief to finally mail the portfolio. It had to be post marked by March 31st. I managed to ship mine a week early and right on time according to my schedule. It was a grueling process, but not many things worth doing are easy.

It did seem like a long week and there are two reasons for that really. The first was that we had student led conferences on Monday and Tuesday. I was at school both days by 7:30, which isn't unusual for me. Monday I was on my way home close to five. Tuesday, however, was a late night, and I didn't head home until after six. Nevertheless, I felt the conferences went really well. I felt better prepared, the parents seemed better prepared, and as a rule the students were better prepared.

The second reason this has been a long week has everything to do with me being a control freak with a need to be busy. I regularly over plan for the time I have because I want to know what we'll be doing every minute of class. When I'm out, I tend to leave very detailed plans complete with a time line. But this past week has been out of my hands more or less.

We began the first part of the week with a journal about the CECHS Book Club. I wanted them to tell me about their book, as well as, how they felt collaborating online and with the juniors. (On a side note, I've added video tutorials to help groups with their wiki.) So far about half of the groups have created their wikis. Of those, several have been very active and have a great start on the project.

After the journal, it was time to work. The second part of the week, I made some announcements, and it was right back to work. The light at the end of our animation tunnel is growing brighter. Most groups have their audio recorded; I'll try to post them this week on the podcast page of my website. I did post pictures from one group that is a little ahead. The sets and characters are coming together, and I'm excited to film this week.

Of course, my wife is convinced that the our baby will be arriving this week. I doubt it only because I am completely prepared for him to show up this week. I've prerecorded lessons for this week, just in case we do have the baby, and I'm out when it's time to put our movies together. That way someone will only have to push play and pause and we can still finish our short story animations this week.

Time will tell, but the house is filling with baby stuff, and he'll be arriving soon that's for sure!! And we will be finishing our short story animations this week, so I'm looking forward to a fun and exciting week either way!

Staying the Course

We are staying the course! This past week everyone wrote a journal about the short story that will be made into an animated version. The rest of the week we were hard at work. I had 100% of the groups turn in both their storyboards and scripts on time, so we're on track. I'm hoping to have finished movies by the first week of April...we might be pushing it!

We launched the CECHS Book Club this past week too! I'm very excited about it. We're going to try and get everyone together for the first and probably only official meeting on Monday. Then from there on out it will be an online collaboration.

I'm nearly finished with my portfolio for National Boards! I'm very excited about that box getting mailed! Oh and I made a couple new slide shows.

On Schedule!

So far, we're on schedule! This past week we focused on getting to know our stories for the short story animation project. At the first of the week, we wrote a journal about our story and then got to work. Later in the week we used qwizdom to practice some EOC type questions, and then it was back to work.

At this point most groups have a good start on either their story board or their script, both of which are due at the end of this coming week. Most groups have started creating backdrops and decorating their boxes, which will serve as sets when it's time to film. Some groups have started using clay to create characters or props. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the work that's been done so far. I'm hoping for another good week!

This week we'll get started with a joint project with the juniors. We're starting a book club!

What a Weird Week!

Today while I lounged in a hammock, laughing at my daughter in her own hammock, I was struck by how weird this week was. We started off by missing Monday and then a three hour delay on Tuesday because of snow, and by Friday we didn't need coats. It turned into a short compact week, but we still got a lot done.

When we got to school on Tuesday, we had a limited amount of time before college classes. Nevertheless, we made the most of it and took care of some MAP testing that needed done. I also collected FOUND POEMS! I was a little discouraged by how few I got. It's the last major grade of the 3rd 9 week grading period. I'm going to have to make some phone calls this week to get the missing poems turned in before grades are due. Otherwise, several students will have an incomplete for English.

During our one class, we focused on animation projects. You can see examples (not all good) of last year's short story animations on my website. If anyone has not seen the poetry podcasts from the beginning of the year, there's a link to them on that page as well. I left the story selection up to impartial and incorruptible chance. I wrote down the 20 stories from our text book and put the numbers 1-20 on slips of paper. Each class got to pick from a randomly selected group of 5 numbers. Interestingly enough, all of the stories pose their own unique challenges and come with their own advantages.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the short stories make their way into clay/stop action animated shorts.

Allusions, Baseball, and Service!

This has been a good week. We started off with a fun class all about Allusions. We used Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire". The song is filled with allusions from his birth up to the time the song was written, 1949-1989. The first time through, I had them work with a group to identify as many of the references that were alluded to as they could.

Then I let them see the video of the song and try to clarify any of the misconceptions they had. Then we went online to a wikipedia article about the song to check our answers. It was interesting to hear what they thought certain things alluded to, for example one group thought that "Buddy Holly" referenced the song by Weezer instead of a rock-and-roll legend. We then moved from the song to creating a timeline of allusions for their lifetime. Again it was interesting to see what they thought to be the major events since 1993 or there abouts.

The second class of the week, we played more literary baseball on Qwizdom. It seems to working. It helps us review literary elements, grammar, and EOC type editing. It's a lot more fun than taking quizzes. When we finsihed our game, we created groups. I had them split to the corners of the room by their shape. Then they joined groups with different shapes. They'll use these groups for their short story animation projects. We spent some time talking about how that project was gong to work. I'm excited!

Friday was another day of service. I drove the lenoir bus and stayed at West Lenoir Elementary School. It was a good day. The kids on my bus all seemed genuinly excited at the end of the day. Some had better experiences than others, but I think they all found something good from the day.

I'm looking forward to a good week getting started with the animation projects!