Team Hoyt

We have been talking so much about "equality" and "handicaps" lately, that I think it is time we put a new spin on things. Rick and Dick Hoyt are a father/son team from Massachusetts who have run over 1,000 road races, including marathons, triathlons, and multiple Ironman triathlons. They have even bicycled across the country and have run in our local Slattery's Turkey Trot, a race my own father directs. The trick to this is that Rick Hoyt is a non-verbal quadriplegic, meaning he cannot talk or move most of his body. Rick's father pushes him in a wheelchair as he runs, swims with his son attached to a dingy, and rides a two-person bicycle as they compete. Rick says "When I run, I feel like I am not handicapped." This is reason enough alone to get Dick to train and compete for his son. When asked what Rick would do if he was not in a wheelchair, he comments, "I would have my father sit in a chair so that I could push him." We will watch the attached video this week to be inspired by this duo.

Breje on Scholastic

Check out the link below to Scholastic's website section "The Stacks" where Breje teaches the reporter how to dance. I was so excited to see that he recommended the Maximum Ride series, gave a shout out to math and geography, and credited his family and Michael Jackson as his inspiration. Good for you Breje for giving the advice "Usually, we wait for someone else to make the change. Instead of waiting, why don't you make the change yourself?"

http://blog.scholastic.com/ink_splot_26/2009/09/breje-teaches-kid-reporter-matt-to-twist-wit-it.html?cid=6a00e55007a31488340120a5b0c4ba970b

Smile

A smile can hint at happiness, hide a nerve, and have a conversation all its own. We are reading "I Just Kept On Smiling" this week and I have a question. What makes you smile?

Fall is Found

This weekend's perfect fall weather makes me want to eat apple crisp, carve a pumpkin, and dive into a pile of crunchy leaves. What are your favorite things about fall? Post a comment and tell me...extra credit if you use a simile or metaphor in your description.

Join The Flock

Always wanted to fly with Max and her crew? Use a photo of yourself and join the flock. http://jointheflock.maximumride.com/experiment/index.html

High Fives All Around

We have a new plan for our homeroom (a la Maddie Cochran) that we would like to spread around. Give random high fives to at least three people per day...you will notice how it makes a difference. Don't just high five your best friends, high five anyone! And hey, high five a 6th grader once in a while as they go by...grade 8 come up to visit and give us some high fives too.

Welcome!

Welcome back to THMS and to 7 red! I am really looking forward to spending the year with you. This blog is a place for me to put tidbits of interesting info. and things for you to view, learn, try, create, write, etc... It is also a place for you to react, tell me how you are doing, make suggestions and more. I hope you have fun with it. I love hearing from you guys!

My whole household went back to school this week since both my husband and I are teachers and my daughters are in 2nd and 3rd grade. We had an unbelievable summer which included trips to Cape Cod and Disney World (you may have noticed the picture of Emerson and Elle in front of Cinderella's castle).

Make a comment and let me know how you feel about grade 7, ask any questions you may have or tell me something about your summer. Your comments come to my e-mail first so you won't see them until I post them. I can't wait to read what you have to say :)

OK...The MJ Tribute

You know I had to do it...I was just leaving 7th grade when Michael Jackson came out with his "Bad" tape (oh yeah, it was not even a CD) and I already had his trading cards plastered all over my walls from "Thriller".

Idioms

No need to bend over backwards or act like a chicken with its head cut off. Just let sleeping dogs lie and rise and shine to check out the idiomsite.com. I have a gut feeling you'll be head over heels before you hit the dog days of summer. I'm no fuddy-duddy.

IdiomSite.com

India's Widows

This link will take you to CNN's article and video on the widows of India. Makes you appreciate what we have here in America.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/05/damon.india.widows/index.html

May 21 & 22

Looking forward to touring New York with those students who are attending the trip. For those of you who are staying in Lunenburg, they have a lot of fun planned for you too! Post a comment about your New York experience or about what you did while we were gone. See you all on Tuesday!

Kurt Vonnegut

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand

- Kurt Vonnegut

One of Kurt Vonnegut's fewly published poems appeared in Cat's Cradle (1963). The poem was from "Bokonon" who was the founder of the Bokononist religion in the book.

-Posted by student guest blogger, Nick Barney

Skype

My cousin just moved to Dubai and I recently set-up a Skype account in order to talk to her...this technology just keeps getting better!

Literature Circles

Post a comment to let me know how you are enjoying the literature circles so far. What is working and what isn't? Do you like the book you picked?

Poet - tree Leaves

Don't forget to write or share a poem on a leaf for our "poet-tree". Here's one that celebrates April, National Poetry Month that is.

April
by Marcia Masters

It’s lemonade, it’s lemonade, it’s daisy.
It’s a roller-skating, scissor-grinding day;
It’s gingham-waisted, chocolate flavored, lazy,
With the children flower-scattered at their play.
It’s the sun like watermelon,
And the sidewalks overlaid
With a glaze of yellow yellow
Like a jar of marmalade.

It’s the mower gently mowing,
And the stars like startled glass,
While the mower keeps on going
Through a waterfall of grass.

Then the rich magenta evening
Like a sauce upon the walk,
And the porches softly swinging
With a hammockful of talk.

It’s the hobo at the corner
With his lilac-sniffing gait,
And the shy departing thunder
Of the fast departing skate.

It’s lemonade, it’s lemonade, it’s April!
A water sprinkler, puddle winking time,
When a boy who peddles slowly,
With a smile remote and holy,
Sells you April, chocolate flavored, for a dime.

Descriptive Language

You had some excellent examples of descriptive language which we posted around the room last week. Post a comment with another example of interesting and descriptive language...you may find it in a book or create it yourself.

Here's my example: "The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning." from Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt

Congrats on Long Comp!

Great job to all of you today...I loved seeing you work so hard on your long compositions. You should give yourselves a hand.

Science Poems

A Seed
By William Allingham

See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs' expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
"Are the ills of one's life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?"
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?

An Aquarium
By Amy Lowell

Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
Silver shiftings,
Rings veering out of rings,
Silver -- gold --
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
Swallowing them,
Fish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
The light rippling over them
In steel-bright tremors.
Outspread translucent fins
Flute, fold, and relapse;
The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles
In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up-shifts,
Lazy convolutions:
Then a sudden swift straightening
And darting below:
Oblique grey shadows
Athwart a pale casement.
Roped and curled,
Green man-eating eels
Slumber in undulate rhythms,
With crests laid horizontal on their backs.
Barred fish,
Striped fish,
Uneven disks of fish,
Slip, slide, whirl, turn,
And never touch.
Metallic blue fish,
With fins wide and yellow and swaying
Like Oriental fans,
Hold the sun in their bellies
And glow with light:
Blue brilliance cut by black bars.
An oblong pane of straw-coloured shimmer,
Across it, in a tangent,
A smear of rose, black, silver.
Short twists and upstartings,
Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles:
Sunshine playing between red and black flowers
On a blue and gold lawn.
Shadows and polished surfaces,
Facets of mauve and purple,
A constant modulation of values.
Shaft-shaped,
With green bead eyes;
Thick-nosed,
Heliotrope-coloured;
Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations.

Outside,
A willow-tree flickers
With little white jerks,
And long blue waves
Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.

Grammar Gorillas

Have you tried Grammar Gorillas? Click on the Grammar Gorillas link to the right (under "LINKS") and test your knowledge of the parts of speech!

Read Across America Day

Today is Read Across America Day. I encourage all of you to grab one of your favorite books, whether it be something you are reading now or a book you loved as a kid and READ! Post a comment with the name of one of your favorite books for extra credit. Better yet, pick a passage from a book and post it!