Monthly Archives: October 2017

LA Update — Week of 10/9/17

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We are continuing to work on our monster stories this week.  We’ll be focused on dialogue, paragraphing, planning (introducing graphic organizer , and more work around complex/compound sentences this week.  If you are looking for dinner table conversation starters, here are a few questions to ask your student.
1) Can you describe the LA project to me?  Something about four exploded moments…?
2) How’s it going with the “ordinary world?”  Who is your protagonist?
3) Have you figured out what you want to teach your reader yet?
4) What is “show, not tell?”
4) What’s the difference between a compound sentence and a simple sentence?
5) How’s your choice reading going?  What’s the current genre of the book you are reading?
Due dates this week:
Read 30 minutes
Thursday:  Depending on class flow, we may be performing sentence structure skits on this day.  It may get pushed into a future week due to timing.
Have a great week!  -JF

Co-op Update 10/9/17

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A few quick updates:
1) No school Friday — PD day.
2) In co-op this week, we’ll be prepping for our first council — which will begin on Thursday.  We’ll also have a workday to continue building our personal section of our portfolios.
3) A friend of mine forwarded me this opportunity for my own 7th grade son.  I wanted to share it — so if you are a 7th/8th grader, see conclusion of this blog entry for a really cool way to get volunteer hours (in lieu of stipend or stipend can be donated).
Have a great week!  -JF
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“By joining the Museum of Boulder “Seeing” Through Touching (STT) project, you’ll get to join a group of 7th and 8th graders to design, 3D print, cast and sculpt models of artifacts and photos from Museum of Boulder exhibits for touchable materials for blind visitors. We’ll work with blind people in Boulder throughout this project to make the Museum more accessible.
Here’s the information you need to know:
We will meet 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month 4:30-6:30
Sessions run the whole school year from October 26 through April 26.
Participating students receive $100 stipend and bus tokens for each session
Participating students will be fed dinner at each session
Team members are expected to attend at least 80% of sessions, and to communicate regularly with team leaders and other team members.
To apply, please fill out this form:
“

Fast Food Nation Update — Week of 10/3/17

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This week, we’ll introduce our long-term project (LTP) in Fast Food Nation. Students will be identifying food topics they wish to study and then researching the social, economic, and historical components of those topics.   Click here to read the full LTP task description.
Also, we have finalized our final two ADI (All Day Integrated) days.
On Friday, October 27th, we’ll be having a food extravaganza.  We’ll be visiting Hammond’s Candy to learn about their factory, McDonalds to better understand the history and its process for food preparation, and lastly to The Kitchen on Pearl Street where we’ll learn about farm-to-table and also get a cooking demonstration.
On Friday, November 17th, we’ll be headed down to the Museo De Las Americas on Santa Fe Boulevard in Denver.  We’ll get a tour of the museum and have the opportunity to participate in two workshops.  The first workshop is about the history of the tortilla — and we’ll get a chance to make our own tortillas.  The second workshop is about the art of protest in Latin America.  Students will get to create their own protest art pieces.
At this point, I only have room for two chaperones on each of these fieldwork days.  If you are interested in joining us, please let me know.
Upcoming due dates:
Tuesday:  Propaganda ads should be posted by the beginning of class.
Wednesday:  Initial Topic Research should be complete for three possible topics.
Monday 10/9:  Bibliography should be created.
Have a fantastic week!  -JF

LA Update — Week of 10/2/17

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Hi Everyone,

This week, we’ll begin writing our own “monster stories.”  Please click here for the the full task description that lays out the project in detail.  The stories themselves will be due on November 15th (tentative) although there will be lots of intermediate due dates between now and then.  And again — our coffeehouse reading is on the evening of December 14th at the Espressoria Coffeehouse on 2116 Pearl Street.
We’ll be introducing the monster story project, thinking about what we want to teach our reader, and learning how to write meaningful character dialogue.  Again, if students ever miss a class, the notes from class are available online through Google Classroom.
  • Upcoming due dates:
  • Read 30 minutes a night.
  • Friday:  Checkpoint Zero due by 8am. (We’ll do this in class on Thursday)
Have a fantastic week!  -Josh Feiger

Co-op Update 10/2/17

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HI Everyone,

Not too much to report in co-op this week.  We’ll be debriefing our Fall Trip, working on portfolios, continuing our read aloud of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, and also starting “council” this coming Thursday as we build the socio-emotional piece into our curriculum.
No due dates this week — but students should have incorporated any feedback received from goal-setting conferences at this point in time.
Have a great week!  -Josh Feiger