Tag Archives: school stuff

VERY IMPORTANT POST-PLEASE READ!!

Ok, everybody, listen up. This is a very, very important post. I have a new blog, and everyone needs to go and re-subscribe to it. Click HERE for the link to the new blog. If that doesn’t work, the website is: http://edublogs.eanesisd.net/kc83704/ . The new blog looks a little different. The posts are there but the fonts are gone, the Class Blog widget is gone. Oh, and all my visitors are gone. Can we just accept that I have 528 visitors  to this blog? On my new one I’ve only had 12. Let’s hope I can get people to the new one and not this one!

Ok, so, everyone needs to re-subscribe to the new blog. So, go do that! I’m going to post over the summer (look at my last post to see what about), but after today I will not be posting on this blog. So, go re-subscribe!

Sorry about the changes, but please go visit the new blog! This is the last time I’m making big changes, I promise!

So, GO GO GO!!!

Just A Warning

Ok, I have a little warning for everyone. I will be trying to post periodically throughout the summer (I have some free time). This post is being written for many reasons, which I will now list. 

  • TO CURRENT SUBSCRIBERS: If you do not want to be getting notified about every time I post to my blog, I totally get it. Understandable. Totally fine. Just unsubscribe. My feeling won’t be hurt. If you don’t know how to unsubscribe but want to, either ask me to unsubscribe you (if we go to school together) or leave a comment. I’ll be happy to unsubscribe you through my edublogs account. If you do want to be getting notified about every post I do, don’t do anything different. You’ll continue getting them.
  • TO PEOPLE THINKING ABOUT SUBSCRIBING: I’m warning you. Go read some of my previous posts: that’s what I’ll be posting like over the summer. If you like that, subscribe! I don’t want to scare anyone off. If you like my posts but don’t want emails over the summer, then don’t subscribe until the school year starts again. You can just remember the URL of my blog and visit periodically. Or not. It’s up to you.

 

Now that I’ve gotten the business out of the way, I have a super duper important question to ask everyone who is reading this. I want you to Comment your answer  in the comment section. Ok, now, for the question: Would You be interested to read a story I’m writing that’s based, slightly, off of the Phantom of the Opera? Ok, so go comment your answer! If I get a lot of “yes”s then I’ll post a chapter at a time. if I get a lot of “no”s then I won’t.

Animal Farm

So, I was gone the day of the discussion on the book Animal Farm, which I would totally recommend you to read. It’s a very good book and has a lot of connections to the Russian revolution. Since I was gone, I want to share some of my thoughts on the book. But first, so visitors aren’t lost if they hadn’t read the book I shall share…THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION PEOPLE CONNECTIONS!!

  • Napoleon, the main pig leader=Joseph Stalin, a man responsible for the death of million. He pushed Trotsky out of leadership and blamed all future problems. Cross his path, disagree with him, or refuse his orders? You’re probably dead. By himself, he managed to turn the new republic for of government into a monarcy, or even a dictatorship. 
  • Snowball, the co-leader with Napoleon until he was banished from Animal Farm on Napoleon’s orders=Leon Trotsky, a man that, after Lenin died, tried to continue the new republic with everything he had. However, his plans were foiled by Stalin who banished him from Russia (later to be killed).
  • Old Major, the most respected pig at the beginning of the book before he died of old age=Vladimir Lenin, a man that started the revolution and got it moving. He soon died from a disease. 
  • Mr. Jones, the human owner of Manor Farm (Animal Farm with humans in charge)=Nicholas II, a man that was a dictator (but was called King). He was overthrown by the people of Russia.
  • Squealer, the pig that lied to everyone to make Napoleon look good and was the speaker of the farm=the newsletter or newspaper that Stalin made everyone subscribe to that made Stalin look absolutely fabulous because it was full of lies. 

Ok, now onto the thoughts on Animal Farm. First of all, let me say this: for a teacher’s pet that’s a stickler for the rules and the execution of rules, this was a hard book to read. Napoleon and Snowball started off by making Seven Commandments that were fairly straight forward; they were simplified to “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Late in the book, after Snowball’s gone, Napoleon changes the rules so much by telling the animals they remembered them wrong. In fact, “four legs good, two legs bad” was changed to “four legs good, two legs better” so that the pigs could walk on their hind legs and not be breaking a rule. The funny thing is, if any other animal tried to walk on their hind legs, Napoleon probably would have found a reason to kill the animal (which was another rule he changed).

Furthermore, whenever Squealer is justifying something that’s bad that Napoleon did, he always ends with saying something along the lines of, “You don’t want Jones back do you?” It really wasn’t fair. It wouldn’t have worked if the pigs weren’t in charge, but they were. Not to mention, no, the animals didn’t have Jones back, but it was almost like they did: working super hard for little gain. It was unjust, but was what was happening during the revolution (“Surely you don’t want the monarcy back?”). 

More about Snowball and Napoleon’s relationship. While Snowball was on the farm, Napoleon was only pretending to like him. When Napoleon had the chance to take down Snowball, he did, and lied to everyone about Snowball. Later, when Snowball was gone, he was Napoleon’s scapegoat (yes…vocab word!). Everything bad that happened, it was Snowball, not Napoleon or the other pigs. Anything Napoleon did before Snowball was gone, was still Snowball somehow.

All in all, Animal Farm was a very good book that I’m sure to read again on my own for fun. I hope that, because of this post, you either think differently about the book or have stronger opinions (if you’ve read the book). If you have yet to read it, go and buy it because it’s fantastic. Comment what you think!

Reflection: Seventh Grade

When I arrived in August, I expected classes to be a lot tougher, teachers to be stricter, and students to be louder. In sixth grade, I feel like teachers were really nice and classes were really easy because, mainly, they wanted us to feel welcome at West Ridge. But I soon realized I was mistaken. All of my teachers are still really nice. Seventh grade classes were just as easy for a seventh grade mind as sixth grade classes are to a sixth grade mind. And the students? Come on, this is my grade! We’re probably the loudest no matter what grade we’re in! Can’t compare one year to another. 

By October, my life had changed in many ways. My schedule was tighter because of homework, school sports meets and practices, choir competitions and practices, and a lot of stuff going on at church. I made some new, fantastic friends, lots some old, not-as-great friends, and got tighter relationships with the friends I already had. And, thankfully, the drama decreased a lot!

Eventually, I figured out that seventh grade was going to keep changing throughout the year; I kept having different opinions. That didn’t happen in sixth grade! At first (being totally honest here), I was excited about blogs, then I was iffy, then I didn’t like them at all, and now here I am loving them! My mind also changed about science. I was not excited to be learning life science this year (just a few flips of the textbook pages and I thought that), but now I actually kind of enjoy it. I’m also friends with some people I never thought I’d be friends with, and those are the best friendships I have now!

In seventh grade, I’ve learned a lot of things. Many things. Too many things. I wouldn’t be able to list them all! However, I think I’ve narrowed it down to three major things (or, at least, major to me). To keep this organized, I shall explain in bullet points.

  • I’m not that bad at math. Ya, ya, I know, that sounds stupid, but seriously! Math was my best subject in third, fourth, and fifth grade, but in sixth grade I wasn’t doing as well. That might have been because I went from fifth grade math to seventh grade math in a summer (grade level to advanced). Whatever the case, it was harder, but it was fine. This year, however, I got to math class and majority of the class was either in sixth grade (double advanced) or fifth grade (ok, there were only two, but still. Triple advanced math!). I was scared because I was thinking: “Ok, Kendall, you just got bumped up to advanced math last year. They are already knowing more math stuff than you since you’re one of the older kids in the class and you’re learning the same thing!” Turns out, I’m not half bad. I’m not necessarily great, but I’m ok. I’m getting an A, so I’m good.
  • You’re not always doing as bad as you think you are. In fact, you might be doing fantastically. During the first semester, when I tried out for basketball, of course I was going to do my best and have a sliver of hope that I’d make the A-Team, but I was mainly just expecting B-Team. I tried hard in try-outs, putting in all of my effort…but I didn’t think they were that impressed with the job I was doing (it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good either). As it turns out, they were impressed and I made the A-Team! Another example is of my blog. I didn’t think it was anything special, even when Mrs. Schoch praised it. I thought it was just, well, a colorful blog. Did that really make it great? I didn’t think so. Apparently I was wrong and everyone else thought it was fantastic. I suddenly had comments from Mrs. Bridges, Mrs. Bacon, Mr. Ramsey, and even edublogs! In both examples, I didn’t think I was doing well at all, but as it turns out, I ended up doing fairly well.
  • School is school. It’s never going to be fantastic, but it won’t be the absolute worst thing in the world either (no, fellow students that have actually read this entire thing, no it will not). If you try too hard to make it really good, things seem to backfire for me. If I try to hate it, nothing is going good, socially, not academically. If you just let it play out, everything will fall into place.

As the year comes to a close, I’m both really happy and really sad. Summer’s right around the corner, my transfer request was accepted, I get to keep my iPad over the summer, and I’m doing great in all my subjects. I even…drum-roll please…get to keep my blog over the summer (most likely!)! I’m also sad because summer is coming (no, no, no. Keep reading, I have a good reason) and that means that, as a transfer, I loose a lot of connects with school friends. I also have a lot of stuff going on in the summer, so it’s not always “relaxing” as my summers used to be. It’s fun stuff, but it’s still stuff.

If I had to do it over again, I would used my time better. I feel as though I was rushing to get homework done at the last minute. And a lot. See, I turn everything in on time, but I often do most of it the night before. It was mostly the packets: vocabulary, science review, and math review. If I could have, I would have done a page a day (if it was long term packet). Next year, I’m pretty sure I’ll try to do better than that. 

Lastly, my advice to next year’s seventh graders. First of all, go back and read the things I’ve learned. Remember those? Ok, the last two. “You’re not always doing as bad as you think you are” and “School is school?” Ya. Those are two of my pieces of advice. You probably aren’t doing as bad as you thought you were, and school will always just be school no matter how much you try to change is. Another piece of advice: don’t be stupid with homework given. If you get homework, do it first at home, not at 11:00 at night. If you have a packet, don’t be like me and save it to the last minute to do. If you have an independent project, don’t wait forever to do it and don’t do it badly the first time around think you’ll get help. If you have a group project, do your share of the work, not less.

Now I leave you with these two things: good luck to sixth graders and congratulations seventh graders (for surviving this year very well).

WEB

One way I love to show leadership is by participating in WEB ( Where Everyone Belongs) at school. In WEB, some seventh and eighth student start off the school year by welcoming the sixth graders with games and a tour. We get groups, 11 sixth grader (or so) to 2 leaders. It’s a really fun day. Then, during the school year, we see our WEB group on no homework nights and do fun little activities with them. We also get to see them during lunch a couple times, just to talk to them for fun.

WEB is fun, but it’s also a lot of work. We have to go to a training for two days at the very end of summer, to get to know each other and learn what we’ll be doing on the assembly day (welcoming the sixth graders). We also have to go to a few training’s during our lunch period during the school year. The training’s aren’t bad, they’re actually very fun, especially the ones during the summer. The first day, we get to play a bunch of getting-to-know-you games. You also get to meat your partner (if you haven’t already).

This year was weird because a new teacher was in charge of WEB (love you Ms. Brown!) and she changed WEB from just being a one-day thing at the beginning of the school year to being lots of things throughout the school year. I like it better this way to clarify. Anyway, none of us really knew that that would be happening, so a lot of us didn’t want to do it. Ms. Brown, realizing this, let us choose, at the end of the first semester, whether we wanted to continue or not in the second semester. I did continue, as did many of my friends, but my partner did not. It’s been harder (one seventh grader with eleven sixth graders), but I’ve gotten used to it.

I think I make a good WEB leader because I’m good at watching/handling people that are younger than me. My mom is the Director of Christian Education at my church, and she does a lot of camps for elementary schoolers. I often get to help her with this, and everything always goes really well. She lets me be totally in charge sometimes (with her in there, of course), and even that goes well. I also really like hanging out with people that are younger than me, so it’s perfect to connect to some of the younger people in the school. I like being a WEB leader because I like getting to be a role model for younger students. I still remember some of my role models from when I was younger, and I’d love to be that person for someone else. 

If you asked me if I would recommend WEB, I would say yes. In fact, it made me really happy to know some of the sixth graders in my WEB group were thinking about doing WEB next year. I don’t like to do things at school that are extra-curricular (like I didn’t even try to get into NJHS, for example) because it tends to make homework harder (being a transfer and having to drive a lot), but WEB is a exception. I wouldn’t want to quite WEB anytime soon, and I’m glad I still get another year to do it.

 

If I Was Running My Own School

This will be a series of Blog Posts (yes, that’s getting capitalized) about what I would do if I was in charge of my very own school. I’ll be doing the lay-out, subjects and electives, general information (name, district, etc.), and more. Some things are based on things at WRMS or at another school, but some things I think of on my own. I’ll love suggestions in the comments, too! Some things I won’t change, but most things I’ll have an open mind about. I’ll continue to do actual writing posts and assignments too, but I just really wanted to do this. So, I hope you’ll enjoy this series of blog posts.

PART ONE

Name: Dickinson’s Middle School
Ages: 6th-8th grade students
Location: Austin, Texas

Public or Private? Public
What district? Eanes Independent School District (EISD)

School Mascot: Boston Terriers (usually students and faculty just say ‘Terriers’)
School Colors: Orange and Gold

Subjects Offered
Required Courses
-Math
Students can be in grade-level math or advanced math. Double advanced math is not offered as a class, but students can take an optional after-school class where they will learn more difficult and interesting math lessons in fun ways. However, students must be recommended by a teacher or they must take a test to get in to the class.
-English
Grade-level English and advanced English learn basically the same thing, but they learn it in different ways. Throughout their years at Dickinson’s, students will be required to keep a blog. Blog assignments will be given over the summer, and students will be expected to do quality work on their blog regularly. Different levels of English have different blog assignments.
-Social Studies
For this class, different grade levels will be required to do different types of Social Studies. In 6th grade, students will be required to learn Texas History. In 7th grade, students will be required to learn U.S. History. In 8th grade, students will be required to learn Geography and World History.
-Science
For science, 6th graders and 7th graders will be required to learn Life Science, and in 8th grade students will be required to learn Chemistry and Physics. 8th graders can also be recommended to an advanced course where they will learn more advanced (high school level) science. Students must pass a test to get in.

Fine Arts Electives
Choir:
-Beginning Choir: 6th grade boys and girls; doesn’t travel or compete; no limit
-Honor Treble: 7th/8th grade girls; competes less and travels once; no limit
-Honor Tenor Bass: 7th/8th grade boys; competes less and travels once; no limit
-Varsity Treble: 7th/8th grade girls; competes more and travels more; limit of 30
-Varsity Tenor Bass: 7th/8th grade boys; competes more and travels more; limit of 30
-Varsity Treble and Tenor Bass: 8th grade girls/boys; highest level of choir; limit of 20-25

Band:
-Beginning Band: 6th grade boys and girls
-Concert Band: 7th grade boys and girls
-Honor Band: 7th/8th grade boys and girls
-Varsity Band: 8th grade boys and girls

Orchestra:
-Beginning Orchestra: 6th grade boys and girls
-Concert Orchestra: 7th grade boys and girls
-Honor Orchestra: 7th/8th grade boys and girls
-Varsity Orchestra: 8th grade boys and girls

Physical Education
Students are required to take at least four semesters of at least one Physical Education class that isn’t P.E. Two of these semesters will be in 6th grade where students will be taking P.E.

P.E.
Students will play mostly games and some sports for fun. Boys and girls aren’t seperated. Required course in 6th grade. Optional course in 7th and 8th grade, but does not count toward Physical Education credit.

Strengthening and Agility:
Students will run on the track, lift weights in the weight room, and occasionally play games to strengthen themselves. Exercises are like what students would do in offseason, but less intense. Boys and girls aren’t seperated.

Athletics:
Students will either train for one of the sports of be in offseason. In offseason, students will practice for a sport, work out in the weight room or on the track, or do agility exercises. Boys and girls are separate. The following sports are offered:
-Volleyball (for girls, first half of semester one)
-Football (for boys, first half of semester one)
-Basketball (for boys and girls, not on the same team, second half of semester one)
-Track (for boys and girls, one big team but training is not together, first half of semester two)
-Soccer (for boys and girls, not on the same team, second half of semester two)
-Tennis (meets after school, semester one)
-Golf (meets after school, semester two)
-Dance/Cheer (meets after school, full year)

Other Electives
-Art
-Life Skills
-Computer Tech
Students will learn how to use various technological devices, and will be doing conferences with other teachers and districts and will help other students and teachers when they have technology problems around the school. Students will also be taught how to fix various problems with devices.
-Languages
Languages include Spanish, French, Chinese, and Latin.
-Health
-Speech
-Yearbook
-School News

Choir UIL

Today, Wednesday April 16, 2014, three out of the four West Ridge choirs preformed at UIL. In UIL, University Interscholastic League, every choir in the region has to perform three pre-rehearsed songs from a specific list of songs all rated 1-5 (1 is easiest and 5 is hardest) and do sight reading. In sight reading, you get piece of music that you’ve never seen before and perform it in front of the judges. Thankfully, you do not have to say the words; our choirs just sing Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, and so on. Let’s just say that’s the most boring part of UIL. 

Anyway, Concert and Honor Treble Choir (the choir I was in) performed three songs like everyone else. We are supposed to perform level 1 and level 2 songs only, but we performed two level 3 songs and (Ms. Snouffer says) one level 3,000 song. I’ll give you a quick run-down of all the songs:

  1. The first song we performed was Cantate Hodie, which means “Sing Today” in, I believe, Latin. The song continually flips between Latin and English. It’s fun, up beat, and exciting. I really like it (It’s my favorite).
  2. The next song we sing is a Russian Folk Song called Kalinka (kal-yeen-ka). It’s all in Russian AND it’s occapella, so it had no musical accompaniment. It’s the level 3,000 song. It’s super hard. We almost ditched it multiple times, but we didn’t. We stuck with it and we sounded FANTASTIC! It changes speed and volume about 20 million times, so it’s hard to remember when to do what. In this song, a man is leaning up against a kalinka bush and is singing about a girl. Whenever I sing it, I picture a big berry bush. It’s kinda creepy. 
  3. The last song we sang was a slower song called I Know Where I’m Going. This song’s about a rich girl who is in love with a poor boy, and she isn’t allowed to marry him. She’s willing to give up everything she has to stay with the boy (Johnny). Throughout the song, she’s singing about that. It’s really a beautiful song, even if it’s hard. The first few lines are as follows:

“I know where I’m going, but who knows who’s going with me.

I know who I love, but who knows who I’ll marry?”

After we sang these songs, we were brought out to the sight-reading room. We got a song and we sang it fabulously. I don’t want to talk too much about that, it’s very boring. Anyway, we got judged one a scale of 1-5 (1 being the best and 5 being the worst). The judges were really nice everywhere. After we were done, we were ushered outside to take a picture. I was thinking it was going to take a while to get our results (1 or 2 weeks, maybe). But not after a long time of being outside, Ms. Snouffer comes out with a trophy. She tells us we got the same score from every single judge (there were 6 total). She told us we got…


Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

Oh, we were all so happy! It was fantastic! Best thing EVER! I’m still really happy about it! I don’t think it could get any better than this. YAY! 

Now, I just have to figure out what scores were for Concert Tenor Bass (Boys), Varsity Tenor Bass, and Varsity Treble (girls). Hopefully West Ridge Middle School won the sweepstakes trophy again! Go WRMS!

Comments

So, for the Student Blogging Challenge this week we’re supposed to write a post about how we’re going to try to get more comments, but I feel like I’ve got that covered. My parents comment on almost everything (Kim and Bruce), Ms. Schoch comments a lot, and I recently just got some very important people to comment on my blog:

  • Mrs. Bridges, on of the school’s Vice Principals
  • Ms. Bacon, the other Vice Principal
  • Elliot Bristow, an EduBlog’s support person
  • Mr. Ramsey, my school principal

Ya, I’m very happy with my blog and how many comments I have. So, how am I going to get more comments? Keep doing what I’m doing, because that seems to be working pretty well. 

Blogging Challenge for the Week? DONE!