Sep 30 2009

mrmadden

You are 11% done with sixth grade

Filed under ela

Believe it!

By the end of school on Friday, you people will have completed 11% of your sixth grade school year.

Wow.  (Shake of the head.)

So, aa

How has it gone for you?

Is it everything you thought it would be?

Are your teachers stranger, odder, weirder, scarier, stricter, lamer, stupider, or more wonderful than you thought on your first day?

What about the hallways, cafe, library, gym, bus ride, old friends, new friends, of course,

Homework!

Is sixth grade

All that

You thought

It would

be?

Karpov the Wrecked Train photo by kenny

3 responses so far

Sep 22 2009

mrmadden

Mr. Derf

Filed under ela

Fred the YouTube star

Fred the YouTube star

Okay.

Fred.

YouTube.

If you know of whom I speak, what do you know about Fred?

Why is he so popular among young people like yourselves?

What makes his videos (vids) so addictive?

Why have his videos been viewed over 63 million times?

What does he know that adults don’t know?

9 responses so far

Sep 16 2009

mrmadden

Checking homework assignments! Don’t tear out your hair!

Filed under ela

Yikes!  What do we do for our homework again?

Simple:  Click the Assignments tab near the top of this page, look under today’s assignment, and it should be obvious with the details provided.

You can do it!

18 responses so far

Sep 14 2009

mrmadden

Day 5: The Case of the Disappearing Teacher

Filed under ela

Hello! out there in MadWords.

Picture of missing teacher

Picture of missing teacher by CarbonNYC

I was not at school today because of a very interesting meeting I needed to attend.

The meeting (or class, really) taught myself and others how to create a GLPS teacher web page.

Now, I fully intend on keeping this blog as the main way of communicating with you, but I always believe in keeping my options open to new things and ideas.

Do you agree with that way of thinking?

How did today go with the guest teacher?  You people can be my eyes and ears into how the day (hours) unfolded!

  • How did ZYLAR go?
  • Everyone’s Panther Pride t-shirt done?  (It’s homework if not, you know.)
  • How was lunch?
  • What does the water in the drinking fountains taste like?  (Not chicken!)

Well, I plan on being in MadWords tomorrow, so I will see you then.

PS:  Check out the new extra credit question for this week!

4 responses so far

Sep 03 2009

mrmadden

MadWords v2016

Filed under ela

Hello, and welcome to MadWords version 2016!

32972510.gif

This is the site where you will find a boatload of class information (handouts, assignments, teacher postings, student comments, etc.).

The easiest thing to do is to bookmark the page once you have navigated to it.

I am pumped about this school year, I really am.  This is not something that I say at the beginning of each year (you can ask brothers or sisters or cousins or moms or dads or neighbors or even a cat).  There is something about this upcoming year, I don’t know what it quite is, that tells something wonderful is peeking around the corner.

Call it intuition.  Call it silly.  Call it a cab, whatever.  There is no denying that it is true!

So, here is hoping that you are excited as well about your first year of middle school.

You only have one very first time at everything.

Make your first day at Hayes one you will always remember.  Even if it turns out to be outrageously funny!

All right, all right, I really look forward to meeting each of you next week.

Have a fabulous weekend.

And go you White Sox!

43 responses so far

Oct 29 2008

mrmadden

How was school today, Ned?

Filed under ela

How do you talk with your parents? Do you have long conversations about school, friends, life? Or, are you like the kid in the video and give monosyllabic answers (one-word answers)?

Do you think that it is important to have conversations with your parents? Some people say that having dinner with your family can keep kids on a very positive path in their lives. What do you think about that?

Tell what you thought about the video

8 responses so far

Sep 24 2008

mrmadden

If you can see it, smell it, touch it, hear it, or taste it, it’s a noun, right?

Filed under ela

Noun vs Verb (picture from Creative Commons)

Is it true that if you are using one of your five senses to observe something, that the something must be a noun?  Hmm.

What about “think it”?  What are your thoughts?  Are they nouns?  I can picture, right now, me swinging in a hammock on an island beach somewhere, eating a banana split–with pools of hot fudge, of course–enjoying the gentle breezes and dozing off into another dream.  But, I am not there.  The beach doesn’t exist except in my mind.  Neither does the ice cream or fudge or breezes or ocean.  But I can “see” them, they exist in my mind.  So are these nouns, too?  Hmm.

We will be getting into verbs next, but first check out the video below about nouns.

No responses yet

Sep 05 2008

mrmadden

Green Aussies!

Filed under ela, sixth grade

Just an interesting video to share really quickly!
It shows what some Australian kids are doing about the environment. Check it out. Let us know what you thought!

2 responses so far

May 06 2008

mrmadden

Create, create, create

hand.jpg

So, your short story is in the writing stage (remember, People Wear Really Exciting Pants), and you are working on your Ed Raises Cows From Rwanda (the five parts of a plot, namely: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution).

You already know that the due date for your first, typed draft is this Friday, May 9, and now you are drained from all of that imagination-mania!

Bearing that in mind, I have a few links for web sites that I discovered on another sixth grade blog, The Electronic Pencil, that you may find interesting–even fun! Check some out, let me know what you experience there.

Build Your Wild Self

Magnetic Poetry

Lego Avatar Creator

Create a Band

Jam Studio

3 responses so far

Apr 16 2008

mrmadden

Once upon a time, in a land of chocolate and Tabasco…

tabasco_chocolate.JPG

Well, I can dream, can’t I? If I am writing a short story, then by gosh I will create my own magical–and with Tabasco, wonderful–world! That is the power of being the author! The world you write about in your story is created completely by your imagination! What power!Your short story will be yours as well! Of course, the goal is to share it with your reader, otherwise the world doesn’t get to visit the amusement park of your incredible imagination! You wouldn’t do that to your readers now, would you?

Over the next couple of weeks, you will begin putting the pieces of your very own short story together. Your universe will slowly form, until, Wham! a short story is born! You will be asking repeatedly to read yours to the class! To share your amazing ideas and twists and turns of your story. To have readers say, “Wow! That’s a really good story. How did you ever come up with that?” You’ll smile, thank that person, and say, “I don’t know, it just sort of grew out of my head!”

So, fasten your seat belt! Get ready to free your imagination! Prepare to amaze yourself and others!

Prepare to be proud.

Short story podcast lurks below.

041608.mp3

One response so far

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