Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
The Little Mermaid Musical
The Little Mermaid Musical
On April 24, 2014, Highland Middle School presented The Little Mermaid musical. The actor and actress playing Ariel and Prince Eric, Nina and Cameron, made a nice performance.
Most of the actors were great, like Tony, who played Sebastian. They made it look like the movie was coming to life. Of course the musical didn’t have everything that you might find in the movie. Ursula, played by Riley, had a great performance and sang gorgeously. Many children watching the play loved Scuttle and his friends who were singing and dancing. The actors had to work for many weeks to get ready and learn their parts for the musical.
During the show, there were some problems that some people thought were funny. During the part where Ursula was singing, the fire alarm went off because there was too much smoke. There was too much smoke produced as a special effect.When King Trident was on stage, he pointed his trident and it broke in half.
If you would like to see more pictures of their musical, you should go to http://xbox.district106.net/html/modules.php?name=gallery2album=2014_Musical. There you will find over twenty-five pages filled with pictures. As I said before, the three performances were awesome with many great scenes.
Opinions on 5th grade?
By: Emily
Fifth grade has many exciting events, and only one or two let downs in my opinion. Read more to find out some of my opinions, and the opinions of other 5th graders on our year so far.
One of my favorite parts of 5th grade is the Entrepreneur Fair. Let me warn you future 5th graders that it was hard for some 5th graders to get started. If you choose to work with a partner, make sure you pick someone you will work well with. Only choose a partner if you are thinking of doing the same thing. The best part is running your stand. It is so fun to have customers come to your stand. It is very fun to have your first customers. Over time I learned that you find different ways to talk to your customers and have them come to your stand. This is one of the best events that I experienced all year.
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| sunnycanyonesfesd.sharpschool.com |
One of the events I both liked and disliked was Heritage Day. I liked it because the projects you get to do are really fun and it was really interesting for me to learn about my heritage. I also liked looking at other people’s heritage at the event. I disliked it because it is a lot of work, but then on the other hand it really is worth seeing the final product. Other 5th graders didn’t like it because of the music. One of the 5th graders, Reagan, said, “ I didn’t like it because it was a little bit boring because we had to stand for a while."
One more exciting thing is buddies. It’s really fun to play with, and read to your buddies. Since there are five 5th grade classes and only four 1st grade classes, one class was able to have kindergarten buddies. I think it is as fun having them as buddies. My favorite activity we did with our buddies was we made a story out of a picture. We got to share the story with the class and help them read it.
5th grade is awesome but I am looking forward to middle school. I had so much fun getting laptops, doing fun projects and activities. I think 5th grade will be one of my most memorable years. In my opinion 5th grade is two words, THE BEST!
What do YOU think is the best part of 5th grade?
Is Divergent Worth Reading?
assets.divergentthemovie.com/aptitudetest/ (link for the test)
Divergent is a new great book by Veronica Roth that lots of people may have heard of, but is it worth reading the book? Divergent is about a city (Chicago) where everyone fits into one of the five factions, Erudite the intelligent, Amity the peaceful, Candor the honest, Abnegation the selfless, and Dauntless the brave. When Beatrice Prior takes the aptitude test to decide the rest of her life, she finds out that she doesn't fit into just one faction, but three. She is Divergent. Most fans of the books are pleased with the casting for the movie, of Theo James and Shailene Woodley. The fans are also disappointed that some parts were left out, like one of the main characters Uriah.
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| Shailene Woodley |
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| Theo James |
Magnificent Minecraft
Magnificent Minecraft
by Nate
Hey, all you Minecraft players and people that are interested in learning more about Minecraft. Minecraft is all about blocks and your creativity. In Minecraft you can chose between creative mode and survival mode. In creative mode you have all the blocks and you can build anything you want. Or you could chose survival and you have to collect your own resources. Also you have to fight of mobs that want to kill you.
The first part of Minecraft that I am going to talk about is the basic blocks and ores, so let’s get started.
Wood/Logs/Planks -
*Used to make wood tools, crafting tables, and many more things
*Come in 6 different kinds and colors
*Come in 6 different kinds and colors
*The types of logs are oak wood, jungle wood, spruce wood, dark oak, acacia wood, and birch wood
*found in forests
Stone/Cobble Stone -
*Used to make tools, furnaces, and stone bricks.
*Found underground
Iron and Iron Ore -
*Used to make tools and armor
*Has to be smelted to make Iron Ingots
*Then you could use Iron Ingots to make iron armor and tools.
*Found underground
.
Coal/Charcoal -
Coal can be found underground and you use it to put in your furnace to cook meats, ores, and cobblestone. You make Charcoal by smelting wood logs.
Gold Ore -
*Used to make armor and is found underground.
*Has to be smelted to make gold ingots.
Redstone -
*Found underground
*used to make redstone torches, repeaters and many other things.
Diamonds -
*Found underground
*Rarest of all ores in Minecraft.
*Used to make armor, and tools.
These are the basics of Minecraft. If you want to learn more go to the Minecraft wiki.
Summer Survey
What are you most looking forward to in summer?
To get to the survey, click Here!
By Daniel C
To get to the survey, click Here!
By Daniel C
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| blog.travefy.com |
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
XtraMath Talk
By: Madelyn
XtraMath Talk
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| www.xtramath.org |
Everyone knows what XtraMath is. And I doubt anyone likes it. It is a math practice website where you need to answer a measly math problem in under 3 seconds. Personally, I really don’t like XtraMath. I think it is boring and long, and I think it is unfair to judge people based on how many questions you get right in a row. Also, it doesn’t matter how fast you can do a math problem as long as you know the correct answer. It’s also unnecessary for the guy in the red shirt to make those silly faces. I think teachers made an enormous mistake making us kids go to that horrible thing. But I’ve got some suggestions that might make teacher’s and student’s eyes pop…
Listen, teachers, I know you think XtraMath is so perfectly amazing for students and builds their skills on math, but hear this now. When I was in fourth grade, XtraMath made me stay on addition for a whole year and a half. It wasn’t my fault; I got about seventy smiley faces in a row. I was doing great. Teachers, I am not the only one who had to go through that. My little brother, Sam, was on subtraction for so long, I can’t even remember how long. He was really disappointed that he was not moving up to multiplication. He was on it much longer than he should have been. I felt so bad for him, and I feel his pain. Poor us.
Also, XtraMath has been making students do “Race the Teacher” two times! Sometimes, even three times before they finally let the students go. And What’s more, there is absolutely no way to determine how many math problems XtraMath will give you. It’s always a different amount of equations, so you can never be sure.
Listen, Students, I know you probably want to do something very, very, very evil to the person who created XtraMath. I feel the same way, believe me. I would do anything to destroy that horrible creature of a website. You would probably do anything to get away from XtraMath. I feel your pain.
I’m giving suggestions to the teachers for different, fun, cool, yet still educational websites. I know, it sounds impossible. But actually, it’s not!
Khan Academy
The first suggestion is a new and fun website called Khan Academy. I know many people already know what it is, but if that website gets popular enough, teachers may scratch out XtraMath...FOREVER! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!!! Sorry. Anyway, I love Khan Academy. It’s fun, exciting, and educational! It even has energy points! How cool is that? You can have different ranks of different math subjects. Those ranks are: Needs Practice, Practiced, Level One, Level Two, and finally, Mastered. Also, Khan Academy gives you different types of really cool badges, too. Those types of badges are: Black Hole, Earth, Sun, Moon, Meteorite, and finally, Challenge Badges. You can find this awesome site at: www.khanacademy.org
Coolmath
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| www.coolmath.com |
The second suggestion of a new and fun website is Coolmath. Oh my gosh, I love Coolmath so much! Again, I know that many people know what it is, but this website might really start to grab teacher’s eyes, and teachers might forget about XtraMath! It help kids practice math, but in the best, most fun way! It is so fun, and all of the games are cool! It has strategy games, logic games, thinking games, all sorts of games. Of course, there are some games that are not really math related, but they involve all the things that I listed above. You can choose what kind of games you want; geometry games, math games, and many more. You can find this website at www.coolmath.com
What do YOU think should be the new popular, fun, educational, website?
Book Review: Catching Fire
By: Keara
Have you ever wasted time reading a horrible book you thought would be amazing? Catching Fire is the second book in the Hunger Games Series, and I have one word for it: AMAZING.
The book is by Suzanne Collins. The first part of the book is recapping what happened in the first book. I like that because if you take a big gap in between reading the first few pages could refresh your memory. I do think that the main character changed a lot between books. This book is very action-packed, and has a lot of turning points. Also this book has a lot of new characters, like new tributes, and game makers!
Although this book has a lot of upsides, it also has some downsides. One downside is that they tell use too much in the beginning . One example is before we meet the characters they tell us too much about them.
Overall I think that this book was very good. I would give it a 4.5 out of 5. I give it this score because it has A LOT of good parts, but it occasionally has a bad part. In conclusion you will not waste your time reading this book.
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/homework-help-literature/52826-theme-of-catching-fire/
How to Swag: Study Song
SWAG Issue: 1
Study Song
By: Blake (Dr. Swag)
“Aw man! I got a D- on my math test!!! These bad grades are going to be the death of me! Oh well. I’ll just listen to this rap song and forget about this grade... Wait! What if: Rap + Studying = A+! I wonder…”
People like that guy who love swaggy music like rap and have a hard time studying. They can also have a hard time in school, too. But this guy was thinking in the right direction. MUSIC + STUDYING = GOOD GRADES! If you like music, and you need to start hitting the books, then follow these tips
Okay, so maybe you are thinking “Dr. Swag, I don’t know how to write a song!” or “But Dr. Swag, making raps is hard!”. All you need for a catchy song is REPETITION. Repetition is the act of repeating something over and over again, like a chorus. If you think of the song Happy by Pharrell Williams, he uses the word “Happy” in it about 50 times. And guess what? It’s a catchy song! So for a study-based song, you need to use common words that have rhyming pairs for a chorus. If you need to study math, then start repeated, common words. For example:
(to the tone of the chorus for “Happy”)
“Math-for-life!
If you wanna know how to mul-ti-ply, then add the number that many times!
Math-for-life!
If you forget to add the one, redo it and put it above!
Math-for-Life!...”.
You guys can comment back if you know anymore lyrics for that. I can’t think right now, but you get the point…
Now, raps can be tricky. Sometimes they can go really fast paced, like 5 words per second! But, since I am not an experienced rapper, I’ll give an example of a slower paced rap. But I want to break it down before I do. Here are some tips for rapping.
-Bust a pace you can keep for a while
-If you want to bridge to the chorus, then try building up speed
-Make sure the words you rhyme make sense with the song in whole
-Spread out topics that can be easily rhymable (like for the color purple, say violet instead. Riot, diet, and quiet rhyme with it, but nothing rhymes with purple).
So, if you need help with reading homework, like parts of a story, then here’s an example that could help you:
“You have the plot, you know it’s the main i-dea;
it wraps the story up like a tor-ti-lla (Tor-tee-ah)!
And then there’s the characters, the people that are in the stor-y;
if you think about that it will lead you to glor-y!
Next is conflict, it’s basically the problem;
if you can’t solve that, everything will go to the bottom!
The theme is what the reader learned;
it’s like the moral or the lesson that cannot be burned!
Last is setting, which is where and when;
If you figure out these then the story will END.”
Well, that’s all I have for this issue. Check out my next issue to deal with bullying by keeping calm. If you learned a lot from my first issue, that’s awesome! Even if you still have good grades, or don’t even like music, then you can still have ideas that you can think of to help in the future. If you have anything to say, the comment section is below! I hope that you enjoyed, and remember: Swag on!
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