100 Word Class Challenge #1 - Results

 Our class did our first 100 Word Class Challenge this week.  The students came up with the prompts:

Killer

Zebra

Suddenly

Spoons

Each student wrote a 100 word piece and posted it to their blogs.  They voted on their favorites for this challenge and the posts from Ferron and Stefanie were chosen.  They can be found here or on their blogs.  Make sure to check out the other students posts as well.  They can be found on their blogs.

One lazy afternoon my crazy family and I decided to go to the zoo! We all packed in to the car and headed to Calgary. We arrived at the zoo I leaped out of our red minivan! I was so excited that I almost peed! My mom came up behind me and scared me! Then she handed me five spoons and a big bowl of ice cream. I took the ice cream and walked over to see the zebra. Suddenly the zebra turned around and walk over to me, we shared my ice cream! It was killer! It was the best zoo trip ever. (Ferron)

One Monday morning, I was sitting in my desk reading my book when my teacher spoke up, “Ok class, put your books away.” I noticed his voice getting deeper and he had a long black and white stripe across his neck. Suddenly, his legs and eyes started twitching out. What was happening? Next thing you know, my teacher, Mr. Lachapelle, started walking on four legs, making weird animal noises! He was a zebra! He opened his desk with his tail and pulled out a box of jelly-belly’s along with some spoons. He stabbed the box vigorously with the spoons. He was a jelly-belly killer! (Stefanie)

100 Word Challenge

As I was browsing the web looking up some interesting activities for Language Arts, I stumbled on the 100 Word Challenge.  Honestly, I wish I would have found this sooner!  It is an awesome way to get students to write.  Essentially, each week students are given a prompt or some sort from the 100 Word Challenge website (100wc.net).  This prompt can be a word, a group of words, a phrase or a picture.  The students are then challenged to create a piece of writing that must include this prompt in some manner.  The challenge is they are only allowed 100 words (plus the prompt word or words).     The prompt for this week, for example, is "out of the blue...".  Since this phrase is four words, the students' story should be 104 words.

The 100 Word Challenge is a world wide challenge.  Students work is posted to their blog which is a part of a class blog.  The post link is then uploaded to 100wc.net and it becomes visible for other challengers to view.  Students are encouraged to view each others post and comment.  This presents an excellent opportunity to teach and practice digital citizenship. 

We have recently started blogging in class.  Blogging has got the students excited about writing.  The first time they noticed that somebody from another country viewed their page, they were hooked.  As their teacher, I get just as excited to see their reactions.  The 100 Word Challenge seems like an excellent way to build on this.  Although their blogs will be used for other assignments, we look forward to getting started on the 100 Word Challenge.  We have not signed up as of yet.  We are still learning about blogging, but we have done our own class challenge.  Students have written a post and are currently commenting on each others work.  This will provide the practice and understanding they will need when we do begin the actual challenge.

This is our class blog and the links to students' blogs will be on here soon.  Stay tuned and visit often.  The students would love to hear your comments!

Welcome to the Junior High Class Blog

This is the blog for the junior high class of 2012-2013.  We are a small group consisting of students from grade seven to grade nine.  Recently, each student has begun their own blog.  They will be using them for different class assignments.  There is a lot of excitement over their new blogs!  Everybody is curious to see how many people have visited their posts and from where in the world they have done so.

Students' blogs will soon be linked to this class blog. We will be using our blogs to express our writing and thoughts and hope to hear what you think.  Students' writing might be something from Lanaguage Arts, but it could also include other subjects.  This is something new for us, but we are excited!  We hope to learn, practice digital citizenship, and share.  Please feel free to comment on their work, make suggestions, recommendations or provide comments or constructive criticism.

Happy Blogging!