Summer School High School Drama

Play At Summer School from Wm Chamberlain on Vimeo.

Summer School

Summer Learning

I am teaching the novel The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton in summer school this year with sixth through eighth grade students. I have started a lesson planning and reflection blog where I will be posting both what we are doing in class and what I am learning from it. Here is the link if you would like to read through my thought process. 

A Mobile Blog to For a Mobile Blogger

I have started a mobile blog at Tumblr.com. The blog will be used to record my trip to Walt DisneyWorld, but if it is as easy as it seems, I will probably continue to use it. If you want to follow my trip, here is the link: http://wmchamberlain.tumblr.com/

Do I Have a Right? Learn Your Constitutional Rights

Do I Have a Right? is a game where you get to pretend to be a lawyer. The game helps you learn about Constitutional law (which is pretty important!) I would love to see what you think after you are done playing, so leave a comment letting me know.

Samorost

Samorost 1 is a crazy cool game. The idea is to get the character, Samorost, to explore the space ship that he finds flying towards his planet. To play this game you simply point and click until you find out how to progress. You will have to collaborate on this one, don't be selfish when you figure out the puzzles!

Now for your assignment: I want you to write Samorost's story. Why ishe scared when he sees the spaceship? Why does he decide to explore it? What does he find along the way? You will need to take notes as you travel with Samorost.

I will leave you this picture as a clue for the first puzzle. Can you see what has changed?

Secret Builders

 Secret Builders brings something new, the opportunity to converse with other people outside of the classroom. Use common sense and the online safety practices we have talked about in class. I am not saying you cannot have a conversation, just remember that you are looking at an avatar and not the person. You really don't know anything about them, so don't let them know anything about you!

Library Media Survey

Here is the link to the annual Library Media Survey Please fill it out to the best of your ability.

Rube Goldberg Machines

Here is a GIF of 8th graders working on their Rube Goldberg machine. The GIF was created using Gifture with my iPhone.

Halloween in April?

Because I won't have you next October for Halloween, I thought you might like to check out the fun today. The first site is online pumpkin carving. What kind of face does your pumpkin need? The second site is Zap-A-Ghost. How many ghosts can you click on? The last site is Hidden Spirits. Can you lead a scientific investigation to debunk a haunted hotel?

Online Pumpkin Carving

Zap-a-Ghost

Hidden Spirits

You will need headphones to play Hidden Spirits so I hope you brought yours :)

Can You Survive Jamestown?

The colonists at Jamestown lived (and died) through a variety of choices, both good and bad. Now is your chance to see if you could do better. History Globe's The Jamestown Online Adventure is your chance to pit your intelligence against the intelligence of the original settlers. Can you do a better job? Click this link to try.

Leave a comment about what you learned.

Web Sudoku

Following this weeks theme of working with math. Today and tomorrow you will be doing online sudoku puzzles via websudoku.com. See if you can get a puzzle done in under 50 minutes.

Create a Comic Starring The Avengers

Here is the opportunity you have been waiting for, creating your own comic books. Since the Avengers movie is coming out this summer, I thought you might like the opportunity to create your own story line.

Click here to create your comic.

Why Do We Need Fractions?

Why do we need fractions? Leave a comment after watching the video.

Building Bridges

A couple students caught me playing X Construct on my phone during lunch today and wanted to play themselves. I told them I would find a PC equivalent so they could try it out on their own. Here is one I found called Bridge Building Game. The purpose of the game is to construct a bridge that will allow the lemming like pink dinosaurs to cross safely across a chasm.

 Here are links to similar games:

Cargo Bridge
Bridgecraft

Which Movie Would You Prefer to Watch?

Free Rice

 FreeRice.com is a quiz site and a way to help the World Food Programme end hunger. For every answer you get right, ten grains of rice will be donated. While this may not seem like a lot of rice, it adds up. An added feature is that you can now pick from several different categories of questions.

Isle of Tune

It is about time I find an interesting music game/sim. Isle of Tune allows you to create music by creating roads, lining them with musical items, and then sending cars down the street. It is hard to explain, but it is very cool watch/listen.

Create a Drawing in Paint

Marissa's Picture

Today you will be creating a picture for your creative writing story using Paint. While paint can be hard to use, the possibility to do something very interesting is there.Don't believe me, look at Marissa's picture above. When you are finished, save it to the computer pictures folder on the student shared drive.

Poptropica

"Poptropica is a massively multiplayer online game and virtual world, targeted at children ages 6 to 15, where players can travel, play games, compete in head-to-head competition, and communicate safely with each other. There is a role-playing component as players are encouraged to finish "island missions" and get medallions."
Wikipedia.com

There is a lot of critical thinking involved in this game. Can you complete a world in one day? Can you collaborate with others to figure out the answers?