Shakespeare learns to collaborate with Google Apps

Shakespeare had his first adventure of the year. He is so glad that the students are back in school. He gets so bored over the summer! He sat in to observe the seventh grade AT Literature class as they peal the layers of David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day." The students read an excerpt of the book, which, was edited for a middle school audience.

Students created groups where each person assumed a role. The roles are discussion director, person in charge of summarizing the group discussion, character tracker, and teacher.

The group shared their contributions through verbal discussion and reported to each other and Mr. Smid in real time using Google Apps in Google Classroom. Students are learning class culture and how to effectively communicate points as well as discerning important information that needs to be reported from verbal brainstorms and discussion. They also learned to synthesize multiple viewpoints into one interpretation.

This is not Shakespeare's first introduction to Chromebooks, and he is starting to get the hang of Google Apps. As a Renaissance man, Shakespeare loves to learn new technology. He wishes that he had so many great tools for communication when he was writing!

Shakespeare Learns about the Sixties

The Eight Grade students have been working on their research skills for the last couple of months. They have been learning about how to develop a good research question, and how to locate reliable sources to collect information for answering that question. It has been a long process, but the students have 

After conducting the research,  students delivered the information to their classmates in a 10-12 minute speech. Shakespeare learned a lot about the politics and culture of the sixties. What an exciting era in American history!! Topics included sports, the civil rights movement, JFK's assassination, fashion, music, the Vietnam War, and more. 

The speeches just wrapped up before spring break. Soon the students will be learning more about this era in Mrs. Blatchley's Social Studies Class. What a great introduction! 

Shakespeare Shows Off His Own Work!

Shakespeare was especially excited to visit Mrs. Oros's literature class! They were learning about the format of his sonnets.  Students were working in groups to identify the rhyme scheme in Shakespeare's Sonnet #18 and analyze its meaning.  Not all of the lines in the poem were in the correct order, so they had to reorder the lines using what they learned about rhyme scheme.

The students were excited to have Shakespeare visit during their class!

Stay tuned for more of Shakespeare's adventures...

Shakespeare experiences the real world application of modern scientific instruments.

Shakespeare loves being invited to the science classrooms. So much has changed since his glory days in the 16th century! The sixth grade scientists did not disappoint him. They took him on an adventure with some high tech scientific measurement tools as part of their physical science unit experimenting with waves. 


The class used PASCO probes with light sensors to measure the intensity of different light sources and of light bouncing off of objects in the room.  This was a great way to experience scientific principles in action! They gained an understanding of reflection, absorption, and transmission, the students use the light sensor probes in a variety of investigations. 

Students are continuing to use the light sensor probes in a variety of investigations in order to gain an understanding of reflection, absorption, and transmission of light!