Corbett School District» Mr. Long

Good Good Good, Good Vibrations by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:53:37 +0000

by Jett Knight

Good vibrations are coming from Room 8 this week! Mr. Long is starting a

whole new unit. PHYSICS. It’s going to be awesome. We started the unit

with making interactive posters about a specific topic. Some of the topics include

Einstein’s equation, kinetic energy and potential Energy. They

all look pretty cool.

We’re continuing to memorize the class’s first piece for the year,

a poem called “Phoenicians.” Most people have memorized

at least half of it.

The Fertile Crescent unit is slowly beginning to wrap up, to

the extreme dismay of some people. Unfortunately, several people are quite

behind on tasks, which Mr. Long can be a little exasperated about.

Word Root Wednesday has been sidetracked this week but is still going strong. We have

started a new book in Read Aloud called Touching Spirit Bear. But probably

the most significant event happening in Room 8 is that Mr. Long

wasn’t here on Wednesday, with Mr. Monahan as his substitute. So, mostly

there’s been pretty good vibes down at Room 8.

It’s a Long Story by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:25:06 +0000

Dear parents/guardians,
This week we had story telling night when we students had to tell a story about something that happened to us in our lives to a group of about 30 people. Most of us, if not all were quite nervous about telling our stories to strangers, but we did well. The stories were great, and it was a fun writing unit.
We also continued our Fertile Crescent unit. In this unit we can have war over land(winner found by rolling dice), trade resources, move armies (thumb tacks), do tasks (based on research) to get more civilization points to win the game, and choose a different job every week. This week we learned about Hammurabi’s code of laws, cities in Ancient Mesopotamia, and an ancient form of writing called cuneiform. The Phoenicians are in the lead with money, armies, land and resources. Yeah! The Medes have the most civilization points. I believe this is one of the best units that Corbett Middle School has done.
We also created visual interpretations of each line of Ursula Le Guin’s poem “Phoenicians” — which we are all memorizing. Ask your student to recite for you.

Thank you

Sincerely,
Makayla Cannon

Bloody Battles in Room 8 by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:12:30 +0000

By Tristan Barreras
During this week we have had countless battles that are involved with our Fertile Crescent unit we started on Monday. This week, we were given our tasks within our tribes that are due by Monday. These tasks may involve writing a speech, making a model, writing a song, etc. We also started our fourth and final story of the storytelling unit, and we are deciding which story we are going to tell on Storytelling Night, October 19th. We are improving our stories and memorizing them so we are ready to present We have also been working on memorizing places on the world map for a test that we will take until we master the material.

Overnight trip, a water-filled ditch, The Fertile Crescent, and the Story-Telling Itch by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:06:30 +0000

by Alyssa AnDyke

After two days of excited waiting, we had our first overnight field trip of the year last Wednesday. We visited the Warm Spring Museum where we listened to a Warm Springs Indian woman talk about her heritage. Even though it was hard to hear her, what we could hear was really cool. She talked about the widowing ceremony, she showed us some dances, and she let all of us understand what it was like to grow up the way she did. At the KOA campsite we ate hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. While we settled down for the night, we sat around the campfire telling stories and having a lot of fun. A lot of us woke up early on Thursday morning because of blowing winds and collapsing tents. For breakfast we had pancakes and sausage that the KOA staff made for us. During the day, we learned about irrigation, earned a service hour for picking up trash, and hiked the hard or easy trail at Smith Rock. The overnight trip was a success, and we can’t wait for the next one.
This week we started learning about the Fertile Crescent and maps. The Fertile Crescent information will be taught with a game much like “RISK”.We will have our own clan that is either the Babylonians, Hittites, Phoenicians, Medes, or Persians. We will battle with each other and fate while we try to rule the empire! In the geography/map unit, we were asked to memorize where several countries are. We must know were the continents are and the Equator, the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and the Prime Meridian. Also, this week we all worked on story number three which had to include the topic of luck. Hopefully the topic of our stories carries out to the football team which is now second in our league. Good luck Cardinals! On Monday, we will begin our Fertile Crescent game. Hopefully fate and wise decisions will be in our favor.

Week Three: Papier Mache Worlds and Stories of Adventure by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:30:07 +0000

Parents and Guardians of children in room eight,

As you may have known, last week we began working on our story unit. This week we were to write a story about an adventure or an exciting event from our lives. We are working on throwing out the silly details and focusing on the more important ones.

We also have been making globes, balloons that we covered with papier mache and painted with blue paint. We have now glued on the seven continents, the equator, the tropics, the international dateline, and the prime meridian.

As for Word Root Wednesday, this week we studied the word roots, “chron”, “geo”, and “therm”.

Next week on Wednesday and Thursday we will be going on the first overnight field trip of the year. We have been reminded several times to bring a water bottle. So be sure to do that!

All together it was a good week for room eight.

Yours Truly,
Clare Babcock

Hot Week in Room 8 by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 19:57:31 +0000

It’s has been a hot week in room #8. The students have done a great job of concentrating despite the fact that our classroom temperature has topped 82 degrees every day this week. We spent our time working well as a team, constructing homemade globes, continuing the study of word roots, and honing the craft of storytelling. Students should certainly turn in permission slips for our overnight field trip the night of September 21st.

One week under the belt by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:05:38 +0000

The middle school has been spending much of this week establishing healthy routines and building strong relationships. Room 8 has been no different.

We should all know each others’ names by now, and we have all acquainted ourselves with different learning styles by filling out an informal tally sheet. I found out my most prevalent learning style is intrapersonal, followed by linguistic and kinesthetic. What was your favorite student’s results?

We also shared our ideas about cyber-bullying based on a short article from Scholastic Magazine, and showed off our creativity by writing short poems about ourselves. Whew!

Next week we will begin a storytelling unit to inform our first overnight trip to Central Oregon later this month (ask about permissions slips), and we will acquaint ourselves with some basic premisses of world geography.

Welcome Back by Aaron Long

Aaron Long — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:03:55 +0000

I am so excited to get back to the classroom and to see everyone. Don’t forget a pencil, a binder and a great attitude Monday morning. We’ll all figure out the rest.