Shout Outs

Have you noticed someone doing something kind for others? Stepping up to a challenge? Being responsible?
Give them a shout-out!
Complete the form below and we will put your shout-out on our Announcement TV!

Go ahead...make someone's day! I dare you!

Reading Celebration

Today was full of fun and excitement in ELA!  Mrs. Monsanto and Mrs. Ennis worked together to bring some activities into the classroom for the students who completed their reading goal.

We made videos to promote our reading.  We made Word Art and some got creative with their Digital Art skills!  We also used QR codes to redeem for mystery prizes.  Thank you parents for your support with this!

Videos:  (parents will need to use your child's google sign-in in order to view the videos.  They are blocked to outside users, not in our domain.  

Photo Booth Fun!

Group Photos:

Thank you parents for all of the donations!

Some of us are in the holiday spirit already!

Mrs. Monsanto and, student, Braden are ready for Halloween!

MSU's Literature Festival

On Thursday, 60 OMS students were randomly selected from a drawing to visit MSU's campus and visit with different author's for the day.  It was quite the treat and we sure had a lot of fun! 

What Motivates YOU to Write?

This past week, we used our power writing technique to draft our narratives.  I didn't want the kids focused so much on making everything PERFECT from the beginning, I just wanted them to get their thoughts on paper.  SO! We used power writing and a little motivation from TICKETS to get our pencils moving!  Several students wrote between 80-100 words in just two minutes! The challenge was fun :)

Here is some photo proof!

Abby Cooper Author Visit

Mrs. Monsanto's 1st period class got to chat with author, Abby Cooper this morning!

Second/Third period gets to chat tomorrow and fifth/sixth period gets to chat on Friday.  She was quite entertaining!

The kids were also talked to about the Children's Literature Festival which occurs at MSU on October 11th.  Names of the winners will be announced later this week!  For more information click HERE.

Theme Practice

ELA used inspirational quotes to review and show the understanding of theme (unit 2 lesson).

Mrs. Monsanto's ELA class used the book, "The Most Magnificent Thing"  to discuss this.   The book was about overcoming obstacles and never giving up on a dream.  After reading, the task was to find an inspirational quote which supported the theme of the book.  Today, we took those quotes and hung them up around the school. 

Check it out!

J. Anderson Coats: Author Visit

Mrs. Ennis' class has an author who is mentoring her class this year! Her class is part of the #KidsNeedMentors program.

Our mentor is...

J. Anderson Coats!

 Click on the picture to go to her website.

At the beginning of the year, she sent us a video and 5 books plus bookmarks for all students.

Her books are The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming and R is for Rebel. (Links are to Amazon)

Today, she visited us virtually through a Google Hangout. The questions from the students were phenomenal and we learned so much more about her personally and professionally.

What the Students Thought

• It was fun and interesting.
• Now I want to write a book.
• Anyone can be a writer if they want to. 
• I am really looking forward to talking to her again. Now, I want to read some of her books!
• I learned a lot of things about how to sorta feel confident about who you are as a person and how to let your writing have a special story to tell.
• She was bullied, like everyone that has a good career in life. 
• She loves what she does.
• Writing doesn’t always go your way and it’s not going to be perfect the first time you do it. 
• Authors are patient and driven.
• Even if you can’t write, just try.
• You can do something that you never think about doing for a living and be very successful with it. No matter how many ups or downs you have.
• It was inspirational.
• Authors are just like every other person.

J. Anderson Coats’ Words of Wisdom

• “Every book is more different, some need more research. The voice happens differently in your head and the more you write, the better it gets.”
• “Learn to write this book.”
• “When you take risks, you get better.”
• Nobody should feel like they can’t write because everyone has a story and should tell it. If you have any doubts, remember it is natural.”
• “I learned that writing kept me going during hard times. It helped me feel better putting my feelings on a page.”
• “Ideas come from everywhere. They intrude on your life, you have a thought, see something on the news, and it sticks with you.”
• “I like to create something out of nothing.”

Book Tasting Sept 10th

Extreme ELA classes participated in a book tasting on Monday!  Check it out!

We had so much fun sampling different books from different genres and discussing them with our classmates!  This will (hopefully) open us up to new genres and even book titles.  

Mrs. Ennis & Mrs. Monsanto even matched!

This week in ELA

Our current ELA unit covers vocabulary.  Everything from suffixes & prefixes and their meanings, to how to use context clues to determine unknown words. 

This week, Mrs. Monsanto & Mrs. Ennis are doing a lot with learning prefixes & suffixes.  Today, we played a little word hunt game and got to meet our classmates in the process.  Once we made all the words we could, we dissected the words to figure out the difference between the literal meaning and the dictionary definition. 

Check us out in action: