ELA Update by Spencer W.

Today there will be a mock MCAS reading comprehension in ELA This  grade will go on your report card. Last week we practiced for MCAS by doing two mock MCAS packets with ORQs with them. The first two mock ORQ’s were “A Deadly Reputation” and the poem “On A Night Of Snow”. On Tuesday, February 4th there will be a mock long comp in ELA. Tomorrow there will be a quiz on order of operations for long comp in ELA. The things we need to know about for the quiz are:
 1. Read the question 2-3 times and highlight
2. Brainstorm what you’re going to write using a pick, list, choose
3. graphic organizer- Pillar
4. First draft
5. Read and edit
6. Final prompt
7. Re-read

Were also learning about how to get a 4, 5 and 6 on the long comp and what the differences are between the scores.

Social Studies Update by Danny N.

Last week in Social Studies everyone had to do an iMovie. The iMovie is about a woman overcoming many challenges to become a micro-entrepreneur. A micro-entrepreneur means a person who starts and runs a very small business. Ms.Davis put everyone into groups of 4-5. At the end of the project we had to present it to everyone in our group. We also had to vote on who did the best job. In group WE my group got the most votes which has Kevin D, Danny N, Phoebe G, Rosemary S, and Eduardo F. In group OI Jack S’s group won which consists of Julianna, Fiona, and Jeff. In group ST Resse B’s group won which consists Haile T,  Lauren C, and Sean B. In group NH they hadn’t decided the winner because they haven’t had the chance to look at the other videos.

Science Curriculum Update Week of Jan. 20 by Jack S.

In science we are learning about cell division. We had to fill out a Mitosis chart that showed the cell cycle and draw pictures for each section. We have just finished the probability unit and recently took a Punnett square check up quiz. Unfortunately, the majority of our team still needs some more practice with Punnett squares so we’ll be taking another Punnett square quiz later this week. We will be having our unit test this Friday, so study your flash cards on Quizlet.

Mr. Bellemer Interview by Jason A.

Mr Bellemer teaches Latin at the high school in the morning and in the afternoon he teaches at Oak. He also taught in third grade in North Carolina. He wanted to teach Latin because he enjoyed taking Latin in high school and college. He went to Umass at Amherst for his undergraduate degree and masters. If he could not teach Latin he would be a waiter, arborist or framer. During his free time he likes to be outside. He likes to mountain bike, hike, camp and tend his garden. He has six chickens and two cats. His favorite food is Thai food. He has two brothers, one older and one younger. His parents both are very smart and hardworking.

Afrika Blogs by Rahi P.

The Seven White Team is working on their own blogs to comprehend their ELA book, Afrika by Colleen Craig. I know what you’re thinking, “Why is the book spelled Afrika instead of Africa.” Africa, is actually spelled Afrika in the South African language Afrikaans. Mrs. Pruett wanted to make this project interesting, so she gave us two mini-research projects, and four journal entries. Before we had the iPads, we would work on our project the old fashioned way, by scrapbooking. It would be easier with our new technology because we wouldn’t have to use up all of that ink and paper. On the iPad, we could customize the blog any way we want and it would also be easier not to plagiarize. These blogs are free because we use the Google website Blogger. All we have to do is log into our account and once it logs on, you click add blog. We are supposed to read the book in four weeks (not including vacation). This week is the last week we are reading the book. The second and third week we read the book, we did both journal entries and research projects, but the first and last weeks of reading the book, we only have to do journal entries. To define an Afrika blog journal entry, each group member of the blog writes about a main character of each quarter of the book in first person and what they went through during the reading. The minimum of what we write is two paragraphs with seven to ten sentences for each paragraph. To define an Afrika blog research project, we could choose between topics such as Historical investigator, Cultural Attaché, and Biographies. These mini research projects help on our research skills and we also learn a lot on South Africa.

To see these blogs, scroll down a bit for a full list.

FutureMe by Shiny A.

On the Friday before the holidays, December 20th, 2013, Mrs.Pruett told us about FutureMe. It’s a website where you can write an email to your future self. If you tap on the bar on the left that says “Write”, you will be able to write your email. Just fill in your email, type the email, set the date, prove you’re human, and you’re all set! You’ll get the email on the date you set it to. FutureMe is good for reminders in a few days or what you want to tell yourself in a few years. You can read anonymous emails other people wrote by tapping on the bar that says “Read”. You will find recent emails and old emails. If you want to find out more about FutureMe, you can tap on the bar that says “What?” That will take you to a page where you can read about FutureMe, how it started, and what you can do if there are problems with sending or receiving emails. The “What?” page is actually funny and unusual compared to other websites’ information pages.

On the day before Winter Vacation we used FutureMe to write letters to ourselves. We wanted to remind ourselves what we were like back in 7th grade. Someday, whenever we get our letters, we’ll be like “Oh look, I was like this in 7the grade! I was little and crazy!” We wrote the letters so we could look back on ourselves and tell the FutureMes what to do. We wrote the letters to 2019, the year we’d graduate, or to June 2014 when school would be out. Wouldn’t it be cool to hear what your PastMe is telling you to do?

Here is a link to FutureMe: http://www.futureme.org

Science Curriculum Update by Andrew N.

In Science we finished the cell unit and now we are moving on to probability and Mendel’s experiment. We have a project that we are working on called “Genie Baby”. This Genie Baby project is about two partners who work together and choose what the baby looks like and choose their gender by flipping a coin and name them whatever they want. We are going to have a quiz on Probability and Mendel’s experiment on Thursday. We finished our quiz on slinq and now we are moving on to interphase, mitosis, and cytokinesis. This is all of the Science update so far.

Typewriters by Shiny A.

Typewriters are mechanical machines that do the same thing as keyboards do. They put words on paper. However, typewriters don’t have a computer where you can see your work before you print. Typewriters just print the ink on a piece of paper on a bar, called the carriage. If you make a mistake, you have to go back with the backspace key and put an “X” on the mistake. If you want to go to the next line, or do a carriage return, you have to press the carriage lever on the left side of the carriage and push the carriage to the right to keep typing. Typing is hard, though. You have to hit the keys to make the bar hit the paper. Typewriters have different keyboards depending on what country they’re from. In the USA, we always use the “QWERTY” keyboard, or a “QWERTY” typewriter. Back then, sometimes we imported typewriters form other countries, like Germany. The German keyboard is “QWERTZ.” The “Y” and “Z” are switched because “Z” is used more often than “Y” in German. Because of that, if you’re buying a typewriter, make sure it says “QWERTY.” Now for a word from Ms. Pruett! “Typewriters make cool noises, like, whack whack whack whack whack ding! Whack whack whack whack whack ding!” When the bell dings, that means you have to go to the next line. Ma. Pruett loves typewriters because they’re fascinating old machines that are interesting to use. They seem like they never run out of ink, but they do. Inside the typewriter are two rolls of ink that hit the paper in the shape of the letter that hit them. The ink keeps getting used up and eventually you’ll need new ink rolls. We can’t wait to see Ms. Pruett’s typewriter on Friday, December 20th.

Ok, now it’s Friday, December 20th. Everyone is lining up to try Ms, Pruett’s typewriter. Everyone had a chance to try it. It’s very old, it’s from 1936! It’s 77 years old! Ms. Pruett got the typewriter at Cambridge Typewriter in Arlington, near Boston. Each time a key is pressed, a stick, molded with the letter, hits the paper hitting the ink roll at the same time, printing the letter on the paper. If you type too fast, though, the key sticks get stuck and you have go make them go back by pulling them back. The harder you hit the keys, the darker the print is. The lighter you press the keys, the lighter the print is. If you want to go up a few paragraphs, you have to twist the thing that rolls the paper back up to where you want to go. People back then must have been expert typewriter typists!

  

The Shrewsbury Patriots by Nick M

The Shrewsbury Patriots (Scheafer) played the Nipmuc Warriors on a freezing night. One of our coaches said it was Nick V.S Nipmuc. Some of the players from 7 White are Nick M#64, Liam D#51, Ryan L#55, John L#74, Shea G#8 ,Matt P#70 ,Johnny Le#5 J.C #93′ Jack R#33.  Jack, Shea and Ryan did not play in this game due to injury. The beginning of the game did not go well for the Shrewsbury Patriots. Nipmuc scored on the 2nd play of the game it was 12-0 at the end of the first quarter. In the 2nd Quarter the Patriots scored making it 12-6. The Patriots did not scores the third quarter nor did Nipmuc. The Shrewsbury defense made a couple of big stands in the the fourth quarter then the Patriots offenses went down and scored a touchdown; it was 12-12. We pulled and we got the conversion and the score making the score 13-12. The Pats defense made another big stand to end the game. We took a knee and the game was over. The Shrewsbury Patriots have completed the comeback and just beat The Nipmuc Warriors. The Patriots were 4-0 playing Nipmuc.