TMS Online Newspaper

One of the Photostory opening pages

Mrs. Garcia recently had a project focusing on snapshot writing.   Her class had to think of 12 memories they could mold into a story.  Then they created a FIT chart to help them create the story.  In the FIT chart the “F” stands for feelings, “I” stands for information, and “T” stands thoughts.   They had to take pictures to represent the story events and feelings,  and put the pictures in their project using the program Photo Story to piece it together.  I asked  Alexus Smith some questions about the project. She said, ” The project was very tricky, but once we go to the end it was alright.” I also asked her if the project was difficult or not and she said, ” Yes and no.”  ”Yes, because the computer was hard to work with” – technology can be tricky and doesn’t always work right. And “No, because all you had to do was type your story into the program and take pictures“, which I’m sure was loads of fun creating.  This project helped her become more computer savvy and helped her learn how to collaborate with other people. Over the course of the two week project, they spent alot of time outside of class and in the computer lab creating their stories. So Mrs. Garcia gave the students  plenty of time and the resources to finish the project and to make it the BEST project ever. =)

Gummy Bears!  Gummy Bears!  Gummy Bears!  As of right now the library is filled with Gummy Bears!

What would life be like if you were a Gummy Bear?  Where would you live?  What would you drive?  Would you go to school?  Could you sleep?  The truth is life would be much different from their perspective….you have to bring life down to scale! What would change if you suddenly were the size of a Gummy Bear?

Well Mrs. Kimberly’s 7th grade students had to start by deciding what they wanted to scale down to size for their gummy bear. Students had to pick something that was real to create for their gummy bear world.  Once they selected something for our day to day lives, like a car or a house, they had to take their dimensions and shrink them to Gummy Bear size!  The 7th graders also had to compare  the Gummy Bear to the average height of a human, and using those heights they had to determine the scale factor.  They used their scale factor to determine the proportion of all of the things in their Gummy Bear World.   During this  math project, students didn’t just have a lot math to complete…..they had to understand how we use scale factors in the real world and what professions might use scale factor on a daily basis.  

The Gummy Bear project included student calculations, student reflection and a quality of life essay as well as a written description of how they used proportion and scale factors.

The real challenge was to create a model of the Gummy Bear World and do it as creatively as possible while demonstrating proprotion and scale.  Thomas Williams, Hunter Crowley, Rylee Pond, Chase Dodson and Kylee Edgmon used only their imaginations and some things anyone could get at a craft store or might have lying around their house to create their model.

Rylee made a fantastic shelter with a glowing fireplace! Yeah thats right it glows! Great imagination Rylee!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas made a MTV Crib for his Gummy Bears to hang out in!   Awesome job Thomas!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunter made a swimming pool that actually holds water! Cool! Fantastic Job Hunter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chase made a cemetery!  Yes, even a tiny coffin!  Great Job Chase!

 

 

 

 

 

And last, but definitely not least, Kylee made a  Lady Eagles volleyball court! Awesome Job Kylee!

If I had been a judge then all of the Gummy Bear projects would get a blue ribbon. It would be wonderful if our middle school had an art class for our students because we have some really talented individuals at Tatum Middle school.    I cant wait to see the next project that the 7th graders are going to do !!!!!!  All of the 7th graders did a FANTASTIC job!!!