Weekly Update 10/26/12

This week's bloggers are ninjas! 

Patrycja, Veronica, Nathan, Alex Y., Connor, 

and Annie in front  

(Patrycja, Annie, Connor, Veronica, Alex, and Nathan)

KRAFT PROJECT KICK-OFF!

To kick off our Kraft Repackaging Project, two engineers from Kraft came and told us what it's like to be a Kraft packaging engineer. A shout out to Elizabeth (below) and Megan!! YEAH!!  In the spring they will come back to see our new package designs.  We can't wait to get started!

                                                                          Elizabeth 

MEGAN (in the red) 

Megan is telling us about the history of Kraft Foods and about the different products they sell.

Elizabeth and Megan taught us about what packaging is and why it's so important to think of all of the different things that can go wrong when people open packages.

Elizabeth also told us about how much fun her job is.  She and Megan both went to Michigan State and were interns at Kraft before they started their real jobs there.

            Can YOU find: Annie, Sean, Colin, Isabel, and Emma in this picture? 

(Careful! Look closely!! ;)

Here are some of our Sigma students listening to the presentation.

Can you find Morgan, Connor, Claire, Jackie, and Devin?

Claire, Lorie, Veronica, Matt, and Isabel

Here are some of us with the parting gifts that we got from Megan and Elizabeth after the presentation.

In the bags were colorful pens, cheese and crackers, an Oscar Mayer Wiener Whistle, Trail Mix, and powdered TANG.

In period 4/5, Cecelia had the great idea to make a "package" of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to hold the thank you letters we wrote to Megan and Elizabeth.  Here Mrs. Lavidas is helping Michael B. and Cecelia wrap the box.  Owen and Rhea helped, too.

Then in period 7/8, Isabel had the creative idea to make a heart out of mini Kraft logos to say thanks from the Sigma Team.

In social studies we're studying Ötzi, the Stone Age iceman who lived in the Neolithic age and was found in 1991. He was laying there for 5,000 years. We had to study one topic out of the six and then we will do a presentation. For our presentation we can do keynote, iMovie, skit, google presentation, or do an interview. Check back next week for our presentations :-). Below are some of the notes taken and shared with each other on Googledocs for the projects.  

Below is a video of one of our WEX skits (showing emotions).  

It is William, Paul, and Trey annoying Rhea.  Rhea is the one showing her emotion: ANNOYANCE.  After our skits we wrote about a time we felt a strong emotion.

In L.A we created booklets naming the subject and object pronouns.  This will help us study for the test Monday.  We turned it into a catchy song.  Click on the play button below this to watch the video of us singing the song.


Period 7/8

Period 7/8's jazz hands!


Period 4/5

∑igma Celebrations!!

6-12 Won the Red Ribbon contest last week!  
They are going to share the pizza party they won with 6-11.

This week's awesome T-Wolf PRIDE Award Winners for October are Patrycja and Tyler.
 Great job guys!!

Patrycja

Tyler 

Connor chose this week's Word of the Week! Here's what he had to say:

Hello, subscribers, for this week's Blogger Post. I, Connor Beaton, have done this week's word of the week. I had it broadcasted on the announcements schoolwide! Synonyms include forecast, present, and newscast. Well, I will keep you up to date, HERE AT THOMAS MIDDLE SCHOOL! 

(Thanks to Michael P. for adding the audio:)

On Thursday, October 25, Mr. Kuch put together a video of teachers from the 1980s when they were younger. Along with each picture there was a song from the 80s, too. The picture below is all the teachers that were shown with songs.  We really liked listening to their favorite songs!

Weekly Update 10/1912

The bloggers this week are looking tough and ready to go! Especially Jack S. :)

Om, Lorie, Jack S., Emma

Learning about the Stone ages:  Lascaux Cave Exploration

In social studies we studied the Lascaux Cave which was awesome.  It was so interesting. The end was like a video game as we took a virtual tour of the cave...by Jack S.

To see the virtual tour click here.

Michael K.

Ziran

Om, Devin, and Patrycja

Lately we've been reading Wonder and blogging about the different perspectives R.J. Palacio uses and the traits she gives her characters. We also commented on each other's posts.

 Here are some things that we said:

• Trey liked that Alex said Auggie is persistent.
• Jackie liked that Ben said Julian is selfish; Om liked when Isabel described Julian as narrow-minded.
• Cassy liked that Annie said Summer is sunny.
• Owen liked that Lorie said Via is independent, and Claire thought Michael P. described Via well when he said she feels abandoned.

Here is a screenshot of William's blog post.  He chose really good adjectives for each character and even posted a picture of the book cover:

Here's a screenshot of Michael P.'s blog.  He already added a clustrmap and lots of other cool gadgets!

To check out all of our posts on our student blogs, click here.

In math we just finished projects about the electoral college. We researched what the electoral college is and why we have it. We also researched  an electoral college from a specific year. After we got the facts, we created presentations in small groups and shared them. 

Here are some slides from Lorie, Emma, and Jack B.'s presentation:

                                   

     A slide on why the electoral college is controversial

 A slide on the electoral college of 1984

∑igma Celebrations!!

  Congrats to Henry who created his own technology blog!!  Read about his blog here:

Hi, I am Henry. I have a tech blog, and if you need help with any technology-related things just comment in one of my posts, and I will post a video or some photos for how to do it.

 To get to my blog just click here.

On Wednesday Mr. Burton,  the assistant food service director and district dietician for District 25, met with a group of randomly chosen Sigma students.  They gave him feedback about how to make the lunch line work better and ideas for marketing healthy foods.

Michael P., Ben, Sean, Matt, Claire, Annie

This week was Red Ribbon Week.  It's a week to remind us to never get into drugs.  We found little red ribbons in different places around the school like in our lockers, on the floor, and behind bulletin boards.  The homeroom that collected the most ribbons won a prize.  Thursday was "team" up to stop drug use day, so we all wore our favorite sports teams shirts and jerseys!

6-11 on "Team up against drugs day"

6-12 in our sports gear

Here are some of us today, wearing LOTS of red to celebrate the end of Red Ribbon Week!

Congratulations to Emilia, who was ALL in red today, including her hair and a cape.  She got chosen for a contest during lunch and won a $10 gift card to AMC movie theaters!

Weekly Update 10/12/12

This week's bloggers were epic.  William says they were better than everyone else, and Sean says they were humble:)  In honor of Sean's birthday today, our bloggers took some freaky and interesting pictures.  

Devin, Rocco, Sean, William, and part of Owen!

Devin, Sean, Rocco, Owen, and William

In LA we read All Summer in a Day, a science fiction story by Ray Bradbury.  He set the story on Venus in the future, which we know can't really happen.  He wrote the story 50 years ago, and he didn't know that Venus is unlivable.   In the story it was very overcast on Venus.  The sun only came out for one hour every seven years!  The story didn't have a very happy ending or a real resolution. We don't know what happened to Margot  at the end.  We chose quotes from the story and drew pictures to analyze the dark mood and setting.  Below are some of our best mood and setting projects.

By Trey

By Ziran

By Kayce

By Morgan

 By Veronica

 By Emma

By Matt, who used Fireworks to draw his setting on the computer, which was challenging!

 By Alex S.

 By Isabel, who drew cool mushroom-shaped plants, just like Ray Bradbury described them 


In science we are learning about the phases of the moon for our light and reflections unit.  We are making Keynote projects which show the moon's phases as it waxes and wanes.  On one slide we have to show all of the phases of the moon, and Devin figured out how to make the circles curve.

Connor B.

Nathan H.

Michael P.

In social studies we're studying the Stone Ages and how our ancestors used stone tools and were very resourceful.  Today we brought in tools we use today.  In these pictures we lined up from the least technologically advanced tools (on the left) to the most technologically advanced (on the right). Here are the tools our bloggers brought in:  Devin brought a whisk; Rocco a paintbrush; Owen a pair of scissors; and Sean brought tape.   We think the panoramic picturesbelow are cool!

Period 2 with their tools

Period 3

During Team Time we shared tech tips and tricks. We got to try some different ideas for using the computers.  Not everyone got a chance to teach the class, so next week we will share more tips.  Most of us learned at least one or two things we didn't know before!

Cecelia showed us how to lock images in Keynote. Locking makes it easier to make images like faces. This is a very helpful tip. Thanks, Cecelia.

Michael B. showed us how to use command "W" to quit out of the server quickly.

Charlie showed us how to get back to the main screen quickly by using command, shift, "Q."

Jackie demonstrated how to change to different world languages in Word.

Ben shared a cool website called worldometers.com.  On this website you can see cool and useful very current facts like how many people are born each day and how many people are alive right now.

Devin showed us the fastest way to connect to the server and how to type the apple sign: , and for all you computer geeks out there you hit "option W" or for the apple shift- option- K. ∑ :)

Matt showed us that if we hold down command "G" it will highlight your key words or letters so that you can find words on a page.

Sean taught the class how to see the keyboard on the screen.  It ca be useful for when you are using the command button or learning how to type.

German Fest!!  Last week the German students celebrated German culture.  They ate pretzels and tried different mustards, played German games, and listened to American songs sung in German.  Everyone had a great time!  Watch the video below to see all of the fun things they did and to listen to the German gummy bear song!  Special thanks to Matt from Frau Lussem for taking all of the great pictures!!

∑igma Celebrations!

Isabel was really excited to meet one of our all-time favorite authors, Rick Riordan, last weekend at a bookstore in Alabama.  Riordan writes the VERY popular Percy Jackson books.  She bought his new book, The Mark of Athena, and had it signed by him!

Paul decided Sigma needed a class pet.  Meet Mr. Oinkers!

Mr. Oinkers in his new home.