Thursday, September 07, 2006

SEPTEMBER 6th and 7th - LIGHTS! CAMERA! LEARNING!

Well, today we are filming a news show for the Boston Massacre. The first people were the news anchors; Nina and Taressa .Toward the end Nina started of get a funny face trying not to laugh but pulled through. Then the people who were the soldiers for the British got up and got taped. Oh! I have to go up now hold on a second….. Okay I’m back now the “Sons of Liberty” are going. They have to wear paper bags on their head so that their identity for the part is kept. Oh no! The green screen just fell!!

Okay they got it fixed. While I’m waiting the soldiers tried to say they got attacked by flying monkeys but Mr. Langhorst made them change it. Well the Sons of Liberty finished and it was good. It would be better for me if I could wear a bag on my head for this. Now the Boston citizens are going. They did really well. Nobody seemed to forget their lines. Now people who are the king and parliament are going. Let’s see how they do. Here they go…. Wow if it was for real it would be harsh and just get the colonists more mad. Now it’s the people who are the interviewer and Paul Revere. Take 2. Take 3. There that was good. Now we have to go outside so I have to go outside. It will be the Boston Massacre live. Well, we all went outside and they did the Boston Massacre. It was pretty funny. Everybody was screaming but laughing while screaming.

Now we’re watching this documentary on the battle of Lexington and Concord. The people on the documentary reenact history. It’s kind of interesting but I’m not really a big history fan. They seem to do it exactly like it actually happened. Well I’m going to stop typing because this is getting too long. Bye.

Reported by Alyssa

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 11:01 AM |

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

SEPTEMBER 5 - STUDENT E-MAIL

Today in social studies we are getting ready to start taping our video of a new cast from the Boston massacre that we might have thought may have happened back then even though they didn’t have a news program. We also think that it will be fun well that’s what I think because things having to do with video taping is fun because we get to record things with a camera and having to act like actors and actress’ and having to be dramatic. Well we also in class got our student e-mails that will be used for finding out our homework and having conversations with our teachers about things we may have for the class or the homework that we have. Plus it will help students to remember their homework and stuff like that.

Reported by Lacey and Daniel

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 5:53 PM |

Friday, September 01, 2006


SEPTEMBER 1 - PARTY TIME AND TWO FOR TEA!

On the agenda board it says today we are going to check our 1.3 notes which are on the “Boston Tea Party” and work on our Boston Massacre Project if we have time. But first we have to vote for Student Council. We have to vote for 5 of the 7 candidates for our team. Now on to the notes the British would have made a lot of money off of my family with the tea tax because we love tea. I wonder after the Boston Tea Party if the Boston harbor looked and tasted like tea. By the way I’m writing this while in class so this is all in present text. Now we are working on our scripts I’m an anchor! Okay got to go.

Reported by Taressa
  • Mr. Langhorst's Note - It was hat day today as a fundraiser - students who donated a dollar for Red Ribbon Week activities were able to wear a hat in school. I wore my colonial trifold hat from Colonial Williamsburg.

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 11:10 AM |

Thursday, August 31, 2006

AUGUST 31 - STARTING THE BOSTON MASSACRE NEWS VIDEO PROJECT

Today in class we organized the Boston Massacre project. This project includes making a video in the time of the Boston Massacre. We put our names into a box and got drawn out for our parts in the video. Unfortunately I was chosen close to last so I didn’t get the part I wanted but I still got a good part which is the reporter of the eyewitnesses. I wanted to be the news anchor but no luck. After we chose our parts we got started on our scripts. Our scripts are similar to each other especially the reporters. They had to be about forty-five seconds to a minute so it would fit perfect into the video with good timing. We are planning to reenact the scene next Thursday by getting into two lines and throwing rocks and snow balls, along with lots of yelling and fighting going on. We are all looking forward on reenacting the scene of March 5th 1770, The Boston Massacre.

Reported by Kelsey

  • Note from Mr. Langhorst - This post was cool because the student typed it, I took a quick digital picture of the class working on the project, did a copy and paste from a flash drive and it was posted before class ended. The students actually viewed it before they left class and thought it was great!

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 12:45 PM |

Thursday, August 24, 2006

AUGUST 23 and 24 - STARTING UNIT 1 "ROAD TO REVOLUTION"

Note - since we use a block schedule on some days there is
just one entry to Wednesday and Thursday since we are doing the same
activities.


Today in class we went over a number of things. To start, Mr. Langhorst passed out our Unit 1 packet. Unit 1 goes over The Road to revolution. The Unit covers Taxes and Acts, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Declaration of Independence, and more. At the beginning of class we had to complete the first section of the Unit. (#1-15) Once everyone had completed the first section, we headed down to the computer lab. Once we arrived, the class went to a quiz website. We were told to complete a pretest over our new Unit at the website. Once students completed their pretest they were allowed to play the 50 states game on Mr. Langhorst’s website. If you’re reading this you should try it out before you leave the website. It can be very challenging!

Reported by Nick

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 11:02 AM |

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

AUGUST 22 - STATES TEST

Hello. It's Mr. Langhorst reporting again. I forgot to select a student reporter today so I'll give the report for today. I'll have to make a reminder about selecting someone and then giving them the laptop. Today we took a test over the location of the 50 states. Knowing the location of the 50 states is one of the grade level expectations set forth by the state of Missouri and we will take a states test several times over the course of the year until everyone reaches 100%. Many of the students have commented that they used the online states game linked on the bottom of our classroom web site. It is a great way to study and even adults get hooked playing that game.

Reported by Mr. Langhorst

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 10:40 PM |

Monday, August 21, 2006

AUGUST 21 - INFORMATION SHEETS

Today I'm reporting because the students were so busy working there wasn't time to anyone to blog. The students were in the computer lab today filling out their information sheets for me. On the first day I gave them a sheet to fill out about contact information and then some questions to find out a little more about them - what are your favorite all time books, what movies do you like, any extra activities they will be doing this school year, if you could have any job in the world what would you do, etc. My favorite question asks them to name the three people they would ask to dinner if given the chance. I always read that question first because I find it so interesting. I also take their picture the first day and there is a place on the information sheet to add their digital photo. I am terrible with names and it takes me a long time to match faces with names so I study these sheets to learn names and find out more about my students as people. An extra benefit of doing this activity in the lab is showing students how to our different networks in the building - including the instructional drive where teachers can place items to be downloaded by students and the turn-in drive where students can paste documents but only the specific teacher can view and modify them. Students used any extra time to study for the states test tomorrow. It will be our first grade of the school year.

Reported by Mr. Langhorst

Posted by Eric Langhorst at 6:31 PM |