If you want a fun way to practice identifying your verbs and nouns check out the grammar ninja.  He's actually kinda fun!

How cool is this?  Tanner's dad sent me a link to this story about a boy with Down Syndrome scoring a touchdown in a high school football game.  Very heartwarming.

Check out the video here.


Photo credit: Mark Harrison/The Seattle Times

Make sure to check out Basmati today.  It's updated with the first Spelling test, everything we've done in History, and most importantly, I've updated Reading and Language Arts.


Keep in mind, Reading and Language Arts are the two classes in which we are piloting Standards-Based Reporting so be sure to check them out and see if you have any questions.  Remember, Basmati doesn't play well with Standards-Based reporting so ignore the overall grade totals and pay attention to the individual skills.  A 3 is what we are aiming for.  A 3 is "meeting expectations", and it means your child is doing everything I've asked them to do.  A 2 means they need a bit more help with some aspect of that learning goal, and a 4 means they have gone beyond what was taught in class in some meaningful way.


I think this might be a bit confusing at first, so please don't hesitate to ask questions if you have them.

Okay.  Here we go!  I've included four videos to help you set up your Reading Blog.  You may not need to watch any of them, but if you get confused, hopefully these will answer your questions.

2.  Designing Your Blog (Making it pretty.)

Mrs. Dahl will look like this:

Well, technically, the whole Middle School needs to reach their goals, but what can you do for your part?

Hopefully this video is helpful to you.  I tried a number of things, but couldn't get the sound to record.  I still think you will be able to follow along, though.

Remember all you have to do is create a blog.  

You DO NOT have to:
- import Weebly posts yet
- set up the layout/deign of your blog
- configure the "settings" of your blog
- make any blog posts at all

The PTF Fun Run is this Friday, so please make sure to do the following:
- get in permission slips turned in
- let me know if you can drive (and make a copy of your insurance and licence)
- get those pledges!

Hello parents.  As we start using the internet and google more often this year, I wanted to let you know about the Google Family Safety Center.

This site will help you learn how to use SafeSearch and there are also some video tips from parents at Google.  I hope this is helpful to you.

Today, we will finally be setting up our Blogger-based Reading Blogs.  This will take a bit of work, but in the long run it will be better for you because the Blogger platform is more stable than the Weebly platform.

When you're setting up your blog, click on "Settings", then "Basic" and make sure your settings match the settings below.

Watch the video below to see how to meet all the short story publishing expectations from the previous post.