All Things Writing!

Did you just learn that you have a budding author right at home?  Perhaps, your child needs to strengthen their writing skills in time to write college entrance or scholarship essays?  Well, look no further because you have come to the right place for a few resources.  Unfortunately, my search did not yield a plethora of results for Georgia, but there are a number of resources that your child can participate in to strengthen their writing habits.

Out-of-State Writing Programs
Rhodes College in Tennessee - http://www.rhodes.edu/English/4422.asp
Sewanee Writers Conference in Tennessee - http://www.sewanee.edu/ywc/
Young Writers' Conference in California - http://www.youngwritersconference.org/

U of Florida Summer Journalism Institute - http://www.jou.ufl.edu/sji/

In Georgia 

Georgia Writer's Program http://www.georgiawriters.org/

Writing Projects

Young Writer's Program - http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/ (my favorite)

National Student Poets Program - http://www.artandwriting.org/NSPP

Young Writers of America - http://www.youngwritersofamerica.com/

The Young Voices Foundation - http://www.youngvoicesfoundation.org/

Other Writing Sites of Interest

National Writing Project - http://www.nwp.org/

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award - http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011

Source: the Berkeley Carroll Middle & Upper Library Blog

Dear Parents,
Help your child avoid the summer slide by sharing these 15 free summer reading resources with them.

Venus Transit 2012

Did you get to see this yesterday?


how to animate a gif

(images from NASA)

I am glad I got a chance to catch this event!

A Little Science with a Dash of Technology Please!

What to do! What to do!  With several weeks of summer ahead of me I need to find time to relax and prepare for the new school year at the same time.  So when I am not busying visiting historic sites, museums, reading, and watching movies I will put together some new lessons and activities that seem to keep buzzing through my mind.  So what are these plans exactly? I think I will:

- make a Common Craft-like video
- make a GoAnimate video
- finish the energy song my students worked on this year
- buy some props for a few "mystery" lessons
- get familiar with Collaborize Classroom
- publish a few more podcasts on physical science topics
- learn how to use VoiceThread

Lately I have been looking at some of the experiences students may participate in once they get out into the adult-world and have been wondering how to take these events and structure a few performance-, project-, or problem-based activities around these settings.  Well I only have 7 more weeks to figure it out! I better get started...