Drama Dabblers -- Video, Final Performance, Day 10, July 30th

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 10, July 30th

Today was our celebration. We had great fun displaying our work. We read a piece aloud to our parents.

Haley shared a story called The Case of the Milk Carton.
Dana read her piece about writing camp.
Calista read her poem about fighting with her sister.
And so many more!

As you can see, it has been another wonderful year at writing camp!

Thank you, Maya, for writing this post.

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 10, July 30th

Today's blog post was authored by Kyra and Lucas. Thank you!

We made Chris Van Allsburg book jacket pictures. Our parents and other family members and friends are coming to see us on this last day, our 10th day, of writing camp!

Winbert is writing about dragons.
Tyler is writing about wizards.

Way to go!

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 9, July 29th

Today we worked on presents for the class and the teachers. We combined paper with poetry.

Today's blog post was written by Elyse. Terrific job.

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 9, July 29th

Today's blog post was authored by Deborah and Emily. Thanks, campers!

We did things like finishing up everything like our "All About Me" books and posters. We also did some folder and notebook stuff -- writing projects, to be exact.

What are other campers doing at the moment?

• Rahul is talking to a friend ; )
• Haley is reading Ella the Rose Fairy by Daisy Meadows (series: Petal Fairies #7).
• Anika is working on her poster.

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 9, July 29th

Today we wrote:

• our final copies of Bubble poems,
• final invitations for our characters,
• descriptions for our puppets,
• final touches on our writing (in the computer lab), and
• found poems from looking at articles in newspapers.

This is one line from Maya's found poem called "Cranes":

three-feet tall, red-crowned birds.

Great job, Maya!

Today's post was authored by Sandhya and Aditi and no one else.

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 8, July 28th

Today we read The Sweetest Fig by Chris Van Allsberg. We also enjoyed Christmas in July when reading The Polar Express, also by Chris Van Allsberg. We also performed our fairy tale finger puppet plays.

Campers in the spotlight today---

Isha made a puppet show!

Today's post was authored by Anika and Helena. Thank you!

Paper - Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 8, July 28th

Campers volunteered to display their writing pieces from the word teller activity (see Tuesday's videos).

Twirling around in the summer sunshine
All the kids are
having fun in the summer
shining bright sun.
-- by Krishna

Looking

Looking, looking

Dancing wishes

Do come true.

--by Haley

Gracefully, the butterflies

were flying in the hot, but

elegant, bright summer sun.

-- by Emily

Mad is the color of red

Red means

anger.

Anger means

angry.

Angry means

being mean.

-- by Mohana

Graceful Lightning Bug

Flitting, flying, flickering

Flourescent fairy glow

Shining and playing as

the jubilant moonbeams dance.

The magical night.

-- by Mrs. Pennabaker

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 8, July 28th

Today we made advertisements for our play. Then we voted for our favorite drama games. Right before lab time, we had rehearsal.

Tyler finally finished his Samurai play.
Karthik helped work on a banner for our play.
Anika made tickets with the Big Bad Wolf on it.

Today's post was collaboratively authored -- this means that we worked together to do it :)

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 8, July 28th

Dana is today's willing writer of the blog. Thank you, Dana!

Today is Birthday Bash Wednesday in honor of Mrs. Rodgers's birthday.
Happy Birthday Mrs. Rodgers!

We filled out our journal activity that was a birthday guest list and activity page. We were entitled to three famous people to come to our party for two hours. Then, we started to write an invitation for a book character's birthday party. We planned activities for their birthday as well.

In the computer lab, we worked on some last-minute revising details. Some of us even got to the point where we got to save two pieces for the book that will be published in early October.

For poetry time we were inspired by bubbles. We blew them, watched them fly away. and then POP! Also, we wrote poems about how we were inspired by bubbles.

Today was a very fun day! I wonder what Mrs. Rodgers will think up for tomorrow.

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 7, July 27th

Our day began with a morning ritual - the daily edit, and then campers were able to write their biography to be included in a playbill for Friday's performances for our family and friends. Today's theater game was actually disguised as script-writing and was called "Create-a-Scene." Groups of two had about eight minutes to write a script centered around a beginning theme or setting with two pieces of dialogue that were required elements. These scripts were published and shared with the group. We cannot wait to see them in our anthology!

Before practicing our group scripts, we AGAIN did a run-through of "Who Done It?" Campers are improving their theater skills with every practice, and the props are getting more and more elaborate!

For the majority of time, campers rehearsed their group scripts on stage. One group finished their first run-through that was begun yesterday, and the second group was able to practice only a portion of their mystery script. As the scripts were played out on the stage, campers realized that some elements of their scripts were confusing and unclear, especially to would-be audience members. Tomorrow there will be a mini-lesson on including more concise stage direction, narration, character development, and dialogue so that the audience is not left asking themselves questions. Campers had a blast with these scripts however...Alex played an old lady and a doctor, Naomi took on the role of a police man and a nurse, Chloe pretended to be an surgery patient and a nurse, Brooke played a nosy neighbor and a grieving husband, and Allison role-played a police chief and a young girl.

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 7, July27th

Today we worked on characterization. We warmed up with several different acting exercises as our characters and practiced our play. We even wrote resumes for our characters!

Hannah finished her fantasy tongue twisters.

Anika wrote United States of America tongue twisters.

Winbert worked on a play called "What's in the Sky?" (Hes's almost finished.)


Today's typist is Mohana. Thank you!

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Video, Day 7, July 27th

Here's a peek at today's activity, Word Tellers, in Paper-Making Poetry...

(Be sure to press the play button.)

Here is a detailed explanation of the activity...

Looks like fun, campers!

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 7, July 27th

Today we read two Chris Van Allsburg titles, The Stranger and Widow's Broom.

We wrote a play using medieval fingerpuppets --

What are medieval finger puppets, you ask? To name a few (or more)...

--a princess
--a frog prince
--a knight
--a unicorn

We are looking forward to tomorrow when we will perform our play.

We worked on our All About Me books and posters. We wrote about what we would do if we met a stranger.

Devina is writing about someone new.
Rahul is reading The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

-authored by Tyler and Isha

Thank you, campers!

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 7, July 27th

Today was Tough Tuesday...

We worked in groups revising each other's stories. During poetry, we worked on cinquain poems, which include nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

Brittany is working on a story about a girl who can talk to ghosts.

Aman is working on a story about campers who make toys for monkeys, but the toys get stolen by chimpanzees.

Sahil is working on a story about a guy who can freeze time.

Amazing! Today's blog post was authored by Calista, Haley, and Jordynn. Terrific job!

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Video, Day 6, July 26th

Be sure to press the play button (arrow).

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 6, July 26th

Today we created popout books out of construction paper, string, and glue. Some campers also used sticky shapes. We began to think about poems to go with each of our books.

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 6, July 26th

Monday morning...what a morning...time just flew by! Campers continue to practice their editing skills every morning with our daily edit. This morning a new writing opportunity was presented to campers when they were asked to add to and complete a script that had an interesting beginning. These new scripts were published and shared with the group. Props and costumes were scattered everywhere today as campers develop their characters and roles for the various scripts in preparation for our final presentation on Friday. They even humored Mrs. Gaugler and Mrs. Filbert by dressing up as detectives to have their pictures taken!

Here is what Olivia had to say about today:

Today, we wrote scripts called "Found" and played a game called "Catch a Story." We also practiced the group script that we wrote. I enjoyed most practicing the plays we wrote, and look forward tomorrow to "Create-a-Scene" and more practice time!

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 6, July 26th

Today we collaborated! We wrote a collaborative Mad Lib and performed a group action drama about Jack and the Beanstalk. We need to work together in order to make our play on Friday a success!

Matthew wrote his own Mad Lib about a Siberian tiger named Kalamazoo.

Karthik is writing about war in Japan (1945).

Tyler started his play about Samurai warriors.

Today's post was created collaboratively by awesome Drama Dabblers!

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 6, July 26th

Today we wrote about our favorite bugs. We also learned about insects. Do you know that an insect has six legs?

We wrote the last sentences of Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose.

Tyler likes the praying mantis.
Winbert's favorite book is Harry Potter.
Bridgette's favorite books are bug books.

Today's post was written by Rahul and Dharshan.

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 6, July 26th

Today was Mystery Monday! We talked all about mysteries. We even made our own mystery story.

In poetry, we described emotions with our senses.

Dana worked on a mystery that was about macaroni and cheese getting stolen.
Elyse is working on a stolen ring mystery.
Matthew worked on a baseball story.
Ben worked on a poem about something furious.

Today's blog authors are Lindsay, Priyanka, and Grace. Thanks, campers!

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 5, July 23rd

This blog was written by Elyse (aka The Writing Machine)...

Today we made paper fortune tellers and wrote lots of poems in our journals. We typed them in the computer lab.

Looking forward to Monday to see what else is in store!

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 5, July 23rd

The Drama Dabblers discussed setting and played the Where!?! game. Campers read and acted out The Librarian from the Black Lagoon. Campers voted for a play to act out for family and friends, but it is a secret!

Other news...
Tyler finally finished his Harry Potter play.
Hannah started tongue twisters.
Winbert wrote a play about a castle.
Hooray!

Have a great weekend campers. See you Monday.

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 5, July 23rd

Lots of practicing and writing was accomplished this morning! Campers completed their daily edit which highlighted the many things we learned about each other. Additionally, writing process sentences were published and shared today.

Brooke wrote: In my dreams, the murdered man haunts me.
Olivia wrote: From the beautiful rooms to the wonderful pool, the Don CeSar Hotel was the vacation I enjoyed the most!
Alex wrote: A ten foot leather leash: who would have thought my yellow lab, Winston, could've swallowed that?

Chloe wrote: My Portuguese Waterdog, Bella, runs around constantly.

Naomi wrote: When a piece of sushi met the tongue of the ravenous 20-year-old woman at a sushi bar, she broke out in hives.

Allie wrote: If your cat doesn't have a scratching post, he will demand attention by clawing at your new couch.

Brooke and Olivia summed up today as follows:

We rehearsed the "Who Done It?" script and practiced performing our two voices poems. We both enjoyed practicing our play and writing our scripts.

On Monday, the wind will blow and someone will catch a story!

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 5, July 23rd

Today we went further into our superhero story, as well as drew our superheroes. We worked on a poem, "100% Me," which was about what we like to do. Also, we wrote in our journals about our favorite sports scenes.

Priyanka is working on a story about Healthy Girl, a superhero who goes around the world helping children's eating habits. Nice influence, Priyanka!

Aman's poem showed us that he enjoys sports and science. Good job!

Praneel wrote a creative sports scene about the IronPigs. It was a disappointing loss. Sounded realistic, Praneel!

Awesome job, campers! Have a wonderful weekend. See you again on Monday for more writing fun.

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 5, July 23rd

Today's blog post was written by Melena, Lily, and Haley (and some help from Rahul)...

Today we wrote lists of our favorite thing in our Auto-Alphabet books. We read our last alphabet book, The Z was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg. We wrote a story to go along with our Auto-Alphabet. Also, in the computer lab, we typed a story that we wrote on Thursday.

Rahul is writing about his birthday in India.
Emily is writing about puppies.
Isha is writing about becoming a pediatrician.

Campers, you are writing machines today! Wow!

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 4, July 22nd

We made glass paper today and also lune poems. The glass paper was AWESOME and so much fun to make! They all came out very neat!

Emily worked on her glass paper. What I loved about hers were the penguins!

Elyse had a gigantic cookie cutout -- YUMMY!

Emily had a bunch of doggies!

This post was written by Angie. Wonderful job, Angie!

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 4, July 22nd

Today we played Emotion Charades and then wrote about a character who had a certain emotion. Next, we wrote a play called "Back to School." Before lab time, we read and acted out A Bad Case of Stripes, a book by David Shannon.
Also --
Matthew wrote about Bossy Bob.
Karthik typed his "Back to School" play.
Anika created her alphabetical tongue twisters.

We were BUSY!

This post was created by campers Winbert, Tyler, Hannah, Karthik, Matthew, and Anika. Thank you, campers!

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 4, July 21st

Today we were at the brainstorming stage of our superhero stories. The campers had great ideas and got really far in their work.

Here are two lines of Maya's poem:

I never scream or kick,
but I might shed a tear or two.

Aditi wrote about her superhero, Write Girl, and her sidekick, Write Boy. This story sounds COOL!

Grace wrote about superhero powers in school...

Super Knowledge and Teacher Disintegrator.

LOOK OUT WORLD!

Today's post authors: Praneel, Aman, and Sahil. Terrific job!

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 4, July 22nd

As we started our morning editing a paragraph about our campers, the main inquiry was..."Are we playing any theater games today?" And we did, but only after we finished, published, AND practiced our poems for two voices and edited our (writing process) sentences. After the theater games, we practiced, again, our "Who Done It?" script. We are trying really hard to memorize our parts, move around the stage, use eye contact, and project our voices. It is not as easy as it seems to be up on a stage! We ended our morning writing and typing our group mystery scripts.

Naomi sums up our morning as follows:

We read our finished two voices poems, and played two games, "Look Up (Dude!)" and "The Shakes." After a quick run-through of "Who Done It?" we continued our scripts. My favorite part of camp today was the run-through of "Who Done It?" because I started corpsing (ask your camper what this theater term means).
Hopefully, we'll have our lines memorized for the "Who Done It?" and we'll be ready to roll!

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 3, July 21st

In Paper-Making Poetry we had an absolutely wonderful time! We made a nest for our cranes and also added metaphors and color to our oragami cranes. Then we made a sunprint and this is how we did it:

We gathered all the things we wanted to have on it (like leaves, rocks, and flowers). Then we had 10 seconds to put those things on special paper and we had to wait one minute for the sun to take out all of the moisture out of the paper. If we waited too long, it would be too late. They came out really cool! -- Haley

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 3, July 21

Today we acted out The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and wore costumes. As we were reciting our lines, we performed different actions, such as brushing our teeth and licking a melting ice cream cone (yum). Our audience had to guess our action.

We worked in the computer lab typing the scripts and tongue twisters we are working on.

Also we played Royal Commands, which is a regal version of Simon Says. We look forward to what we will perform tomorrow.

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 3, July 21st

We finished our puppets and did further work on dialogue, specifically working on the mechanics of dialogue, such as grammar. We ended our day by creating poems based on our favorite childhood toy, including some of the the nice and not-so-nice adventures we had with our toys. Jordynn, who especially liked her computer time today, wrote about Cubby, her white stuffed toy -- not so white anymore since it was showered with love!

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 3, July 21

Our morning began by practicing our editing skills and reviewing the writing process. In reviewing the writing process, we have thought of many ideas (brainstorming), expanded one idea into a sentence (drafting), and then today, expanded the sentence using details and exact verbs (revising). After practicing two voices poems yesterday, campers wrote their own two voices poems today. They will continue to revise and edit these in preparation for publishing (performance).

Theater games were the highlight of the morning. Campers participated in a game called "Quick Change Artist," and another called "Freeze." Discussion of the writing traits was a tremendous help as campers continued to write their group mystery scripts. More on-stage practice was given for a "Who Done It?" script which will be performed on the last day!

Camper Allison sums up her morning as follows:
Today, we started with some daily edits and sentence writing (writing process). We played two fun games, wrote poetry, and worked on our scripts.

Allison enjoyed playing the games. They were a lot of fun, and she hopes to play more as camp continues. Tomorrow, we will share our poetry, hopefully play some more games, and work on our sentences and our plays.

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 2, July 20th

Campers began the day with a daily edit all about Alex. There sure were some well-hidden convention mistakes, but we persevered and were able to edit them all. Poetry was used today to emphasize good pronunciation, voice projection, and timing. After a demonstration by Mrs. Gaugler and Mrs. Filbert, reading "Whirly-Gig," a poem for two voices, the campers received their own poems and a partner to practice with. Partners enthusiastically read their poems for two
voices on stage for the rest of the group.

Drama writers were informed today that the main focus of their script writing is going to be mystery writing. A power-point was shown on how to write a mystery script. We practiced reading a script on stage, and then broke into small groups to plan, with a Mystery Story Skeleton, a short five-to-ten minute script using items from a previous activity (scavenger hunt). We are still working on these scripts, hoping to draft them and practice tomorrow.

Chloe said this about today's activities:
For "homework" we did a scavenger hunt for items from a list, and today we showed off the items and used some of them in our script-writing. I most enjoyed the poem for two voices today that I performed with Allison. Tomorrow, my group will be working hard on our script-writing.

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Day 1, July 19th

As campers arrived on the first day, we all got to know each other through a "Unique U" activity. We reviewed conventions through a daily edit, and talked about "Speed Week," a way to learn and practice the steps of the writing process in only five days with the result being a perfectly published sentence. Campers had a chance to get up in front of the group and introduce themselves
in a special way as well.

Camper, Alex, sums up her day as follows: Everyone introduced themselves. We learned the terminology of the stage and the different stage directions. We are practice reading a Pink Panther script. The activity I enjoyed the most today was reading the Pink Panther script (Alex likes to use accents when she read/speaks). Coming up tomorrow, we will look at mystery script writing and
start our own script writing.

Drama Dabblers -- Center Valley -- Day 2, July 20th

Today we wrote a play together. We also challenged each other in the tongue twister twistoff.

Tongue twister twistoff
Tongue twister twistoff
Tongue twister twistoff

Yes, the name itself is a tongue twister!

We read and acted out The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. We used costumes and props-- and had loads of fun!

Paper-Making Poetry -- Center Valley -- Day 2, July 20th

Today we worked with metaphor poems and linked two objects in our writing.

We created classic origami cranes -- this is no easy task! We discussed these cranes, called Orizuru in Japanese, and the tradition of folding one thousand cranes for good fortune.

We are looking forward to another great day of camp tomorrow.

Creative Composers -- Center Valley -- Day 2, July 20th

Today we journaled and shared our favorite writing pieces. We also explored dialgue and poetry. We worked on editing and revising our work using the computer.

Ben's "Star Man" reminded us that the words "to be continued..." can be quite a cliffhanger! Great use of dialogue, Ben!

Sandhya's "Pets That I Want" not only demonstrated her love of animals, but also her creative use of numbers within her poetry.
10 hamsters...
9 cats....
8 dogs...
7 guinea pigs...

Well done, Sandhya!

Dana brought in a piece that she wrote during the school year. Her story was about a girl named Molly who fell into a ditch in the park. In the ditch she found a dog -- a Collie-- that she could keep forever. Your heart was in that piece, Dana!

Author Adventures -- Center Valley -- Day 2, July 20th

Today we enjoyed prewriting by brainstorming for a piece called "My Summer," which we shared aloud. Our "All About Me" posters helped us to detail who we are and list our favorite foods, books, friends, pets, and more.

Rahul shared a writing piece about his lemonade stand and included the recipe --

Rahul's Lemonade

1. Lemons
2. Water
3. Ice
4. Secret ingredient
5. Stir
6. Drink!