Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 10, August 13th

For our final camp day, we rehearsed The True Story of the Three Little Pigs one LAST time before performing for family members and friends. We are proud of our hard work, including the many plays we wrote.

You can check out our videos in a separate post.

Videos

Videos

Author Adventures, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 10, August 13th

What a great end to our camp!

More Videos

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 10, August 13th

On our last day, we wrote 25-word stories in our journals. Then, we filled out evaluations for the camp and fnished our digital stories. Finally, parents came in to watch our digital stories.

Our digital stories are about:

Kayaking -- Amy
Dance -- Amanda
Educational fitness program -- Kevin
Getting lost in the woods -- Bao
Making eggrolls -- Don
Soccer -- Bell
A scary night -- Shelby
Vietnamese New Year -- Jonathan
Geocaching -- Mrs. Bragg

Look for the digital stories to be posted on the Lehigh Valley Writing Project Camp's website, http://www.lvwp.org.camps/

Thanks, Amy Y., for writing this post.

Meeting the Nittany Lion

Wanna Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 9, August 12th

Blog ideas by Tabitha

We heightened our senses by taking a smell of the "jar" then finding uncommon uses for a large alligator clip. Everyone practiced reading their piece for tomorrow's presentation, and worked to finish our horror mysteries to share in the response group. Finally we did a writing activity looking back at ourselves or fast forwarding our lives.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley, Days 7, 8,9

Thursday's post, authored by Walter: Today we started off by going outside and doing some inspiring games outside with cards that had random sayings on them. Then we brought class back inside to talk and write about the saying. To end the day we had a free write and then talked about what we learned today

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

1. Eric wrote about risks

2. Walter wrote about being an individual


Wednesday's post, authored by Rosalie: We warmed up by free-writing about a quote that meant something to us. We then prepared for the writing portion of the SAT by taking a 25 minute practice test. Finally, we had a long period of free time to write and polish our pieces. At the end of class, we all shared an excerpt from our works.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:
1.. Eric used vivid detail to describe his unique dog.
2. Kailea made us laugh with her story about eavesdropping on neighbors.
3. Gabby shared some interesting thoughts on being inspired by the lake.


Tuesday's post, authored by Kailea: Today we focused a great deal on SAT practice. Ms. Harlen gave us an essay scoring guide that told us how the SAT writing essays are scored. We used this guide to grade essays that were written for the SAT. Surprisingly, most of us were wrong about what each essay scored, which just gave us an idea of what to expect when we took the SATs. Later, Mr. Guffrovich from Admissions at Penn State Lehigh Valley came to give us advice on our numerous college questions.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:
1. Emily asked Mr. Guffrovich an excellent question about how much the SATs counted towards applying to college: Answer-1/3

2. Gabi, Nikki and Abby’s group got the most correct on grading the SAT writing essays

3. Shelby made a fine statement about how we need to be aware of what we find as a good essay the people grading the SATs might think otherwise; we need to be aware of our readers

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 9, August 12th

Today we continued the airplane contest. We went on the Internet for directions. There was a space shuttle, jet plane, and some regular planes. We flew them around the room. Some flew sideways, in circles, upside down, but a couple flew straight.

We learned golden rod paper is an indicator, which turns golden paper pink when you write on it with soap. Soap is a base.

This post was written by Science Writer, Eme.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- August 12th

Here is our collaborative story we created by using Story Cubes...

One night I saw a UFO. An alien came out with a bow and arrow. He shot down all the pretty flowers and all that was left were weeds! With a magic key, he made new flowers because at first he didn't like flowers, but he had changed his mind. I was so freaked out tht I called 911 with my new cellphone. when the alien saw the police care, he teleported to Egypt. The police chased all the aliens and they landed by parachute. Then the aliens, who saw the police chasing them, ran to their spaceship and zipped out of planet Earth. When they were in their spaceship, they ate three apples. Just then, their burritos caught on fire (they had overheated in the oven powered by milk). Four beetles, which were on the spaceship, survived and hurtled back toward Earth, found some mini-guitars and a min-drum, and they became the Beatles!

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 8, August 11th

Today when we came in, we worked on drawing an animal upside down and writing the mood we were in and why. Next, we worked on using water colors and markers to shade. Then we went to the computer lab and typed the final copies of our narratives. For the last couple of minutes we threw Spongebob and said what we liked about our comic strips.

Remember everyone --
At 3:15 on Friday, all the parents can come and check out our final comics and other art.

Bye-Bye. : )

By Catherine

Neil typed this

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 8, August 11th

The following is a collaborative post by the Drama Dabblers.

We campers wrote Character Resumes and many of us typed them in the computer lab. We continued practicing for Friday's play. We even made a set piece -- a brick house!

* Tanya typed her mystery play.

* Eliza started to type her play, "The Mystery of the Lost Thumb Drive."

*Neil wrote his resume for the play -- his character's name is Bob.

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 8, August 11th

Today we learned how to render a video on Windows Movie Maker.

What do campers like about making digital stories?

It's not graded -- Amanda

We get to use the computer -- Don

This blog post was authored by Johnathan and Don.

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 8, August 11th

Today we made paper airplanes and had a contest. Some of the categories to win were appearance, gentlest flight, fastest, distance (shortest and longest), lowest flight, name of the airplane, and technique. Some people that don’t want to compete be the judges, giving the scores for each person.

It’s not as easy as you think to make a perfect airplane. In the first contest Eme won the contest based on height and distance. In the second contest the person who won for appearance was Luan. The person who won the shortest turned out to be a tie but then they did a second run and it turned out to be Haley. The airplane flying the farthest was Eme again. Now for the technique contest. This time, Haley won. Now they are finishing with the gentlest flight contest.

This post was authored by Kelley and Ruby.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 8, August 11th

To get our minds working first thing in the morning, we played a game and used a mystery box to use adjectives to describe the contents that we could touch but not see. Later we worked with similes and a bit with metaphors. We revisited dialogue and watched a short video about the different uses of dialogue in our writing. There are so many different ways to say things!

The anthologies will be published in the fall. We prepared by practicing peer editing in a new way that was fun. Later, we went into the computer lab to edit and revise and to finish our pieces that we chose for the anthology that will be published in the fall.
We worked hard today, but we are just about ready!

EXHIBITION FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY
Please join us this Friday, August 13th at 11:15 a.m. for some light refreshments and a joyous celebration of the young writers' work!

Author Adventures, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 8, August 11th

Today we worked with fairy tales. We explored franctured fairy tales with different points of view. We also enjoyed fables.

Deetya, Ethan, and Kate really liked fairy tales today.
Neil and Tanya favored storytime.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

Today we brainstormed ideas for our writing. We used a smiley graphic organizer to help us think of things that make us laugh and things that make our eyes water. We saw that many of these things have some kind of story behind them that we can write about.

We also explored favorite author websites because they offer tips to help us become better writers. On one site, we saw how they turned a book into a movie. (We also liked the book trailers!)

We chose pieces for publishing for the anthology and worked in the computer lab.

EXHIBITION FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY
Please join us this Friday, August 13th at 11:15 a.m. for some light refreshments and a joyous celebration of the young writers' work!

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

Today we enjoyed warmup writing and a warmup called Shakeout. We practiced The True Story of the Three Little Pigs for Friday's performance. Some of us typed stories and some typed plays in the computer lab.

This post was written by Kyle.

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

We began the day by converting our hands into comic strip characters and then wrote in our notebooks. The rest of today was a workday -- we spent the entire time drawing our rough copies of our comic strip. Some of us also started our final copy, too.

We learned that panels are a HUGE part in drawing and creating comics. The class got to read comics to see how the person designed each panel, but I just enjoyed reading the different types of comics.

This post was authored by Liem.

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

Shelby and Amanda authored the following post:

Today we wrote in our journals about our favorite holidays and what our families do to celebrate them. Then we did an activity to help make our stories more descriptive.

Amanda finished her story.
Amy found pictures for her second story.
Shelby found more pictures for her story, too.

Geocaching...

Author Adventures, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

Today we journaled about what raindrops might talk about. We also listened to "I Wanna Iguana" and wrote letters to our family. We wrote rhyming poetry.

Ethan and Elizabeth G. name typing as their favorite part of the day.

Kate, Deetya, and Victoria liked writing letters.

Wanna Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

Warm ups with our senses and writing uncommon uses for common objects propelled us into Tuesday. Outside we used acting as inspiration for an object poem. After viewing and listening to horror and mystery stories, we began to spin our own tales.

Ideas contributed by Brett.

Parents are invited to join us this Friday at 11:00 for a Listening Cafe as writers read a favorite piece to an audience.

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 7, August 10th

Today in Science Writers we made our very own tie dye (check back for later for video coverage). First we wrapped rubber bands around shirts or bandanas. Then we dyed them and put them in plastic bags. We will get them back tomorrow! We also wrote letters to the Marines.

-- Haley aka Smiley

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6, August 9th

Hellooo fellow human beings! To start off our day, we drew our shoes and wrote about what they said about us. This was to examine “style,” one of the five domains of writing. Then we took out the descriptions of the main characters from the comic strip narratives we are creating and drew a picture of the character based on the descriptions. We drew a bunch of sticky notes based on events from our narratives, then rearranged them to play with the organization of how our narratives will be structured. After doing the final drafts of our characters, we examined panels from different comic strips to inspire us as to ways we can use panels in our own narratives!

Written by Jessica P., with some help from Kevin…

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6, August 9th

Amy is the author of this blog post...

Today we wrote in our journals about what will happen in 2035. Then we talked about what good stories have and what good storytellers do. After that, we worked on our digital stories.

Good stories...
have humor, suspense, and draw you in!

Good storytellers...
don't say "Uh" or "um." They tell a story that their audience wants to listen to, they practice, make eye contact, use clear voices, tell stories with emphasis and expression, and add lots of detail.

CELEBRATE OUR STORIES CREATED DURING THE PENN STATE LVWP YOUTH WRITING CAMP!

Where: Penn State -- Lehigh Valley, Center Valley
When: August 13th, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.
Please RSVP: Donna Bragg, Instructor

All digital stories will be posted on www.lvwp.org at the conclusion of camp.

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6, August 9th

Campers worked together on a Mad Lib. Also, campers played drama games like Mirror, Mirror and Look Up, Dude. They performed their plays, and they had their first rehearsal of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.

Derek worked in the lab on his own Mad Lib.

Maya typed her A-Z tongue twisters.

Kyle continued writing about Godzilla.

This post was written by dazzling Drama Dabbler, Eliza.

Wanna Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6 -- August 9th

Today we had fun writing biographies for our bio bottle characters, creating story lines about photographs, writing words as we observed the details of the book, ZOOM, and exploring surroundings outside to create settings.

This blog post was written by Jasmine.

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6, August 9th

Today during Science Writers, we went to the computer lab and typed about the ice cream timeline. When we came back, we worked on our own timeline (our lives so far).

This post was authored by Allstar aka Giggles.

REMINDER: WEAR OLD CLOTHES TOMORROW FOR TIE-DYE TUESDAY!

Author Adventures, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6, August 9th

Today we worked on writing procedural paragraphs. We chose a task we do well and wrote directions for someone to follow.

Rhea and Lucy loved typing their writing.

Rahul and Maya say that their favorite time was writing their "How to" paragraph.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 6, August 9th

This post is by Auroni. Today we wrote what we would invent if we could and why we would invent that. And later on today, we made lists of what we don't like and what we do like in a limited time. We also played a game called Headbanz to show how we can be more descriptive in our writing and how we add enthusiasm. We wrote haikus and checked them together. A little bit later, we had our snacks in our classroom. As soon as we finished our snacks we went to the computer lab where we typed.

EXHIBITION FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY
Please join us this Friday, August 13th at 11:15 a.m. for some light refreshments and a joyous celebration of the young writers' work!

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 5, August 6th

Today in Drama Dabblers, we acted out plays that we wrote. The dabblers played Animal Concentration. We voted for our favorite game, we chose The True story of the Three Little Pigs. However, if the campers work, family and friends might get a little extra surprise next Friday.

This was written by Maya.

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 5, August 6th

Amy authored the following post:

Today we wrote in our journals about something that is special. Then, we worked on recording and finding music to go with our digital stories.

Today's highlights...

Jonathan wrote about his baby sister.

Shelby recorded her story.

Bell worked on finding more pictures about Cristiano Ronaldo.

Wanna' Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 5, August 6th

Wanna Be Writers concluded the week with word pallette pools of ice cream flavors,an incedible giant moth, a group puzzle was solved, exploding the moment in sports writing, and continuing work on Bio Bottle characters. We begin next week writing from a photo.

Rachael wrote about a successful guitar solo.

Alex showed the tension of a chess match.

Gianna relived a winning soccer moment.

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 5, August 6th

Today we were making ice cream, and it turned out to be delicious. The first step of the process was that we had to mix milk, vanilla , and sugar. Next we had to put it in a bag with salt and ice. Then we started to shake the bag as hard as we could. Shake, Shake, Shake!

The last step was that we could decorate our ice cream with toppings and enjoy it and have a great day at camp. Bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This post was written by the author named Aman.

OVER THE WEEKEND : EXPERIMENT WITH THE YELLOW PAPER AND IDENTIFY WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT IT.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 5, August 6th

Today we made a collaborative story which is when everyone makes a part of the story. As every day Peter wrote about cheese. We also did a I used to... but now I... poem which we shared with the class. Our teacher read a book called The Holes in Your Nose to show how you can write about anything and how details count! We discussed story beginnings, transition words, and endings --and including onomatopoeia even in the beginning of our stories. We talked about how we plan our stories with beginnings and include problems that should be solved at the end. Finally we went to the computer lab as usual to work on our stories and create new ones.

This post was collaboratively authored by Sahil and Peter.

Here is the story we wrote together and this is how it was done. Each of us thought up a word, wrote it down without showing it to anyone. We used the word in a sentence when the notebook was passed to us and that's when we could read what was written as a story so far. Here it is...

I was in the middle of eating some Swiss cheese when someone knocked on the door. It was an archer! It was so surprising! The archer was 99 years old and he was ancient. He was so hairy that if you shaved his hair, you could make a fuzzy sweater. His nose hair was very messy and that wasn't very nice. So, whenever he went swimming, he had to use a hair tie. He said to me "Please give whatever you can to whoever you can tomorrow and you will be rewarded." Then, he turned around and disappeared into thin air. Suddenly, Alexandra's true love showed up! It was like slow motion and then he tripped but jumped back up. So he decided to take a nap because he was very tired from all of that. When he woke up, he saw Alexandra in front of him. She asked him "Are you hungry?" He nodded, so she gave him some cheese. After he ate, he thanked her and after talking for awhile, he left for home. Then she chose some more cheese. This time she chose the AWESOME cheese. Suddenly she turned even more awesome and got together with her true love. They lived happily ever after.

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Today Drama Dabblers acted out the play "A Bad Case of Stripes," which is based on a book by David Shannon. The campers also made pictures of Wild Things (from yesterday's play) and each shared their directions for how to draw their Wild Things with partners. The partners coiuldn't look at the original drawings! Campers ended the day with lab time.

Elijah came up with the ideas for this blog (and personally delivered it).

Kyle wrote a play about Godzilla saving the people of New York.

Maya finished her collaborative play.

Wanna Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Gianna authored the following blog post:

Today we went outside to explore and write about a little part of the outdoors…2ft x 2ft! Then we described a mythical beast for Beastly Thrilling Thursday and a partner illustrated it. Lastly, we made a 3-dimensional character using a 2-liter bottle and tomorrow we will write the character bio.

Way to go campers!

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Authors of today's blog post are Shelby and Amanda.

We all worked together to create a funny story about a pizza guy named Luigi. After that, we all worked on our digital stories.

* Don downloaded pictures for Movie Maker.

* Kevin recorded his story.

* Amy put pictures on Movie Maker.

Here is our cooperative story...

Once upon a time there was a really, really small Italian dude named Luigi who made the best pizzas in the world. The key ingredient in the pizza was apple! Luigi lived in a small teepee behind the shop. It took a really long time for his pizzas to cook, which was good because he then had time to walk his pet turtle. The turtle's collar was beautiful with eight pointed arrows on it. Many people came to eat his pizzas and see his magic show with his pet turtle.

(That's creative!)

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Today the science writers worked with indicators. We found out if liquids were acids or bases. We used a cabbage indicator and it was stinky!

We had our bridge contest. Believe or not everyone won!. Some things we learned about building were that triangular beams are the strongest for a bridge.

TOMORROW WE NEED GLOVES OR TOWELS SO WE DON'T GET FROSTBITE FROM MAKING ICE CREAM!

--This post was authored by Sam.

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Today, hmmm, what did we do, uhhhhhhhh, AHA!

Well, today was the first day in the computer lab. We were working on typing stories for our big comic project. We also made "flip books" out of post-it notes. We also showed each other our flip books. In the beginning of class, we drew a "brainstorm". Also in the beginning of class, in our writer's notebooks, we had to write a fairy tale BACKWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not easy.

Well bubs, my work here is done. Bye!
~This blog was written by William M.

REMINDER: BRING IN GLOVES OR A DISHTOWEL FOR TOMORROW.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Today's blog post authors are Kevin and Haley.

Today we journaled about where we would go-- real or imaginary-- and what we'd take, who we'd bring along, and WHY.

Before it got hot, we went outside to share, peer edit, and discuss. (We had to be careful our papers didn't blow away with the wind!) This helped us brainstorm even more ideas for our writing. We talked about details and strong words and added them to our writing.

We went out again later to enjoy our snack outside and then came in to work in the computer lab to type what we wrote today and work on other pieces.

Ideas included;
cheese, flying trampolines, collecting different currencies, going to Boston, sisters, brothers, double-decker buses, and so much more!
Each camper worked on goals they wrote for the day.

Author Adventures -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Today in Author Adventures, we began by journaling our ideas for house rules. We pretended that we were in charge of our household. Also, we learned about the parts to a short story. We finished by writing our own short stories.

Highlights of the day:
Lucy and Derek -- typing their stories.
Neil and Elizabeth -- writing the rules.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 4, August 5th

Erik authored this post:

Today we started off with an unusual story telling activity using Silly Bands as characters in a story. We then went outside for activities of visualization (tableaus, actions, gestures, etc). We followed this up with a sort of frame-by-frame scene, acting with partners where we had to walk, wait, watch, wave and walk. The audience had to guess what we were doing. We continued to write about talk about what we believe. We finally finished out with free writing and sharing what we believe.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

* Nikki and Rosalie went to the movies for their scene acting.

*Shelby had an unusual experience being attacked by the local wildlife.

*Emily shared some of her personal beliefs about physics class.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Wow! Are these creative campers!

Today campers explored concrete poems -- each camper thought of a topic, brainstormed words related to the topic, and then shaped a poem using those words. Each piece is a treasure!

We worked on cinquains and reviewed parts of speech and word choice. Campers are beginning to think about publishing for the anthology, which will surface in the fall.

We enjoyed working in the computer lab and sharing our ideas and pieces with our fellow campers.

Wanna Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley

(Tuesday) We used different activities to understand how to look at other people's writing and to learn from them. My favorite part of class is when I wrote a beginning of a story and two other people finished it.

This post was authored by Zhuohong. Well done, camper!

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Today's post was authored by Comic Strip Creations camper, Bailey. Well done, Bailey.

Today in Comic Strip Creations we talked about backgrounds, positioning, emotions, and emphasis. We also talked about making our own narrative comics. In the process of brainstorming, there was a point where the whiteboard was covered in purple, yellow, and blue sticky notes with story ideas. we also started to make up our own comics.

Neil, an excellent speller, typed this (in extended). Thanks, Neil.

HOMEWORK:

• TONIGHT -- CHOOSE A MEMORY FOR YOUR NARRATIVE COMIC STRIP.
• BRING IN GLOVES OR A DISHTOWEL FOR FRIDAY.

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Today's post was authored by Amy...

Today we read our stories to our partners. We gave advice to each other on how to improve them. Then, we all logged on the computer to work on our digital stories.

Highlights of the day:

Jonathan wrote about getting on television for making Christmas ornaments.

Bao wrote about the beach.

Amanda wrote about dance.

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Today we learned about stage directions. Then we played Animal Concentration as a warmup. We acted out a new play called Where the Wild Things Are, and we saw a video featuring that book. We also drew our own Wild Things and wrote directions for how to draw it.

Tomorrow, campers will switch directions and try to draw their partner's Wild Thing.

Neil wrote this blog today.

Derek typed his collaborative play.

Rhea worked on typing her Wild Thing directions.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Gabi authored this blog post…

First, we read some of Ms. Harlen’s quotes about friendship, and became inspired to find our own favorite quotes online. We each made a poster with our favorite quotes on it, which led to a discussion about what we each believe. We found out more about each other in a group, but had personal realizations as well.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

Emily firmy knew where she stood when we were discussing our beliefs.

Nikki told us about some of her personal and religious beliefs.

Shelby made some convincing arguments when we were discussing whether killing a human was right or wrong.

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Dear readers,

As usual at PSU camp we are science writers in room 316. Today we were bridge builders. First, we researched in the lab and the computer bridge animation. Then we came to the classroom and built bridges using construction paper, fettuccine, masking tape, markers, crayons, and our minds and what we remember from researching in the lab where we found what shapes hold the most. Then we came up with different categories such as most complicated, strongest, and most creative. We also came up with how wide and tall he bridge has to be. Different groups made completely different bridges. Different teams ran into different problems like it doesn’t hold much or not high enough.

Today's post was authored by Ruby. Well done!

Author Adventures -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 3, August 4th

Today in Author Adventures, we explored advertisements and their features. We followed that with creating pictures and writing text for our own ads. Also, we spent time journaling about hearing a CRASH! outside of our bedroom windows.

Class highlights for today:
Victoria and Elizabeth U. chose the CRASH! BOOM! SMASH! story as the highlight of the day!

Nandini, Kate, and Maya liked making their ads.

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

Today Drama Dabblers wrote a collaborative play. The campers also performed The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Last, campers started to play drama games like Animal Concentration.

Tanya finished writing her Minute Monologue.
Neil started his collaborative play and finished.
Rhea finished her monologue and started her collaborative play.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

Today we talked about strengthening our writing. In our search to power up our writing, we explored sentence variation and word choice. For sensory words, we ventured outside to observe our surroundings. We explored onomatopoeia (words that look like the sounds they make) and discussed ways we could use those words. We discussed what it means for a writer to take risks.

We read a book about a very young boy who helps a very old woman find her memories. We considered how feelings are attached to memories and how these influence our writing. We journaled about our own memories -- and everyone loved those fortune cookie prompts!

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

Today we went over some file sharing sites. After sharing our daily stories, we learned that we can organize the story in a creative way using Post-It notes. We took a break after a long session of typing, went down the perilous stairs, had a party in the boys' bathroom, and then came out only to climb the perilous stairs again!

Campers in the spotlight today are...

Amy, who is writing about her adventures with her cousins.

Bell, who is writing about new school experiences.

Jonathan, who is writing about yesterday's fiasco.

Shelby, who is writing about Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

According to Ben, "Creativity bubbles to the max! Comics are being dissected, rebuilt, drawn, and erased!"

Today we talked about the language of comics, including panels, words, and symbols! We got our mission, which is to create a narrative comic strip based on one of our memories or experiences. And, of course, we continue to read and discuss the types of comics.

And we DRAW, DRAW, DRAW and WRITE, WRITE, WRITE!

Author Adventures -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

Today we journaled about "Our Best Day Ever!" Also, we listened to a Mexican Legend that explained why opossums are gray. Then, we put our pencils in action by writing our own legends.

Derek and Rhea liked typing on the computer.

Nandini, Elizabeth U., and Maya chose writing their legend as their favorite part.

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 2, August 3rd

Today, we began the day with word puzzles that boggled our
minds. After exercising our brains, we exercised our bodies with
entertaining improv games. We ended the day by writing about our favorite places and people.

Campers in the spotlight and what they wrote about today:

Gabby wrote about what makes her who she is now in her personal poem.

Emily wrote about the firehouse where she spent a lot of her childhood.

Walter wrote about a childhood hotspot for him- Huntington Beach.

Creative Composers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

Campers spent time today getting to know one another. We enjoyed an activity called "Message in a Bottle" by answering questions about ourselves. Later we shared these and had fun guessing who authored each one. Lots of laughs! We also liked working in the computer lab, writing our stories on the new computers as well as saving our pieces to flash drives. We will keep the flash drives when camp ends.

Science Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

Today we did chromatography. Ask your camper for more information...

Aman -- "Interesting, wish we could do it again tomorrow. It was fun!"
Allie -- Writing a story about yellow pigment coming from black marker.
Ruby --Asked "How many different colors in the marker?" Gray had several colors.
Sam-- Made colors explode.
Eme-- "It is so much fun!" She experimented with dye and separated it and made a really cool design.
Haley --"Really fun!"

And more (like silliness with purple cabbage)!

Comic Strip Creations -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

In Comic Strip Creations today, we each took part in a game where we addressed our favorite parts of comics and gave our own definition of a comic strip. We drew caricatures of ourselves and did some cartoon science (looking at different comic strips to see if they were funny or serious and over how much time the strip took place. We had some awesome fun!

Drama Dabblers, Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

Drama Dabblers met today met today and introduced themselves by writing and delivering Minute Monologues. Campers played drama games, too, including an animal version of "Have You Ever...?" It is going to be a fun camp over the next 2 weeks!

College-Bound -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

Today was a fantastic first day at the College Bound Writing Camp. We were greeted with a unique questionnaire to make our minds work. To loosen everyone up, we took a stroll outside where we “got down with our bad selves” and had some fun dancing and learning everyone’s names. We did a few more “group activities” before heading back inside. We circled up and shared some of our answers to the survey to further getting to know everyone and how they thought. After break, we read two articles, the second being a poem to ready us for our final activity. Both works made us reflect on our lives, and where we had come from. The day ended with some independent writing time, where we were able to either work on a poem about where we came from, or another piece we’d had our sights set on. All in all, our first day has totally left us excitedly anticipating the next two weeks to come!

This post was authored by Emily.

Wanna Be Writers -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

First day, new faces, yet so much in common. We were all so qiuet, never spoke a word unless asked. I bet we all wondered when we could write our stories ...after word choice palette pools, and writing process paper activities. We wanted to write , write, write. That's when things started to get fun, but still quiet. There was the definition poem, we got to make silly-ish sentences combining unlikely nouns and verbs, use magnetic poetry for some fun, and finally write on our own topic. Hope tomorrow will be just as fun.

some of these ideas were written by: Callie

Digital Storytelling -- Session 2 -- Center Valley -- Day 1, August 2nd

Today's blog post authors are Don Phan, Bao Nguyen, and Jonathan Tran.

Highlights for today...
We sat and wrote and watched amazing video on ways to write.

Campers in the spotlight today and what they wrote about...
Amanda wrote about school memories.
Kevin wrote about guitar stuff.
Bao wrote about soccer.

Drama Writers -- Southern Lehigh Middle School -- Days 8-10, July 28-30

Campers finished the week by sticking to routine and completing a daily edit every morning upon arrival. This activity kept them on their toes and allowed for practicing the important writing trait of conventions. Of course, there were more games, "Picture This" and "Hula Hoop" added fun and laughter to out time together. But these three days were full of hard work, frustrations, and successes. Campers practiced, practiced, and practiced their group skits to achieve performance level. They perfected voices, lines, projection,movement, placement, prop handling, and eye contact. All of this came together on Friday for a fabulous performance for family and friends.

Chloe sure looked like a duke, and acted like one too, in her cape and mustache.

Allie always made sure her characters had at least one line to get a laugh from the audience.

Brooke developed her look of shock over the two weeks and became quite an expert at this facial expression.

Alex took on the role of a doctor but also endured being dragged across the stage as a dead corpse.

Naomi liked to improvise and add her own flair to the written script and her characters were very well-dressed.

Olivia looked and acted very professional in her roles, but in the end, was charged with a horrible crime.

Thank you campers for a wonderful two weeks! We hope to see you next summer!