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!

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.

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.

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!