Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Featured Writing by Ethan & Jesse

The Very Good Idea

by Ethan and Jesse

It was a windy Monday, and Josh was at school. He didn't really like the class he was in and would sometimes fool around in the middle of a test. Once, his teacher, Mrs. Katter, saw Josh passing a note to his friend Max, and Josh was sent to the principal.

Josh got tired of being sent to the principal's office, so he wanted to make a potion to make Mrs. Katter nicer. That night, when everyone else in his house was sleeping and all the lights were off, Josh's lamp was on. He was trying to make his potion.

In the morning, Josh couldn't wait to use his potion on Mrs. Katter, so he tried it on his pet hamster. Surprisingly, his hamster disappeared! Then Josh understood that his pet was now invisible. He put another drop of potion where the hamster had been, and the animal reappeared.

Josh got another idea, a better one than before. He took a drop of the potion so he became invisible, too. He didn't want to go to school with his mother knowing about it, so he took another drop and reappeared. Before he went to school, he brought some of his prank supplies and his potion. Then he went to school and put his pranks all over Mrs. Katter's chair and office, and no one saw him.

At lunch, Mrs. Katter found the pranks. Josh found out so he took a two-inch thumbtack and put it on her chair. Right when she was about to sit down, though, all the kids ran into the classroom, and the tack flipped over. Josh had to think of something else.

The next day, he got to school early, before anyone else was there. He took another thumbtack and glued it to Mrs. Katter's chair. That day, Mrs. Katter brought in a new swivel chair because was tired of her old wooden chair -- so Josh's plan failed again.

Now Josh was really angry. He was sitting in his science class and paying attention to the mechanical subjects so he could create his next plan. That night, when everyone else was asleep, he was busy working on it.

Josh spent the whole night in the garage building something big. In the morning, he didn't walk to school; he took his so-called "bike." It looked like a bike, but it was actually the thing he had built, which he had transformed into the shape of a bicycle. On the way to school, a bully tried to knock over Josh's bike with his own, but Josh pushed a secret button hidden on his own bike, and green slime ate through the bully's bike.

There was just one problem. When Josh got to school, Mrs. Katter was out sick.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Great ways to comment on posts

The list of "comment starters" below comes from a Web site called Pandas on the Move by Derrall Garrison. It shows some great ways to begin comments about other students' blog posts.

This made me think about....
I wonder why....
Your writing made me form an opinion about....
This post is relevant because....
Your writing made me think that we should....
I wish I understood why....
This is important because....
Another thing to consider is....
I can relate to this....
This makes me think of....
I discovered....
I don't understand....
I was reminded that....
I found myself wondering....