Monday, January 9th 2017

What are we doing today? Bellwork: SILENTLY complete activity Homework Checked: none Classwork: New York Times Grammar Practice/Review Essential question discussion/packet continued Maniac Magee pre-reading sheets Word Generation Writing: Should Drugs Be Legalized? Homework: Get Maniac Magee. We begin reading it this week! READ. Finish anything you didn’t complete in class. Maniac Magee Info: Dear Parents/Guardians, This year your student will need to be equipped with the proper reading materials for each unit. Our mentor text for the next 9 weeks unit will be Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Your student can purchase this book from me (Mrs. Walker) during class until Friday, January 6th. You can send $7 in CASH ONLY. Thank you!

Oh, no, it snowed and I can’t… Bellwork Finish this sentence and write more about it in the bellwork section of your binder. Make sure it is at least one paragraph (five sentences). Oh, no, it snowed and I can’t… After you finish writing, turn in your Winter Packet and open up to your New York Times section of your binder. If you have Maniac Magee money ($7 cash), now is the time to turn it in. TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY. Make sure to put the date beside your response and keep all bellwork responses for the week on the same page. They will be due the first day of the following week. Be sure to stay organized and keep up!

New York Times In the New York Times section of your binder, write what you believe is happening in this picture: Just past sunset on Saturday, a man standing atop an aircraft carrier along the Brooklyn waterfront waved a long bamboo pole with a black garbage bag attached to it, and hundreds of tiny lights shot up like sparks spat from a fire. As the man whooped and hollered and raked the trash-bag flag like a giant windshield wiper, the lights climbed into the darkening sky, veering and banking, making and unmaking chaotic patterns, spreading and swirling until they filled half the heavens. The lights were attached to the legs of trained pigeons. The man with the black flag was the artist Duke Riley, impersonating a divebombing hawk as he prepared his winged charges for a mass performance piece called “Fly by Night.” For six weekends, beginning on Thursday at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, more than 2,000 pigeons will put on an avian-powered light show: Mr. Riley’s valentine to the city, its historic shoreline, its oft-maligned spirit animal and the vanishing world of rooftop pigeon fanciers. The birds have been staying in an 80-foot-long complex of coops — “waterfront luxury lofts,” Mr. Riley calls them — that he and his helpers erected on the deck of the Baylander, a decommissioned Vietnam-era Navy ship. The coops’ rear windows look out onto Wallabout Bay, where there used to be an artificial island called Cob Dock that housed the Navy’s first messenger-pigeon fleet. Saturday’s practice flight with a cast of only 700 birds — by turns vertiginous, majestic and faintly terrifying — evoked a series of alternate universes.

New York Times What’s happening: Squiggles of light filled the sky over Wallabout Bay at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Saturday [April 23] in a preview of the artist Duke Riley’s “Fly by Night” performance piece, which will feature more than 2,000 trained pigeons with LEDs attached to their legs. Write about your reactions to what is happening in the photo in your NYT section of your binder. Just past sunset on Saturday, a man standing atop an aircraft carrier along the Brooklyn waterfront waved a long bamboo pole with a black garbage bag attached to it, and hundreds of tiny lights shot up like sparks spat from a fire. As the man whooped and hollered and raked the trash-bag flag like a giant windshield wiper, the lights climbed into the darkening sky, veering and banking, making and unmaking chaotic patterns, spreading and swirling until they filled half the heavens. The lights were attached to the legs of trained pigeons. The man with the black flag was the artist Duke Riley, impersonating a divebombing hawk as he prepared his winged charges for a mass performance piece called “Fly by Night.” For six weekends, beginning on Thursday at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, more than 2,000 pigeons will put on an avian-powered light show: Mr. Riley’s valentine to the city, its historic shoreline, its oft-maligned spirit animal and the vanishing world of rooftop pigeon fanciers. The birds have been staying in an 80-foot-long complex of coops — “waterfront luxury lofts,” Mr. Riley calls them — that he and his helpers erected on the deck of the Baylander, a decommissioned Vietnam-era Navy ship. The coops’ rear windows look out onto Wallabout Bay, where there used to be an artificial island called Cob Dock that housed the Navy’s first messenger-pigeon fleet. Saturday’s practice flight with a cast of only 700 birds — by turns vertiginous, majestic and faintly terrifying — evoked a series of alternate universes.

Grammar Practice/review

Essential Question (cont.) How do we decide who we are? Complete the last portions of the packet, and put the five vocabulary words in your vocabulary section with the definition. Complete the last page of definitions with your group (one dictionary per group) and put the words in your vocabulary section. We will discuss when everyone is done. Discuss the question with group and fill out the last section of the packet that goes with this question. Also, be sure to write the vocabulary words in your vocabulary section with the definition.

Maniac Magee By yourselves and silently, complete the Maniac Magee Pre-reading Activities. Once you have finished, sit quietly and read an AR book until all have finished. Once everyone is done, we will discuss it. Be sure to put the handouts I give you in your Writing Response section.

Word Generation You WILL NOT have to write about last week’s topic. We will continue with this week’s topic tomorrow.

Finish what you didn’t finish in class Study for grammar quiz TOMORROW Homework READ YOUR AR BOOKS!!!!! Finish what you didn’t finish in class Study for grammar quiz TOMORROW

1/13: Last day to bring in care package items Announcements 1/13: Last day to bring in care package items 1/16: Martin Luther King Jr. Day (no school)

1. PACK UP (and put your backpack in your seat) 2 1. PACK UP (and put your backpack in your seat) 2. CLEAN UP (check for assignments) 3. LINE UP (if everything is not clean and quiet, you will not be able to leave my room)