Movie version of Thursday 8/19/10 slide show

Thursday night students presented their movie version of Where the Wild Things Are to teachers, staff, families and friends of MECDHH's 2010 literacy camp.  In addition student work was displayed in the school lobby.  Students proudly walked families through the gallery of posters, models and writing pieces.  Each piece of writing began with a pre-writing venn diagram, first draft and final draft.  In four short days, students worked towards making a movie, reading the text and creating their own narratives.  Likewise students socialized with Deaf and hard of hearing peers from all over Maine, learned  from Deaf adults and strengthened their communication skills in an environment accessible to them. Congratulations on a great camp experience and see you all next year!

Life Lessons from Max

Life Lessons from Max

Life Lesson number one--  Happiness is coming home to a hot supper.   Click on the link above to read more life lessons. 

search for words

Every afternoon this week, after lunch, the students had a scavenger hunt. The weather was beautiful this week, so it has been great to get out and enjoy the island in all its summer splendor. We are lucky to have this campus for our camp. The trees and flowers are in full bloom, and a gentle sea breeze keeps us cool.
The scavenger hunts involved looking for words and pictures from Where the Wild Things Are.
One group of campers had to walk around the school buildings and find their words using some (sightly) cryptic clues.
Another time the campers had to find letters hidden close to objects near the building. The 'clues' were close-up pictures of these objects - like the one in the picture above. Finding the letter from this picture was not too draining for most campers.
When the students found their words or letters, it was back to the library or lobby, to put them together to make words and sentences. It was a great way to enjoy the beauty of our surroundings with a fun literacy activity.

Sneak Preview

A teaser from a scene shot tonight!

ASL and Film make a merger

The campers have been hard at work composing skits, dances, and special creature features for the performance tomorrow night! The campers are excited about having an interactive live performance with the film scenes.
We had a special surprise event arranged by one of our Dorm Staff- Sarah Hill, after snack this afternoon. The sisters from Hardcore Hooping came to teach all of us how to hula hoop! The kids (and the staff, too:) got really creative after learning some of the basics. What a workout, too.
Due to technical problems, 17 minutes worth of footage did not get onto the tape so its unfortunate that we cannot share the part where our campers did some hardcore hooping! Wheres Wayne when we need him? :)
Everyone is now getting ready for S'mores and campfire story time! I will be back tonight to post a new sneak preview.

Rough Drafts and Peer Editing!

This morning was a busy one focusing on bringing everything together from the week in each camper's written piece.  For the last couple of days they have been working on organizing their thoughts in visual ways using a variety of graphic organizers.  Today students began working on their rough drafts writing a comparing and contrasting piece either about themselves and Max, the main character in Where the Wild Things Are or comparing and contrasting themselves and their "creature" they have created this week. When they finished their rough draft they then began to peer edit, as well as conference with an adult to some level of degree.  Here is a video clip of Stacey and Josh peer editing.  Stacey is sharing her written piece with Josh, and Josh is giving her suggestions of how to improve her piece, as well as letting her know what he enjoyed about it! Tomorrow......final drafts!!

Day 3 and the Writing Process

Students worked on organizing their thoughts using  Venn diagrams to describe themselves and their monsters.   This pre-writing step allows students to organize their thoughts, write down ideas and then sentences.  Once their sentences were written, the students could write a short narrative about themselves and their monsters.  Campers did some amazing work today! 

Sad news but good ideas brew!

Today, our Film Maker- Wayne, had to make the tough decision to fly back home to California after spending 24 hours in the Phoenix Airport trying his best to come to our version of Where the Wild Things Are. We will miss him, but the show MUST go on! :)
We have two campers who are our joint camera men. Everyone was more than happy to enact scenes. Here is a teaser sample of today's filming work. This is when the Wild Things first meet Max.
We are looking forward to finishing up the filming tomorrow as well as finalize the ASL Skits. Thanks for stopping by!

Day two of Literacy camp

Campers have been working hard on reading, discussing, dramatizing, and creating artistic representations of Where the Wild Things Are.  Here's a clip of today's activities.

ART- Day Two

Wow, what a day!!

We completed far more than expected on such a warm day.
Each group completed their creature mask in preparation for the Wild Things movie- which we'll start filming this afternoon.
Teachers and Ed Techs alike were much impressed by the students enthusiasm and cooperation during the mask making process.

Group C with their drafts and completed masks:










Students working on their masks:

...and on their Wild Things clay models,  t-shirts and habitats:

 More to come tomorrow!!

Brainstorming Beasts

We are using Venn diagrams and story maps to help us plan for our writing projects. We talked about setting, characters, problems and solutions in the story. We identified four 'problems' in Where the Wild Things Are, and 'solutions' to each of these problems. The students in the three groups came up with some great ideas, and showed that they understand these elements. 

With the Venn diagrams, students compared themselves to Max, identifying similarities and differences between themselves and the main character. We have quite a few children at this camp who think they are just as mischievous as Max! 
From these plans we will now write our descriptive pieces, and work towards some great final drafts.

Beastly Classifer Descriptions

After the scavenger hunt, everyone gathered in the Library to learn about and vote on the plans for Thursday night's performance. Our Film maker, Wayne Betts Jr, will join us tomorrow so in the meantime I used the time to gather ideas for merging the ASL Skits with the Film. We then scouted out shoot locations for 2 special scenes for real time filming. The rest of the scenes will be done with the Green Screen technology. The campers are really excited about the idea of pretending to swim in water that is later added by computer effects.

This video is a sample of a camper's work creating a beast with Classifiers. We took turns sharing "Beastly Classifiers" with each other, with the emphasis on facial expressions. The work was as expected, some gory, silly, beautiful, and scary!

The evening activity wrapped up with Line Tag, Number Game, and last but not the least- the beginning stage of a new camp cheer.

ART- Day One

Art projects for the week:

Using a mix of materials and textures, create your own monster mask- be as creative as you can! Stray from the book; your own monster doesn't need to be Sendak-inspired.

Where does your monster live? What's his or her habitat? What does he or she eat? Include part of this habitat in a poster drawing or on your t-shirt design.

Draw a picture of your monster (face and/or full body) on your very own Wild Things t-shirt.

Groups C and B began their art projects for the week- with much to be completed!

Students were asked to think of the monsters in the book and to create a monster of their own.  We noticed that some of Sendak's creatures resemble animals (birds, buffalo, etc.). Students were encouraged to think creatively; mixing a number of animal features, textures and colors in their monster creation.

To begin, students were given two mask templates to create two completely different designs. Once the students completed their rough drafts they were asked to compare the two and take features from each creation to create one monster. Many students decided they preferred one creation to the other and decided to stick solely with that.

Group C finished their drafts quickly and moved on to make a poster of their creature's habitat. Many of the students followed the book; placing their creature on an island, boat in the distance. One student put her creature in a pink tree with purple vines.

Later on, students began working on their t-shirt designs. They picked the draft mask they liked best and began drawing on their shirts using fabric crayons.  Group C decided to only draw their creature's face whereas Group B drew their creature's face and body.

Tomorrow, Group A will begin the creature creation process while group C begins making their masks.

Much more to come!

Day One Literacy Camp

We had a great day with Where the Wild Things Are.  The focus of the morning was to ensure students knew the story.  Teachers read from a power point presentation of Maurice Sendak's story.  With the enlarged images projected on an interactive white board,  teachers showed the text and images as they signed the story.  This led to some excellent discussions of the story and wonderful theatre reproductions of the story.  Campers and staff alike were having a blast acting out Where the Wild Things Are.

After the read aloud--students role played the events of the story.  Other students discussed the characters, setting, problem and solution of the story using a graphic organizer.  Students also worked on masks connected to learning the concept of monsters and character description.  Students were placed into three groups and rotated between art and English Language Arts.  Altogether the camp consists of 20 students ranging from age 8 to 18 from all over the state.  Each camper's I.E.P. highlights the need for developing a variety of reading, writing and American Sign Language skills.  Campers will be working towards these goals and more throughout the week!

We are looking forward to the week full of fun as we explore Max's adventures and his return to his warm supper.

Video of the camp

Arrival Day!

What a wonderful experience it was today watching campers returning to Mackworth Island for a week of learning at Summer Literacy Camp 2010.  Not only will campers be learning about literacy, mind you, but learning about themselves, learning about who they are, learning about who they want to be, just like Max does in our week long study of Where the Wild Things Are. But more than that!  There will be learning about friendships and adventures.  Learning about their surroundings, and their environment.  And mostly, like all summer camps, learning how to become independent individuals.

Lots of warm comaraderie could be seen today: a big smile, a wave across the room, a grand hug, a flurry of flying fingers trying to catch up with a friend on everything that has happened this summer.  A shy someone, looking on, waiting for the opportunity to join in, to belong.  The campers wait in anticipation for what the week will bring.  Are they consciously aware that this week's intention is to provide more exposure to literacy and build literacy skills?  Probably not.  Will this be a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable week, regardless? Absolutely.

Thanks for joining us on this journey!

Greetings campers

Welcome to the 2010 MECDHH summer literacy camp.

We know you'll have a lot of fun this week.