Our school year is marching steadily toward the end. The conclusion of this school year is only two weeks away for us, but for our friends across the country in the Intercontinental Ballistic Reading Group they are just two days away from that promised land.
So with that in mind we wanted to get together digitally with the help of Skype to actually talk to each other. With us being Eastern time and them being in Pacific time, it actually works out quite nicely to do a quick Skype visit right after school for us and lunch for them.
We made this Skype visit last Friday and had a ton of fun talking about books, school, teachers, school work, Canada and of course Mustaches!
Here are a few pictures from our combined Pencil War games and our Skype visit.
We are rapidly approaching the ends of our collective school years and Mr. S and I wanted to do one last cool activity with this year’s members of the IBRG. We decided to use Tom Angleberger’s ART2-D2 to come up with ideas. One of the coolest things from the art book and Darth Paper Strikes Back was the Pencil War and Podracing games.
Mr. S and the Guys over at TME Guys Read sent us a few of their master level routes, so here are our drawings.
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We will be attempting each others race courses this week and then having a Skype visit this Friday. A fitting end to another great year of the Intercontinental Ballistic Reading Group.
Frequent followers of SMS Guys Read will know that are involved with in an Intercontinental Ballistic Reading Group with some friends way across the country. Recently we read separate stories from the book Guys Read: Funny Business.
We read A Fist Full of Feathers by David Yoo and the guys over at TMC Guys Read read My Parents Give My Bedroom to a Biker by Paul Feig. After we read these great stories we created some silly videos to share with each other and the wild world out there.
This week we were surprised by a package in the mail with a thank you gift from David Yoo himself!
So to you, Mr. Yoo a thank you…
We really look forward to reading The Detention Club.
This week has been a bit of a blur for me. We, of course, had Monday off in honor Memorial Day and then I had a long after school meeting that pushed our normal Guys Read meeting to Wednesday, and then I was a guest judge at our school talent show that night. So I have been working between all of my other engagements to put together some videos from our latest meeting. I think I have them ready to go.
This week’s meeting saw the beginning of the blend between 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. I have invited all current 6th grade members to join us at our after school meeting until the end of the school year. It’s hard to believe we only have two meetings left!
This week we continued our conversation of Ungifted by Gordon Korman and what we were going to do in the world of Robotics. I managed to find a suitably cheap robot and had it ready to assemble this week.
The plan was to build my robot, to see how it works, and then plan some tests to put it through. After seeing my robot, many of the guys are working the parent angle to see if they can’t order their own, so we might be able to create some sort of SMS Guys Read Robot Olympics.
Parents please note that with all things in SMS Guys Read everything is optional. Buying books and robots are only if you can and are willing. Students without books and robots are always welcome.
So the building went fairly well as you will soon see. We had a few issues and distractions, as you can only imagine with one robot builder and 15 middle school boys standing around watching, but in the end the little guy rolling and we are off on the planning stages of the SMS Guys Read Robot Olympics.
Now the video for the actual building ended up being 17 minutes long (we need to do a better job of making shorter video clips, or I need better video editing software) so I cut most of the build, but here are a few choice still pictures.
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And here is the video with a completed robot and the first few trials to get the little guy going.
It was pretty exciting to get the robot going. He is working great now that everything is fit and snug in his interior.
After the build we brainstormed a few ideas for Robot Olympics. So far we have…
Racing
Sumo Wrestling
Tug o’ War
Jousting
and for the creative types… an art contest.
You will have to check back in the week of June 14 to see how many guys managed to get a robot and what Olympic mayhem we can get up to.
Read on Robots,
Mr. H
ps. You will want to check back to see how I decorate my Robot. I’m thinking mustache!
Remember we will not be meeting today (Tuesday) as I have a meeting all the way across town at 4:3o. So we will meet tomorrow (Wednesday May 29) and I will show off my new robot kit…
I have to say it’s a little smaller than the websites lead on.
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You do not need to order a robot to show up tomorrow, but if you want to join us in building get on finding a robot and come on down. If you have Lego robots or some other robot toy, you are welcome to bring those along as well.
We are going to have to push our next meeting, set for Tuesday May 28, back one day to Wednesday May 29.
I have a school meeting after school that is not going to let me stay for our usual GR meeting. I hope everyone can rearrange their schedules and stay after school that next Wednesday.
I ordered my Eco-Box Robot this week. Are you planning to join our robot build?
A few days ago I got an email from the author Ellen Potter asking if I would be interested in an ARC of her newest book. She thought it might be something that our Guys Read club might enjoy.
Yesterday, on my class DEAR day, I managed to finish Adam Rex’s Unlucky Charms a few minutes into the 20 minutes of read time during my first block. Isn’t that one of your favorite times as a reader? The moment you finish a book and the time you spend thinking about what comes next.
I looked to my pile of “to read” books and landed on the ARC that Ellen Potter graciously had the folks at Macmillian Publishing send to me. I have had very few ARCs come directly to me, so I feel like I need to repay Mrs. Potter and Macmillan with a review.
Otis Dooda is certainly a book for a Guys Read club. It falls squarely in the realm of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Origami Yoda books. It is a quick read… I managed to finish in just one day, and I am well know as a slow reader. Although it is a fast read, full of cartoon illustration, was never board. The story is simple…Otis and his family move to New York City and life in their new high rise apartment building is full of Strange but True stories. I really liked the few parts with Peaches, the supposed French Gerbil Hound. As I ended each of my four classes I talked about the book and read a little about Peaches riding down the elevator with a prissy lady and having a few gaseous emissions. Those few paragraphs did the trick with most of my students and really hit with a few of my reluctant readers. They all giggled in the right places and a few even asked about borrowing the ARC when I was finished.
So overall I think that Otis Dooda, Strange But True would be a welcome addition to a classroom library, and certainly a book you could sell to a young man that “hates to read.” The story does end with an opening for more tales to come, and I hope Ellen Potter does revisit Otis and his gang. I really want to know more about this potted plant guy in the lobby!
I ordered my 
