Middle School Contests & Activities
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All Year ·
DEAR: Drop
Everything and Read ·
The Hoot:
The MS Literary Magazine |
Fall ·
Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest ·
Bookfair |
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Winter |
Spring ·
Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide:
Overlake |
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Bookfair Scouts Help choose books for this year’s bookfair! This year, to make sure that the bookfair includes
books that you guys will really like, I’m inviting any student
who’s interested to join me at the University Bookstore in Bellevue at
10 AM on either Saturday, September 12 or Saturday, September 19, to start
putting together the list. Bring a parent or guardian, and we shouldn’t
be there more than an hour. Participants on each day will be entered in a
drawing for a $10 UW gift card. For more information, see Miss Moore in the
library, or email rmoore@overlake.org. |
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Book Stacking Contest How high can you stack a pile of books? Try this
contest and find out! Pile books until they either fall down, or you call for
the official measurement. Two chances per person! Prizes from the small prize
bag to those who get measured (stack must be at least three feet high to
count). Winner gets to draw from the big prize bag. One day only! Lunchtime in the Campus Center. |
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DEAR: Drop Everything
and Read Drop Everything and Read is a
program designed to involve the D.E.A.R. takes place from 9:10
to 9:30 on the last Thursday of every month.
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The Middle School Literary
Magazine All year—submit your work now! Calling
all writers, artists and poets—we’re looking for your best
stories, essays, poems, cartoons, drawings, and paintings, to be considered
for inclusion in The Hoot. Papers written for homework and doodles
done in class when you should have been listening to the teacher are all
welcome! Give it a shot! Although all submissions need a name, only I will
know who submitted what; submissions are sent out to Hoot staff anonymously. J Interested
in being more involved? Join the staff of the magazine and help us choose
what pieces to include, and how to format and print it. We won’t have
many meetings: mostly I’ll just send you submissions to vote on through
your advisor, and you can return them the same way. I usually give you a week
to look through those submissions, but if you need more time, that’s
not a problem. Sometimes, if we have a large backlog of things to read,
we’ll have a lunch meeting in the Campus Center to get through some of
them—I’ll provide the cookies! In late April we’ll have a
meeting to decide on the order of things in the magazine, and the magazine
will come out in May. |
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All year Do
you love books? Are you a writer? Need or want to do any of the following? ·
Talk
about books ·
Get
feedback to help make your writing better ·
Talk
about writing with other writers ·
See
what other Middle School students are writing ·
Help
other Middle School writers improve their writing ·
Participate
in writing challenges ·
Join
the Writing Club listserv ·
Eat
cookies and have fun! If
so, join the Writing Club! We meet in the Campus Center Alumni
Room
during lunch: you bring your lunch, I’ll bring the cookies. We email
our writing to each other beforehand through our listserv. Meeting
dates/times:
A Mystery Created By The Middle School Writing Club A Round-Robin Story Written and Performed by Members of the
Middle School Writing Club |
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Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest September 29, October 1-2 19th century novelist Edward
Bulwer-Lytton, famous for such lines as "It was a dark and stormy
night…," was such a terrible writer that Just how bad a writer are you?
Do your worst--write down the absolute worst opening line to a novel you can
think of, and submit it to the contest. Every entry accepted will earn a
lollipop, up to two per person, and a Green/Gold point. Contest winner will
get 10 Green/Gold points. All winning entries will be read in assembly, and
will be printed in The Hoot. They will also
be posted on the library website. Details:
2009 Winners Announced! |
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October 19-20, 2008 The
books for bookfair are provided by The University Bookstore in Seattle.
Students will visit the Bookfair with their English classes, and will be able
to charge books to their student accounts. This was a lot of fun last year,
and I hope this year will be even better! Your
advisors will be giving you forms on September 8th for requesting/suggesting
specific books or types of books you would like to have at Bookfair. You can
also tell Miss Moore directly the kind of books you’d like to see
there. |
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October
27-29, 2009 How short a story can you write? 500 words? 200
words? How about 140 characters? So you all know Twitter, the micro-blogging
phenomenon that only allows you 140 characters per tweet. This contest
challenges you to write a whole story in just one tweet—140 characters
or fewer (including spaces!). Up to the challenge? Earn prizes, and winning
tweets will be published in The Hoot! Here’s
how it works: 1.
Pick
a type of story. 2.
Write
your story in 140 characters or fewer, including
spaces. 3.
Your
story must make sense. 4.
Your
story cannot be too disgusting. 5.
Get
a Green/Gold point and prize for your story. 6.
You
can write up to two stories for prizes, and up to ten for points. 7.
If
we have enough entries, we’ll have winners for each category, winning 3
more points. 8.
Overall
winner gets 5 more points, and will be published in The Hoot. Types
of Story 1.
Mystery 2.
Humor 3.
Romance 4.
Fantasy 5.
Science
Fiction 6.
Sports 7.
School
Story 8.
Scary
Story 9.
Action
Adventure 10.
Other Sample Story (139 characters): Exiled
to a tower made of dragon bones, Queen Li learned magic and made it fly, then
landed it atop the evil mage who’d stolen her kingdom. |
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December
7-9, 2009 So, you think you know your books? Test out your
knowledge on Battle of the Books-style trivia questions! One prize for your
first five game points, and a Green/Gold point for every five game points. Questions:
Level
One (worth 1 game point) Level
Two (worth 2 game points) Level
Three (worth 3 game points) |
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Thanksgiving-February,
2009-10 The Last day to sign up is Friday, 1/29! Signup sheet is in the Middle
School area of the library, on the bulletin board. The 6th-8th
Grade 5th grade Battle will
take place in the library on February 4th, 12-2 PM. All 5th
graders will participate. Booklists posted! Battle
of the Books Titles for 5th Grade 2010 Battle
of the Books Titles for 6th-8th Grade 2010 |
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January 12-14, 2010 Have you
ever played this game? Someone writes three lines of a story, then folds over
the paper so that only the last line shows. The next person must write three
more lines of the story, based on the one line they can see. They then fold
over their part so only their last line shows, then the next person takes up
the story from that line. How it works: 1. I
will post two story sheets—one Green, one Gold—in the Campus
Center during lunch. 2.
Each sheet will have space for ten three-line sections. 3. To enter,
write your three lines on the right sheet, then fold over so that only the
final line shows. 4. You
may enter only once on each sheet. 5.
Your three lines can’t include swear words, nonsense, or anything
really disgusting. 6. For
each three lines, you will earn one G/G point and one lollipop/prize. 7. You
may enter only twice for points/prizes, and only four times total. 8.
When a sheet is full, the story will be posted and another blank sheet will
be available for writing. 9.
Faculty and the MS Literature and Writing Club will vote on the stories to
choose the winners. 10.
Winning story earns 10 G/G points, second place earns 5 points, and 3rd
place earns 3 points. Have
fun!! |
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Bookfair Rewards—Choose Books for the Library January 31 The Overlake Library earned over $800 from our
fall bookfair. Last year I selected several students to help me choose books
to go in our library, but this year, we decided to use the money to buy books
for our school in Pailin, Cambodia. They are just starting a library, and
have no books at all. I had several of the students going on the Cambodia
trip join me at the University Bookstore in Bellevue to choose books, and it
was tougher than it might seem! We had to make sure the English was simple
enough for those just learning, and had to make sure that the books would be
understandable to a completely different culture. For instance, Goodnight Moon would not work because
it is all about things that the Cambodian students do not have. In any case,
we had fun! The books will travel
with our Project Week group to Cambodia and will form the start of the
Overlake Pailin’s library. Next year we may again choose books for our
library. The information for that will be posted next year, but you can check
out the application and the list of books chosen last year: |
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Worst Case Scenario
Survival Guide: Overlake March
2-4, 2010 Ever
seen those Worst
Case Scenario Survival Handbooks? Well, we’re making one for
Overlake! We’ll do the contest in two parts: writing the scenarios, and
writing how to survive them. No points for writing them (it should take,
like, two seconds), but a point for writing a solution. Enter the ‘Extreme
Edition’ if you want to do an extreme scenario—“What to do
if the Loch Ness Monster erupts out of the duck pond right in front of
you”—or enter the regular edition if you want a more realistic
scenario: “What to do if you forgot your gym clothes.” Up to you! Worst
Case Scenario Survival Guide: Overlake Edition |
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Green/Gold Word-Count
Readthon March 30-April 30, 2009 Rules: 1.
Pick
up a form in the Library, gym, or online. 2.
Come
to the Library to learn how
to estimate the number of words in a book. 3.
Every
time you read a book, do an estimate and get it initialed by a parent.
9.
Periodically
bring in your form so Miss Moore can count your totals towards your team totals.
Top ten readers who read over
1,000,000 words will earn a $5 Borders gift card. |
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Young Reader’s Choice Awards (YRCA) Voting takes place in
March-April 2010 Sponsored
by the Pacific Northwest Library Association, this is the oldest
“children’s choice” book award in the More
information on the YRCA from the official website |
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May
10, 11, 13, 2010 How long a title can you figure out before you
get hanged? Earn points and prizes if you can complete the title before the
final leg is drawn! Rules: 1. Contest
will run in the Campus Center during lunch. 2. There
are 14 possible titles. All are from books which most middle schoolers will
have heard of. 3. 1
point if you get at least 6 letters correct. 4. 2
points and a prize if you win your puzzle. 5. You
may enter up to twice for prizes, and four times for points. |
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Schedule for Miss Moore’s homeroom
activities—for her advisees! |
11/09 rmoore@overlake.org