On Tuesdays we will be alternating between vocabulary games and New York Times vocabulary activities. An * means the word will be written in the students vocabulary book for that week.
September 11th
Marzano Vocabulary Games “Definition Shmefinition”
See notebook for directions. September 18th
Fill-In | Sardi’s Feasts for Champion Dogs
By KATHERINE SCHULTENNew York Times Learning Blog
It had become a tradition: Every year, the winner of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show had lunch at Sardi’s, the theater district restaurant where the walls are lined with portraits of _________.
And every year, the tradition broke the _________ department’s rules against _________ in restaurants. Even dog-world celebrities like the Westminster winner.
No one noticed until Wednesday afternoon, a couple of hours after this year’s winner, a _________ named _________, had diced chicken and rice on a _________.
The health department ’s initial position, reported by The New York Post, was that Malachy’s meal would be the _________ enjoyed by any prize-winning dog at Sardi’s.
That possibility prompted, among other things, a conversation between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley.
The health department did not want to create a _________ in a doggie dish. It did not want to set off a _________ like the one over the _________ at the Algonquin Hotel or the one over the free cheese and crackers on the bar at Sardi’s itself. Both took action to avoid losing points on the health department’s restaurant _________ — the Algonquin by installing an electric fence to keep the cat from wandering where food was served; Sardi’s by making the cheese and crackers available only if customers asked (and charging as much as $5).
By Thursday morning, the health department had found a _________ that it hoped would _________ the dog-in-a-restaurant issue: a waiver from Dr. Farley.
“Whoever wins will get an exemption,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters. Referring to Dr. Farley, he added, “He feels strongly, and I certainly support him, having dogs in restaurants and other pets is generally not _________ and should not be done.”
David Frei, a spokesman for the Westminster Kennel Club, said he was pleased that the tradition would _________. He credited Howard Atlee, a longtime Broadway press agent who was the president of the New York Dog Fanciers’ Club in the late 1960s, with coming up with the idea of taking the winning dog to Sardi’s.
Mr. Atlee said it was just an addition to an existing ritual, a lunch for, among others, the best-in-show judges. “I said, ‘Where’s the best-in-show dog?’” he recalled. “I had Mr. Sardi” — who died in 2007 at 91 — “serve the piece of meat on a _________ platter.”
Mr. Frei said that on Wednesday, Malachy made the rounds of television shows like the “Today” show and “The View” before being spirited into Sardi’s, not through the front door but through an adjacent office-building entrance. Malachy rode in a private _________ that opened on the second floor of the restaurant, which was off-limits to the matinee crowd downstairs.
“Malachy sat quietly in his _________ while we ate,” Mr. Frei said. “The media showed up, we did the photo op and we hit the road.” Malachy had more appearances lined up.
V. Max Klimavicius, the president of Sardi’s, said he looked forward to welcoming next year’s winner, assuming permission is granted. “We are all about following the rules of City Hall and the health department,” he said. “If a waiver can be obtained, we’ll research that.”
- Malachy silver
- health platter
- defuse continue
- pekingese tempest
- inspections animals
- celebrities elevator
- last crate
- brouhaha* sanitary
- loophole cat
September 25th
Marzano Vocabulary Games “ ”
October 2nd
Fill-In | New York City’s Plan to Outlaw Enormous Sugary Drinks
By DANIEL E. SLOTNIKNew York Times Learning Blog
New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising _______.
The proposed ban would affect virtually the entire menu of popular sugary drinks found in delis, fast-food ______ and even ______ arenas, from ______ drinks to pre-sweetened iced teas. The sale of any cup or bottle of _______ drink larger than 16 fluid ounces — about the size of a medium coffee, and smaller than a common soda bottle — would be prohibited under the first-in-the-nation plan, which could take effect as soon as next March.
The measure would not apply to diet ______, fruit juices, dairy-based drinks like ______, or alcoholic _______; it would not extend to beverages sold in grocery or convenience stores.
“Obesity is a nationwide problem, and all over the United States, public health officials are _______ their hands saying, ‘Oh, this is terrible,’ ” Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview on Wednesday in the Governor’s Room at City Hall.
“New York City is not about wringing your hands; it’s about doing _______,” he said. “I think that’s what the public wants the mayor to do.”
A spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association, an arm of the soda industry’s national trade group, criticized the city’s proposal on Wednesday. The industry has ______ repeatedly with the city’s health department, saying it has unfairly singled out soda; industry groups have bought subway ________ promoting their cause.
“The New York City health department’s ________ obsession with attacking soft drinks is again pushing them over the top,” the industry spokesman, Stefan Friedman, said. “It’s time for serious health professionals to move on and seek solutions that are going to actually curb obesity. These _______ proposals just distract from the hard work that needs to be done on this front.”
Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal requires the approval of the Board of Health, a step that is considered likely because the members are all _________ by him, and the board’s chairman is the city’s health commissioner, who joined the mayor in supporting the measure on Wednesday.
Mr. Bloomberg has made public health one of the top ______ of his lengthy tenure, and has championed a series of aggressive regulations, including bans on _______ in restaurants and parks, a prohibition against artificial trans fat in restaurant food and a requirement for health inspection grades to be posted in restaurant windows.
The measures have led to occasional ________ of the mayor as Nanny Bloomberg, by those who view the restrictions as infringements on personal freedom. But many of the measures adopted in New York have become models for other cities, including restrictions on smoking and trans fats, as well as the use of graphic advertising to combat smoking and soda consumption, and the demand that chain restaurants post calorie contents next to prices.
- milkshakes unhealthy
- obesity *zealous
- something smoking
- wringing sports
- sweetened
- priorities
- sodas
- franchises
- derision
- advertisements
- clashed
- beverages
- energy
- appointed
October 9th
Marzano Vocabulary Games “ ”
October 16th
Fill-In | Alligators Everywhere
By KATHERINE SCHULTENNew York Times Learning Blog
BayNews9, via Associated Press Alligator trapper Candy Moniz wrestled a 10-foot alligator out of Kenneth and Annemarie Donovan’s pool at their New Port Richey home. The gator ripped the screened enclosure to enter the patio and pool. Go to related article »
Directions: Fill in the blanks in the paragraphs below taken from the article, “In Florida, the Natives Are Restless.”.
“We looked out, and it was an _________,” said Mrs. McMahon, 69, who owns Tropical Paradise Bed and Breakfast, which is surrounded by water. “ ‘My gosh,’ I said. ‘What does he want? A _________ for the night?’ ”
Mr. McMahon opened the door and used his cane to prod the five-and-a-half-foot gator (from behind). The alligator _________ over to the koi pond, on his own terms, and, treating it like a _________, floated peacefully, snacked on _________ and wrestled with the plumbing and the water lilies. The McMahons hoped that the alligator would move on. Finally, after a full day with their guest last week, they called a trapper who dropped a noose around its neck, dragged it out, wrapped it up and taped its _________ shut.
And that is just at the McMahons’ place.
It is prowling season for alligators, who have been lulled out of their winter torpor by warm weather and lust — it’s _________ season. Besides love, they are looking for _________ and watering holes. This being Florida, built on swampland carved with canals flowing every which way, alligators, now numbering more than one million, have a way of turning up in some pretty _________ places.
They _________ in swimming pools. They wander down suburban _________. They move into neighborhood lakes. They stand on _________ and refuse to move. They _________ on lanais.
And, on occasion, they just want a little privacy.
One unfortunate woman, Alexis Dunbar, went to use her _________ last month in her Palmetto house and found a seven-foot alligator. It had already scampered around her house hunting for her _________ while she was away. The alligator had slipped in through her unsecured doggy door. Her boyfriend _________ it in the bathroom until a trapper arrived, while Ms. Dunbar found her cats, _________ but safe.
These episodes happen so often during the spring and summer months that Florida has a dedicated hot line to report “nuisance” alligators. The Fish and Wildlife Commission line handles about 100 to 150 calls a _________ from around the state.
“What seems unusual is merely _________ when you live in a state where the alligator population is 1.3 million,” said Linda Collins, the call center supervisor at the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, or SNAP.
- Unlikely * lumbered
- food terrified
- bathroom
- routine
- streets
- mouth
- luxuriate
- room
- mating
- cats
- barricaded
- alligator
- sunbathe
- day
- roadways
- spa
- fish
October 23rd
Marzano Vocabulary Games “ ”
October 30th
Fill-In | Twinkies
By KATHERINE SCHULTENNew York Times Learning Blog
On the list of happy childhood memories, the Hostess Twinkie occupies a lofty position. Since the 1930s, it has represented the summit of the pastry maker’s art for untold millions of American children seduced by its loaf-shaped golden sponge cake, soft yet springy, and voluptuous vanilla cream _________.
Hostess Brands, which filed for _________ protection last week, turned out a memorable snack-food roster that included Hostess CupCakes, Ho Hos, Sno Balls, Ding _________, Suzy Q’s and Zingers. Only the Twinkie, though, achieved the status of cultural lodestar, its popularity cemented after it became a sponsor of the “_________” show in the ’50s.
It has been both hero and _________. For years, health-food advocates and nutritionists have heaped scorn on the Twinkie for its empty _________, its high sugar and fat content and its artillery of preservatives and artificial ingredients.
In his 2007 book, “Twinkie, Deconstructed,” Steve Ettlinger counted _________ ingredients in a Twinkie. “I was astounded to find ingredients made from five kinds of _________,” he told The Riverfront Times of St. Louis.
Roger Bennatti, a science teacher at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, Me., kept an unwrapped Twinkie over his chalkboard for 30 years, where it faded and dried out, but otherwise showed no signs of _________. “It’s rather brittle, but if you dusted it off, it’s probably still _________,” he told The Associated Press in 2004.
The Twinkie gained instant notoriety when “the Twinkie _________” entered the American legal lexicon during the murder trial of Dan White in 1979. Mr. White, a disgruntled San Francisco supervisor, had fatally shot Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, a fellow supervisor, the previous year.
Mr. White’s lawyers obtained a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder after arguing that their client was not fully responsible for his _________ because he had sunk into a deep depression, evidenced in part by his newfound love of _________ food.
Dr. Martin Blinder, a noted psychiatrist, testified that on the night before the murders, Mr. White “just sat there in front of the TV set, bingeing on _________.” Could it be that the innocent-seeming blond Twinkie was not merely bad for your health, but also an _________ to murder?
Despite the attacks and the image problems, the Twinkie maintained its hold on American taste buds for a surprisingly long time. And it never lost its status as _________ among equals in the pantheon of sweet American snacks.
In 1999, high school seniors from Shoreline, Wash., proposed that the Twinkie, as “an enduring American icon,” be placed in the National Millennium Time _________, a repository of culturally important documents and artifacts to be stored at the National Archives and opened in 2100.
They mailed a box containing, among other objects, two Twinkies, which looked for a time as though they might climb aboard the capsule and exude cultural significance, along with Ray Charles’s sunglasses and a map of the human _________.
It was not to be. The National Archives removed the Twinkies from the capsule for fear of attracting _________. A spokeswoman said that they were _________ by staff members of the White House Millennium Council. For this crime, there can be only one possible defense.
- bankruptcy Twinkies
- 39 decline
- defense villain
- actions Dongs
- mice *accessory
- junk genome
- filling rocks
- calories edible
- capsule Howdy Doody
- first eaten
November 6th
Marzano Vocabulary Games “ ”
See notebook for directions. November 13th
Fill-In | Innovations That May Change Your Life
By DANIEL E. SLOTNIKNew York Times Learning Blog
Terrifying Playgrounds
By Clay Risen
Two Norwegian psychologists think that modern playgrounds are for wimps. Instead of short climbing walls, there should be _______ monkey bars. Instead of plastic crawl tubes, there should be tall, _______ slides. And balance beams. And rope swings. The _______ is that the more we shield children from potential scrapes and sprained ankles, the more unprepared they’ll be for real ______ as adults, and the less aware they’ll be of their surroundings. Leif Kennair and Ellen Sandseter’s ideas have won the support of playground experts on both sides of the Atlantic; one company, Landscape Structures, offers a 10-foot-high climbing wall that twists like a _______ strip.
The Shutup Gun
By Catherine Rampell
When you aim the SpeechJammer at someone, it records that person’s voice and plays it back to him with a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This seems to gum up the brain’s _______ processes — a phenomenon known as delayed auditory feedback — and can painlessly render the person unable to ______. Kazutaka Kurihara, one of the SpeechJammer’s creators, sees it as a tool to prevent ______ from overtaking meetings and public forums, and he’d like to ________ his invention so that it can be built into cellphones. “It’s different from conventional weapons such as samurai swords,” Kurihara says. “We hope it will build a more peaceful world.”
The Rolling Arcade
By Jenna Wortham
The industrial designer Jiang Qian has conceived of a subway strap that’s also a video _______. It has a button on each side that you push with your thumb as you hang on; instead of a _______, you control movement by twisting the handle from side to side. Jiang imagines that new types of games could be created, where keeping your ________ while the train is in motion is part of the challenge. And unlike Angry _______ on your phone, Strap Game (that’s the official name) will alert you when your ________ is approaching.
Electric Clothes
By Richard Morgan
Physicists at Wake Forest University have developed a fabric that doubles as a spare _______. When used to line your shirt — or even your pillowcase or office chair — it converts subtle differences in _______ across the span of the clothing (say, from your cuff to your armpit) into electricity. And because the different parts of your shirt can _______ by about 10 degrees, you could power up your MP3 player just by sitting still. According to the fabric’s creator, David Carroll, a cellphone case lined with the material could boost the phone’s battery charge by 10 to 15 percent over eight hours, using the heat ________ from your pants pocket.
- cognitive* speak
- birds stop
- game temperature
- outlet towering
- rationale balance
- joystick risk
- miniaturize
- steep
- loudmouths
- Möbius
- absorbed
- vary
November 27th
Marzano Vocabulary Games “ ”
See notebook for directions. 