Midterm Update

It's been a couple weeks since our last update, and it has been a very BUSY couple of weeks!  During the week before the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we did a 9-day unit on the September 11th attacks and their lasting effects on different groups of people, including the children on 9/11.  We used the cover story of People magazine from that week, as well as articles from the New York Times and Newsweek for our research.  Several of my students came in to class with information they received from their parents at home as well.  Thank you for being involved in our class discussion at home as well!  It is such an important contribution. 


We ended our study of 9/11 with a student-led classroom discussion.  It was amazing to see all my students delve deep into the topic and ask important, real-world questions.  It was an important practice in a life skill they will use.


After finishing up that unit, we learned literary terms that we will need to know when we begin our first novel next week.  The 7th grade will be starting out with S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, one of my all time favorite books.  6th grade is beginning with Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick.  I read this book for the first time over the summer, and I cannot wait to teach it.  It provides so many great lessons on friendship and acceptance.


We have so many great things to look forward to as the fall weather sets in!  Please continue to encourage your student to read.  Book Talks are happening everyday, and they only have four more weeks to finish those up for the quarter!  I hope everyone is enjoying this fall weather as much as me! 

Kinds of Sentences Short Films

We switched gears this week and started working on some grammar review.  Mostly, we talked about types and kinds of sentences.  We have spent the second half of the week writing scripts for our Kinds of Sentences Short Films competition.  I can't wait to see what all of our groups have come up with for their scenes.  After watching the progress this week, I just know they'll be great.  


Another thing that's going well is our Word of the Week program.  Our word this past week was "assertive," and students are doing a great job of implementing that word into their vocabularies (especially since using it in class earns you a piece of candy).  We'll have a new word starting on Tuesday.  If you catch your student using one of our words at home, don't hesitate to ask them what it means.  Now they should know!


I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend!  Next week, we'll be studying nonfiction multimedia and newsprint texts related to the ten year anniversary of the September 11th attacks.  This would be a great topic to discuss at home with your student as we are discussing it in class.  Happy Weekend everyone.  Enjoy your free Monday!