Weekly Preview 9/27-10/1

Here's the scoop for this week in room 101:

6th GOAL: You will be starting literature circle discussions on Wednesday. Your theme is moral dilemma, and the book titles your group can choose from include: Left For Dead, Al Capone Does My Shirts, Nothing But the Truth, The Secret School, The Power of Un, Hoot, Stargirl, City of Ember, There's a Girl in my Hammerlock, Nobody Else Has to Know, That was Then This is Now, Wish Me Luck, and Holes. You will be completing a "Questions, Comments, & Quotes" sheet as you read to prepare for your daily discussion. This sheet is worth 10 points per day.

7th GOAL: You will be starting literature circle discussions on Wednesday. Your theme is culture clash, and the book titles your group can choose from include: Three Cups of Tea, The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Define Normal, Under the Same Sky, Iqbal, A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, American Born Chinese (required), Seedfolks (required), Code Talker, Ringside 1925, The Misfits, and La Linea. You will be completing a "Questions, Comments, & Quotes" sheet as you read to prepare for your daily discussion. This sheet is worth 10 points per day.

8th GOAL: You will be taking your Mandarin Chinese vocabulary quiz on Monday. Later this week, you'll be starting Literature Circles. Your theme is the Holocaust, and I will booktalk the following titles for you group to choose: Maus I, Maus II, The Book Thief, Yellow Star, The Wave, Escape from Warsaw, Night, Soldier X, Milkweed, The Other Half of Life, Night, The Boy Who Dared, Emil and Karl, Run Boy Run, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Darkness Over Denmark, and Hidden on the Mountain. You will be completing a "Questions, Comments, & Quotes" sheet as you read to prepare for your daily discussion. This sheet is worth 10 points per day.

7th Language Arts: Your "Grown-Up Rules" stories are due in final draft form on Friday. This means you've revised your handwritten rough drafts, you've typed the story, you've had at least 2 peer conferences and made changes from those conferences, and you've self-edited and fixed mistakes found in self-editing. This is a Maintenance Test week for spelling, so there are no new words. On Friday, we'll have a Maintenance Test over the words in Weeks 1-5. We'll have a big review day on Thursday for those who would rather review than use class time to work on their stories. The spelling assignment (due Wednesday) this week is p. 39 (1-20), p. 40 (1-20), and p. 41 (1-10).

Teacher Nightmare #486

Today, for Homecoming Week, it was Bad Hair Day.

A student enthusiastically complimented my bad hair.

I didn't do anything differently. This is my normal hair.

Thought you might get a kick out of that. I did! ;)

Weekly Preview

Here's what's happening in room 101 this week at Fairfield Middle School:

6th GOAL: You'll be finishing up the models and design unit by creating free-rolling and self-propelled miniature go-karts.

7th GOAL: You'll be finishing up Big Science: For the Sake of the Nation and starting in on your literature circle unit. This year's literature circles focus on the theme of Culture Clash.

8th GOAL: You'll be presenting your Mandarin Chinese vocabulary skits. Then, you'll be designing and studying for your vocabulary test.

7th Language Arts: You'll be working on your stories inspired by the book The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups. Rough drafts are due Monday. Final drafts are due on October 1. In the meantime, you'll be revising, typing, peer-conferencing, editing, and getting things ready to turn in. Spelling this week focuses on double consonants. Page 34 (along with pretest corrections) will be due Wednesday. Words in this list include the following:

Week 5 Spelling: Double Consonants

challenge

embarrass

apparent

exaggerate

communicate

accompany

unnecessary

surrender

impression

allegiance

immense

accomplish

procession

interrupt

equipped

assess

warrant

possibility

alliance

professional

Booktalks 9/14

Today for Library Day weekly booktalks, I highlighted the mystery genre. Check out the following books if you're interested in reading a good mystery!

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man by Wendelin Van Draanen

Spirit Seeker by Joan Lowery Nixon

The Case of the Goblin Pearls by Laurence Yep

Ghost Canoe by Will Hobbs

Demon in the Teahouse by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler

Storm Catchers by Tim Bowler

Weekly Preview 9/13-9/17

6th GOAL: You will be continuing your models and design unit this week. Your creative conceptual models will be due on Wednesday, and you'll be presenting them to the class. On Wednesday through Friday, you'll be observing the humdinger to see how you think it works. You'll make both a conceptual model and a physical model to show your theories.

7th GOAL: You will be continuing your unit on Big Science: For the Sake of the Nation this week. We'll be discussing the space program, biotechnology, and environmental impact of automobiles to see which area you believe is the most important for our country's focus in the area of science.

8th GOAL: You'll be learning more Mandarin Chinese vocabulary this week. On Thursday and Friday, you'll be writing and practicing skits containing those vocabulary words. Hopefully you'll be ready to perform by Monday!

7th Language Arts: We've wrapped up the first pen pal letter assignment. Those of you who still need to finish your final drafts, you'll have to do that outside of class. Get a pass from me for study hall or before school if you need it. We'll be moving on to study the 6+1 Traits of Good Writing, starting with the trait of IDEAS. You'll have a writing assignment that will go along with this trait and with the book, The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski. This week's spelling list focuses on compound words. Your assignment (p. 27, 1-20) will be due Wednesday, along with corrections from the pretest.

Week 4 Spelling Words:

keyboard

self-esteem

dining room

classmate

far-fetched

granddaughter

briefcase

self-taught

four-fifths

word processing

newsstand

quick-witted

pencil sharpener

well-known

thirteen-year-olds

textbook

self-employed

study hall

brother-in-law

three-fourths

Booktalks!

It's Library Day again, and for booktalks this week, I'm highlighting biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. GOAL students have a requirement to read 2 books in this genre during the course of this year. Here are the books I talked about today:

Boys Who Rocked the World by Laura Carlsmith

Girls Who Rocked the World by Amelie Welden

The Book of Rock Stars by Kathleen Krull

Spellbinder: The Life of Harry Houdini by Tom Lalicki

Amelia Earhart by Susan Reyburn

Artist in Overalls: The Life of Grant Wood by John Duggleby

Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret (I booktalked this last October too, but it's such a great memoir, I wanted to mention it again!)

Weekly Preview

First of all, everyone enjoy their long weekend. I know I will, especially with the first Hawkeye game of the year!

Here's what's happening next week in room 101:

6th Grade GOAL: We'll be finishing up Words of Wisdom presentations, and then we'll be starting our Models & Design unit. This unit combines physics and problem solving, and it's always a hit.

7th Grade GOAL: We'll be finishing up Words of Wisdom presentations, and then we'll be starting our unit called Big Science: For the Sake of the Nation. This unit explores the idea of government-backed science projects. We'll be debating issues of the day and exploring current science issues.

8th Grade GOAL: We'll be finishing up Words of Wisdom presentations, and then we'll begin our unit on Mandarin Chinese. It's important to explore other languages, and Mandarin Chinese is not an option you'll have either here or in high school. It's a challenging but important unit.

GOAL NOTE!!!! This week was a procrastination extravaganza when it came to journal letter writing. I assigned the letters on Tuesday, but I should have known that most of you would wait until today to hand them in (see pic below). Thanks to those of you who did not wait until the last minute, but I am a reflective teacher, and I can see we need a new plan! :) From now on, 6th grade journal letters will be due on Wednesdays, 7th grade journal letters will be due on Thursdays, and 8th grade journal letters will be due on Fridays. This first week will be an adjustment period, but then it will all balance out, and you will still have a week to complete letters. Hopefully, I can stagger the deadline so the crate doesn't look like this at the end of Friday! :)

7th Grade Language Arts: We'll be having spelling, even though it's a short week. Your assignment (p. 22 1-20 & pretest corrections) will still be due on Wednesday, so you'll only have one day to work on it. Final drafts of pen pal letters will be due on Thursday, and after that, we'll start learning the 6 Traits of Writing.

Week 3 Spelling Words: Long Vowel Syllabication Patterns:

notify
raven
climate
vehicle
alien
idol
trial
basis
creature
motivate
species
notion
prior
reality
noble
idle
trophy
premium
oval
mutual

See you Tuesday!

Words of Wisdom Examples

Here are some examples of the GOAL students' work with their Words of Wisdom assignment. Enjoy!

Words of Wisdom (Click link to Logan's animoto)

Click here to see Brandon's Glog!
Click here to see Kailey's Glog!
Click here to see Zach's Zooburst!
Click here to see Loreena's Zooburst!
Click here to see Savannah's Pixton!
Click here and here to see Sarah's Glogs!


Price's pixton comics (click for full-size version):









Corynn's Words of Wisdom on PhotoPeach


Brennan's Epic Words Of Some Wisdom on PhotoPeach



Rachel's Words of Wisdom on PhotoPeach


Click the following to see all of Ashley's pixton: