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