Monday, August 29, 2011

Weekly Preview: 8/29-9/2


It's our first full week of school! Here's what classes will be up to in Miss Nelson's room this week:

6th-8th GOAL: Our school library won't be open until next week, but there is still a lot of reading to be done. Students may check out books from my classroom library at any time, and the public library is a great option too, of course! On Monday, we're going over journal letter expectations. Students will write one per week. We also are starting our read aloud books for the year. 6th graders will be hearing Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt, 7th graders will be hearing The Cardturner by Louis Sachar, and 8th graders will be hearing To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. They may journal about the read aloud books or about their independent reading books. Either is fine. We'll also be setting up a class wiki for discussion of the read aloud books, so stay tuned for that!

For the rest of the week, we're going to be thinking on our feet and getting to know each other with some impromptu speeches and some quick class debates.

7th Language Arts: We'll start the week with our first spelling unit. Week 1 words are words from the media. Pretest corrections and p. 10 (1-20) are due on Wednesday. Aside from spelling, we'll be starting the 6+1 Traits of Writing with an introduction and then with getting into the trait of Organization. The writing assignment that accompanies this trait will be an essay called, "If I Were Mayor..." More information on that to come.

Week 1 Spelling Words
newsroom
edition
sportscaster
media
headline
copy
editorial
newscast
caption
commentary
newsprint
verify
deliver
footage
masthead
exclusive
update
coverage
newsreel
dateline

Don't forget about picture day on Tuesday, and have a great week!


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Class Calendar

I'm trying the embedding tool on Google Calendars. I think this can be a great way to see deadlines, etc. I'll plan on posting it every week as part of my Weekly Preview. Can't wait to see all my students tomorrow!!!


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Getting Ready!

School is just around the corner! If you want to help in Miss Nelson's classroom, come to school on Wednesday (August 17) at 9:00 a.m. You can help decide how the classroom will look this year. Stay and work as long as you want. Miss Nelson will buy pizza for lunch!

7:25 pm adjustment: Because the janitors will be waxing the floors tomorrow, we can only get in the classroom in the morning. I'll be there by 8:00 for anyone who wants to come early, and we'll plan on being done by 11:30. We'll still have pizza, but we'll have it picnic style at O.B. Nelson Park!