Weekly Preview: 3/12-3/16, 2012

This week is really going to give us a taste of spring with temperatures in the 70's. I hope it doesn't give us an unmanageable taste of spring fever as well! Here's room 101's week in preview:

6th GOAL: Students will be continuing literature circles. They seem to be enjoying the discussion with their groups. Remember, there is daily homework during literature circles. :)

7th GOAL: Projects are done, process papers and annotated bibliographies are handed in, and History Day is next week! This week, students will give each other mock interviews to prepare for judging, and they'll also show their projects to the class.

8th GOAL: Students are hard at work on their Images of Greatness display boards. These boards are due Friday, and also by Friday, I'd like to see their costumes (or a picture of their costume) so I know if anyone needs help before the big night next Thursday.

7th Language Arts: Students will be typing their epidemics research papers this week and having peer conferences. The final draft will be due next Wednesday. I've never seen some of the students in this class work harder than they have writing this paper. I'm excited to see the results! Spelling for week 26 focuses on Greek Forms "gram," "chron," "phon(e)," and "scope." Pretest corrections and book p. 160 are due Wednesday. The posttest will be Friday.

Week 26 Spelling words:

phonics

telescope

chronology

diagram

microphone

stethoscope

headphones

telegram

chronic

anagram

symphonic

grammatical

synchronize

telephone

periscope

chronicle

megaphone

earphones

microscope

saxophone

Weekly Preview: 2/27-3/2, 2012

Here's the scoop this week in room 101:

6th GOAL: Students will be finishing up the Great Ocean Rescue activity this week. We'll discuss the oceanography resources on the other side of the DVD, and then we'll be moving into literature circles. 6th grade literature circles will center around the theme of Moral Dilemma. This will be the only time in GOAL when students will have daily homework. They will participate in daily discussions with their group, and they will have a small sheet of 4 questions to prepare for that discussion.

7th GOAL: Students will be finishing up their projects for National History Day, and we'll be moving on to annotated bibliographies and process papers. The big day is approaching quickly, so we need to move on these written parts of the entries. Students doing website projects have an earlier deadline and must be done with everything by March 6, so time is of the essence.

8th GOAL: Students will be handing in Images of Greatness essays on Monday. The rest of the week will be spent completing timelines, creating bio-riddles, and finding quotations. All of these are due on Friday.

7th Language Arts: Students will continue working on their epidemics research papers this week. Toward the end of the week, we'll discuss introductions and conclusions and how to add them to the body of the paper. It's a maintenance test week for spelling this week, so students will not have a pretest on Monday. They'll be reviewing weeks 19-23, and completing book pages 147 (1-20), 148 (1-20), and 149 (1-10) which will be due on Wednesday. On Friday, we'll take the maintenance test.

Weekly Preview: 2/20-2/23/2012

It's Parent/Teacher Conference week! Don't forget about this fantastic opportunity to touch base with teachers about how things are going in class. Conferences will be held in the Fairfield Middle School Commons on Tuesday and Thursday (February 21 & 23) from 4:00-7:30. There will be an early dismissal on both Tuesday and Thursday for students and no school Friday.

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

6th GOAL: Students are still working on the Great Ocean Rescue activity. They finished one mission last week and still have three to go.

7th GOAL: Students are working hard on their History Day projects. Our goal is to have these completed by Wednesday of this week so we can go on to working on process papers and annotated bibliographies. If students need to come in before school to work, they just need to let me know the day before so I'm sure to be here.

8th GOAL: Monday and Tuesday will be the last research days for Images of Greatness. Then, students will work on their essays which are due next Monday, February 27.

7th Language Arts: We extended the deadline, so Design-An-Ad papers will be due at the end of class on Monday. For the rest of the week, we'll be working on sharing Writer's Workshop stories and starting our epidemics research papers. Students have been working in social studies and science classes to get all the facts needed for this paper. Spelling for Week 23 focuses on different suffixes. Pretest corrections and book page 142 are due on Wednesday. The posttest will be on Thursday, since there is no school Friday.

Week 23 Spelling Words

abstract

complicate

persist

attractive

strict

replica

distract

consist

restrict

insistence

duplicate

resist

constrict

detract

resistance

complication

attract

insist

retract

consistent