Nov. 28th-Dec. 1st

Welcome back bighorns! I hope everyone enjoyed a great Thanksgiving break. Here's what will be going on in room 18 this week!

Projects: We will conclude our unit on genetics and heredity. Students will learn about genetic mutations and epigenetics this week and work on their cumulative project which will be a poster showing the relationship between the body, cell, nucleus, chromosome, DNA, and gene. Students will be asked to illustrate this concept on a poster and briefly describe it. Finally, students will have a test and vocabulary quiz on Thursday.

8th Writing: 8th grade writers will work on a short writing assignment this week by creating a list of "Things You Can Do To...". We will build on our argumentative writing skills to create problem and solution lists in which students will write a list of various solutions to a topic. We will be analyzing exemplars first so that students understand what is expected in their writing. Samples will include "5 Things You Can Do To Go Green" and "5 Things You Can Do To Become a Better Writer". Students must include evidence from credible sources to give validity to their argument/solution.

6th Writing: 6th grade writers will work on an argumentative essay. Students will learn about argumentative vocabulary as well as the structure of an argumentative essay. Writers will choose a topic to write an argumentative essay about and begin their research. We will continue to follow the regular structure of an essay which includes an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs (2 claims to support their argument & 1 counterclaim and rebuttal paragraph), and finally a concluding paragraph. We will be working on these essays for the next two weeks.

Reading: We finished our class timeline of Two Miserable Presidents and it is displayed in the hallway outside our classroom. Hopefully you can take some time to view our work! We will continue to read and learn about the Reconstruction Era, The Gilded Age, and Black Codes through comprehension passages, videos, and discussions. We will also be reviewing summarizing and supporting our responses with textual evidence.

Language Arts: We continue to move forward with pronouns. Today we completed a vocabulary sort on pronoun vocabulary. We will also work learning the difference between subject and object pronouns and finish the week with independent practice on IXL: X.1.

REMINDERS:
*Homework M-W night is to read 20 minutes from the same book and complete a summary on reading log. I collect reading logs on Thursday and students complete this portion in class.
* We are collecting pajamas for youth of all ages. Please donate new pajamas for this great cause!
* Thank you to those who donated to our coat drive. It was a great success!