November 7th-10th

Hello Bighorns! I hope everyone had a restful weekend and took advantage of an extra hour of productivity or sleep. :) I'm so glad I got to meet with so many families at conferences. I am so appreciative of your feedback and insight. It is so helpful when teachers, families, and students can work together to make great gains in learning and behavior.

Here's what's happening this week:

Projects: We continue to make great progress in our genetics and heredity unit. This week students will be analyzing their own traits and discussing dominant versus recessive traits as well as creating a graph and writing an informative paragraph to summarize their findings of our class traits graph. We will also be learning about Gregor Mendell and his use of Punnet squares and pea plant experiments. Finally, we will conclude the week by creating a mock Facebook profile for Gregor Mendell and creating monsters using specific traits.

8th grade Writing: Our 8th graders printed their first argumentative assignment today. It is a "whodunnit" mystery titled "Slip or Trip?". Students followed the structure of an argumentative essay by stating their claim, citing evidence from the case, which included text and a picture, including a counterclaim and responding to the counterclaim with a rebuttal. It was so much fun listening to students debate this case and applying the vocabulary we've been learning. I am noticing refinement in students' writing, particularly with elaborating on ideas and sentence fluency. Their continued effort makes me so proud! Students are also working on sentence composing to practice fluency and grammar. Finally, students will be working in IXL to determine facts and opinion.

6th grade Writing: Sixth graders printed their Civil War cause and effect essays last week. There were a small handful that weren't done or weren't here so they will finish during study hall. Please remember that this is not a punishment, it is just the only time we have available to work on these essays. Sixth grade will be moving on to argumentative essays. We will begin by creating our first argumentative essay together on school uniforms. My purpose is to model for students how to organize an essay and think aloud as I write. Students will then follow along and we will write together using a combination of our ideas. As a result, I will not be taking this essay as a final project grade, rather a class/participation grade to note students' effort in following along and participating in writing discussions.

6th grade Reading: We continue to read Two Miserable Presidents. This week we will be taking a vocabulary quiz and a midway quiz on all of the chapters we've read thus far. I'm allowing students to use the text. This serves various purposes. It reinforces using text to confirm their reasoning behind a response, and it allows students to review information from previous chapters to help deepen comprehension of the text. We will also work on a hot air balloon project and summarize how the hot air balloon gave the Union army an important advantage during the war. I can't wait to get started!

6th grade Language Arts: Students continue to learn about pronouns. Today we reviewed subject, object, and possessive cases. We also watched a BrainPop video and will be completing the quiz on personal pronouns. In addition, we will be playing games to review vocabulary and correct pronoun usage. Finally, we will begin working in IXL to review identifying pronouns and antecedents. The goal of language standards is that students identify correct grammar usage and apply it in their writing.

REMINDERS:

GRADED WORK GOES HOME EVERY THURSDAY!

Class Dojo: I will be sending home parent log in forms for Class Dojo. I will also have to re-install the app on my phone as some of my class data went "berserk"!

Grades: Please remember to check Infinite Campus regularly. Some families have signed up to receive an e-mail alert every time a grade is entered. I know this because I was questioned by a few families as to why in the world I was entering grades at 11:30 at night. Thank you for encouraging me to consider an earlier bed time, ha ha! :)

Please, please, please, feel free to contact with any questions or concerns. The best way to contact me is via e-mail. It is the quickest, most confidential way to communicate with me and I can respond from my classroom computer or phone.