Monday, March 21, 2016

Happy Spring!

We have a great week planned before we break for spring break!
In math we will be reviewing for our exam, which is Thursday!  The exam will cover data, integers, and the coordinate plane.  I have placed many educational games on my website to help the students study!
In language arts we will also review poetry and grammar that will be on our exam.
Our Reading and Writing exams will take place on Wednesday this week.  For their writing exam, they will be using a program called essayscorer and they will have to write a persuasive essay about having a pet.  We have practiced on this program throughout the 3rd quarter.

My husband and I will be leaving for a trip of a lifetime tonight to Australia! I was very glad to see my students today and get them feeling comfortable for their exams before leaving for the rest of the week.  We have the building sub, Ms. Alcock, subbing in here and the students all seem to really like her.

I hope you all have a wonderful Spring break and enjoy your extra time with your family!!
Remember-no school on Friday!

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Pi Day Celebration!

We had such a wonderful time celebrating Pi day!!!  Because of our fog day on 3/14, we had to celebrate on 3/15.
Our top 6 contestants include:
Gavin Hunter- memorized 46 numbers
Laci MacQuisten- memorized 54 numbers
Rory Baxter- memorized 84 numbers
Rachel Chen- memorized 45 numbers
Sydney Shammo- memorized 238 numbers
Zachary Stevens- memorized 204 numbers

Our champion was SYDNEY SHAMMO who memorized a whopping 286 numbers!!
Our runner up was ZACHARY STEVENS who memorized 204 numbers!

This was incredible to me!
Congrats to all of our students who took the time to memorize Pi- we had a blast!  Here are some photos and a pretty entertaining video!















Tuesday, March 8, 2016

March 7-10

Short Week this week!

I gave the students 102 digits of Pi today to try and memorize as many digits as they can!  On Pi Day, March 14th, whomever memorizes the most digits will get to smash a pie in my face!! It is a really fun day for us!
No school for the kiddos on Friday this week.
In math, we are starting coordinate planes.
We are still working on our poetry books and we are also starting a unit on community in our ELA books.
Next Monday, we will also have a volunteer fireman here to explain the process of becoming a fire fighter and EMT. (We figured that tied in well with community.)

Get outside and enjoy this weather!!

Monday, February 29, 2016

Welcome to March

Nothing like ending our February with 50-60 degree weather!  I hope you had the chance to get out and enjoy it!
This week in math our students are working on Integer Timelines and I am introducing coordinate graphs on Thursday.
In Reading, we will continue reading nonfiction pieces to prepare for the MSTEP.
In Writing, we will continue publishing our poetry books!

Deputy Lestock will be in on Wednesday to discuss Cyber Bullying with the students.  Please ask your child about this, it is a great way to start a much needed discussion with your child!

We have just under 4 weeks left in this quarter, please be sure to stay on top of HAC!
Have a wonderful week!

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

February 16-19

Short week this week!
We will be finishing up the Watson's go to Birmingham this week and watching the movie on Friday.  The students will be comparing and contrasting the book with the movie.
We will then be having a great discussion about how real this situation is and we will be reading actual newspaper articles pertaining to the bombers from 1963.
We have a quiz on Friday in Math on Data.  The quiz will be covering mean, median, mode, range, histograms, dot plots, and box and whisker plots.  They will receive a review on Thursday and can study any former homework throughout the week if needed.
In writing, we will continue writing poetry this week and put our poetry books together next week!
I would like to have a little celebration so the students are able to share their books with the class.  More on that later...

Monday, February 8, 2016

February 8-12

Happy Monday!
We will continue our unit on data in math.  This week our focus is the Box and Whisker Plot!
We will continue reading Watsons go to Birmingham and also continue writing poetry.
There is a half day on Friday and NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY FEBRUARY 15th.
Enjoy your long weekend!

Monday, February 1, 2016

February 1-5

Happy February!  We are starting this month with warmer temperatures!  Maybe the groundhog will not see his shadow tomorrow and we will be on our way to spring!

This is the beginning of quarter 3, can you believe half of our year is already over?

I have changed a couple things in the grade book that I would like to explain.  I have changed the way I am labeling assignments.  In the past, they were labeled as assignment, quiz, or test.  They will now be labeled as formative or summative.  A formative grade is a frequent, ongoing assessment, completed in route to mastery.  It serves as a checkpoint to tell me where my students are on each concept.  A summative grade is completed after the learning experiences; demonstrating mastery.

Each grade will still be labeled with what the assignment is to help with any confusion.  Please let me know if there are any questions on this subject, as it is extremely important to understand how well your child is mastering the concepts.

Our Valentines Day dance is this Friday from 7-9pm!  Student council has a lot of great things planned for this evening!

Please return the registration form for 7th grade by the end of this week!