Dear STM Families in 6-9 and Reading/LA 6-7/6-9 and Reading 7-3/7-6,

 

Blessings on this glorious Monday morning!  We will be in-person again on Tuesday, November 17th.  According to Mrs. Davis's email, STM is closed for deep cleaning so we will all be working and learning from home for the next week. 

 

Homestead Studies - The students do have their blue Homestead Studies folders, and assignments have also been updated within the various teachers' Google Classroom pages. Today, November 9, is a transition day.  Everyone gets a breather to get organized.  Tomorrow, Nov 10, students complete Day 1.  Wednesday, Nov 11, in honor of our Veterans, the students have no school assignments.  Thursday, Nov 12 and Friday, Nov 13, conferences will continue at their previously scheduled time via Zoom.  Students should complete Day 2 over those two days.  On Monday, Nov 16, students should complete Day 3.

How to turn these in will vary by teacher, subject, and assignment.  If your student has questions about anything, he/she should reach out to the subject area teacher.  There is a week "grace period" allowance, so all Homestead Studies work is due by Nov. 23rd.

 

Conferences - The Zoom call information will be auto-sent on Thursday morning.  In advance of the conferences, score reports for Scantron, along with an explanatory cover letter, were sent home on Friday.  Please ask your student for this information if he/she has not already given it to you! 

 

Help at home needed-   Both of the 6th grades are going to be working on a visual aid flowchart for a how-to article.  Students have a homework assignment to bring in two samples of diagrams from craft kits, toys, games, cookbooks, vehicle manuals, home appliances, electronics.  Thank you in advance for helping your student locate these items around your house.  

 

PowerSchool and outstanding assignments -  Over the weekend and through Wednesday, I will be locating and updating "lingering lost and late" assignments.  If you or your student have questions about something missing/ungraded, please send me an email.  

 

"So, what WERE you planning on doing in school this week?" - 

Good question!  In LA, students in 6th grade took the Pronouns Test and we started on our How To article brainstorming and use of transition words and writing for the appropriate audience.  Classwork on Friday was expanding on "How to Wrap a Gift".  We would have practiced using Microsoft Word to create our flowcharts.  In Reading, 6th graders in 6-7 finished the novel We're Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey and started working on videos or storyboards for "Meet the Human".  In 6-9, students completed assignments for Song For a Whale by Lynn Kelly and both classes will next read and discuss Aesop's Fables to end the first trimester.  Both 6th grades continue with Vocab on W/F and independent Storyworks assignments on Thursdays. In addition, 20 passed quizzes must be completed on ReadTheory by the end of the first trimester.

 

In 7th grade, we (finally, yet sadly) finished our class novel, Zero Tolerance, by Claudia Mills. The 7th graders have also finished practice close reading and text marking to improve strategic reading skills for nonfiction and improve comprehension.  There will be a graded assessment associated with completing each of these units of study, and study guides will be placed in the 7th Grade Reading Google Classroom page.  Prior to the end of the trimester, I plan to have the students annotate a Reading selection, Eleven, by Sandra Cisneros.  During the 2nd trimester, we will begin right away with Cornell note-taking and Elements of a Short Story.  Students should be studying for a vocabulary definitions test for Literary vocabulary.  The test would have been on Tuesday, Nov 10 and will be Nov. 17 when we return to school.

 

Please keep our school community in your prayers.   Enjoy this beautiful weather!

 

Sincerely,

Mrs. Morgan