Anyone else missing fluffy, softly falling snow?

 

Luckily, we're looking at the last week of February, and can see March on the horizon!  For general calendar items: At STM, we're celebrating on Wednesday, February 24th with a Blue and White Dress Down or Spirit Wear STM.  Additionally, we will be holding make up tests/detention on Wednesday afternoon after school.

 

Did you student tell you that they've started using the outdoor classrooms for lunch/recess time?  They are clean and warm, and give students more time to eat and socialize away from their straight classroom rows!

 

7th Grade Reading: We started with our Content Literacy lessons, beginning with parallel notation (synthesizing information and noting your thinking) and completed our weekly Wednesday writing before the snow day on Thursday and virtual class on Friday. The next Content Literacy skill introduced will be Organizing Your Thinking (analyzing information to discern cause and effect). Students will be expected to have a choice book with them for independent reading on Thursdays.  I have a "traveling cart" with books from the library (right now I have "50 Must-Read Books for 7th Graders") on the cart, and will arrange Library visits for new books to read, but if your reader doesn't find a book on the cart or in the Library, they need to bring a book from home.

 

6th Grade Reading: The students worked on their Opinion essays last Tuesday and Wednesday, choosing sides on the topics "Should You Be Paid For Chores" and "Is It OK To Quit?".  (Unsurprisingly, most of the students are writing their persuasive essays with a view toward being paid for chores, as well as advocating for quitting unenjoyable activities.)  The snow day and virtual day pushed our next Comprehension Toolkit lesson: Activate and Connect alerts students to the impact background knowledge has on their learning and supports them to connect the new to the known. 6th Grade Language Arts: The students are on the last section of our Verbs unit, identifying indicative, emphatic, subjunctive, and imperative mood, as well as modal auxiliaries (should, could, would, may, can, etc.)  We will begin working on Letter Writing (such a fun writing unit that they will really enjoy - we write to businesses) once we are experts with verbs!

 

Have a great week!

 

Mrs. Morgan