Update for 12/8-12/19

Hello Everyone!

Ok, sit back and get comfy, because this is a long announcement! Well speeches are finished for this week. They went very well over the last two and a half weeks. 8th grade completed impromptu speeches. These speeches are prepared within 5 minutes and usually given about a silly topic, like bubblegum or pink elephants. This type of speech teaches students to pay attention to the guts of a speech as there is no time for lots of details and explanations. I enjoy these speeches because everyone gets to have a good laugh and there is the least amount of stress with this speech. 7th grade finished up their informative speeches today. Informative speeches are meant to inform the listener about a topic. It is not done on a controversial topic and it must be fact based, which means no opinions. This is one of the hardest things to do for kids. Keeping an opinion out of a topic is very hard. I also want to thank the kids (and parents) for the yummy treats that came in with the speeches. My stomach has been overly informed! I have to say that the food that came in with these speeches was some of the most diverse—but oh so yummy!
The end of speech means the beginning of new novels! We are not going to finish these novels before Christmas, so there is no rush. The kids will be reading about a chapter a night. I have also stopped newspaper vocabulary until further notice. Having the kids read is so important, and I really want them to focus on that. I also know that they have a lot of homework in other classes. I gave it much thought and decided that the students do get vocabulary in ELA, and rather than adding to the homework load, I would stop it. I may have the students do it here and there, but I felt that other things were more important. You can always have your kids read the newspaper at night with you and discuss anything that they may not understand. Simply reading gives you the tools needed to figure out what words mean-this is called the use of context clues. I still hope that everyone encourages the reading of the newspaper or even a news magazine so that our children are up to date on current events in their world and to help them with their reading and comprehension skills. Some of your children may have also come home talking about Inspiration. On their last books, I used the computer program called Inspiration. It is a graphic organizing program. We were able to create a graphic organizer and also an outline for the books we finished 2 weeks ago. It was a great study aid as well. You can get a free 30 download of this program at www.inspiration.com. The program is meant for grades 6-12. If you have younger kids, KIDSPIRATION is for them. It is the same type of program but meant for younger children. It is specifically designed for grades k-5. It has templates for activities on math, science, social studies, and ELA. Please find out if the program helped your child, and if it did, please check out the site. Scholastic offers the program for $50 if you choose to purchase it.
I am also sending home 7 book orders today! I have some held over from November. I can only put 5 online at scholastic.com, so please take a look at these. I am asking for the orders by Friday, as I need to get the books before Christmas break. So if you wish to order the books for Christmas, Friday is the day to get them in! TAB has some great novels, including TWLIGHT, and BONE. There are two specialty catalogs included with these catalogs. They include great books for little ones and adults too. If you are ordering from more than one catalog and sending in a check, you can send in just ONE check. The check can be made out to Scholastic in the total amount of your orders. I will get the books before break so if you want to order for Christmas you can do that. You may also send in book orders in a sealed envelope if you wish to order for your child but don’t want them to know. Once I get the books in, I will bag them and leave them at the front office for you.

7th grade begins The Book of Three by Llyod Alexander. This is a fantasy novel. It is the first book in a series of 5. Disney did make a movie from these books, but I cautioned the kids about watching the movie rather than reading, as the movie is taking three books into account and it has the traditional Disney spin to it. We will be watching it as a class after we are done with the book. The students will also be working on a travel brochure when we return in January. This will be a project based on the book, so look for the info on that soon. I will probably put the directions for the travel brochure on the blog, but this will not be done until after break. Please find the homework below.
*Students should be taking notes as they read*
12/11 – Read chapter 1
12/12 – Read chapters 2 and 3
12/15 – Read chapter 4
12/16 – Read chapter 5
12/17 – Read chapter 6
12/18 – Read chapter 7
12/19 - Read chapters 8-10


8th grade has begun Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson. This is a great story and follow-up to Red Kayak. The book touches on Native American culture, which gives us the idea of the circle and how everything is connected. A 15 year old boy, Cole Matthews, is given the opportunity to participate in a program called Circle Justice rather than going to jail for assaulting a peer. He chooses to go because he thinks that it will be a cake walk, but finds that living on a remote Alaskan Island for a year is not easy. He lets his anger take over and doesn’t heed the warning of, “what you do to nature, nature will return to you.” He must face everything in his life in order to heal. It is a very powerful book, and really makes kids question what is appropriate when it comes to anger. Cole must find himself by the end of the story. As a project that will coinside with this novel, the students will be creating a totem pole using clay. (just as a heads up, they will need clay, preferably model magic, in January) They should already be reading this story. We will only get through the first part of the book by break. I am not assigning the reading over break, as there is so much to do and it is hard to keep up during the holiday season. We will continue with the second part after break.
Below please find the homework.
*Students should be taking notes as they read*
12/9 – Read chapter 2
12/10 – Read chapter 3
12/11 – Read chapter 4
12/12 – read chapter 5, 6, and 7
12/15 – Read chapter 8
12/16 – Read chapter 9
12/17 – Read chapter 10
12/18 – Read chapter 11
12/19 – Read chapter 12 and 13
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ok…I think that is it for class. I just want to say thank you and kudos to those members of our 7/8 community service organization THE LEAGUE. We struggled a little with our clothing drive and food drive because of timing, but in only 3 days, we pulled together 96 pounds of food and 884 pieces of clothing. That put us in 28th place in NY and 48th place in the country! Yeah us!!

Well, if I don’t see you, please have a safe and happy Christmas break and New Year’s. Take time to enjoy your family, even the ones you have issues with, since you never know when they may be gone. Share kindness when you can. Help those who need it, and help those who don’t need it! I keep telling the kids about a family that lives a few duplexes over from me. They have four kids, one in 7th grade, one is in kindergarten, one is 3 and one is only a few months old. My daughter plays with their 5 year old daughter. They don’t have bed frames, and the little five year old didn’t even have a mattress until recently. They don’t have furniture or lots of things. Last week was her birthday. We didn’t know it was her birthday and felt bad as both she and my daughter were attending another birthday party that day. This girl had a gift for the birthday girl, but not herself. Well my little girl was so sad. She knows that her friend doesn’t have much of anything, and I have talked to her about how it isn’t the material things that make a home, how it is the love and kindness you show each other and then magically you don’t need those things because what you have is already enough. Now keep in mind my daughter is five. So, of course, Gillian likens this to the movie HOOK. She said, “all you need is to believe, like when Peter Pan finally believed he was Pan and had the food fight even though there was no food, but then magically the food became real because he believed.” Ah, yes, innocence, but you know what? She is right. All we have to do is believe. Believe because God gave us that ability and made us to do for others. Gillian wanted to do something nice for her. We went out and got a couple outfits for this little girl and a Hannah Montana doll. She knows that I don’t have a lot of money, and some times we struggle too, but we have each other. She offered her piggy bank of pennies to pay for these things. Its those moments that puts a tear in a parent eye. It is a simple act of kindness. I keep trying to impress this upon the kids. Do for others, even if it seems like it is trivial. A shoveled driveway, a batch of brownies, a home made card for the neighbor, or even a night free of cooking for your parents, though for some of our kids, I am not sure about that! All of these things make a difference and show how much we care for each other. We seem to have gotten away from that. Gillian and I walked away from that little girls apartment and back into ours with smiles on our faces because we knew we did something so little, but made a little girl feel special. That is all it takes.

Please take care of each other!
-Ms. P