May 24-June 3

Hi everyone,

We are finishing up with finals and projects. If you have ANY more work to turn in, please do so by May 31 for credit.

To finish this year, we will be:

• Watching the 1963 Lord of the Flies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies_(1963_film)
• Completing Iready Testing
• Writing an essay on the current culture of the ORAA middle school and the desired culture and analyzing what we need to do to get to a desired culture. Students must use at least two examples from history and literature in their paragraphs. (due Friday, May 27)
• Completing our ICAN folders
• Creating a common understanding of current and desired middle school norms for the coming year. 
• Celebrating successes and friendships

I'll post more information about the next two weeks as more information about performances and presentations are announced. We're in the home stretch and still have so much to do! 

May 16-21

Family Fun Day is this week! There are lots of fun activities to begin wrapping up the year. Here are the activities we'll be doing this week: 

Tuesday: 

Students will participate in a murder mystery with Mr. Parks.

Students will make Aztec headdresses according to the custom.

Wednesday:

Students will learn the defintions of society and culture and connect them to the themes in literature books.

Thursday:

Students will attend play: Thoroughly Modern Millie

Students will complete reading book club novel.

Friday:

Students will review book club book and watch film about literature theme.

Please check back Tuesday, May 17 in the afternoon, for Exhibition of Learning sign ups

Studio Day Work- May 16

Read. Work on EOL's. Enjoy doing something nice for yourself and others. That is all.

May 9-13 Yay!

Here are the basic directions for the week. Please continue to read your 100 pages or more each week!

Tuesday:

• Both classes: read literature book
• 7th: review inventions of Inca/Maya/Aztec culture, create a KWL of the Mayan and Aztec Calendar.
• 6th grade: review all the important innovations from each of the Ancient Cultures studied. Students will create a cutout performance of their favorite innovation from the ancient world and why. This should be 3 minutes or less.
• 6th grade will create the grading rubric for the cutout performance.

Wednesday:

• Both classes: read literature book.
• 7th, create a visual calendar in the Mayan/Aztec tradition that includes the symbols important to this year in middle school.
• 6th grade: students will be creating a facial representation of their Ancient person and presenting their cutout presentation of most important innovations of the Ancient world. Students’ choice!
• 6th grade-- students will be grading classmates’ presentations based on rubric.

Thursday:

• All classes: read literature book.

• 8th grade: work on rap of battles of the Civil War and rubric for performance.

• 7th: Students will gallery walk and write feedback according to what they predict their classmates work represents on their Mayan/Aztec calendar.

• 6th: students complete their facial representation performances.

Friday:

All students will be given the vocabulary of “society” and “culture”. For both words, students will write on a large poster, examples from the book which illustrate examples of both the society and culture of the literature books

Studio Day Work May 9

The studio day work this week is simple-- keep reading! We expect 100+ pages per student each week. This week we had a pop quiz. Please expect something similar every week!

We are also giving students the opportunity to begin working on their Exhibitions of Learning, which will be presented May 23-27. These are cumulative presentations which include a speech for 7-10 minutes, an interactive component, and a visual component. Exhibitions of Learning should cover 2-4 topics/projects the students loved learning and why and a reflection about the year as a learner. I will be giving the notes to help students organize their presentations next week.

Lesson Plans

Did you know that students who read only 5 minutes a night rank in the 50% percentile on testing, versus those who read 65 minutes? Those students usually rank in the 98th percentile in test taking and grades.

In other words-- take time to read this week! The first thing that will happen in our class will be a pop quiz on your literature book from over the weekend!

Here's what we have planned for the week. I'll be out Friday because I am going to help my elderly grandmother with a surgery she's having (and she and grandad are not great drivers anymore).

Tuesday: Pop quiz on literature book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MOEMT1itiM

Students will then finish posters and complete a paragraph essay about why the Incas, Aztecs, and Maya are studied in a middle school society and culture unit.

Wednesday:

Both classes will have a pop quiz on their literature book.

8th Graders use the following text to create a poster about the causes, timeline, and battles of the civil war. They then create a rap with their group of three to explain the battles and victory of the civil war. Poster and presentation will be graded on historical accuracy, creativity, and clear presentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

6th graders will watch these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZFs7DFCpc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohXPx_XZ6Y

They will then create a set of laws for middle schoolers based on Hammurabi’s code to present at the end of the period. Law poster will be graded on creativity, application, and legibility.

Thursday:

Students will have time to read their literature book today.

By Friday, students will complete the essay below and turn it in. The graphic organizer used to write the paragraph will also be required for full credit.

Mrs. K's class- Who is the main character in your story?

Mr. Smith's class-- What does the author believe to be true about human beings? (use evidence from the main character in your book?)

Friday:

Students will have time to read their literature book today after they complete the following worksheets: Posted on Moodle.

At the end of the day, the reading passage and a paragraph connection to how the literature story connects to our theme on society and culture is due to the box. The graphic organizer used to write the paragraph will also be required for full credit.