Good morning!
I hope you all were able to have a restful Labor Day weekend. I always love Labor Day because we get about a week of school in, and then can have a nice break to catch up on sleep because, let's be honest, none of us are used to getting up at the crack of dawn every morning yet :) Therefore, I hope you all enjoyed some extra sleep and family time.
For those who are new to my blog posts, here is a little information behind them. Every Monday (or whatever our first day of the school week is), I will send out a post about the previous week of school. I'll be including a short greeting, important dates to remember, and then there will be a section to read about each grade level (6th-8th). Feel free to read it all or just skim for the information that applies to your child/children. Please know that I will NOT be offended if you choose to not read these; they are here for updates and not mandatory reading assignments :) Please feel free to contact me about any information that you may be confused or concerned about.
With that being said... LET'S BEGIN!
Important Dates:
September 17th: Student Counil meeting @ 7:05 a.m.
September 25th: School Pictures
September 27th: Mid-quarter
IMPORTANT TO ALL: Last week, I introduced book talks to the students. For new families, book talks are quarterly book reports; however, instead of doing the traditional oral book report, the students create an online presentation discussing different required elements. Attached is the rubric: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxJKQPpD5UPHUmJtdERPQ3laTDA . Presentations will be October 14-22nd. Below are the dates and student presenters:
Monday, October 14th: Tyler Helm, Amy Osborne, Emma Barth, Kaelyn Sohre, Sarah Helm, Lily Everts, Josie Witte, Sophia Steffen, Kaitlyn Hauser, Dawson Froemming, Jasmin Kraus, & Jenny Spencer.
Tuesday, October 15th: Owen Weeden, Reese Regnitz, Adam Boesch, Annabella Sileno, Sam Eisenhauer, Charlie Schmelzer, Nick Erickson, Trista Scheer, Ameilya Hackbarth-Weber, Izzy Duckert, Sarah Prom, & Elliot Wagner.
Wednesday, October 16th: Nick Tetzlaff, Grace Frarck, Caitlin Bonneau, Evelyn Fritz, Ayn Hajdu, Evan Feiertag, Gabi Weyde, Addie Wenthold, Jae Fitting, Zach Brown, Katie Spencer, Kenzie Noffke, & Jack Dykstra.
Thursday, October 17th: Gabe Noetzel, Will Borland, Nathan Michels, Brooke Paske, Joe Twietmeyer, Makayla Wallock, Arielle Lamm, Denny Oechsner, Jack Vravick, Elijah Wiley, Audrey Gash, Emily Stocks, Ben Valdez, & Mary Stroebel.
Friday, October 18th: Melissa Wills, Yhonnie Brazelton, Kayden Roberts, Tyler Brunn, Aria Wessel, Gavin Grob, Jose Pacheco, Justin Dummann, Christian Remm, Nina Mlodzik, Jack Poellot, Casey Wills, & Abby Napoleon.
Monday, October 21st: Lucy Pahl, Caleb Demmon, Will Weeden, & Lily Noffke.
Tuesday, October 22nd: Zeke Smedal, Brennan Schuster, Evan Pokorny, & Jack Halling.
Weeks 1 & 2:
6th Grade ~ The first few weeks have flown by, and the students and I have accomplished quite a bit already. The first week, we discussed reading strategies and how we use them in our every day lives. Much of 6th grade is spent discussing reading strategies and applying them to our reading. Last week, the 6th graders had their first Monday Meditation. Monday Meditations are short writing prompts that the students are required to answer. For 6th graders, responses should be 2 paragraphs long, 3-5 sentences each. Each prompt is worth 5 points and is assigned Monday and due the following Monday. All prompts are answered on a shared Google document. On Wednesday, the students took their grammar pre-test and did SO well; I was very impressed! Thursday and Friday, we started our first lessons from the Good Habits, Great Readers (GHGR) curriculum which discusses how to be a good reader, and use reading strategies successfully. We will continue with these lessons this week.
7th Grade ~ It's been fun seeing this group grow up over just the summer and become 7TH GRADERS! How crazy! The first week of school, the 7th graders and I reviewed reading strategies and the students then took a short quiz last Monday; this quiz was a participation grade, so if your child did not do very well, it is only worth 10% of their grade and nothing to fret about :) Last Monday, the 7th graders had their first Monday Meditation. Monday Meditations are short writing prompts that the students are required to answer. For 7th graders, responses should be 2 paragraphs long, 5-7 sentences each. Each prompt is worth 5 points and is assigned Monday and due the following Monday. All prompts are answered on a shared Google document. On Wednesday, the students took their grammar pre-test and did fairly well. This year, the students have the opportunity to be in Advanced Grammar, which takes everything learned in Shurley Grammar, and now applies that to other grammar-related concepts. If a student earned a 75% or higher on their test, I will be moving them to the advanced class. Students lower than 75% will continue with Shurley Grammar to ensure that they are fully brushed up on their grammar for next year's curriculum. The rest of last week was spent discussing the elements of a story and filling out a study guide/creating a quizlet to study from. The quiz on these elements will be this Thursday.
8th Grade ~ First of all, I CANNOT believe these kids are 8th graders; it blows my mind how fast time flies. I can't even imagine how you parents are feeling. :) To begin the year, the 8th graders and I discussed expectations of an 8th grader and their roles as leaders in the school, including helping with delivering milks to the early childhood students, acolyting, and ushering at chapel each Friday, on top of just being good role-models for the other students in the school. To begin the academic school year, the students did a quick Escape Room to review figurative language and previous years' vocabulary. Last week on Monday, the students received their list of Latin/Greek roots. Every week, the 8th graders will get 3 roots and a list of 10 vocabulary words that use the roots. Throughout the week, we will practice together with the words, and then they will take a short 13 question quiz on Friday. It is very important that the students are paying attention to the in-class practice because Latin/Greek roots are 10% of their grade and there will be many quizzes throughout the year. On Monday, I also explained the first unit of 8th grade, which is the What's in a Name essay, where the students will do research about their name and origin (as discussed in the parent interview) and then write a short 1-2 paged paper using their findings. This week, the students will begin writing their essays. In grammar, the students took their grammar pre-test and did pretty well! This week we will review what was learned last week and then pick up where we left off last year. Those in Shurley Grammar last year will benefit from the review and be able to jump into the curriculum with little to no trouble, so no worries :)
I hope you all have a great week back to the old grind :)
God's blessings on your week!
Grace
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