This week and next will be Terra Nova testing at school. Today, Tuesday the 13th, was grid set-up day and practice test day. Tomorrow the testing will start in earnest and will continue each morning for two hours or less. Other classes will be on a rotating basis accompanied by schedule changes for the Specials.
The children have been told to try to get a good night's sleep and eat a good breakfast each day.
The big up-coming event in Language Arts is the biography book report coming the first week in November. The oral presentation, NOT a reading of the
written report, is always fun for classmates to hear.
The oral presentation is to be spoken in the first person and is the famous person's (puppet's) opportunity to tell us some interesting things about their subject's life. The written portion is well-described in the hand-out sent home approximately two weeks ago. It is clearly meant to be seven paragraphs in length.
Last Friday was the day when students handed in their check-up for the required eight reading books this trimester. Most of the students are well on their way for this activity to be completed in a timely fashion.
Many of the comments I wrote asked for more complete, detailed sentences to be written for the problem/solution section. Any book which is factual in nature won't have a problem/solution; students should write a summary sentence or two of the content instead.
Seventh and eight grade info:
Seventh graders have been studying the settling of the Thirteen Original Colonies. We have studied how the colonies can be grouped into regions and have certain similarities. A review focusing on ways of life, religions, reasons for settlement, crops, etc. was completed last week. As we finish up this chapter we will be spending a couple of days focusing on some history of Rhode Island
as we view two videos concerning Colonial Rhode Island's history and create our own new cast sharing what we learn.
Eighth graders have just aboput finished up with the Civil War. They created memory boxes which were based on fiction or non-fiction books about the War. Within the next week we will be moving on to the topic of Reconstruction.
A note about both classes!!!!!
Students in these two Social Studies classes are required to complete and share independent, extra material related to history. There are numerous options: TV shows, historic sites, famous people, suggested web references in our text, guest speakers, magazines, etc. Each day at the beginning of class we devote time for the students to share. Topics are not restricted to those we are studying, but may be anything of interest. I give the students a sticker to mark the place in their notebook where they can reference the work, and they either write a sentence or two or staple in the pages if it is work from the internet. At the end of the trimester each student will meet individually with me to demonstrate what they have done. This will become the basis for their independent grade each trimester.
Sincerely, Mrs. Phillips
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