Thursday, December 4

Please consider donating a $5 gift card to our class auction. We have auctioned off almost all of them, and the kids love bidding on these!

Projects:
Students will  start working on their final product for our WWI project.  They will choose an alliance, an example of propaganda, one major event, and one example of Militarism, Nationalism, or Imperialism to display.

8th Grade Reading:
Continuing with The Outsiders, and the students are really enjoying the book.  Today, they decided if they identify more with Greasers or Socs.

7th Grade Reading:
Students are working on building reading and writing stamina through CAFE and Daily 5 activities.  Please make sure your child is reading 20 minutes per night at home every night.

Writing:
We are all enjoying our class "Twitter" page that we add to on our Chromebooks (no, it's not online and part of the social media world).  I'm enjoying watching the kids express and reflect as they "Tweet" what's on their mind.

Permission slips for our trip to the movie theater on Dec. 17 were sent home today.  Please sign and return ASAP.

Please remember our Student Council fundraiser.  We are raising money to donate to the Fallon Youth Club.  Anything counts!  

Tuesday, December 2

Please check out the link below to see a video of our Paideia Seminar.  Thank you to Cody Deegan for recording and editing!  This takes so much time and we are very grateful.  The students did a fabulous job, and I am looking forward to doing this again before the end of the school year.

http://youtu.be/tI4olejurw0

In projects, we are working on WW1 and learning about America's involvement.  Next week we will focus on our final project.  We may be in need of some art supplies.  I have a lot of stuff left from the map project and will keep you posted.

8th Grade Reading:
Students are reading The Outsiders.  They are working on pulling details about each character, as well as finding new vocabulary words to use in writing.  We will move into narrative elements of the story later this week.

7th Grade Reading:
Students are working on building reading and writing stamina through Daily 5, and are using their individual CAFE strategy to improve their reading.

Writing:
We will continue to express and reflect through our class "Twitter" page, and will move into one more reflective writing assignment to complete before the holiday break.

**Please consider donating any amount of money to the Student Council fundraising effort.  All monies will go to the Fallon Youth Club.

Tuesday, November 25

Please consider donating money toward the Student Council money drive.  All monies raised will go to the Fallon Youth Club.  

Projects:
Today, students will analyze and interpret World War 1 propaganda from several countries.

8th Grade Reading:
Continue reading The Outsiders  and building stamina with reading and writing through CAFE and Daily 5.

7th Grade Reading:
Today is our Paideia Seminar.  Students have been preparing over the last several days for this round table intellectual dialog.  I'm looking forward to facilitating and hearing the kids' responses.

Writing:
Students are finishing their revisions of their "favorite mistake" paper and moving into final drafts. Final products will be collected Monday, December 1 at the end of the class period.

Have a wonderful, safe, happy Thanksgiving!  I am so grateful for the opportunity to teach your child.

Monday, November 17

Projects:
WW1 begins!  Students will learn causes of the war, the timeline, analyze propaganda, learn various political systems that arose during the war, etc.  This is going to be a great project!

8th Grade Reading
Flocabulary--students watched and discussed the video.  Flocab. homework is due Thursday at the beginning of the class period.
We will begin reading The Outsiders this week.  This book is always meaningful, and students get so much out of it.  I'm really looking forward to it.

7th Grade Reading:
Short quiz on the end of The Outsiders; we will start preparing for our Socratic/Paideia Seminar that we will have next Tuesday.
Students also watched and discussed Flocabulary. Flocab. homework is due Thursday at the beginning of the class period.

Writing:
Students continue to work on their "mistake" expressive/reflective pieces.  I am reminding them daily to work on WORD CHOICE!!!

Friday, November 14

The week flew by!  I can't believe we are in the middle of November.

Projects:
Students presented their Gilded Age/Progressive Era slides to their peers.  They did a nice job and I'm proud of them.  On Monday, we will start our unit on World War 1.

8th Grade Reading:
I met with several groups of students and discussed their reading strategies.  Students also working on personal writing and poetry annotations, which they turned in.  They are really getting good at annotating poetry!

7th Grade Reading:
We finished reading The Outsiders.  I think some students have a new favorite book. We had great discussions.  Next week there will be a final quiz, and then students will prepare for their Paideia Seminar on the book. The seminar will take place the day before Thanksgiving break (Tuesday).

Writing:
Students are writing an expression/reflection piece about their "favorite mistake."  They just got going yesterday, and we should finish next week.

Monday, November 10

Projects:
Students need to practice their part of the presentation tomorrow in order to be prepared on Wednesday.
This was the last day for students to work on their Gilded Age/Progressive Era slide presentation.  They will present to the class on Wednesday during projects.  On Thursday we will begin talking about World War 1.

8th Grade Reading:
Students worked on reading stamina, and we reviewed this week's "Week in Rap" video on Flocabulary.  There is no Flocabulary homework this week.

7th Grade Reading:
We had a fabulous guest speaker today.  Gailmarie Pahmeier, an author and instructor at UNR, read poetry to us and we had the chance to ask questions and comment on her poetry.  It was wonderful, and all the kids did such a nice job for her.

Writing:
We are working on our A-Z encyclopedia entries.  Students are really getting into expressive and reflective writing.  I am enjoying hearing their thoughts.  We will continue this type of writing for a couple of more weeks.

Monday, November 3

Flocabulary homework for 7th and 8th grade reading is due Thursday at the beginning of the class perdiod.

Projects:

Students are putting their presentations on child labor in the Progressive Era together.  Presentations must be finished by the end of the project block on Thursday.

8th grade reading:

As a class, we watched the Flocabulary video for this week.  We talked about the current events, made connections, asked questions, and made comments. Homework is due Thursday

7th Grade Reading:

Flocabulary, same as 8th grade today. Homework is due Thursday.

Writing:

We are using our 6 word memoirs to create "Tweets."  Students will work on 140 character or less tweets to put into our Google document of tweets.  They are really starting to understand the difference between expressive and reflective writing!

**Don't forget Domino's Pizza tonight!