Election Day is Approaching...

First off - thank you to everyone who attended our Conferences last week!!  It is so nice to meet the parents who have raised the students that we have in our classes.  We appreciate your time and effort that you have and continue to put in.

For the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at the election process.  The students have been able to share their opinions, study an electoral map, and work with their classmates to research important issues in our society today.  We are going to continue this unit until we hold a mock election on November 5th.  

This week, the students will be on computers researching the 2 candidates - Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  They will be assigned to work on a campaign - doing research, creating campaign propaganda, and trying to convince their classmates to convert to their side.  Our mission is to get these campaigns ready - so if the voting age was changed to 12 - the students and candidates would be ready.   Most of the work should be done in class, but students may want to do things at home too: research on the computer, read newspaper articles, watch the debate, etc.  

The students will be completing a number of charts and worksheets for this unit.  They will be expected to hand them in before they vote on November 5.

And so it begins...

We have gotten reacquainted with each other and have now moved into the 7th grade U.S. curriculum. Our first unit of study focuses on the Reconstruction of the South following the Civil War.  We have looked at the 3 different plans set up to help re-unite the North and the South and spent some time today looking at the Jim Crow Laws set up in the Southern states.  The students have been doing a great job discussing things with their classmates and have been working hard in class.  Their vocabulary crosswords will be corrected on Thursday -

Back to School We Go!

Wow!  What a crazy but fun first 2 weeks of school!!  These 7th graders are a fun and energetic group. We have been spending time getting reacquainted with each other - some of us are even learning new things about each other.  I am hoping that this knowledge will allow us to work well together and help the students feel comfortable with myself and each other this year.

The students attended the Courage Retreat this past Wednesday and seemed to have a great time!  We will be continuing working on the skills that were presented at the retreat throughout the year in Social Studies.

I will be doing the 1st "Notebook Check" this Friday (Sept. 14th).  I have asked the students to have the following items completed in their notebooks:
flip-chart (pg.1), all about me (pg.2), fingerprint (pg.3), 20 day drawing - something orange (pg.4), people B-I-N-G-O (pg.5)

**I also had the students fill out a questionnaire that I will be keeping for future reference - this will be included in their point total for the 1st notebook check.

I apologize for not having anything in the grade book - we have been experiencing some technical difficulties - these should be cleared up by the end of this week.  I will have grades for the notebook check in the grade book by Monday afternoon (Sept. 17th)

Welcome Back!

We are getting ready for a new and exciting school year!  Middle School Open House is Thursday August 30th / 5-8 pm - Hope to see you there!