Busy, Busy, Busy.....

Please excuse my lack of updating the blog....I have been fighting the sinus infection, bronchitis, turned pneumonia now for three weeks. I am finally beginning to feel better and dig out from all the work that I have not been able to complete!

I am archiving grades today and will get report cards out ASAP!

CONGRATULATIONS to Katie Bloker, Grace Bailey, and Ashton Ames for their presentations at the Jr. Ritchey Science Fair at Weber State. Both Grace and Katie brought home Excellence Awards and Ashton brought home an Honorable Mention! Great work scholars! We are so proud of you!

Also CONGRATULATIONS to our Math Counts Team for earning silver status in the nation for our math work! We will be taking the test to try for Gold status tomorrow! Wish them luck!!!!! :)

We have completed our study of The Hunger Games for Literature Circles and will be working on Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry come the end of next week. This is our last Literature Circles novel that we read together. Scholars will have one final piece to complete this year in literature circles, if time permits.
Scholars will be taking a course in PowerPoint and will be generating a presentation for the class as a last look at the Hunger Games and we will finish that up this coming week.

We will be finishing Animal Farm this coming week also, and then moving into setting the stage for To Kill a Mockingbird. I love the cross over from the jabberjay, mockingjay, and then mockingbird in these novels.....it knits continuity of theme that is just superb!

We are in unit 11 Circles in Math and will continue to move forward while some students take Test B for unit 10 this coming Friday. We are hoping to get back on schedule soon, but due to the lack of some very foundational skills for a good majority of our scholars, I have had to go back and reteach material they should have already mastered. We will get there though! :)

Our Science unit is currently Immunology, and then we will move into physics and a week long review of astronomy for our NWEA. We will be developing our physics projects for Lagoon, the next big event in the suite!

We will be starting the immigration unit in History this week, as well as working on our writing and entering another essay contest.

I will be updating with photos as soon as I get them all downloaded from the camera!

Fourth Quarter:
There are some changes to the way things are run in the suite fourth quarter that you need to be aware of starting today:

Thursday scholars will move to the full size downstairs lockers. They will need to be organized. They will no longer be walked to the bathroom as a group, or have "snack time" in the suite. They will have a three minute break between classes and be expected to go to their locker and use the bathrooms during that time. I will be helping to train them the first week. They are to be silent at all times in the halls and not disturbing other classes. They are expected to be in their seats at the end of the three minutes. I will be using a stopwatch and by the time I hold them accountable they should be familiar with a three minute break.

Planners - It is no longer mandatory to sign your scholar's planner. At this point in the game they know what is expected and should be able to handle it on their own. You may still want to look at their homework list, etc, but I am not requiring it to be signed.

Homework not completed will result in a detention. Detention will result in 5 lost recesses and extensive writing projects over the five days. Scholars are expected to do ALL of their homework, no excuses at this point.

Three detentions results in losing the trip to Lagoon and having to put together a project all day while we are there. I DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND THIS TIME!!!! Please stress the importance of getting homework completed to your scholars!

All papers (essays) are to be typed from now on, proper MLA format. If your scholar forgets that format (which at this point should be impossible) you may find it at the Purdue OWL website. There are no handwritten submissions any longer. If they need to use a computer they may use the lab any day of the week until 4 pm.

Thank you for helping your scholars to get ready for Junior High and be a success! :)