Friday FUNday started TODAY! FRIDAY FUNDAY provides students the opportunty to get together and mingle with other students that share the same interests. In many cases, students are there to learn something new. In other cases, students are there to share what they know with others. Students utilized Google Meet Breakout Rooms to share ideas, talk together, and explore similar interests. It's all about making connections and having fun!
This week in language arts we have done a general overview of Note and Notice Signposts: Contracts & Contradictions, Words of the Wiser, AHA! Moments, Again & Again, Memory Moments and Tough Questions. Identifying and annotating these written signs in text promotes deeper thinking and improves our understanding. We have spent time this week learning more about the Again & Again signpost.
Students continue to have writing homework Monday through Thursday. The each have selected a writing goal. For some it is to write for an amount of time with a ten minute minimum. Others have selected a goal to write a specific number of pages.
We are getting deeper into the story of Ulysses and his crew while reading The Adventures of Ulysses. There have been many vocabulary building activities along the way--be sure to ask your student about some new words they've learned through this reading! We've also discussed some important literary terms like climax, conflict and foreshadowing. Additionally, we've worked on summarizing chapters using only a few sentences to highlight the main points. Aside from reading, we have discussed narrative writing components and started to build the beginning stages of it.
During the week of 11/2, we will take our first quiz over the content and literary terms learned in The Adventures of Ulysses and continue building our narrative writing piece.
Students spent this week building igloos! The goal was that students would apply their understanding of heat transfer - specifically conduction, convection, radiation, conductors & insulators - to their design. Their goal was to increase the "life" of their ice cube as compared to the control ice cube on the counter. It was a nice opportunity this week for students to spend some class time away from their screens!
We have been diving in deeper into the hydrosphere! We will be learning about the properties of water and the hydrologic cycle next week. This week, we explored the water cycle through a Gizmo where students got a sample of all the ways water moves through the earth's spheres. For Halloween, we did a spooky lesson on Cryptozoology. Even though this pseudoscience focuses on things like the Loch Ness Monster, it shows us that science is always learning new things and making discoveries. Did you know the platypus used to be considered a mythical creature? Or that scientists believe a parasite is causing people to see the monster Chupacabra? There's plenty of real science involved in this pseudoscience!
We are assessing our knowledge of the Greek city states on Friday and next week we will try to determine if Alexander is as great as everyone says.
After wrapping up Greece geography and government this week with an assessment, we spent some time considering media bias in the news. Next week, students will choose their own news sources for the Weekly Current Event. We will be digging into the enduring impacts of Greece and preparing for a fun project the following week where students will be asked to create modern pieces that are inspired by ancient greek architecture, drama, and art!
We just finished Equations and Inequalities and are beginning Tables and Graphs and Coordinate Grids. We will test for Equations and Inequalities after Election Day.
Click the link to view my daily agenda. Mrs. Yang - Math 7 Daily Agenda
To see what's happening in Algebra, click HERE to view the daily agenda.
This week we spent extra time discussing color and how it can effectively be used in art to create a dramatic piece of work. Students are creating fall leaf inspired pieces with this new color knowledge they have learned!
This week in art we have looked at a variety of artists that focus on nature in their work. The students are focusing on using close observation when they are drawing their choice ideas from nature. Ask your student to share their drawings with you and talk about their use of value and texture in the sketches.
This week we listened to music from the civil rights era and talked about how music can be used as a way to inspire. Students worked on a project where they researched music that promotes issues and causes that are important to them. Next week, we will use the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay as our inspiration and create recycled instruments. We will also do some drumming using drums found around our house.
This week our topic was "Music That Inspires." We worked on performing arrangements of the Civil Rights song Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round and students worked on a project that centered on music promoting awareness and advocacy of an issue that is important to them. Next week we will be talking about the recycled orchestra of Paraguay and students will create their own instruments.
The high school band and orchestra teachers have worked together to put together a site with resources for middle school RLA students. The purpose of this site is to provide a place where students can go to choose materials and ideas for continuing their instrumental practice. This is not a graded curriculum, but rather an extension opportunity that students in RLA may take advantage of. It is optional and designed to help students continue to learn and grow in band and orchestra. Students must be logged in to their DCS account to access this resources in this site.
Strings: https://sites.google.com/dublinschools.net/dcsorchestra
Band: https://sites.google.com/dublinschools.net/bandonline
This week we spent some time touring our Virtual Rooms that students created on Google Slides. Next week, we will begin our Geopolitics unit using FANSchool. Students will "draft" countries and earn points by learning about current events!