Students were busy the first full week of school learning procedures, setting behavior norms, completing their first writing assignment, and analyzing genre identification stations. We used a jigsaw puzzle activity to discuss the importance of teamwork and how we want collaboration to look in our classroom. 6th graders learned all about policies and procedures and wrote a reflection assignment on their first few days of middle school as well as an introduction letter to me. 7th graders also analyzed genre identification stations as a review of all the reading genres.
The last couple of weeks, 6th graders have been reviewing figurative language. They have identified types of figurative language, categorized types of figurative language, and answered questions and analyzed figurative language in stations. Students also went to the library for the first time.
Weeks 10-12: 6th Grade students are learning/reviewing basic grammar structure including parts of speech, helping verbs, and prepositions. As they memorize basic information, we will start applying it more and more in class. It's important for students to understand the parts of language and how they work together before they can master language. Students are learning the question and answer flow to classify sentences and are coming up in front of the room to demonstrate how to classify sentences. The girls are picking the concept up quickly, and I'm very proud of them! We did a fun activity for Halloween where they got to practice their use of adjectives and adverbs--they were realtors who had to "sell" a haunted house. :)
7th Grade students kicked off the 2nd 9 weeks by reading an informational article about the witches of Salem, an informational article about "The Red Scare", and the play "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." We continue to make connections within these texts. Soon, we will read "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Students complete a variety of activities daily including journal prompts, small group and whole group discussions, and individual tasks.