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AUGUST
Welcome to the 2025-2026 school year! I am super excited to be teaching 6th-8th grade math and ELA this year.
In English Language Arts, students will engage with thought-provoking texts, strengthen their writing, and build skills in communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. There will be plenty of meaningful discussions and opportunities to connect reading and writing to real-world ideas.
In Math, students will explore big concepts through problem-solving, hands-on learning, and mathematical reasoning. They'll be encouraged to think deeply, ask questions, and work together to find solutions in ways that make sense to them.
MAP testing will begin during the second week of school. These assessments help us better understand each student’s starting point and how we can best support their growth throughout the year.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Here's to another amazing year as a Mountaineer!
SEPTEMBER
In ELA, our 6th graders are growing as readers! Recently, students have been practicing strategies to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary, using context clues and resources to build their understanding. They’ve also been developing their skills in analyzing characters point of view toward other characters. Now, as we continue our novel study of The Lightning Thief, students are deepening their discussions on point of view and beginning to explore the concept of theme. In math, they are moving from working with area to exploring surface area and volume. They will learn how to connect their understanding of flat, two-dimensional shapes to three-dimensional figures. It’s been a great start to the school year!
In ELA, 7th graders have been exploring new strategies to understand unfamiliar words and thinking about how setting shapes characters and plot. Now, they are transitioning into deeper discussions about themes and practicing how to write clear, focused summaries as they read A Long Walk to Water. In math, 7th graders have been working with scale drawings to visualize and solve problems. Next, they’ll dive into proportional relationships, learning how to compare quantities and solve real-world problems.
Our 8th graders have been reading The Summer of Mariposas in ELA, building on their skills with vocabulary and figurative language. They are now moving into deeper analysis, examining different aspects of the characters and how their choices and experiences shape the story. This helps students think critically and connect more meaningfully with the text. In math, they have been exploring rigid transformations and congruence, learning how shapes move and stay the same. They are now working with angle relationships, building a strong foundation for reasoning about geometry. Soon, they will transition to dilations, discovering how shapes can change size while keeping their proportions.
OCTOBER
6th Grade Math: Our 6th graders are diving deep into the world of ratios and unit rates this month! Students are discovering how these mathematical concepts appear everywhere in their daily lives, from comparing prices at the grocery store to calculating speeds.
6th Grade ELA: Students will be writing compare and contrast essays that examine how scenes from Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief translate from the novel to the movie. This project allows students to explore how different mediums tell stories, analyzing elements like character development, setting, and plot.
7th Grade Math: Our 7th grade mathematicians are completing their exploration of proportional relationships and will be transitioning to measuring circles. Students have been identifying and working with proportional relationships in tables, graphs, and equations. Next, they'll discover the fascinating world of circumference, area, and the mysterious number π.
7th Grade ELA: Students are developing listening and analysis skills by comparing how audiobook narrators use voice techniques to convey emotions with how author Linda Sue Park uses techniques in A Long Walk to Water. This multimedia approach deepens their understanding of how stories can be told through different formats. Following this analysis, students will begin working on their narrative writing skills, crafting stories about lost children of Sudan that demonstrate both historical understanding and creative storytelling abilities.
8th Grade Math: Students are mastering one of algebra's most fundamental concepts: linear relationships. Through graphing, equation writing, and real-world applications, students are discovering how linear functions model many situations around them, like calculating cell phone plans.
8th Grade ELA: In an exciting fusion of literature and creative writing, 8th graders are writing original narrative scenes inspired by Guadalupe García McCall's Summer of Mariposas. Students are creating new adventures for the Garza sisters, incorporating authentic Latin American folklore monsters into their stories. This project challenges students to maintain character consistency, develop compelling plots, and integrate cultural elements while showcasing their understanding of narrative structure and creative voice.
DECEMBER
6th Grade
In ELA, students just finished writing their informative compare and contrast essays and are now studying O. Henry’s classic short story The Gift of the Magi, focusing on theme, character motivation, and irony. After break, they will dive into a new novel study. Students will get to vote on their next book, choosing between The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Two Roads, and Hidden Figures. In math, students are currently working with rates and measurement conversions, applying their skills to real-world situations. Soon, they will begin exploring percentages as they continue building their understanding of ratios and proportional relationships.
7th Grade
In ELA, students just finished writing narratives about a lost child from Sudan, inspired by their study of A Long Walk to Water. Their target audience was 3rd graders, so students focused on clear, engaging, and age-appropriate storytelling. After the upcoming break, they will begin a new novel study on Patient Zero, diving into themes of science, history, and epidemiology. In math, students are currently working with percent increases and decreases, applying these skills to real-world problems and strengthening their understanding of proportional reasoning.
8th Grade
Our 8th graders have been busy wrapping up their novel study on The Summer of Mariposas, where they finished the unit by creating their own additional scenes to extend the story. In math, students are working with linear relationships, including solving equations, analyzing graphs, and determining how many solutions an equation has. They are building a strong foundation in algebraic thinking as they continue to explore how equations and relationships represent real-world situations.
JANUARY
6th Grade
In ELA, students are exploring Two Roads by Joseph Bruchac, where they've been analyzing figurative language, connotations, and character perspectives to understand how authors craft meaningful stories. Moving forward, we'll continue our work with perspective while introducing text structure analysis to help students recognize how authors organize information. In Math, students have completed their unit on unit rates and percentages and are now tackling the division of fractions!
7th Grade
Students are reading Patient Zero by Marilee Peters and just finished analyzing text structure. They'll now examine how characters and events interact within the text while discussing habits of character that strengthen critical thinking. In Math, students wrapped up their unit on proportional relationships and percentages, including real-world applications like tax, commission, discounts, and percent error. They're now beginning their exploration of negative numbers and operations, which will expand their understanding of the number system.
8th Grade
In English, students are reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, where they've been delineating arguments and analyzing the author's purpose in this thought-provoking nonfiction text. Coming up, they'll analyze how information serves different purposes, evaluate how the same topic is presented across different mediums, and examine conflicting information critically. In Math, students are working with linear relationships and have begun exploring systems of equations, powerful tools for solving complex real-world problems involving multiple variables and constraints.
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