Much has taken place in ELA and religion this April and May!

ELA

Time Person of the Year: Students partnered up for this project and took on the role of being a Time magazine feature reporter. They worked to learn why their partner is named Time Person of the Year, but the year is 2050. Each student prepared for the interviews by creatively deciding how they will use their gifts to do something wonderful to change the world. Other information included family life and education (both current and in the future) and an obstacle they overcome which leads to the desire to help others. 

Readers Workshop: We completed our final lit circle and the kids voted on which books should move ahead in our Tournament of Books. Everyone is reading their last assigned book of this year for pleasure, chosen from our Tournament of Books, and in a few weeks we will vote again and determine the winning novel!

Research Essay: For this research project, students chose two topics that are concerning to teenagers (i.e. social media addiction/artificial intelligence, sports burnout/overuse from specialization, anxiety/depression, etc.). In addition to learning what each is and why it presents challenges to teens, they researched solutions. The research process included organizing everything! All documents went into a labeled folder, and all research went on separate docs correlative to the topic. From the research, the kids copy and pasted their facts into a logical outline. They used this outline to write the paper, changing words again so the finished essay is a few generations away from the original source. My hope is that the kids will take these organizing strategies into future research projects. 

Additional lessons with both Time and the research essay included using sentence variety and vocabulary from the list of top 75 seventh grade words.  

Grammar and Vocabulary: 

We completed studying subject-verb agreement and next week will begin good vs. well usage. Both of these skills help make writing stronger, and I also timed the units towards the end of the school year so the material is fresh for any students taking a high school entrance exam. For vocabulary we moved on to the top 75 words from 7th grade, which was the basis of our vocabulary final. This year I gave the vocab final early, taking some of the pressure off exam week.

Religion

Congratulations and blessings to all the students who made their Confirmation! It was an honor to help prepare the students for this very special sacrament.

In April we studied Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7. Students collaboratively worked in groups to teach one of the lessons. They explained the teaching in their own words and then adapted it to teens today by writing and performing a skit! They had to memorize lines and use props to show a modern day scenario incorporating the Gospel teaching. We even had an audience: our third grade buddies one day and fifth grade another. The skits were fun and fabulous!

Our current unit: Short stories and literary analysis in ELA and miracles in religion! 

A few scenes from our Philly field trip and our religion class skits!