Middle ELA

Today we played a fun game called Quicktionary, which helped us warm-up to learn.  Then we worked on planning our short stories.  For HW this week, read pg. 140-279 and complete the packet.  Students should also write a draft of their story to share with a peer next week. 

This week, we started our final book for the year, Rebound by Kwame Alexander.  It's a mixed genre book with verse novels and graphic novel elements as well.  We worke on new grammar skills in class, specifically focusing on gerunds and active/passive voice.  This week, students will complete another short writing assignment.  We're trying to develop a stamina for academic writing.  Many students are used to this much writing, so it's understandable if your kiddo is struggling with time management of this and it's exactly why we are practicing!  I will always offer grace and accept late assignments! 

Today we finished up our black out poems about Refugee and we extended our poetic thoughts to work on a six-word memoir.  Students will be writing about the main characters quite a bit this week.  They are free to alternate between characters.  However, one assignment asks them to write how the character has changed from the beginning to the end.  They will need to select one character and describe him/her at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. 

Today we completed a few station activities for skills I have noticed need some boosting.  We also played our book game, but we didn't get to play it too long, so I promised everyone we would play it when we returned from break.  For HW this week, students should listen to the Mars Patel podcast.  I am linking directly to the original source here, but you can find a youtube version with no ads.  Students should listen to one episode at a time and then complete their response page in the packet (there are 10 episodes in all).  In other words, do not listen to the entire podcast and then complete your packet because several of the questions will then become irrelevant.  If you have siblings in the elementary class, they have the same assignment and siblings are free to work together if they would like.  

As a reminder, we will not meet next Monday, but I will see you again on 3/18. 

This week, we'll be listening to another podcast, but focusing on a different listening comprehension skill.  On our last podcast, Mars Patel, the story was a narrative arc over the course of the entire series.  This week, we're focusing on what it is called an episodic series.  We're also working on arguments and supporting our claims with evidence.  For that reason, students need to listen to any episode of their choosing of the podcast Smash, Boom, Best.  Students may choose their episode, but they will be listening to and working with that one episode for the entire week.  Smash, Boom, Best is formatted in Rounds, so the students have several activities to do in each "Round" of their packet this week.  By the end of the week, students will work on focusing their own claims and providing evidence to support those claims.   We also will be learning about logical fallacies in arguments.  This week, we'll be focusing on ad hominem, red herring, bandwagon, slippery slope, straw man, and hasty generalization.   

If students have siblings in the middle school class, they also have a Smash Boom Best assignment that follows the same format (but slightly elevated), but they do NOT have to listen to the same episode. 

Today we worked on themes and how we get those themes from the text evidence.  Everyone did a very good job with this working in groups! This is a difficult skill and I'm excited to see how they apply it in their work for this week.   Everyone also will work on writing a final draft of their persuasive paper by completing their revision and editing!  Make sure you practice reading those papers aloud!!

Thanks to all of you for understanding about the printing situation!  Some of you were even able to have them printed and ready for class, so that was AMAZING!  Today we REALLY focused on our mentor sentence.  We learned many new skills to go with those (complements, subordinate clauses, emphatic assertions!).  We also spent the majority of the time working on our persuasive writing for this week.  We have spent the past two weeks writing descriptions of objects, foods, characters, places, etc.  Everyone has done a great job with that, so we'll move into opinion writing.  We brainstormed and completed a graphic organizer about our claim (which was, "I do/do not think math is the best subject") and we also looked at how many sentences we should have in our five paragraph essay.  I also introduced counter-claims, which may or may not be new for some students, but it did seem new for most everyone in opinion writing. 

Today we discussed All of the Above, which we all are enjoying and many of the students said they had to STOP themselves from continuing to read because it was so good (that makes my teacher heart happy).  We also reviewed what bbs, ASBA means and we continued learning about descriptive writing.  We focused on what love looks like, sounds like, smells like, etc.  Then we used those thoughts to create a shape poem. 

For HW this week, please finish up your shape poem and then complete your packet :) 

Today we started reading All of the Above and we focused on characterization and adjectives to describe our characters and citing text evidence to support our claims.  We also watched a video about fractals (see below) and we dug in to the difference between plurals and possessives.  This is a major area where a lot of students struggle, so make sure you are paying attention as you are doing your work this week.  Additionally, we started our study of the 100 most frequently misspelled words.  We will have a quick quiz (5 words) over those next Monday---the trick is you don't know which five words I will give you!

Please follow the reading assignments on your calendar and complete the packet work for this week.  Your vocabulary words are on the calendar as well.  

Today we covered A LOT of material!  Some of it was review and some was brand new information.  This week, we'll be reading The Treasure of Lemon Brown, which you can find by clicking the link.  In one of the writing assignments, students are asked to use "bbs, ASBA."  I did not have a chance to teach that today, so if you are new, you may not know what that is.  That's okay.  If you are new, don't worry about that right now.  If you were with me last semester, you should have no problem doing that! As always, if you have questions, please let me know!

We had an amazing writer's workshop experience today.  Some students shared their stories with us and they were great!  We were able to provide some feedback, but it was largely a great time of laughter and hearing fun stories from the authors in our class.  We have one last Greenglass House packet to complete this week and next week we will complete our Room Escape during class time! 

This week we had two major new skills: direct/indirect objects and positive/negative connotations-Everyone did really well with both skills.  The tricky thing about the positive and negative connotations is that we aren't just looking for an opposite, but think of words as being on a continuum from positive to negative.  It says vocabulary words on the calendar, but your vocabulary skill is connotations, so everything you need is in the packet this week!  Remember to divide your syllable words and use more than just the red and green to color code. 

Today we discussed the scariness of the short stories we read this week.  We also got a preview of Greenglass House, which is the next book we are reading (and starting this week).  We also learned some new vocabulary words and did a critical thinking exercise with those words (which will be continued in the homework-Odd One Out).  There is no mentor sentence this week! Students should still stick to the calendar otherwise!

Podcasts : Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest or Lore

Today we learned about the remaining syllable types and color coded a reference page to help us with decoding and spelling skills as well.  Students then worked in pairs to color code and determine syllable types of Halloween words (where we learned that "igh" is considered a vowel team syllable??).  Please keep this reference page as we continue to work on syllabication throughout the semester.  We also discussed how Mattie has changed from the beginning of the book to the end of the book and our general thoughts about Fever 1793 (overwhelming, they enjoyed it more than Fantastic Failures).  We will start our new book next week, so please have Greenglass House ready to go! 

For HW this week, students have a "packet" of Halloween stories and poems to complete.  They also have a labeling picture and sentence writing activity using bbs, ASBA.  These should all be pretty familiar practices, so it shouldn't take too long to complete.  Speaking of time management, I spoke with the students about how important it is to have multiple exposures to a skill and how saving all their work for one day, limits their exposure to one day instead of stretching it out how the calendar is organized, which provides them with multiple exposures. 

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street video

Today we reviewed open and closed syllables and our new spelling rule (sub/mis) and we spent the majority of our time peer reviewing our papers.  Everyone was able to find a few things to fix on their papers.  We also discussed the difference between revising and editing and how to do both! Next week, we'll have a quick spelling/phonics test and we'll turn in papers.  We'll also work on some spooky short stories and poems and then start our final book of the semester (Greenglass House), so please make sure you have a copy of that book ASAP! 

Today we were able to accomplish much!  We started by reviewing mentor sentences and sharing some of the sentences we wrote.  Students did a great job with these and I am confident they will do well with the second mentor sentence I sent home today.  We'll keep working on the parts of speech section each week as a review.  We also played a new passing writing game to learn how to extend sentences to include not only "because," "but," "so," but also "Although," "Since," "Before," "After."  Students will use these at the beginning of the sentence, but use because, but, so in the middle of their sentences.  Finally, we started organizing our new informative writing for this unit.  Everyone picked their topic and got started organizing.  On the new October calendar for this week is to research their topic and add information.  In addition, when they return on 10/16, they should have a rough draft in class so we can revise and edit it. 

As students left today, I gave them a new calendar, a vocabulary game, and a prepositional phrase worksheet packet.  These should be self-explanatory, but if you have questions, please reach out (even over the break!)

Don't forget--Next week is Fall Break, so I won't see you on Monday again until 10/16! 

Today we did a preview for Fever 1793 and started our graphic organizer for this writing unit.  We will be using the Yellow Fever context to write an informative paper.  Students need to fill in the ABC organizer with information as they read.  The information on pages 244- 251 will be especially helpful, but they will need to look at outside sources as well. 

We also worked on a picture prompt this week.  This is the same concept we had on the first week.  Students were able to work through this much more quickly since they were familiar with it.  They should come to class with their completed parts of speech organizer next week.  We will use this for a game.  

We also learned something new this week called Mentor Sentences.  Mentor sentences are typically a great tool for improving both grammar and writing and the same time.  Bonus: if you have a kiddo in the elementary or HS class, I also utilize mentor sentences there as well.  Because this is a new concept, it may be a struggle for students, which is okay.  I just ask that they try their best and bring their best to class next week and we'll keep working on it together!

We also started the class with a short phonics/spelling quiz where students had to apply the skills they have been working on.  I will do these at least every other week, just to give me a grasp on what skills students are struggling with spelling wise.  This week's words are words that use RE  in the beginning and students should use the same worksheet as last week.  I did not have these in class on Monday, but they are HERE. 

Finally, the creative writing prompt was left off the calendar, but it was discussed with students yesterday.  They are to prentend they are Mattie and keep a journal from her perspective.  They should write a short paragraph everyday and it should be relevant information to the story.  

Today we zoomed through SO many things!  We learned about the etymology of a word, which is the word origins and language from which the word is derived.  We started the vocabulary activity, but students need to finish this at home this week.  In addition, we learned about Hooks and Closings of our paper and are reading to start drafting those.  We reviewed appositives and our "pre" words.  Spelling will be slightly different this week because we are working on dividing multi syllable words into open and closed syllables.  For HW this week students need to:

Spelling: Find 20 multi-syllable words, sort them, divide them, and determine if the syllable is open or closed.
Vocabulary: Complete the etyomology organizers (we have two words started)
Reading: Finish reading FF and answer 15 questions in the back of the book (these are divided out 5 per day on the calendar)
Writing: Write personal narrative.  It will be 16-20 sentences long.  I showed students how to count this in class.  If handwriting, please skip lines between.  If typing, please double space.  

Today we discussed Fantastic Failures and how, sometimes, we fail at every day tasks and that's ok.  Several students were not able to get all the work completed for one reason or another, so we used that as a teachable moment and discussed how we can, like the people we are reading about, try again and do better next week.  We also discussed adding in because, but, so (bbs) sentences and how that can really change our writing. 

I do need to make an amendment to the work calendar.  We all started our personal narratives this week, but we didn't quite get as far as I would have liked.  On Thursday and Friday of this week (14th & 15th) it says to draft your personal narratives.  I had the students mark that out because we are not ready for that yet.  We'll move that to next week. 

We also marked out the vocabulary for Tuesday (9/12) because we have already done that activity as well.  The remaining vocabulary assignments are fine and should be completed. 

We also added in spelling this week.  I will not be giving the students a list to memorize because research indicates that is not a productive 

Fantastic Conjunctions

Note: I used the image from the elementary ELA class in this video, so the middle grade class will have a different image and different sentences, BUT the process of adding the conjunctions is EXACTLY the same, so this should be applicable. 

Today was fantastic and I am so excited to work with this group!  Everyone did a great job with our activities and skills in class.  I sent home three important pieces of paper.  The first is the assignment calendar.  I will try to stick as close to this as I possibly can.  If changes should be made, I will update those here.  The assignment calendar should allow you a lot of freedom in your homeschool.  This week, the students have already completed several assignments on the calendar, so they are ahead!  I was very impressed with their creativity in our picture prompt and their flexible thinking with adjectives and verbs!  I'm anticipating a lot of great writing from this group. 

The second and third pieces of paper go together.  One is a picture prompt and the other is the parts of speech organizer.  Students should use these two pieces of writing to create 10 unique sentences on a separate piece of paper.  Speaking of paper, I was not able to share this with the students today, but I would prefer them to use as few pieces of paper as possible, so they are welcome to write on the front and the backs of papers and to put more than one assignment on the paper.  

Finally, students have assigned reading starting this week, so please make sure you have the texts!  Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me (or have the students email me!)  Check out this video for Thursdays assignments as well!