Miss Johnson's Room

With the end of the first quarter, we have finished our weekly spelling units. Instead, we will be moving on to weekly grammar. Students will receive their grammar assignment on Tuesday and the workbook will be due Thursday. The week of Thanksgiving, students will receive a spelling word booklet for the Spelling Bee, which will take place on February 13th. There will be 5-6 ungraded spelling tests that students will help identify which students will advance to the spelling bee.

Some of my students may have taken home book order forms. The deadline for ordering this month will be Friday, January 20th. If you would prefer, you could also order online. My classroom code to order online is HZYZ7. Thanks!

Just wanted to throw out a reminder that my English Language Arts classes are required to complete one book report each quarter. There are 20 different options to choose from for the book report. They can be found on my school webpage and on this blog. Click the "waffle" to expand the menu and choose Book Reports. The book that the student reads must be at least 80 pages in length. The majority of the book reports are at least one page in length. When handwritten, the reports should be about 1 and 1/4 pages long (unless the student has really small, compact handwriting.) When typed, the book report should be 1 page long, double spaced, size 12 Times New Roman or size 11 Calibri font. The book report must give evidence that the student read the book. Each option can only be completed once each semester. Students may complete up to five additional book reports for extra credit. 20 Ways to Look at a Book

Just a reminder: The only options students are unable to complete with a novel we've read in class are: the timeline, the test, the glossary, and the email a friend. These four options are things we complete together during class. Students  CAN  compare and contrast the book and the movie. They need to make sure they still have a page and they are writing in complete sentences. All book reports need to be one page in length unless otherwise specified. (The poem, for instance, does not need be a full page; neither does the news report.)

The Giver unit is wrapping up now and the seventh graders should be preparing for the test on the whole book. The test will take place on either November 13, 14, or 17 , depending on which class they are in and how well they grasp the material during review. In my experience as a teacher, the biggest problem area when it comes to test-taking is in vocabulary. They have been given a list of 30 vocabulary terms (narrowed down from 80) and also the papers with ready-made flashcards on it. If they find flashcards helpful as a studying tool, they should cut across the solid line and then fold the papers in half to have the terms and definitions as flashcards. The terms are on the website Quizlet.com. If you search for MissJohnson11 , you will find any lists I have made for academic purposes. Here is the direct link for The Giver : http://quizlet.com/57023059/the-giver-flash-cards/ Ready for my rant about how awesome Quizlet is? Here we go... Quizlet is super cool for various reason...