News from 7-N

Mrs. Mahan—Academic Literacy

In Academic Literacy, we are just finishing a unit on Author’s Purpose and Viewpoint. Now, we will be beginning lessons on fix-it-up strategies for when we cannot understand difficult texts. One thing we will discuss is how we should have a thing called “inner voice” that helps us comment, reflect, questions, and overall understand the text. This can be compared to football commentators, who give the play-by-play, but who also give us background on the players and comment on the game.

http://whilewestillhavetime.blogspot.com/2010/11/hyping-apocalypse.html

Miss Taylor - Science

Since our return from the holiday break, we have moved from chemistry to physics.  Students are currently studying motion and forces and will shortly get into Newton’s Laws of Motion.  Physics is very math based, so it has been a big adjustment for some students.  Everyone seems to be enjoying the new songs though - including the “speed is distance over time song”!!!

Mr. Josuweit - Math

We are in the middle of learning how to solve equations which is one of the most important concepts of the school year. The students will be learning how to solve and check one-step and two-step equations and even write equations from word problems. The students will also be taking the second round of the CDT’s which will hopefully show some growth since the beginning of the school year.

Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Dansberry-English

I am so excited that have finally reached the reading units for the year! Students have just read “A Christmas Carol” and are working on finishing some other short stories from our textbooks. We are reviewing the literary elements they learned in elementary school and analyzing their impact on each story. CDT testing will continue in February and will give me a good understanding of students’ strengths and weaknesses. We are also hoping to improve our paragraph writing through continual practice!

Mr. Dansberry - Math

Happy New Year!  At this time, both levels are done with instruction and testing of one- and two-step equations.  We’ve already started to discuss ratios, rates, and proportions which will require the students to use their prior knowledge of long division, fractions, and solving equations.  Once students are comfortable with solving proportions, we will use them to discuss distances on maps, finding the missing sides of similar figures, and finding the heights of various large objects using indirect measurement.  Please remind your child to complete Study Island by the end of each month!

Mr. Whiteford - Social Studies

As we wrap up the second marking period, we are also wrapping up our discussion of explorers in Social Studies.  Students worked in groups to learn about a famous European explorer and teach the rest of the class about him.  Some student groups did this with a Google presentation, while others experimented by creating a website using Google Sites.  The students then took a quiz on the explorers, which was made up of questions created by the students.  I’m pleased to announce that the students did fantastic on the quiz, which makes me wonder why they need me since they can teach and quiz each other!  

Next up for Social Studies are a couple of lessons about Native Americans, then we will beginning our study of the American colonies.  We will talk about Jamestown, Plymouth and each of the 13 American colonies before finishing the year with a unit about Pennsylvania.