News from 7-O

English

In Mrs. McGurk’s 7^th grade English class, students have been learning about how words are formed by studying prefixes, roots, and suffixes.  We played Root Simon Says to help us remember the roots.

This week, students will be posting on the class blog about their books.  They get to read their classmates’ posts and comment on them with their thoughts and questions.  It’s a great way for us all to learn about great books that are out there just waiting to be read!  Feel free to check it out at http://mcgurkbooks.blogspot.com!

Next, we will be reading some great short stories as we learn about the literary elements, such as characterization, setting, and plot.

 Academic Literacy

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

Math

In PreAlgebra we have been working on equations and expressions.  We are combining like terms to solve some multi-step equations and simplify expressions.  Ask your student to explain to you why we watched Dr. Seuss’, The Sneetches in Math class!     

                                  

 Mr. Conrad – 7^th Grade Team O Social Studies

Mr. Conrad’s 7O Social Studies classes have been utilizing technology in the classroom.  Students were placed into groups of 3-4 in order to research European explorers.  Students then collaboratively created Powerpoint presentations using Google Drive before presenting them to the class.  We had some fun researching history to find out who really discovered North America first.

Health

Health classes have started a new unit about how to handle first aid emergencies.  Over the next couple of weeks, students will know how to recognize an emergency situation and how to respond.  We will be practicing how to carry injured victims as well as how to control severe bleeding.

Science

The students are learning about how matter can be classified as a solid, liquid, or gas.  The have had an opportunity to see the change in matter at these different websites.

www.harcourtschool.com/activity/states_of_matter/index.html

www.harcourtschool.com/activity/hotplate/index.html

Please take sometime to view these websites with your child, and have them explain what is going on.