The week of January 31st

Monday- Read out Loud, poetry quiz, and work time on their Poetry Anthology.

Tuesday- Poetry Coffeehouse! Today we celebrate poetry by handing in our Poetry Anthologies, reciting 20 lines of our own poetry, and sipping hot chocolate. :)

Wednesday- We will do Read Out Loud, Caught Ya, and we'll take a trip to the library. We will do a PowerPoint on verbs and we'll also do a verb exercise.

Thursday and Friday- A Team will be speaking in English.

January 24-28

Monday- We did Read Out Loud and Caught Ya. The students also chose the 20 lines of their own poetry that they'd like to recite next Tuesday for our coffeehouse. We learned about personification and wrote a 12 line poem using personification.

Tuesday- They went over the noun quiz (they didn't have the best results), and they were given a retake ticket on nouns to do in order to retake the quiz Friday.

Wednesday- We did Read Out Loud and Caught Ya, and we work on our memorization. We went over Oxymorons and wrote an 8 line poem using oxymorons.

Thursday- We had a work day in the computer lab and we went over the retake ticket.

Friday- We had the noun retake and had the laptops in the classroom for a work day. Weekly Reading Report #3 was due.

Homework- Any late work!

Poetry Anthology is due Tuesday- you need your 10 poems in final draft form, 2 favorite poems, the favorite poems sheet, and the poetry log.

Memorize your 20 lines for Tuesday

January 3-7

Happy New Year! We're back to school and hard at work! In January we will be doing our poetry unit.

Monday- We will share about our breaks, Read Out Loud, do a Caught 'Ya, and learn how to read a poem out loud. We will also introduce our first poetry assignment which is to memorize and recite one of four poems in front of class (due next Monday). We will begin memorizing the first four lines today.

Tuesday- We will do Read Out Loud, Caught 'Ya, and we'll continue to memorize our poem. We'll go over various poetry terms and listen to our first poem set to music, "The Highwayman".

Wednesday- We will go to the library to get a book for our Weekly Reading Report. It should be a book you have not read before and should be at least 200 pages long. We'll ROL, do a Caught 'Ya, and review nouns (quiz Friday over nouns). We'll also introduce onomatopoeia, find it in "The Highwayman" and write an eight line poem using onomatopoeia.

Thursday- Mrs. Malloch's class will be doing SRI testing and silent reading when the test is finished. Ms. Naber's class will do ROL, Caught 'Ya, and rehearse their poem. There will be a noun quiz, and we'll write an "I Am" poem.

Friday- Ms. Naber's class will be doing SRI testing and silent reading when the test is finished. Mrs. Malloch's class will do ROL, Caught 'Ya, and rehearse their poem. There will be a noun quiz, and we'll write an "I Am" poem.

***Late work slips were handed out this week. Get this work in ASAP!!!!

Homework-

Monday- Rehearse poem

Tuesday- Rehearse poem

Wednesday- Finish onomatopoeia poem, read for Weekly Reading Report

Thursday- Rehearse poem and read

Friday- Rehearse poem (recite on Monday!), and read for Weekly Reading Report

Week of December 6-10, 2010

It's December and only two weeks until Christmas! We have a lot to do and it's not shopping!

Monday: We start with Read Out Loud and Caught 'Ya. Then we continue working on the persuasive essay by writing three practice intros. The choices of intro are an anecdote (small story), an interesting fact or statistic, and a snapshot descriptive paragraph. After the intros are written, choose one and start writing your rough draft.

Tuesday: Today we are planning to enjoy some Silent Sustained Reading time, keeping in mind that a Weekly Reading Report is due this week. Then, you will have time to complete your rough draft for the persuasive essay on whether it is necessary to give Christmas gifts or not.

Wednesday: First we have Read Out Loud and Caught 'Ya. Then we have an explanation of short stories and the seven important terms to learn about them. We use a movie to help us understand each short story part. Next we watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and then filled in the short story chart about it.

Thursday: We start the day with SSR. The Weekly Reading Report is collected today. Then we check to make sure that your persuasive essay rough draft is finished so that tomorrow we can all peer edit another student's paper. After that, we read "Priscilla and the Wimps." We will fill in another short story chart. Then we will start another chart about analyzing characters. We will do one column together about the Grinch and then you will get to fill in three other columns about the main characters in "Priscilla and the Wimps."

Friday: Today we will be having Read Out Loud and Caught 'Ya. Then we will review the final preparations for handing in your persuasive essay on Monday. The Works Cited page will be explained next as well as going over the grade rubric for the essay. Then students will have time to peer edit each other's papers. Then students can edit their own papers.

The Persuasive Essay Final Draft is due on Monday, December 13.

If you ever need or want something to read, check out the HMS Press blog for the latest news at Hamilton Middle School.

For the week of November 29....Remember there is no school Monday or Tuesday! Enjoy your time off!

Wednesday- We will do Read Out Loud and Caught 'Ya. We will also head to the library to get a new book. Students will have to do a weekly reading report with this book. They'll need to read for 15 minutes for four times and record a summary of what they read. We will then explain the persuasive essay. The persuasive essay is whether or not there should be gifts given at Christmas. We'll write a journal in class exploring both sides of the issue.

Thursday- We will silent read for the first 15 minutes of class. Students can fill in a portion of their weekly reading report. We'll have the students pick what side they'd like to persuade from for the Christmas essay, and we'll write thesis statements. We'll also go over paraphrasing and quoting from a source. We'll practice this with articles on reindeer and Santa.

Friday- We will do Read Out Loud and Caught 'Ya. Students will get articles today that they will need to get quotes or paraphrases from to support their view for their persuasive essay. We'll read the articles in class, and we'll highlight potential quotes. Students will also begin planning their essay on a plan sheet.

Homework:

Wednesday- read and fill in Weekly Reading Report (due next Wednesday)

Thursday- read for Weekly Reading Report

Friday- Fill out plan sheet- due Monday, and read for Weekly Reading Report

We're a little behind on the blog updating! We've been reading The Breadwinner as a class, working on complete sentences, and learning new vocabulary words from The Breadwinner. We finished the book today (Tuesday, November 23) and we'll be having a test over the entire book tomorrow, Wednesday. November flew by quickly!

Coming soon.....a persuasive essay on whether or not to give Christmas gifts and short stories.