Yup, I'm gob-smacked!

I am totally gob-smacked by the amount of traffic that the blog has received! That said, I’d like to say that we finished the front of our Mugshot sheet today and the paragraph is due tomorrow when students arrive to class. I noticed that many students didn’t have their paragraph done, so please remind them to finish it tonight as homework. We reviewed the fact that even though there are “hints” in sentences throughout the paragraph, they aren’t to delete the hints or answer the questions, they’re simply supposed to fix the errors. I also demonstrated left-margin alignment and how to indent a paragraph to remind them that the left-hand side of their handwritten paragraph should not be choppy with jagged edges, only the first line should be indented and the rest should be nice and neat against the left-hand side of the page.

We spent today going over the Quarter One Independent Reading Project. (They must choose a MYSTERY novel to read AND it must be approved by me; it shouldn’t be a book they’ve already devoured. Novels may be checked out from the school or public library, purchased, or they may even be enjoyed on an e-reader. The origin and format of the book is inconsequential, but the content and genre matter to me, so please reiterate the necessity of having pre-approval before diving into this project.) The project’s details are on yesterday’s post and each student was given a hard copy of the assignment today. (The end of the quarter is going to arrive sooner than we think, so make certain that a book is selected, approved, and read right away! We’ll go over terminology and elements of literature, so don’t panic if the terms in the first paragraph of the instructions aren’t yet known. They will be taught and learned in class, then comprehension will be assessed via the project.) The details are on a pink sheet of paper and I don’t see any littering the floor, so it appears that all of my kids made it out of the classroom with their detailed instructions. Yay!

As a reminder, there is a spelling test this Friday, September 13. The students were given spelling lists on Monday and need to know the 20 “basic” words; one or more of the review or challenge words will be asked as extra credit.

Speaking of extra credit, congratulations to Paige for knowing that ALLITERATION is the correct terminology for the figurative language that I used when I spoke about a project on a pink piece of paper. I offered five bonus points to the first person who could correctly identify what form of figurative language I used. Alliteration isn’t something we’ve covered yet this year, but Paige said she studied it in both fourth and fifth grade. (Kudos to her former teachers—and also to Paige for remembering the information!) I use a lot of figurative language AND it’s something that we discuss during teachable moments (like today), so everyone will be well-versed when it comes to literary devices by the end of the year.

I noticed many of my boys sporting football jerseys and the girls were dressed to the nines for their volleyball games tonight, so I didn’t assign any reading from Tuck Everlasting for tonight, even though we didn’t get to read in class today. (Yes, it took the entire period to review and discuss the final three sentences of the Mugshot and to explain and answer questions regarding the reading project.) Regardless, the Mugshot paragraphs are due tomorrow and we do have a spelling test Friday.

Because tomorrow is September 11, we’ll likely have a brief writing assignment and discussion about the terrorist attack; it’s interesting to see how much OR how little our tweens and teens know about what happened that day and how it has impacted our nation. I believe that it will also help us to explore our overall question: What does it mean to be human?

Now have fun finding a wonderful mystery to read! You can access our library online at library.payetteschools.org and search the catalog to see what resources are available. (Go to McCain Middle School and then on the tab, open the catalog and begin your search.) I look forward to the projects; we have a lot of creative minds in here!