Change is in the Air

        Quarter One book report projects began this week and it’s exciting to see so many fabulous mysteries presented in a fun creative format! I’d forgotten about Challenge Day on Wednesday, so I offered extra credit to anyone who brought their project in yesterday, ready to present; I was delighted that so many students took advantage of the opportunity to earn extra points, even though we only had time for one presentation. (Everyone who brought their project will receive the extra credit points whether or not they had the opportunity to present.) We’ll continue presentations for the entirety of class today, and we’ll wait to work on mugshot sentences again until Thursday. (The paragraph will now be due on Friday.)

We will also have a spelling test this Friday. The list consists of compound words, and words that require a space or a hyphen. Please, please, please make sure that you remember to STUDY FOR THE TEST! It’s one of the more difficult lists of words. Work on spacing (so that spaces between words are clear and that compound words don’t look like they have a space). I suggest breaking the words into three lists to help create a mnemonic device (such as an acronym or a saying) to remember which words fall into each category.

As the quarter comes to an end, I’m already seeing improvement in students taking responsibility for finishing assignments on time. There is also evidence of most everyone taking more pride in their work and rising up to meet expectations. I’m pleased with the growth and the camaraderie in our class, and I’m excited for some of the upcoming projects that we’ll begin soon.

The next group reading will be reading the NexText version of Hamlet—which I taught for many years prior to coming to McCain Middle School—and I’m eager to explore this literature with my kids and get them excited about Shakespeare. (Yes, it IS possible! And don’t worry about the reading being above their level; it’s written in a more modern format and there are plenty of footnotes; I’ll also stop to discuss scenes as we read the script together as a class.)

Assignments are still being recorded (little by little) into FamilyLink, so please don’t panic if your grade isn’t where you want it to be; I can’t post presentation scores until the presentations are given, and I’ll likely spend the weekend grading the cereal box book reports (as that grade will be separate from the presentation assignment).

When it comes to parents, I’d like to thank you for all of the support from home: the kids are truly blossoming and beginning to shine. Of course we have our moments: there are still sporadic brain cramps, problems with procrastination, illegible writing, and failure to follow the instructions, but these issues are actually beginning to improve! I’ve got a wonderful group here and am happy to have each of them in class.

Please remember you can always e-mail me with any comments, questions, or concerns, especially if you don’t wish to have them posted publicly on the blog. And please forgive my lack of blogging lately: Google changed its format and I had to have someone show me how to get back into my account so that I could compose a new post. Change is in the air!

Thanks again for sharing your kids with me; I look forward to our next nine weeks together.

Mrs. Gott