Hello everyone!
Well, we are winding down with third quarter already! We only have tomorrow and Monday before the Chicago trip!
In 7th grade we are up to Chapter 23 (out of 30) in our historic fiction novel, The Truth About Sparrows, by Marian Hale. Parents/guardians, if you haven't read it, I really encourage you to-- it'd be a pretty quick read because it's not very dense, and it's a nice story. Some days the kids get to read independently (especially after finishing map quizzes), while other days we read aloud as a whole class, follow along with the audiobook, or read in small groups or pairs. On days when we have many other activities to try to get through I have us read all together (or with the audiobook), because otherwise everyone finishes at such different paces and that makes it difficult to move on together as a class to our next activity... tomorrow we'll be listening to Ch. 23 and "drawing what we hear". Not only does this give us a welcome change of pace to our usual near-daily reading, but it also gives more visual students a chance to show-what-they-know in a different way; this is especially nice for kids who doesn't enjoy the writing process.
Also in 7th grade Social Studies this week, we read aloud another Readers' Theater piece entitled, Child's Work, which gave us some information about child labor in the U.S.; after reading the script aloud together (with students reading the different characters' parts), each student had the choice of presenting the events and information from the script using Legos, Play-doh, storyboard drawings, or in skit form.
Next Monday (3/7) is the map quiz over countries in central and southern Africa, but the rest of the week I will be with many of the students in Chicago. The following week, however, we will be studying the Harlem Renaissance and the Dust Bowl. I think that we will have to push the Great Depression and New Deal off into Q4, but that's not a problem because the only other Core Knowledge unit we have left to cover is WW2, and we certainly don't need all 9 weeks of the quarter to cover it adequately (although we could certainly go on and on about it!).
In 8th grade Social Studies this week, 3rd Period finished watching The Singing Revolution, a documentary about the peaceful protests of the Estonian independence movement (against the Soviet Union). 4th Period watched a short documentary on the life of Vladimir Lenin; next week, 3rd Period will watch the Lenin doc. After the Chicago trip, we will learn more about Stalin's rule, as well as Chairman Mao and the Communist Revolution in China. After Spring Break we will learn about the U.S. in the 1950s, including McCarthyism, and we will read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I had hoped that we would read that novel this quarter, but I think it would be better to read the whole thing straight through (it's not very long) rather than begin it and then leave it over the three week break. Students are working on completing posters or mobiles of the key figures of the Communist Revolution, including Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles, Tsar Nicholas II, Aleksandr Kerensky, Lenin, and Stalin.
8th graders were pretested over either major world rivers or states and capitals in the Midwestern United States. Quiz is next Monday, 3/7.
Both grade levels have been working on their "This I Believe" assignment. We have been sharing them with each other, finding commonalities, and choosing a Top 10 list of the 30. We will continue to work with these beliefs throughout this quarter, and it will be expanded into a project due at the beginning of next quarter... details forthcoming.
On the Legislative Draft front, students can certainly be working on this outside of school; they could be looking up proposed and passed legislation relating to the environment in their three states' state legislatures; students should print out these bills and laws and keep them in their Legislative Draft manila folder, which I gave to each student in class a few months ago. My main goal for this quarter was for students to locate these documents; next quarter we will work on analyzing and writing about them.
If you have any questions, concerns, or general feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me here at school.
And please remember that I continue to post homework assignments and due dates on my class Twitter account: MsHoodsHoodlums@twitter.com
Thanks!
Leah Hood
