Greetings, Middle School Families!
Tomorrow (Monday, April 8th) is Spring Picture Day. Students may come to school wearing free dress for pictures! All students will be taking these photos, but it is entirely optional to purchase them.
5th & 6th Language Arts
Our Hatchet unit is a little more than halfway through. As usual, students will have reading homework just about every night to prepare for the next day’s novel study lesson. There will be a quiz Wednesday for 6th graders and Friday for 5th graders. This week, students are working on revising the rough draft of their “You Should Try…” opinion writing in Writing Lab, and the revised second draft will be due Monday of next week. The final polished copy will be submitted to Google Classroom on Thursday after a second round of revising next week. After this writing unit, students will be practicing on-demand writing, followed by a research and debate unit at the end of the year.
7th & 8th Language Arts
Students will begin the short House on Mango Street part of the next unit this week! We will complete this short collection of vignettes right before Spring Break. There will only be a total of 4 novel study rotation class periods for this The House on Mango Street. Students will have a comprehension bookmark and response booklet that goes with it. In Writing Lab, the rough draft of the Night essay is due this Monday followed by a revision station workshop. Due to the Engineering Fair, I have extended the due date of the final draft to next Thursday, April 18. That means students will have one extra day in Writing Lab to revise, ask questions, and get help.
8th Grade Portfolios & May Crowning
We’re getting closer to 8th Grade’s big events! Coming up first is the first (rough) draft of the Portfolio S.L.E. essay. This is due next Monday, April 15. This essay was assigned in late February and students have had several days of class time to get started on this. They also completed the outline for it back in March. On Google Classroom you will also see a document with the instructions and due dates for all components of the Portfolio, which we will go over in detail this Monday. Next up is the May Crowning essay for 8th grade girls. Mrs. Montijo will be doing this with the 8th graders. Mrs. Montijo will also be giving you the information regarding crowns. Please continue to look for and upload pictures of your child for the Portfolio slide show. Also, please check in with your student regarding his/her Portfolio song to make sure he/she has chosen one. For 8th graders, May’s language arts classes will primarily be dedicated to Portfolios.
Looking Ahead:
Monday, April 8: Spring Pictures – Free dress for students
Wednesday, April 10: Early Dismissal
Thursday, April 11: Engineering Fair
Wednesday, April 17: Progress reports go out
Thursday, April 18: Team Day
Friday, April 19th: Progress reports due back to homeroom teachers – signed
Friday, April 19: 9:30am Washing of the Feet; Early Dismissal, NO EXTENSION
April 20 – April 28 EASTER BREAK, NO SCHOOL
Week of April 28: STAR Reading
Friday, May 3: Early Dismissal
Saturday, May 4: 2nd Grade First Holy Communion (10am)
Week of May 6: STAR Math
Week of May 6: Teacher Appreciation Week
Thursday, May 9: May Crowning in the evening (8th graders arrive early in formalwear)
Saturday, May 11: Gala