7th Grade Parents' Window into the Classroom

Hi Folks,

Wow! Your seventh grader is valiantly plowing through the difficult task of reading The Grapes of Wrath that you gave permission to read. There is no doubt that it is difficult reading. I encourage you to discuss the story with your child as they near the end of the exodus of these desperate farmers into what they "thought" was going to be the Promised Land. Our focus is to impress on the students the desperate conditions these people had to endure and how they prevailed in the end.

CSAP's are over (Yeah!), but NWEA's will be starting soon. (Uhg!)

Mr. Kurz has developed a list of research paper topics associated with the era of American history linked to the kids' timeline of study. This will be a more difficult paper to write than any they have done this year, so hopefully I can walk them through the steps of researching the topic, collecting data, recording the sites they've used in their research, organizing and writing the paper. Ask them about their topic!

Hopefully, we will have enough time to read one more novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

We also have to get a Writing Assessment piece completed before the Writing Assessment Scoring Day on April 26. Most of this writing will be done in class.

Your child is sewing! All of the kids have completed the preliminary hand sewing practice and are now becoming familiar with the sewing machine. How fun! We'll start constructing their locker caddies shortly. Ask you child how it's going!

Whew! That's a lot of work yet to do before the end of the year! Encourage your student to stay focused right up to the end. Then... they can get spring fever!

8th Grade - Parents' Window into the Classroom

Hi Folks,

Your 8th grader is thrilled to be reading the second novel by Mark Twain. Building on the humor of Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the class is experiencing the adventures of Tom's delinquent best friend, Huckleberry Finn. These adventures include Huck's expereinces with Jim the runaway slave as they try to escape Huck's abusive father and smothering life in the home of the Widow Douglas and Jim's fear of being sold downriver away from his family. The focus is on the evolving relationship between Huck and Jim and how Twain uses this venue to voice his personal oppostion to slavery.

The reading is difficult because of the use of southern dialects whenever characters speak.

Ask your child to share one of Huck and Jim's "adventures" on this Mississippi River journey.

The kids are glad CSAP's are over, but NWEA testing will begin soon. (Uhg!)

We're starting a reseach paper on a topic of their choice. Help your student brainstorm a topic that they want to find out more about.

We also have to get a Writing Assessment piece done before the Writing Assessment Scoring Day, Aprilo 26. Most of that writing will be done in class.

Mrs. Phelps, Mr. Sorensen and I hope to teach our Prairie Wind, Water, and Earth project again this spring. This project covers current event issues concerning the prairie environment we live in, so we take the kids on a couple of outings on the Peetz Table during the school day (weather permitting). Send written permission for your child to participate in this spur of the moment trips.

Yeah, Spring!

7th Grade - Depression Memories

Visit with someone who lived through the Depression of the 1930's. Write a blog entry that shares those memories in as much detail as you can.

8th Graders - A New View

As Huckleberry Finn becomes more familiar with Jim, discovering he is a man with hopes, dreams, and emotions, his deep-seated opinions of black people change from a feeling of superiority to a realization that they are equals in every way.

Talk about a time when you got to know someone on a more familiar level and your opinion of that person changed dramatically.