Monday, February 6th

Happy February! 

~Good luck to our Middle School Volleyball teams and Archery Shooters during their games/tournaments this week!~

Announcements: 
Candygrams- Student Council is selling Candy Grams this year for Valentine's Day. They are 75 cents each or $10 for an entire class. They must be ordered and paid for by Monday, Feb. 13th. Orders can be placed during lunch times and will be delivered on Feb. 14th.

Dance: There will be a middle school dance this week. Mrs. O'Flaherty sent an email last week with all the details you should need. Please remember, students (and their guest) must bring a signed permission slip to the dance. 

National Honor Society- Mrs. Mackedon sent an email today regarding National Honor Society. It is time to apply! Check out the attachment to her email, applications are due by March 2nd. If you have any questions, please let me know! 

Projects: We finished strong last week with the Roaring 20s and are now researching the underlying issues and conditions that led America into the Great Depression. Each kiddo will be creating their own website that will give an overview of the topics we study for this unit. The class is enthusiastic to be learning this new skill in technology. 

7th Reading: Today we watched and read about current events in Flocabualry’s week in rap. The class has been working really hard on their habits of discussion skills and have had excellent conversations about their thoughts on the events taking place around our country and world. We will also be reading a couple more chapters out of The Outsiders. I love the sincere cheers they call out when I tell the class that we are working on the novel each day. 

Writing: This week we are moving from the team writing task to an individual one. Tomorrow they will get a writing prompt along with passages that they will have to use to write their own narrative. 

8th Reading: The 8th grade team is still working through To Kill A Mockingbird. This class has had wonderful discussions about the characters and their actions in the story so far. They have also been doing very well on the chapter quizzes and comprehension checks that we have been working on. 

Tuesday, January 31

Social Studies- Tomorrow, Wednesday, the kids will be completing their vocabulary and Roaring 20’s test. I am quite confident that they will do very well. These guys have really taken pride in their knowledge of this topic. They will also be printing their 1920s magazine this week which are looking great. I can’t wait to see the final product! 

Reading- We are getting deeper into The Outsiders and the kids sure are digging it. The conversations we have had while reading over the last couple of weeks have been amazing. I am looking forward to their reactions to the next couple of shocking chapters! We will also annotate Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” which was actually a poem Ponyboy recites in The Outsiders.

8th Reading- This week the class watched and read a Flocabulary Week in Rap and continues to make way through two more chapters of To Kill A Mockingbird. I absolutely love the class discussions this group has.  They are taking an in depth look into the setting and characters of this novel and have done an excellent job analyzing the book.  

Writing- This week we are working together on a writing prompt similar to one that the kids will get during their state testing. We are specifically looking into narrative techniques and how to use given passages to improve our own writing. Today the prompt was about a diamond robbery, and boy did these kids have some great discussions about the how and why. It sounded like we were in our very own courtroom. 

Tuesday, January 24th

Congratulations to all of our 100% attendance, A & B honor roll students, along with our Bighorn and Most Improved recipients. I am so proud of each and every one you super stars.

Reminders-

We have our class auctions tomorrow (Wednesday the 25th). Just a heads up, if you have not brought something in to auction off, you will not be participating.

Report cards went home last week, please do not hesitate in contacting me if you any questions or concerns.  

The Valentine Dance is coming soon, Friday, February 10th. Mrs. O'Flaherty will be emailing out information soon. Please be sure that your student and their guest has a new permission slip signed.

Social Studies- We are roaring through the “Roaring ‘20s!” This week we will be focusing on the  KKK, Red Scare, and art and culture of the Harlem Renaissance. Thursday will be the last day to complete their magazine pages, then presenting and completing our vocabulary test and mini-unit assessment on Monday.

7th Grade Reading- This week we are moving through our Outsiders novel. The kids are loving the characters and story so far. I love hearing the connections and comments they have.

Writing- This week we will finish our My Favorite Mistake. The class has been working hard on this narrative, checking their writing techniques and working with peers to edit their work as they move into the final draft.  

8th Grade Reading - We’ve continued to make our way through To Kill a Mockingbird. The class worked on annotating a selection from chapter two today. I was impressed with their thoughts, ideas, comments, and questions.

Tuesday, January 17

Into the new semester we go! I have a couple class announcements for everyone:

*Report cards should be printed and sent out tomorrow (Wednesday). There was a little glitch that enabled middle school grades to be released. Sorry about that!

*We have Music for specials this quarter and Mrs. Barten has requested that each student brings in a small flashlight as a prop for one of the songs they will be working on. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy and should be able to be left as school.

*Auctions! The class agreed that we would do our class auctions next Wednesday, January 24th. If you could please remind your kiddo to bring something in by then, that would be great!    

Projects- We are moving away from Science and will be working on Social Studies for the remainder of the year. The first topic we are covering is the roaring ‘20s. The kids have enjoyed learning about all the new innovations and ways of life during this time period. We broke into groups today and will begin working on their project which includes creating a magazine. Each group member will become an expert in his/her respective topics, then write an article covering what they learned.

7th Grade Reading- Finally, The Outsiders! I have been excited for this book ever since I decided to move up to seventh grade. I love when the 8th graders and freshmen come in and see that we are reading The Outsiders, and recall how much they loved it. This week we are mainly focusing on getting to know the characters, setting, and social aspects of the story. The class is working in partners to create posters, summarizing physical and personality traits of everyone from Sodapop to Two-Bit Matthews.

7th Grade Writing- We are continuing with narratives for our first paper of the second semester. The kids have really been honing in on their expressive and reflective skills.  We began our Class Twitter page and this group came up with some really great six-word memoirs. They are hanging on our bulletin board along with their awesome “Day in the Life” narratives. Be sure to check them out as you come in. For the next week or so we will continue with “My Favorite Mistake” were they will use narrative techniques to write about a mistake they made in life and learned from.

8th Grade Reading- This week our 8th grade class is beginning Harper Lee’s novel,  To Kill a Mockingbird. We plan to use narrative elements and background knowledge as we make our way through this classic coming-of-age story. There are some intense topics and conversations that have already made their way into our class discussions.

Monday, December 19th

Happy Monday, Families! 

We’re nearly there, to the end of the semester and to a Happy New Year!

Don’t forget, we will be stuffing stockings and watching Elf on Thursday, along with educational reading and writing activities of course! Therefore, if your 7th grader would like to bring in a pillow or blanket to wrap up in during our movie and reading , that would be awesome. Also, if you choose to, please have your kiddo bring in something fun and inexpensive to share with their classmates. As a reminder, Oasis students are allowed to wear anything "HOLIDAY."  Think ugly sweaters, Christmas shirts, red, green, gold, anything that makes you think HOLIDAY FUN!  No pajamas and dress code shoes please. 

If your student would like to bring in a treat on Thursday, we will also have time set aside to eat and celebrate. I have plates, cups, drinks, and chips, but I am open to anything else the kids feel like bringing in. Thank you in advance! 

This week in projects, the class is working in partners to finish up their survival of the fittest comics. They have researched an animal of their choice and are creating a comic strip to show how its adaptations have suited it for survival. 

During our reading block we are bringing The Great War/WW1 to a close with a pyramid project that depicts many of the components that we have studies over the last several weeks. Including propaganda, militarism, nationalism, or imperialism (definition and how it applied to one or more of the countries involved in WW1), a major alliance, and a major event. I am very proud of what the class has taken away from this time in our world’s history and I can’t wait to see their finished products. 

We have many fun writing activities planned for this week that they class will be able to show off their narrative writing skills. This is a super creative class that thrives on each other’s writing and ideas. I’m excited to see what they come up with! 

8th grade reading is working hard on finishing up their King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table novel. They are also completing a final project where they have selected one chapter from the book that they will use to create a 3D diorama that focuses on the theme, protagonists/antagonists, setting, and plot. 

Monday, November 28

I hope that everyone is recovering from their Thanksgiving feasts and celebrations. It's wild to think that we are making our way into December this week!

During projects we have come to the end of our heredity and genetics studies with a focus on asexual reproduction and epigenetics. On Thursday we will take the final exam.

7th Grade Reading has been busy reading about the periods after the Civil War with the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The class has had excellent discussions about the tycoons; Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan, and how much control they had over the country. Making their fortunes on the backs of the working class.

Writing- This week we started sentence diagramming. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but once the class saw these diagrams like a picture of a sentence and treated them more like puzzles, they actually started having fun with it. We have also been studying the eight parts of speech, which will be tested on Thursday. Narrative writing in the works as well. The topic is “A Day in the Life of _____”. So far their brainstorming ideas have been hilarious and I can't wait to see the stories they come up with.  

8th Grade Reading block has continued to make its way through the Middle Ages. This week we have been focused on reading and studying the Black Plague, effects of the Crusades, as well as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the novel, King Arthur’s and his Knights of the Round Table.

Monday, November 7th

This week in projects we are continuing to make our way through the world of DNA, chromosomes, genes, and Punnett squares. The class has shown a ton of interest and curiosity about this subject. It is so neat to see those “aha” moments when they realize how and why we are they way we are.

In reading we worked on Flocabulary today, getting up to date with our current events and yes, counting down to election day. I was impressed with how correct our group was with their predictions on this week’s topics. We are also planning on finishing up our Two Miserable Presidents this week as we read the last chapter, “A Bloody Road to Richmond.” The class will receive a study guide for their final test so that they can study over the weekend if they choose.

We are honing in on our arguing skills this week. The class is working on including background knowledge, a claim, reasons, evidence, and a counterclaim to create a good argumentative essay. I am loving the research these kids are using to support their claims.

8th Grade Reading- This week the class will learn about the Middle Ages and various aspects of it by reading and discussing one of the greatest legends of all time in the novel, King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. Wednesday we will work on poetry,  reading a poem and annotating it to apply critical thinking strategies and gain deeper meaning.