JANUARY FAMILY PROBLEM

OPPOSITE DAY
I was so excited to receive my Oriental Trading calendar this year, because it is always full of interesting holidays. Did you know that Tuesday, January 25th is Opposite Day? How do you think this day could be celebrated? at home? at work? at school? with food? clothing? music? speech? etc. As a family, come up with at least five fun, silly, crazy, but safe ways you could honor Opposite Day. Your list should be in complete sentences. This activity is worth 4 bonus points or 4 Chance Tickets. You may earn an extra bonus point or Chance Ticket for adding pictures and decorations to your list. These are due by Friday, January 28, 2011.

January Newsletter

SORRY! I am so sorry for not posting a December newsletter. To welcome the new year, however, here is the January news.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

*There will be a Weekly Reminder Quest on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 over #1-20.

6th GRADE

Grammar

*We will be working on Chapter 14, covering nouns and pronouns. There will be workbook and practice pages, activities, quizzes, and a quest over this unit.

Writing

*We have started journaling about words that describe ourselves. We will choose one and develop it into a personal, descriptive paragraph by the end of the month.

Diagramming

*We will be learning to diagram interrogative and imperative sentences. These will be a bit of a challenge since the subjects are not always directly in the sentence or at the beginning of the sentence.

7th GRADE

Grammar

*We are still working on the punctuation unit. We will be working with apostrophes, hyphens, dashes, colons, and semicolons. There will be workbook and practice pages, as well as activities and a quest.

Diagramming

*We are going to learn how to diagram compound sentences.

Writing

*Since the Pentathlon contest essay is coming up, we will be writing a persuasive essay that will be submitted for the contest and as a grade for the class.

8th GRADE

Grammar

*We are reviewing gerunds, infinitives, and participles (verbals). We are working in small groups to teach the class ways to remember these tough English concepts. We will take another quest on them as well.

*We will then be working on capitalization. After the unit on verbals, we could use a more straightforward and hopefully easier unit.

Diagramming

*We will be diagramming direct objects.

Writing

*Just as the seventh graders, we will be writing a persuasive essay for the Pentathlon contest.