FEBRUARY FAMILY PROBLEM

PRESIDENTS' DAY
February 20th is a celebration of our nation's presidents. Pick a president and use his last name, first name, or both to write an acrostic representing him. The acrostic should include some interesting facts, as well as some of the important actions he performed as president. The lines need to be more than one word. They should be phrases or sentences. This activity is worth up to 4 Bonus or House points. You may earn an additional Bonus or House point by including a picture of the president you are writing about in the acrostic. These are due by Wednesday, February 29th.

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY NEWS
WEEKLY REMINDER QUEST #2
The entire middle school will be taking a Weekly Reminder Quest over Weekly Reminders #1-25 on Friday, February 24, 2012. The quest has many sections including the following: Correct the Error, Fill in the Blank, Multiple Choice, and Use Correctly. It would be a good idea to begin reviewing these reminders a little at a time.
6th
Grammar Crate
*All Grammar Crate activities will be due on Friday, February 24, 2012.
*These include one punctuation activity, one capitalization activity, one usage activity, one parts of speech activity, and one writing activity.
*Please note: If a student does poorly on an activity, he/she is always welcome to do another activity in that section. The better of the two grades will be taken.
Grammar
*We are finishing up on nouns (common, proper, masculine, feminine, neuter, indefinite, abstract, concrete, compound, and collective).
*There will be a quest over these the week of February 13th.
Writing
*The 6th grade is going to be working on a cross curricular piece. They are just beginning to work on their Travel Agency project for Miss Kendzicky. We will be writing a research essay for language arts covering the country they received in social studies. This will give them an opportunity to learn even more about their country. It will also be a way of learning how to write a research essay with MLA documentation.
Diagramming
*We are working on how to diagram questions and commands. This has been a bit of a challenge, however, there will be a quest over this on Friday, February 10th.
7th
Grammar
*We are wrapping up our work on Chapter 20 covering phrases. We will have a quest over prepositional, appositive, participial, and infinitive phrases within a week or two of the month beginning.
*We will then move on to Chapter 21 covering clauses.
Writing
*We will be working on a book report/persuasive essay. The students will choose a book that they think others should or should not read. They will then have to pose their thesis and prove it.
*This will give us an another opportunity to use the MLA documentation which we had difficulty using in December.
Diagramming
*We will be diagramming interjections.
8th
Grammar
*Earlier in the school year, we worked on the second half of Chapter 20 covering clauses. We will now be working on the first half covering phrases. This will be a challenging section as we will be learning participles, gerunds, and infinitives.
Writing
*We are writing a reader's response essay for the movie script we read in January (The Other Side of Life). These are due on Friday, February 17th.
*We are also working in small groups to add a scene to the movie. These will be written and performed in class.
Diagramming
*We will be diagramming participles and participial phrases.