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.