Grade 7

It is hard to believe that we are approaching half way through the year already! Seventh graders have covered a great deal of material so far, but now is the time of year we often see students “taking a break” from their academics. Material presented in the second half of the year often gets more rigorous and demanding. It is important that students use the tools available to help them keep on top of their studies. Parents can help by taking time to check through their child’s assignment book and make sure they are still using it to keep up with their assignments, as well as planning out their time for completing projects and studying for tests. Breakfast Club is a great way to get extra help or catch up on assignments. It is offered every morning from 8-8:30. Students need a bus pass to attend. There is also the 7th grade website where students can monitor what is happening in each class on a daily/weekly basis.  If they miss school, it is a great place to get assignments and see what they missed in class that day. Your support at home is also an important part of their achievement, and it helps to ensure their success.  Now on to what has been happening in our classes and what is coming up!

Having just finished studying the importance of illuminated manuscripts and Book of Hours in Western Europe, Mr. Vulgamore’s social studies classes will be focusing on feudalism, the development of the castle and cathedral, the crusades, and siege weapons. Students will be designing their own castle outlines and will also make catapults that shoot marshmallows.  Watch out for their power!

Mrs. Proulx’s pre-algebra classes are seeing firsthand how concepts are connected in mathematics as they study rationales. In addition, they have been using algebra to convert repeating decimals to fraction form.

In advanced pre-algebra, students have explored equations and the process for solving them. They have also used equations to represent problem situations. It’s nice to see students realize the use of equations to solve real problems. All math classes did a wonderful job on their projects where they applied their problem-solving skills to solve geometry problems.

In Mrs. McMillen’s reading classes, students have started working on Latin and Greek roots again. The roots are introduced on Tuesdays with a pretest and the final test administered the following Tuesday. They are also designing book jackets and writing book reviews with recommendations to culminate a month-long reading assignment.

Mrs. Bailey’s reading classes have just finished reading The Outsiders. Discussions centered around how we perceive and treat others based on socio-economic values. Students continue to read their own choice of books as well, and the list of books read is quite impressive.  Students will be moving into an informational reading unit where they will spend time reading, analyzing, and interpreting different types of nonfiction material. They will also continue working with vocabulary “root” words and bi-weekly analogies.

In Mrs. McMillen’s language arts class, students are just beginning to make their children’s books. Each student brought in a favorite story to share and will be creating his/her own story and artwork to accompany it. It promises to be a busy and fun couple of weeks!

Mrs. Bailey’s language arts classes have just completed two major units. First, students have finished writing, illustrating, and publishing their children’s books. There are so many creative stories. It is a project students are very proud to share. They have also finished a grammar unit on the eight parts of speech. Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, interjections, and conjunctions should be easy to spot and identify. During the next three months, students will begin academic writing with units focusing on answering essay questions, developing a thesis statement, researching support in the library, and then writing a research paper based on that research.

“Up close and personal” has been the emphasis in science with Ms. Wetterer. Students have been exploring human body systems, with an in depth exploration of the skeletal and circulatory systems. Highlights include deer skeleton dissections in which students had the opportunity to see many structures including the mouth (deer is a ruminant, therefore has no upper incisors), “fat cushions” surrounding the eyes, hinge joint of the jaw, the auditory canal, the trachea, the diaphragm, ribs, backbone, spinal cord, and hip joints. A huge thank you to Mr. Binsse for his generosity and hard work in making this lab possible!  We have also been studying genetics and heredity and will be starting a unit on tracking, and we must “get to the heart.” More on these in the next issue, and last but not least, remember TO GET OUTSIDE!