Friday Update

Happy Friday!

Welcome back and I hope all of your families had amazing winter breaks. The students came back with some exciting stories and fun memories. I was pleasantly surprised that they also came back with some ""ready to work" attitudes, which can be hard after 2 weeks off.

This week we spent reviewing the last unit of Text Structures. As a department we saw some needs for reteaching and reviewing after looking over the summatives. The students that had already shown they mastered the material were given enrichment opportunities in class, while those that still needed instruction got an opportunity to work in a smaller group with myself.

We also started our new social studies unit. The students started learning about the first settlements of the "New World". They have had time to explore the 13 colonies and their founders, the reasons they were founded, and some of the differences between the colonial regions. This has been a great start to this unit which will eventually go into our Revolutionary War unit and the beginning of the nation.

Next week we will continue our research and exploration of the colonies. We will also take this material into our writing unit. The students will pick a colony to do deeper research over and eventually turn that research into a visual report and at the end, an essay. We will be focusing on asking good research questions, how to find credible resources, and how to determine what is important verses what is interesting.

Reminders:
Grade cards come out today, students grades are fluid however and still may change as they reach mastery on skills that they had yet to at the time grades were due.