5-8 Language Arts and 5-6 Reading News

Another month is almost over! For some reason it feels that October went a lot faster than September. It must be because it was such a busy month here at St. Joseph. Here are updates on what we have been up to in Language Arts and Reading.

5^th Language Arts: The students have been hard at work on their personal narratives and are finishing up the publication portion of the writing process. After the students finish their stories, we will move on to the second grammar unit. The students have enjoyed having a two week break from spelling because of the shortened weeks, so this week will be their first week of spelling since the start of the month.

6^th Language Arts: The students have done a wonderful job with grammar and will be taking a unit test this week. Next, we will begin working on their first writing assignment! The 6th graders have also had a break from spelling and will start again with weekly spelling tests this week.

7^th Language Arts: We have continued working on parts of speech and have done some practice with using quotation marks. The students have a mid unit test this week which will be over all the grammar we have covered so far. After the test, we will continue on with the rest of the unit.

8^th Language Arts: The eight graders have continued to do a wonderful job in language. They will also be taking a mid unit test this week. After the test we will continue on to the next topic in the unit, clauses.

5^th Reading: After wrapping up Tuck Everlasting, we have started our Gary Paulsen unit. The students are divided into four groups and each group will be reading a different book. The books they will be reading are: Canyons, The Haymeadow, Hatchet, and Dogsong. I look forward to seeing how the students do with this different format.

 6^th Reading: The sixth graders are off to a great start on our new books. One group is reading Freak the Mighty and the other is reading One-eyed Cat. Both groups are enjoying the books so far and are doing a good job of working in smaller groups.

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you!

Miss Martin