As a middle school team, we have noticed a significant decrease in students reading personal or independently chosen books. While some students have been participating in the Million Word Challenge and achieving wonderful things, most have not been consistently reading outside of class.

To support students and help rebuild strong reading habits, we have reintroduced Independent Daily Reading (IDR) time into their school day. This week, I also introduced students to a Silent Reading Journal they will complete weekly. Every Friday, during homeroom, students will have time to write about what they read that week. They will also record the number of pages they completed. This journal gives me the opportunity to monitor what they are reading and how well they are comprehending their chosen book.

The overall goal is simple: to get students reading again.

Research consistently shows that middle school students who read for enjoyment outside of school experience higher academic success, stronger vocabulary growth, and improved life skills.

As part of this initiative:

• Students will complete one small project of their choosing at the conclusion of reading their book.
• After completing that project, they will choose a new book and continue reading for the remainder of the school year.
• Each student is required to read at least one book and complete one project, in addition to their weekly journals.
• This reading and journaling expectation will continue until May 8th.

Our hope is that, with consistent practice and positive experiences, students will continue reading on their own throughout the summer.

Mrs. Bates & Middle School Team

Here's The Happenings:

Science:  This past week the students learned about the parts of our brainstem and took a survey to find out if they were more left or right brained.  I hope they shared their results with you, but if not, please ask them!  We took a quiz on cell organelles.  They will see their results on Tuesday.  Lastly, we dissected sharks and sting rays with 8th graders on Friday.  We even found one baby shark!

Homework Due 3/18: Compare contrast paragraph on shark/sting ray dissection.

Math: Chapter 6 -Algebraic Expressions & Properties

Thinking about what variables are and how they are used in math can be tricky, but your students are doing really well. We will continue to use our vocabulary of like terms, combine, distribute and such when we discuss how we are simplifying our expressions. Next week we will work on factoring expressions- this is where we factor out (divide) a number that the two coefficients have in common to make an equivalent expression. Our test for this chapter will be March 25th. On IXL students are practicing their fractions and in small groups they are learning about Mean, Median, Mode, Range, and how to create data displays.

Homework: 6.4 Extra Practice Worksheet- we will work on this on Tuesday- due at end of class Tuesday

Social Studies: Students will begin our next unit on immigration. They will learn about a nation of immigrants, and about starting over. Then we will go into the new immigration of the times.

English: 6th graders are continuing to  read The Odyssey this week. Talk with your student about what they read this week. Asking them questions over the weekend will help them recall the information during the week.

Writing & Research: Our Writing and Research classes have begun a new poetry unit! Students have started exploring different types of poems and discussing how poets use language creatively.

Next week, we will dive deeper into analyzing the structure, meaning, and purpose of various poems. Students will continue building their skills in interpretation, close reading, and literary analysis.