March 26, 2012
Due to some major distractions during my 5th period class today, the students were unable (and unwilling) to move forward with the lesson I had planned. As a response to this I will be conducting a quiz on Wednesday over the information we were to cover today. The quiz will cover commonly confused words. The students received a handout at the end of class today with a list of the commonly confused words. In order to get accurate definitions of those words the students can view the following PowerPoint presentations:
PowerPoint #1
Power Point #2
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you and I hope the students can simmer down in the future!
I just want to let everybody know that I will be keeping a record of classroom activities and assignments on PowerSchool. I simply don't have enough time to keep the website and PowerSchool updated on a frequent basis. I'll be leaving the website up for links to UTIPS as well as the weekly reminders and other things. However, the assignment descriptions will only be on PowerSchool.
October 27, 2011
Hello everybody. Today was the big due date for the second, and final, book report of the first trimester. Can you believe the first trimester is already coming to a close? I can't believe how fast time goes. These last two weeks have been excellent in the classroom. I can see some excellent learning taking place as the students become more and more dedicated to working hard. We have had a lot of fun with some of the activities in class (I should really post some pictures one of these days).
This week in class we began discussing Personal Narrative writing. We also began reading Lyman Hafen's in the midst of winter: a tale of hope. The students were a bit skeptical at first, but through the prologue and the first couple of chapters everybody seems to be enjoying it. As we read this book the students will write a personal narrative about a memorable experience they have had. In order to help the students think of something to write about we have been working on creating neighborhood maps and labeling where memorable things have happened. I drew a picture of my neighborhood from 7th grade. I lived in Ohio and used to get attacked by my neighbor's great dane every day!
Here is a loose outline of what I hope to accomplish next week:
1. Give a clear description of what my expectations are with the personal narrative.
2. Read a lot of Lyman Hafen's book.
3. Use examples of excellent personal narratives to help students identify areas to focus on.
4. Learning about attention getters (voice, use of idioms, figures of speech, specificity, strong verbs, variety).
5. Helping students narrow their potential topics down to a single event.
6. Pre-writing
7. Drafting
These are ambitious goals to get done in a single week, but I think we can get it done.
I have already passed out the rubric I will use to grade the personal narratives. This way, students can see what I will look for before they begin writing.
October 11, 2011
Well over the last couple of weeks we have been going over the parts of speech and different sentence types in class. The students have taken two quizzes and a test on the parts of speech and after the two quizzes everybody seemed to be grasping the concepts quite well....and then the test came. After reviewing the test results last week the Language Arts department decided to spend more time reviewing the concepts this week and give the students one more chance with a revised test. We are taking the test tomorrow! It's the moment of truth, hopefully everybody studies tonight and does well on the test tomorrow.
Starting next week we will begin discussing personal narratives. I hope everybody enjoys their long weekend!
Remember - Our second book report is due October 27th.
September 26, 2011
Here are the plans for this upcoming week:
Monday: Poster Presentations, Study Guide for Quiz on Tuesday, Book Fair preview, and Planner Checks!
Tuesday: Quiz on Compound and Complex sentences, Study guide due before quiz, Library time.
Wednesday: Intro to writing Effective Paragraphs: Topic Sentences.
Thursday: Writing Effective Paragraphs: Specific Details
Friday: Writing Effective Paragraphs: Coherence and Sequence
Coming Up: We will soon start reading a book by local St. George author Lyman Hafen. The book we will read is called "In the Midst of Winter". It is a narrative about a young boy who loses his father and learns a lot of how to deal with his loss through the game of baseball. We will simultaneously read this book as students work on their own personal narratives. The goal is to have the students use what they learned about writing effective paragraphs and model their writing after Lyman Hafen's in order to create their own intriguing personal narrative.
September 20, 2011
So, I meant to update this website on a much more frequent basis! Here is the plan for this week:
Monday -- We worked on finishing up the Blue Foldable the students have been using for the Parts of Speech. We discussed Complex Sentences as well as Pronouns and Prepositions.
Tuesday -- Students worked on their "It's a Job" posters. Each group should have a picture of their person with all the items they need to do their job. Each group is also responsible for writing a variety of sentences (simple, compound, & complex) about their job. We went to the library the second half of the class.
Wednesday -- We will discuss Quiz retakes as well as second attempts on homework. Then students will have the rest of the class period to work on their posters. THIS IS THE LAST DAY TO WORK ON POSTERS.
Thursday -- Each group will present their poster. If time allows I will discuss the next book report.
Friday -- I will introduce an activity that we will use throughout the rest of the school year called "Utah-in-the-News". The rest of class will be a "Catch-up" day for students to catch up on any assignments they are missing. Friday marks the mid-term of our Trimester. Can you believe that?!?!
********IMPORTANT NOTE*********** Students can retake their quizzes before or after school or during lunch.
September 13, 2011
This week in class we are discussing the different types of sentences. We are focusing on simple, compound, and complex sentences. Today we talked about simple sentences and went to the library. The book report is due on Thursday, so it's crunch time for everybody! Friday we will have an open-note quiz on the parts of speech. Tomorrow is Gecko time, so our class will be shortened a little bit, but hopefully everybody is excited about Gecko time.
People who have been checking their grades on PowerSchool will notice my grades have been changing quite a bit lately. I want to apologize for any confusion and simply explain that the new grading system is new to me, just like it is to you. I have re-classified some assignments into different categories, which is why the grades have fluctuated. Also, your effort grades should be published shortly.
It finally feels like we're in full swing with the school year and I'm so excited to see how far we go this year!
September 7, 2011
So far this week in the classroom we have continued working on parts of speech. Yesterday we reviewed nouns and went to the library. Today we reviewed verbs and went over adjectives. Tomorrow we will discuss adverbs and sentences. We will also turn the blue papers we have been working on into little booklets. The deadline for the book report is fast approaching.
Remember that the book report is due on September 15th and students need to be able to finish their books and watch their movies before the 15th.
As for the rest of the week, we will work on our posters and hopefully have a day to work on the book reports.
Parents: Please sign your children's planners on page 23. It is the internet use agreement and all students must have that page signed before they can use the internet at school.
August 31, 2011
So I had a slight hiccup on the grading system. Apparently I was not publishing the grades as I entered them into PowerSchool. Some parents noticed their child's grade said it was not published. Well, I have remedied the problem and everything should be up to date now (with the exception of late assignments which will be entered by next week).
August 29, 2011
This is a quick note to remind everybody to check PowerSchool for grades. So far in class students have a variety of assignments they should have completed and turned in to me. The assignments include:
2 Bellwork writing assignments: How is being a 7th grader different than being a 6th grader? & What are your favorite and least favorite things about Language Arts?
Harry Potter Allusions Article (Students received a copy of a TIME Magazine article about Harry Potter and their assignment was to highlight the allusions).
Paragraph Benchmark (Students wrote a paragraph about a book they have read, or a movie they have seen).
These are the assignments that are affecting the academic grades. If a student has a grade listed as a "0" then that means I did not receive the assignment from them. If a student has been absent I tried to leave the assignment blank, but I will enter a "0" by the end of the week if I have not yet received the assignments. Students make sure you stay on top of what you have turned in, parents please help students to know what they are missing.
August 26, 2011
Well week two has come to an end and it's time for me to update everybody on what we covered in class. This week we launched the Book-to-Movie unit. On Tuesday we stopped in the library for the second half of class and Mrs. Schulties conducted an excellent speed reading exercise to introduce the students to some new books. The librarians also did an amazing job of organizing a list of all the books available in the library that have been turned into movies. We spent class on Wednesday in the computer lab where the students completed the STAR reading test. On Thursday we discussed allusions vs. illusions. Each student received a copy of a TIME magazine article that discusses the Harry Potter movies and books. As a class we highlighted all the allusions in the first paragraph. I then assigned each student with the task of highlighting the allusions in the rest of the article. The assignment was due today, but if any student forgot they still have the opportunity to turn it in on Monday. On Friday the students wrote a paragraph about a book that has been turned into a movie, this was a benchmark to see where everybody is with their understanding of paragraph writing. In class on Monday we will be organizing the book report format together. Speaking of the book report, please read the following:
Dear Parents,
To help spark an interest in reading and to include a higher level of analysis as directed by the new Common Core, our 7th grade Language Arts department has started the year off with a "Book to Movie" Festival. The final activity of this unit is to have each student write a compare/contrast book report (we will provide the format/form), focusing on the book of their choice and the movie based upon that book. Although we have made all the books/movies in our own libraries available, there are many, many more books that have been made into movies.
This is where we need your help and approval. Please help your student choose a book/movie that meets your family's standards. The key to a successful experience is parent approval.
This assignment will be due September 15, 2011. If you have any questions please contact us via e-mail.
Thanks for your support,
Kathryn Leany, (kleany@lavaridge.net)
Kris Perkes, (kperkes@lavaridge.net)
Ryan Rarick (rrarick@lavaridge.net)
August 22, 2011
I can't believe we've already started week two of the school year! This week is exciting because we are launching the Book-to-Movie Festival. When the students arrived at school this morning they were surprised with an English hallway decorated with movie posters, stars, sparkly things, cameras, reels, and all kinds of other decorations. In class today students made a list of all the movies they could think of that were based off books. On that list they identified the books they had read and the movies they have already seen. After developing the lists, students compared with other people in the class, and to finish off the class period I read a section from Prince Caspian (one of the Chronicles of Narnia) and then we watched a clip from the movie that covered the same section. We had a lot of interesting discussions about the differences in the movie and the book and why those differences exist.
Some important things to know about the Book-to-Movie Festival:
1. The Book Report is due on September 15 (I will be explaining the format of the report in class on Friday)
2. Students must choose a book that has been turned into a movie.
3. Students must choose a book they have not already read.
4. Students must be able to both read the book and watch the movie (everything is subject to parent approval).
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is not approved for this assignment (too many pictures and not enough words).
6. Students should not choose The Outsiders because we will read that book as a class next trimester.
This week should be a lot of fun. If any student is unsure about where to locate a book that has been turned into a movie, we will be in the library the second half of class tomorrow. The library has dozens of books that have been turned into movies. Also, I have several movies that are rated PG and under that I will loan out to students if they need a copy of the movie to watch. However, I only have a few movies and a lot of students, so everybody will have to share and students can only check out the movies for one night.
REMINDERS: Picture day is tomorrow! Also, we are not meeting in the classroom on Wednesday. We will be doing the STAR Reading Test in computer lab C. All students should be bringing a reading book to class every day. School spirit day is Friday...everybody wear school colors!!! (if everybody does we will win candy)
August 16, 2011
Hey everybody. I just wanted to let everybody know that I've really enjoyed the first two days of school. I have had the opportunity to meet and start getting to know all of the students. Each class definitely has its own personality. I see good things in the future. Some things to keep in mind:
1. First period need to return their disclaimers. The first class with all of them turned in wins a prize!
2. All classes need to make sure they return the course disclosure with the parent signature on the 2nd page.
3. Every student needs a binder and other binder materials in class tomorrow because we will put those together.
That's it for now!
Thanks,
Mr. Rarick
August 13, 2011
I would like to thank all the parents and students that showed up for the open house yesterday. I had a blast meeting and chatting with everybody. I'm even more excited now than I was before to get the school year underway. Great things are in store for our class...I can feel it!
The first week of school will be dedicated to going over classroom procedures and explaining expectations for the upcoming year. We will also do a variety of "get to know each other" games and begin our growth as a class. I look forward to working with each student this upcoming year! I will update this page after class each day to keep parents and absent students updated on what happened during class.
Due to some major distractions during my 5th period class today, the students were unable (and unwilling) to move forward with the lesson I had planned. As a response to this I will be conducting a quiz on Wednesday over the information we were to cover today. The quiz will cover commonly confused words. The students received a handout at the end of class today with a list of the commonly confused words. In order to get accurate definitions of those words the students can view the following PowerPoint presentations:
PowerPoint #1
Power Point #2
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you and I hope the students can simmer down in the future!
I just want to let everybody know that I will be keeping a record of classroom activities and assignments on PowerSchool. I simply don't have enough time to keep the website and PowerSchool updated on a frequent basis. I'll be leaving the website up for links to UTIPS as well as the weekly reminders and other things. However, the assignment descriptions will only be on PowerSchool.
October 27, 2011
Hello everybody. Today was the big due date for the second, and final, book report of the first trimester. Can you believe the first trimester is already coming to a close? I can't believe how fast time goes. These last two weeks have been excellent in the classroom. I can see some excellent learning taking place as the students become more and more dedicated to working hard. We have had a lot of fun with some of the activities in class (I should really post some pictures one of these days).
This week in class we began discussing Personal Narrative writing. We also began reading Lyman Hafen's in the midst of winter: a tale of hope. The students were a bit skeptical at first, but through the prologue and the first couple of chapters everybody seems to be enjoying it. As we read this book the students will write a personal narrative about a memorable experience they have had. In order to help the students think of something to write about we have been working on creating neighborhood maps and labeling where memorable things have happened. I drew a picture of my neighborhood from 7th grade. I lived in Ohio and used to get attacked by my neighbor's great dane every day!
Here is a loose outline of what I hope to accomplish next week:
1. Give a clear description of what my expectations are with the personal narrative.
2. Read a lot of Lyman Hafen's book.
3. Use examples of excellent personal narratives to help students identify areas to focus on.
4. Learning about attention getters (voice, use of idioms, figures of speech, specificity, strong verbs, variety).
5. Helping students narrow their potential topics down to a single event.
6. Pre-writing
7. Drafting
These are ambitious goals to get done in a single week, but I think we can get it done.
I have already passed out the rubric I will use to grade the personal narratives. This way, students can see what I will look for before they begin writing.
October 11, 2011
Well over the last couple of weeks we have been going over the parts of speech and different sentence types in class. The students have taken two quizzes and a test on the parts of speech and after the two quizzes everybody seemed to be grasping the concepts quite well....and then the test came. After reviewing the test results last week the Language Arts department decided to spend more time reviewing the concepts this week and give the students one more chance with a revised test. We are taking the test tomorrow! It's the moment of truth, hopefully everybody studies tonight and does well on the test tomorrow.
Starting next week we will begin discussing personal narratives. I hope everybody enjoys their long weekend!
Remember - Our second book report is due October 27th.
September 26, 2011
Here are the plans for this upcoming week:
Monday: Poster Presentations, Study Guide for Quiz on Tuesday, Book Fair preview, and Planner Checks!
Tuesday: Quiz on Compound and Complex sentences, Study guide due before quiz, Library time.
Wednesday: Intro to writing Effective Paragraphs: Topic Sentences.
Thursday: Writing Effective Paragraphs: Specific Details
Friday: Writing Effective Paragraphs: Coherence and Sequence
Coming Up: We will soon start reading a book by local St. George author Lyman Hafen. The book we will read is called "In the Midst of Winter". It is a narrative about a young boy who loses his father and learns a lot of how to deal with his loss through the game of baseball. We will simultaneously read this book as students work on their own personal narratives. The goal is to have the students use what they learned about writing effective paragraphs and model their writing after Lyman Hafen's in order to create their own intriguing personal narrative.
September 20, 2011
So, I meant to update this website on a much more frequent basis! Here is the plan for this week:
Monday -- We worked on finishing up the Blue Foldable the students have been using for the Parts of Speech. We discussed Complex Sentences as well as Pronouns and Prepositions.
Tuesday -- Students worked on their "It's a Job" posters. Each group should have a picture of their person with all the items they need to do their job. Each group is also responsible for writing a variety of sentences (simple, compound, & complex) about their job. We went to the library the second half of the class.
Wednesday -- We will discuss Quiz retakes as well as second attempts on homework. Then students will have the rest of the class period to work on their posters. THIS IS THE LAST DAY TO WORK ON POSTERS.
Thursday -- Each group will present their poster. If time allows I will discuss the next book report.
Friday -- I will introduce an activity that we will use throughout the rest of the school year called "Utah-in-the-News". The rest of class will be a "Catch-up" day for students to catch up on any assignments they are missing. Friday marks the mid-term of our Trimester. Can you believe that?!?!
********IMPORTANT NOTE*********** Students can retake their quizzes before or after school or during lunch.
September 13, 2011
This week in class we are discussing the different types of sentences. We are focusing on simple, compound, and complex sentences. Today we talked about simple sentences and went to the library. The book report is due on Thursday, so it's crunch time for everybody! Friday we will have an open-note quiz on the parts of speech. Tomorrow is Gecko time, so our class will be shortened a little bit, but hopefully everybody is excited about Gecko time.
People who have been checking their grades on PowerSchool will notice my grades have been changing quite a bit lately. I want to apologize for any confusion and simply explain that the new grading system is new to me, just like it is to you. I have re-classified some assignments into different categories, which is why the grades have fluctuated. Also, your effort grades should be published shortly.
It finally feels like we're in full swing with the school year and I'm so excited to see how far we go this year!
September 7, 2011
So far this week in the classroom we have continued working on parts of speech. Yesterday we reviewed nouns and went to the library. Today we reviewed verbs and went over adjectives. Tomorrow we will discuss adverbs and sentences. We will also turn the blue papers we have been working on into little booklets. The deadline for the book report is fast approaching.
Remember that the book report is due on September 15th and students need to be able to finish their books and watch their movies before the 15th.
As for the rest of the week, we will work on our posters and hopefully have a day to work on the book reports.
Parents: Please sign your children's planners on page 23. It is the internet use agreement and all students must have that page signed before they can use the internet at school.
August 31, 2011
So I had a slight hiccup on the grading system. Apparently I was not publishing the grades as I entered them into PowerSchool. Some parents noticed their child's grade said it was not published. Well, I have remedied the problem and everything should be up to date now (with the exception of late assignments which will be entered by next week).
August 29, 2011
This is a quick note to remind everybody to check PowerSchool for grades. So far in class students have a variety of assignments they should have completed and turned in to me. The assignments include:
2 Bellwork writing assignments: How is being a 7th grader different than being a 6th grader? & What are your favorite and least favorite things about Language Arts?
Harry Potter Allusions Article (Students received a copy of a TIME Magazine article about Harry Potter and their assignment was to highlight the allusions).
Paragraph Benchmark (Students wrote a paragraph about a book they have read, or a movie they have seen).
These are the assignments that are affecting the academic grades. If a student has a grade listed as a "0" then that means I did not receive the assignment from them. If a student has been absent I tried to leave the assignment blank, but I will enter a "0" by the end of the week if I have not yet received the assignments. Students make sure you stay on top of what you have turned in, parents please help students to know what they are missing.
August 26, 2011
Well week two has come to an end and it's time for me to update everybody on what we covered in class. This week we launched the Book-to-Movie unit. On Tuesday we stopped in the library for the second half of class and Mrs. Schulties conducted an excellent speed reading exercise to introduce the students to some new books. The librarians also did an amazing job of organizing a list of all the books available in the library that have been turned into movies. We spent class on Wednesday in the computer lab where the students completed the STAR reading test. On Thursday we discussed allusions vs. illusions. Each student received a copy of a TIME magazine article that discusses the Harry Potter movies and books. As a class we highlighted all the allusions in the first paragraph. I then assigned each student with the task of highlighting the allusions in the rest of the article. The assignment was due today, but if any student forgot they still have the opportunity to turn it in on Monday. On Friday the students wrote a paragraph about a book that has been turned into a movie, this was a benchmark to see where everybody is with their understanding of paragraph writing. In class on Monday we will be organizing the book report format together. Speaking of the book report, please read the following:
Dear Parents,
To help spark an interest in reading and to include a higher level of analysis as directed by the new Common Core, our 7th grade Language Arts department has started the year off with a "Book to Movie" Festival. The final activity of this unit is to have each student write a compare/contrast book report (we will provide the format/form), focusing on the book of their choice and the movie based upon that book. Although we have made all the books/movies in our own libraries available, there are many, many more books that have been made into movies.
This is where we need your help and approval. Please help your student choose a book/movie that meets your family's standards. The key to a successful experience is parent approval.
This assignment will be due September 15, 2011. If you have any questions please contact us via e-mail.
Thanks for your support,
Kathryn Leany, (kleany@lavaridge.net)
Kris Perkes, (kperkes@lavaridge.net)
Ryan Rarick (rrarick@lavaridge.net)
August 22, 2011
I can't believe we've already started week two of the school year! This week is exciting because we are launching the Book-to-Movie Festival. When the students arrived at school this morning they were surprised with an English hallway decorated with movie posters, stars, sparkly things, cameras, reels, and all kinds of other decorations. In class today students made a list of all the movies they could think of that were based off books. On that list they identified the books they had read and the movies they have already seen. After developing the lists, students compared with other people in the class, and to finish off the class period I read a section from Prince Caspian (one of the Chronicles of Narnia) and then we watched a clip from the movie that covered the same section. We had a lot of interesting discussions about the differences in the movie and the book and why those differences exist.
Some important things to know about the Book-to-Movie Festival:
1. The Book Report is due on September 15 (I will be explaining the format of the report in class on Friday)
2. Students must choose a book that has been turned into a movie.
3. Students must choose a book they have not already read.
4. Students must be able to both read the book and watch the movie (everything is subject to parent approval).
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is not approved for this assignment (too many pictures and not enough words).
6. Students should not choose The Outsiders because we will read that book as a class next trimester.
This week should be a lot of fun. If any student is unsure about where to locate a book that has been turned into a movie, we will be in the library the second half of class tomorrow. The library has dozens of books that have been turned into movies. Also, I have several movies that are rated PG and under that I will loan out to students if they need a copy of the movie to watch. However, I only have a few movies and a lot of students, so everybody will have to share and students can only check out the movies for one night.
REMINDERS: Picture day is tomorrow! Also, we are not meeting in the classroom on Wednesday. We will be doing the STAR Reading Test in computer lab C. All students should be bringing a reading book to class every day. School spirit day is Friday...everybody wear school colors!!! (if everybody does we will win candy)
August 16, 2011
Hey everybody. I just wanted to let everybody know that I've really enjoyed the first two days of school. I have had the opportunity to meet and start getting to know all of the students. Each class definitely has its own personality. I see good things in the future. Some things to keep in mind:
1. First period need to return their disclaimers. The first class with all of them turned in wins a prize!
2. All classes need to make sure they return the course disclosure with the parent signature on the 2nd page.
3. Every student needs a binder and other binder materials in class tomorrow because we will put those together.
That's it for now!
Thanks,
Mr. Rarick
August 13, 2011
I would like to thank all the parents and students that showed up for the open house yesterday. I had a blast meeting and chatting with everybody. I'm even more excited now than I was before to get the school year underway. Great things are in store for our class...I can feel it!
The first week of school will be dedicated to going over classroom procedures and explaining expectations for the upcoming year. We will also do a variety of "get to know each other" games and begin our growth as a class. I look forward to working with each student this upcoming year! I will update this page after class each day to keep parents and absent students updated on what happened during class.
