WE ARE COMPANIONS ON A JOURNEY!

Welcome to Room 203 and Mrs. Smith's Webpage!

Happy November!

Please note that Mrs. Chase, Mrs. Poltrock and myself will be updating our own weekly newsletters - you will need to check each teachers' webpage for information about each specific class.  We hope this will be easier and more helpful to you.  Thank you for your patience.

I also wanted to thank the 7th and 8th graders for making my birthday such a special day.  I was standing in the office when the kids came in for the morning and honestly all the kids turned and said "Happy Birthday Mrs. Smith" - it was such a wonderful feeling and made me feel so special.  What great kids we have and as we approach Thanksgiving, I count my blessings every day and am very grateful to work with such special kids and families.  I also have to thank the St. Mary's staff - so many teachers were and are so kind and caring - this school has a fantastic group of dedicated teachers and staff and leaders! 

Algebra students and parents - please note

I have also invited the 8th grade Algebra students to participate next week with the Course 3 students - please encourage them- we will be using the SMARTBOARD and a great site www.explorelearning.com and work on slope and linear equations.  I also told the Algebra students that I would make copies of extra exponent problems with a key for them to use as additional practice problems.  Please encourage them to use these and not let them go to waste.  This is new material to them -it was not covered in 7th grade Course 2 content.

Mrs. Smith’s                                                              Weekly News Letter Grades 7 & 8

November 23-25, 2009

Grade 8

Religion    We continue watching the video “Peter and Paul” – this is an excellent account of the Acts of the Apostles.   The 8^th graders have read Acts in its entirety and should be very familiar with the content of this movie.   We will also use the Silver Burdett book – Chapter 8 – identify the five modern images of the Catholic church – compare and contrast them to the five characteristics of the early Christian church.   Plan on a quiz before Thanksgiving.

Math:   We continue working in Chapter 3 and 12 – learning about relations and functions and linear equations.   We will review slope (rate of change), - we will invite the Algebra students to participate this week- using the Smartboard and laptops.   We will learn about the 3 forms of a linear equation – standard form, slope- intercept and point-slope. I will be giving quick quizzes over the sections – see the Internet tutorials on www.PHSchool.com for each section for a quick review.

Grade 7

Social Studies 7C:   We will begin Chapter 5 –“The Road to Revolution”.   This chapter begins with events that lead up to the French and Indian War and we will meet General George Washington.   We will also continue reading Chapters 6-7 from “My Brother Sam is Dead”.   Expect vocabulary worksheets and discussion questions for each section and a quick multiple choice quiz on each book section.   Mrs. Coppernoll also mentioned that her son will be coming home from Westpoint for the Thanksgiving break and would be able to come into class to talk about his knowledge about the Revolutionary War – we look forward to that on Tuesday.   Thank you Mrs. Mastelier and Mrs. Roanhouse for leading the literature circles on Friday the 20^th – we will continue this in 2 weeks on December 4^th – all 7^th graders should have their sheets filled out for Chapters 5-7 by then.

Math: We continue working on Number Theory in Chapters 3 and 12 (Probability).  There is a lot of emphasis on vocabulary and concepts with this chapter – each student has a study guide outlining the vocabulary and the expectations.   We will discuss Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple, fraction and decimal equivalents and comparing and ordering fractions.   Please make sure that your son/daughter is continuing to review vocabulary and their notes and using the website www.PHSchool.com for extra review.  

Religion 7:   We will have a quiz on Monday – please review notes from class about Vatican II.   We will begin Chapter 3 – reading about John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus, which begins the public ministry of Jesus.   I will ask the kids to do a little research about their own Baptism – please be ready for some questions!   The chapter continues discussing the different Ministries of the church – Ministries of the Word, Worship, Community Building and Service and Healing.   Perhaps many of you are involved with one or more of these ministries and would like to share what you do for others and/or for the parish.  

Don’t forget food for the 6^th grade Food Drive

All School Mass on Tuesday, November 24

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Thank you.