Tuesday

Whew! It's been a busy start to the week, so busy that I failed to post a message on my blog yesterday. So sorry :c(

7th grade classes--we've been reviewing one of my favorite parts of speech--PREPOSITIONS. Today we learned all about prepositional phrases and objects of the preposition. We looked at sentences with prepositional phrases then we examined those same sentences without! I think all would agree that prepositional phrases help us sound more sophisticated and less like cave men and women.

8th grade classes--we took another look at the ballad "Big John" by Jimmy Dean. Students developed a character chart, digging deep into the text of the ballad and discovering what made John "big and bad."

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will view the start of the film October Sky, which is based on the memoir Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam. All 8th graders will eventually draft a compare and contrast piece between Big John in the ballad and Homer Hickam's father, John. In addition to analyzing characters, students will learn quite a bit about the era of Sputnik and the business of coal mining.

Have a great evening.

Fondly,
Mrs. V~