Weekly Update: October 14th

Parent/Teacher Conferences: Badger teachers will be holding parent/teacher conferences on Thursday, October 24th and Thursday, November 7th.  If you haven't signed up, we still have space available.  Please use the following links to sign up by night. Thursday, October 24th or Thursday, November 7th

Progress Reports go home Thursday, October 17th!

Field Trip Information: Badger students received field trip forms in English class this week for our upcoming trip in early December.  If you have any questions, please email Mrs. McGuire.  Thank you to the students who have submitted their field trip forms and payment so far!  It is greatly appreciated!

Class Updates: 

Social Studies: Students spent the week investigating the geography of Ancient Greece and ultimately learned about two of the oldest Greek civilizations. Students were assessed on what a "Dark Age" is on Friday. Please check the gradebook! Starting Tuesday, we will begin questioning two of the oldest rivals in history. 

Science: Students will start the week with a summative assessment for the microbiome unit. The assessment will consist of writing their final argument for a fecal transplant followed by two short answer questions. Students then change rolls from science researchers to medical students as we begin to study metabolism in the body.

Literacy:  Lots of notes this week!  We began the week tackling the vocabulary and roots of Latin Unit 3, and ended the week practicing a different note taking style with  The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This is a short, but busy week, as students should be preparing for the Mastery Test for Latin 3 which will be given n Friday, October 18th! If students use Quizlet, remember to access from my Google Classroom, Vocabulary Links . If it asks for a PW?  It's the proper name of our school!

English: This week students finished the unit on "Barrio Boy," and we continued working with main idea and supporting details. We also switched gears to discuss the reading project due at the end of the month.  At this point, students should be nearing the end of their independent reading books.  An example of a completed project has been posted to Google Classroom and was discussed in class.  Students also had an opportunity to ask questions.  I encourage them to access this example from home if they need a model.  Projects are due on October 30th. 

Math: Students completed another overwhelmingly successful quiz on Friday. Grades are updated and will reflect in the progress report.  This week we will continue with our last topic in our proportional reasoning unit, complex unit rates.  It's one of the hardest topics this year, if your student is struggling please encourage them to use the extra practice and instructional videos on my Google Classroom.  Our next test is on Thursday, October 24th.

Weekly Update: October 6th

Warning! Grades close for Progress Reports this week!!  Be sure to check the portal!

THANK YOU for the September book orders!  Book orders were placed this week and should arrive soon.  We were able to purchase over 20 new titles for our class library!  October book order forms will be sent home with students in the next two weeks.

Field Trip Information: Badger students will be receiving field trip forms in English class on Monday, October 7th for our upcoming trip in early December.  We will be visiting The Palace Theatre to see a live adaptation of A Christmas Carol.  Please be on the lookout for this information! 

Class Updates: 

Social Studies: Students spent this past week reviewing the basic concepts of government and took a deep look at American government. There was an assessment on Friday; please check the grade book! Starting Monday, we will begin our journey investigating Classical Civilizations.

Science: We are in the middle of our Human Microbiome Unit and will continue investigating the benefits of a fecal transplant. Binders will be checked every week and students should have completed pages 22- 35 for this week's check. Time is allowed to complete work in class but if more time is needed it may be finished at home.

Literacy:  Have your students been talking about food a little more lately?  They have been exploring where their fast food comes from as we have begun reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, the student edition, and we watched Fresh, The Movie. Bring them to the grocery store so they can begin looking at labels!  Friday, students took the mastery test on Latin Unit 2, and I hope to have the grades posted by this afternoon.  This week we will begin Latin Unit 3, and continue our reading.  

English: Students have been off to a great start in English!  So far, we've read two of Gary Soto's works: a short story entitled "Seventh Grade" and the poem Oranges.  We began the year reviewing elements of literature and how they applied to these two texts.  Recently, students finished another short story called "Barrio Boy" and together we discussed how to locate the main idea of a text.  Students will be taking a quiz on Wednesday, October 9th.  They are encouraged to review their main idea notes and study their vocabulary words on Quizlet (there is link right on Google Classroom)!

Also, as a reminder, students should be reading their independent reading books 30 minutes per night.  Their projects are due on Wednesday, October 30th!

Math: Students did an amazing job on Friday's quiz, please check the gradebook to see how your student did.  Great work!  This week we will be continuing to talk about the constant of proportionality (unit rate), and creating equations in the form y = kx to help better understand graphs of proportions.  We will have another quiz on Friday October 11th. 

BADGERS 2019 - 2020

Welcome to The Badger Team! 

It's hard to believe that the 2019-2020 school year has begun!  Badger teachers are happy to welcome your children,  as well as a new science teacher, Mrs. Duval Buell, to our team!  As I'm sure your students told you, we spent the first few days getting to know one another by participating in many team building activities and competitions, as part of our Growth Mindset learning/teaching model.

We watched the Disney movie Meet the Robinsons one morning, to illustrate that making mistakes and learning from them is one of the keys to learning.  Keep moving forward is the motto in the movie, and it applies quite well to The Badger Team's overarching philosophy.  Immediately after watching the movie, we adjourned to the gym, where groups were given paper bags filled with identical, common items.  Students were asked to collaborate, and build a self sustaining tower.  We observed were kids who worked beautifully together, communicated, and gracefully accepted failure every time their structure crumbled.  There was one winning team, who built the tallest, most stable tower, but every team won, because they all accomplished the goal:  to collaborate, fail, and keep moving forward!  Every team built a tower!  This is definitely what we hope to see all year long.  

Your students are adjusting quite well to the Badger Lite program - not lugging huge, heavy backpacks to classes!  We've provided each student with a large format copy of their individual schedule, as well as a small format copy which they were given time to tape to the inside of their lockers.  The hope is that with structured time to return to lockers, they will become accustomed to planning to carry only what they need for two to three classes at a time.  We've notice a majority of students are using a small string bag to keep only those materials they'll need in every class - their agenda, pencil case and their Passport.  Please be sure to ask your student to share their Passport with you!  

There remain a handful of students who did not have the opportunity to do back to school shopping for supplies, so we thought it would be helpful to remind you of our list:

• personal ear buds for standardized tests
• a 1" 3-ring binder with a set of five dividers, and loose leaf paper for English
• 160 3 x 5 inch flash cards with a flexible storage container  for Literacy
• Literacy will share the 3 ring binder for English
• 2 spiral notebooks and a folder for Social Studies
• a 1/2" 3-ring binder for Science with loose leaf paper
• a composition book and a folder for Math
• a large supply of pencils and erasers

Many thanks for subscribing to our blog!  Each Badger teacher will post interesting information and updates every Sunday.  

Weekly Update May 12th

Progress Reports: Grades have closed! Progress Reports will be coming home Tuesday, May 14th.

I-Ready: Students will be completing their last I-Ready testing for the year on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  Be ready!  We recommend going to bed early and eating something for breakfast!

Class Updates: 

Social Studies: Students spent the week working on an in-class research project on the Middle Ages. Students will wrap up the Medieval unit with a performance task on Monday and Tuesday. We will start the Renaissance on Wednesday.

Science:  We'll be wrapping up our unit at the end of this week with an assessment.  Students can log on to their unit anytime to review the concepts that we've been learning about.  At the end of the week they should be able to tell you exactly why the moon jelly population exploded in the Glacier Sea!

Literacy:  We have returned to The Omnivore's Dilemma to enjoy learning about how an ecological, sustainable farm works!  In the week ahead we'll get the final unit of Latin roots started, and take the final round of iReady tests.  

English: Students submitted their final independent reading projects for the year last week!  We also began a new article in Study Sync, entitled "The Dangers of Social Media."  It has yielded such wonderful, honest discourse in class, and I'm proud of our students for respecting alternate points of view.  We discussed author's purpose as well as counter-claims within the article.  The article mentions the "Wait Until 8th" Pledge, which we then explored in class.  Students will spend time this week creating pledges of their own and working in small groups.

Math: Students are wrapping up our statistics unit we are still working with sample variability and random samples this week.  The study guide will go home on Tuesday and the test is Friday, May 17th.  Make sure to study and ask questions.

Weekly Update: May 5th

Progress Reports: Grades will be closing this week!  Make sure you are caught up.  Progress reports will be going home the following week.

Spirit Week!

We'll be celebrating SPIRIT WEEK this upcoming week!  Please remember all dress code rules apply!

Monday: Pajama Day
Tuesday: Crazy Hair Day
Wednesday: College Day
Thursday: 80's Day
Friday: Color Wars - Grade 7 is RED!

School Walk-A-Thon:  Each team will be participating in a walk-a-thon to benefit our school's PTO.  Collection envelopes for our school fundraiser were sent home with Badger students and are to be returned by Friday, May 10th.  Any amount helps!  Thank you for your fundraising efforts!

Book Orders are due to Mrs. McGuire no later than Thursday, May 9th!

Class Updates: 

Social Studies: After returning from vacation, we spent time wrapping up the late Middle Ages. We recapped the Black Death along with researching the story behind Joan of Arc. Students were assessed on Friday. Next week, we will be starting an in-class research project!

Science:  We had a great time on the field trip!  It certainly was the highlight of our science lessons.  Next week we will be completing a mid-unit assessment.  Students are well on their way to figuring out what happened to the moon jellies.  

Literacy:  It's been a very productive week.  Students have been working diligently in class on their Art of Civil Disobedience essays. We have had Chrome Books available all week, so that students can type their work once the editing and revision processes are complete.  The finished document, typed and printed, is due by the end of the school day on Monday, May 6th.  All papers received after that date will be considered late.  The Latin Unit 11 Mastery test is scheduled for Thursday, May 9th!  Students need to be sure that they are studying that material, too! 

English: Just a friendly reminder that final IRP projects are due Thursday, May 9th.  An example has been posted to each Google Classroom.  Badger students worked on a district common assessment this past week, which required them to read nonfiction and fictional excerpts.  We continued with another nonfiction article in our Study Sync unit about the dangers of social media.  This article yielded excellent discourse in class!  Be sure to ask your student some of the topics we addressed together!

Math: We have covered histograms and box plots, now onto populations and samples.  Student did a great job on their last quiz and we are flying through this unit!  This week we will be learning how to determine the difference between a population and a sample.  Using samples we will then learn how to select a sample and determine how to take a random sample.  Our next test will be Friday, May 17th.

Weekly Update: April 14th

Happy Spring!

Field Trip Information

The Badgers will be going on a field trip on May 1st.  Click here to download the information and permission slip.  Students all have paper copies.  Money and permission slips are due on April 12th.

Class Updates: 

Social Studies: The majority of this week was spent completing SAS testing. Students spent Social Studies classes reviewing materials in preparation for their assessment on Monday. Make sure your child studies over the weekend!

Science:  We'll wrap up our badger unit on Monday with a quiz.  Tuesday we will start working on figuring out a new phenomenon:  Why are there so many moon jellies?  

Literacy:  Students have spent a great deal of time learning about how pacifists brought about change in our country. They have watched a trilogy of movies about the the most famous acts of civil disobedience which resulted in changes under the law.  This week they learned how Cesar Chavez changed the lives of the migrant farm workers. Links to the three movies are posted on the Google Classrooms.  Next week they will begin a major writing assignment on the Art of Civil Disobedience.  Be sure to keep an eye out for the packet!    

English: Badgers spent the majority of the week completing their state assessments.  Overall, I was very proud of how diligently our students worked!  There will be a final unit test on The Giver on Tuesday, April 16th.  There is a study guide posted online to each Google Classroom.  Students should also read their independent reading books over the weekend.  Aim for an hour of reading at a minimum!

*April book orders will be sent out next week and are due back to Mrs. McGuire by Friday, April 19th!

Math: Last week students students reviewed measures of center (mean, median, and mode). We estimated how many jelly beans are in a jar and analyzed all the estimates to determine if a single person or a group are better at estimating. This week we are starting our unit on statistics, but continuing with measures of center and looking at different types of graphs.  This year we are going to primarily focus on dot plots, histograms, and box and whisker plots. 

Weekly Update: April 8th

Field Trip Information

The Badgers will be going on a field trip on May 1st.  Click here to download the information and permission slip.  Students all have paper copies.  Money and permission slips are due on April 12th.

STATE TESTING  April 9 - 12th  

**Make sure your student gets a good night's sleep and eats breakfast!  Badgers will test beginning promptly after Advisory, so it is also very important that your student gets to school on time! We will have limited classes and homework this week to allow students to concentrate all their energy on the test.  

Class Updates: 

Social Studies: Students spent the week researching and investigating the Crusades. We spent a few days learning about the impact that the Crusades had on Medieval times but more importantly the influence that they have on our world today. Students were assessed on this topic on Thursday.

Science:  We've been busy learning about how fossils are formed and how scientists keep track of all of their information.  This week we'll put everything together and answer our question..... Are stink badgers really badgers?  Early next week will be the assessment.  Students should be studying their notes this week!

Literacy:  Friday was the test on Latin Unit 10!  Only two more units!  We've enjoyed putting a star sticky note on the roots around the classroom as we have learned them!  There are only a few left!  This week we finished reading about Mahatma Gandhi, and tomorrow students will complete a review assignment using the notes they have compiled.  This week we will run a very different schedule, because of the SAS tests, so we will only meet with each group for one double block. During that time, we will watch the last of the Teaching Tolerance movies, Viva La Causa, about Cesar Chavez.  

English: Presentations have commenced and students did a wonderful job!  Please check in with your student to ask what they presented to the class and why.  This upcoming week we will be finishing the remaining skills within our Giver unit in between SAS testing.  Students were assigned their April IRP (last one of the year- woohoo!) and it is not due until mid-May. For now, students should be focused on reading their independent reading books outside of school.  Students are asked to bring their April IRP book with them to SAS testing in case they finish early!

Math: Students have a test on probability Monday, April 8th.  Study guides went home last week.    As a light review, we are going to do a lab  on mean, median, and mode to prepare for our statistics unit.  Students will not have homework this week because of testing.