Tuesday August 31, 2010

Today's assignments:
7th graders watched a CNN Student News podcast & had class discussion over what is good about our school & what they would like to see changed or fixed. Also, they were assigned a map study of 12 Midwestern states and will take a pretest over them tomorrow.
6th graders: CNN Student News podcast & class discussion. Also students have a spelling test over 15 vocabulary words in Chapter 1 of their textbooks. We are going to start the year off right by emphasizing correct spellings in every subject.
8th graders: CNN Student News podcast & class discussion. Also went over a handout that gave the students how to read like a historian, using primary & secondary sources & discussed National History Day.

Monday August 30, 2010

Wow today was hot!!!!
7th grade assignments for today was to take the United States geography quiz on
www.lizardpoint.com. Students should take it 2 times & keep their scores and compare to the final quiz at the end of this unit. Also given a group assignment to work on ten geography terms & put into a powerpoint for Thursday.
6th grade assignment was to take the United States geography quiz also.
8th grade assignment was to start researching the United States Presidents Webquest which is due Friday September 10th. Also Current Events for this week are due on Thursday September 2nd.

Friday August 27, 2010

Today's assignment for the 6th & 7th grades was to work on 2 geography terms worksheets. The students will see these terms and need to be able to identify them throughout the year, it also tells me how much they already know. The 8th grade set up their accounts for Tween Tribune, which is a current events site for "tweens". They need to browse the articles and comment on 3 of them by the time class is over.
This is great for class discussions.

Thursday August 26, 2010

We finished our classmate interviews in 6th & 7th grade and introduced the Tween Tribune to the 7th graders website also. For the 8th graders we did our 1st week of Current Events to help our students pay attention to what is happening not only in their communities but also at a state, national & world level.

Wednesday August 25, 2010

Today in class we corrected the fact & opinion worksheet "the pony express" & "my tarantula". Also corrected the making inferences worksheet "the visitor" & "let them eat cake". Then we started to give our presentations over the Classmate interviews that we did. Hopefully we all learned a little more about our class.

Tuesday August 24, 2010

Today's assignments were to finish up the classmate interviews & also 2 worksheets that are due on Wednesday when you come to class.

Monday August 23, 2010

Today's assignment deals with getting to know our classmates better. In most of the classes we have the same kids, but we do have some new faces at the SWMS this year. So the Classmate Interview questions are on my Webpage that you can look at. The 8th graders also have Current Events which will be due on Thursday August 26 when they come to class.

Friday August 20th, 2010

Today's assignments for the 6, 7, & 8th graders was 2 group assignments that challenged the students to think differently. We did a word puzzle and a decoding activity. We also corrected the locating information worksheets that we did in class on Thursday.

Thursday August 19, 2010

Today's assignment for the 6th, 7th, 8th grades was a writing prompt:
What do you think would be the most challenging part of being President of the United States? They were to write 2 paragraphs (4 sentences each paragraph) about what they thought. Also they were given a worksheet "Landfill" & "Trash" on how locating information, where they need to be able to read passages and find facts.

Wednesday August 18, 2010

For the 6th, 7th & 8th grades today we went through each grades syllabus for my classroom. Things that are covered are SWCSD vision & mission statements, grading scale,assignments, policies covering cheating, plagiarism and classroom expectations.
Please refer to this blog on a daily basis for clarification of assignments and possible extra credit.

Welcome!

Hello returning 7th & 8th graders and a warm welcome to our new 6th graders who are entering the middle school this year. I'm very excited for you as you are the first group of students to take part in the 1:1 laptop initiative at South Winneshiek. We will
be doing many different things that use technology, but we will also do plenty of projects that you may consider to be old school.

One of the main reasons for this blog is to make assignments & information more accessible to not only the students, but also the parents to see what their children are involved in. So each day I will post the class assignment for all to see and if you miss school for some reason, you will be able check out what you missed. These are exciting times at South Winneshiek, and I encourage you all to be involved in as many things as possible. I'm anxious to start and can't wait to see all of you August 18th!

Mr. Johnson