December and January

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a relaxing break! December was a busy month for the 8th grade students. Here's a look at what we worked on...
* school store during 6th, 7th, and 8th grade lunches
* individual meetings to discuss classes, grades, and the 5th grade video
* 5th grade video meeting
* 5th grade video taping
* finished up presenting powerpoints to the Dolphins team teachers
* lunch meeting - students worked in groups to place pictures from the book Zoom in order. Sounds easy, right? There was a catch. Students in the group were each given their own pictures and were not allowed to show the other group members their pictures. They had to place the pictures in order without actually seeing all of the pictures.

Individual meetings were scheduled last week. With the students that attended, we began to talk about course scheduling for 9th grade. Students in reference this semester are working with Mrs. Dorwart to learn more about scheduling and the high school. Students taking reference during the second semester will start the class with Mrs. Dorwart and learn more about the scheduling process. Mr. Jones, high school principal, will also be visiting the middle school in the next few weeks to meet with each of the 8th grade teams. During this time, he will present the course catalog and talk with the students about scheduling and the high school. There will also be a parent meeting - more information on date and time will be coming soon.

During the January lunch meeting, students were given a scenario about a plane crash. Working in pairs, they were asked to order the 12 items that survived the crash, thinking about which would be the most useful and why. We ended the meeting with a great discussion about which objects/items could be used for what.

School store is scheduled for this Friday. I will also be visiting Mrs. Wehr's Language Arts class this month to talk with the 8th grade students about their reading workshop progress.