Mrs. Steed’s

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Happy Holidays!

1^st Period	8^th Grade Language Arts
2^nd Period	6^th Grade Reading
3^rd Period	6^th Grade Language Arts
6^th Period	Science with Mrs. Williams
7^th Period	7^th/8^th Grade Reading

All Reading Classes

PLEASE encourage your child to READ over the holidays!!

Students are required to read every night for 30 minutes. For the first 10 minutes, students should read aloud to an adult or an older brother or sister. During the next 20 minutes, students can read aloud, read silently, listen to a book on tape, or listen to someone else read. Reading, like anything else, takes practice!!! Please help your child to get this valuable practice by reading with him or her every night. Reading logs are graded and are due every TUESDAY. Please sign your child’s reading log and agenda every night. In addition, students are required to read books and take AR tests in order to receive AR points. All students are required to get 12 AR points each nine weeks. Students can check books out from the library or from the classroom.

We are working on comprehension skills through Georgia Standards and SRA comprehension.

Vocabulary

We continue to work on vocabulary in class. Vocabulary words come from the Elements of Literature, from our class novel, and from the 6^th grade vocabulary list.

Literary Elements	Vocabulary words from the novel
Setting	intriguing
Characters	ventilated
Narrator	extended
Plot	ceremony
Point of View	revered
1^st Person
3^rd Person
Conflict
Resolution
Climax
Tone
Theme
Genre (types of literature—mystery, romance, folktales, etc.)	6^th Grade vocabulary words
pre - before	prehistoric
auto - self	autobiography
logy – study of	geology
aqua - water	aquarium
cent – one hundred	century
hema - blood	hematology
mono - one	monogamy
micro - small	microorganism

8^th Grade Language Arts

In Grammar, we are working on writing and identifying simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. We finished our Verb Unit and will begin a Unit on PREPOSITIONS after the break.

Eighth grade students will take the Georgia Writing Assessment this year. Therefore, our Language Arts class will concentrate on writing! We are going through the writing process which is as follows:

*Prewriting (brainstorming, webbing, free style writing)

*Drafting (putting thoughts into sentences and paragraphs)

*Revising (check grammar, punctuation, sentence structure)

*Editing (have partners check to make sure grammar, etc. is correct)

*Publishing (final draft)

6^th Grade Language Arts

We finished our VERB Unit in Language Arts. We will begin a Unit on PREPOSITIONS after the break!

Verb	Word that shows action or a state of being
Action verb	Verb that shows physical or mental action (run, jump, play, write, etc.)
Linking verb	Verb that links the subject of a sentence to the predicate (I am Mrs. Steed). It shows a state a being rather than an action.
Helping verbs	Ask your child about “Maybe Mr. Do should have a will.”
“to be” verbs	Am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being
Transitive verbs	Receive the action from the verb.
Intransitive verbs	No action is received because there is no direct object in the sentence.

Each child has a grammar folder. I will send it home whenever they need to study or to complete assignments. Please refer to the grammar folder to help your child study.

We will also concentrate on writing! We will learn how to go through the writing process:

*Prewriting (brainstorming, webbing, free style writing)

*Drafting (putting thoughts into sentences and paragraphs)

*Revising (check grammar, punctuation, sentence structure)

*Editing (have partners check to make sure grammar, etc. is correct)

*Publishing (final draft)

Science

Please see Melanie Williams’ website for specific information.