Welcome back! I hope everyone enjoyed their Spring Break even if you didn’t get to do everything you had originally planned! For those of you who have been asking, my daughter isn’t here yet! She will be here sometime in the next three weeks! The Language Arts teachers have been working hard to continue teaching online what we would have done had we been able to meet in person over the next nine weeks. This blog post contains a LOT of information that you will need moving forward for the remainder of the year. Please read it carefully! If you have your planner or something you are using to stay organized, it may be helpful to take notes in as you read this post!
We are officially in the 4th and final marking period of the school year which means we are going to start reading a novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry. I will be assigning you chapters to read each week and activities to go with them. If you have finished reading 7 Good Fit Books at this point in the year, The Giver will count as your 8th book. You do not need to continue to read other good fit books unless you want to read more than one book at a time for fun or you haven’t finished your 7th Good Fit Book at this point in the school year. Remember, graphic novels do not count as one of your Good Fit Books!
Most of the work we are doing with The Giver will be on iLearn and there will also be a few assignments on Google Classroom. I will also be explaining everything we are doing on my weekly blog posts or iLearn for the remainder of the year. I will still send you updates on Remind but since characters are limited, I will not be sending out detailed Remind notifications. If you have questions, you should still communicate with me through email and I will continue to email students and families who are not completing their weekly assignments. Each week, work will be posted on Monday and you will be expected to turn in assignments by Friday at 3:00 pm. If assignments are not completed by then, you may make them up for late work. All late assignments for 4th Marking Period will be due by Friday, June 5th at 3:00 pm. I will not be accepting work from the year after this date.
To start off, I have posted what we are doing for the next TWO weeks just in case the baby is born and I am unable to update my blog next Monday. To reiterate, everything I am giving you should be worked on over the next TWO weeks!
This Week’s iLearn Assignments:
- Go to iLearn & review the checklist created for the next two weeks “April 13th-April 24th Assignments” (Moving forward, you will have a checklist every week to help you manage your time.)
- Preview The Giver book by posting to the Week 1 Discussion by Friday, April 17th at 3:00 pm. It is important you do this on time so that your classmates can follow Step 4 and have time to complete it!
- Read Chapters 1-5 of The Giver – If you don’t have the book or you ordered a copy and it hasn’t arrived yet, I have posted reading options on iLearn under “The Giver Resources”
- Return to the Week 1 discussion by Wednesday April 22nd at 3:00 pm and reply to one other student. This needs to be thoughtful and expand on what they said since this is our class conversation about the novel. Solely writing, “I agree” or repeating what someone else said will not count as credit for your reply. There are other ideas for responses available to you on iLearn.
- Complete The Giver Chapter 1-5 questions by Friday, April 24th at 11:00 am. These are on Google Classroom
One-Pager Information
Submit One-Pagers Five, Six, and Seven on Google Classroom as you finish them. You can follow the instructions in the assignment posting. All One-Pagers will be due by Friday, June 5th at 3:00 pm. There will be an 8th and final One-Pager too. I will be giving you the directions for that in two weeks since I know many people are still finishing their 7th Good Fit Book and I want to give you time to focus on that. You should be able to upload One-Pagers Five and Six this week since they were originally due a month ago and you have had nine weeks to complete them at this point. I know some of you turned your One-Pagers Five and Six in early to the tray in our classroom. If you were one of those people, just type me a note in the Google Classroom assignment with your name on it, hit”Turn In” , and I will take care of it by grading your hard copy at home. I will not accept by email, please upload it to the Google Classroom assignment so I can give you feedback using the rubric.
Read Theory
We will continue to use Read Theory in the way we normally would for the remainder of the school year. You must pass 5 Read Theory quizzes each week through June 5th. That means you should be using April 13th as your start date and June 5th as your end date to check how many quizzes you have passed. If you have passed 5 quizzes each week, then on June 5th, the amount of quizzes you will have needed to pass for full credit will be 40.
I know some of you are behind on Read Theory for the year and need to make up quizzes for late work. I am going to give you the next eight weeks to work on making up those late assignments and improve your grade for the end of the year. For those of you who fall into this category, if you use September 14th as your start date and June 5th as your end date and the amount of quizzes you have passed is 200, I will go back and give you full credit for all of your missing Read Theory from the year. This will not go back and change the grades on your report cards but it will help improve your year-long average at the end of the year. You must have both components to receive full credit for the entire school year. If you do not have late Read Theory, don’t worry, this will not apply to you.
IXL
Each week you will also have one lessons assigned on IXL. I am going to assign these weekly so people don’t become confused. All IXL lessons will be due by 3:00 pm each Friday. Here are the lessons for this week and next:
- E.2 Identify the Narrative Point of View -THIS WEEK
- J. 1 Order Topics from Broadest to Narrowest-NEXT WEEK
Fun Friday
Each week you will be given an assignment to do for fun! I miss talking to you about what is going on in your life so this assignment will allow us to still stay connected. This week, your assignment is to cook something and explain what you did or made. Take a picture of what you made or of yourself cooking and upload it to the Google Classroom assignment I have created. If you want to share the recipe (hint hint, you know I love food) I wouldn’t be opposed!
Google Hangout Opportunity
Every Friday, I am going to try my best to host a Google Hangout for each class to discuss the chapter questions assigned that week. Once the baby is here, we may need to be a bit more flexible with this. Your assigned reading and chapter questions should be completed prior to this hangout for the discussion to be meaningful and beneficial for all. These will be entirely optional but will help extend your understanding of the novel and what is happening in Language Arts. I will end each session by answering any general questions you have about any assignments from the week. Typically, these hangouts will take place between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm on Fridays so you have time to redo assignments before 3:00 pm if you need to. I will be sending invitations for the hangouts to your school email addresses.
I know this is a lot of information all at once and I apologize for that. I just don’t know when my baby is going to arrive and I wanted to give you as much information as I possibly could in case she decides to come sometime soon! All of your teachers miss you terribly and we wanted to let you know we are thinking of you and here for you, always. Check out the video from the Bryant Staff to our Eagles below the homework summary for the week!
Homework:
- 5 Read Theory Quizzes Due EVERY Friday by 3:00 pm
- IXL-E.2 Identify the Narrative Point of View Due Friday by 3:00 pm
- IXL-J. 1 Order the Topics from Broadest to Narrowest due NEXT Friday by 3:00 pm
- Work on One-Pagers 5, 6, and 7 and upload them to Google Classroom when you finish-Due June 5th at the latest!
- Read Chapters 1 through 5 of The Giver
- Post to The Giver Discussion (by 3:00 pm THIS Friday) and respond to one classmate (by 3:00 pm NEXT Wednesday)
- Answer The Giver Chapters 1-5 Guided Questions by NEXT Friday at 11:00 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdvr8x6uadE&feature=youtu.be