Week of 05/03-05/07
Please send Kleenex. We are almost completely out.
We really need chaperones to commit by Wednesday, May 5th for the 8th Grade Schlitterbahn trip on Friday, May 21st!!!
Please contact Dr. Hamilton by email for specifics. Thank you.
Progress Reports will go home this Friday, May 7th.
English Update
This week, students will:
- Work on Dailies #28 (05/03 & 05/04).
- Finish their group analysis of Vignettes 9-11 – Meme Ortiz, Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin, & Marin – (05/03 & 05/04). We did not get as far on this last week as I had hoped due to our busy testing schedule.
- Continue on to read and analyze Vignette 12 – Those Who Don’t (05/03 & 05/04).
- Receive Similes in Songs Extra Credit Activity (05/03 & 05/04).
- Take the English LTF Exam as required by the School District. This exam is largely looked at as a benchmark (or indicator) of how well students are doing at mastering Pre-AP level coursework (05/05 & 05/06).
- Work on Dailies #29 (05/05 & 05/06).
- Review and Check Dailies #28 & #29 (05/07).
- Read and Analyze Vignettes 13-14 – There Was an Old Woman… and Alicia Who Sees Mice (05/07).
- Also, Scholastic Book Orders are due by Tuesday, May 4th.
English Challenge Question – Turn in your entry with a copy of the question, your name, date, and period by Friday 05/07. All correct entries will go into a drawing for a prize at the end of the six weeks. What happened to Louie’s cousin in The House on Mango Street after he gave everyone a ride in the yellow Cadillac? Be specific as you explain your answer.
Math Update
Algebra students will be taking the Texas state End Of Course Exam in addition to their course final. This will be administered on Monday and Tuesday, May 17 and 18. The course final will be on Wednesday, May 19. Please schedule any elective appointments at other times.
Math class information and assignments can be found at http://ghamilton.org .
Your student has the user name and password.
The dates and times for math after-school help can be viewed by clicking “tutorials.”
History Update
We are finished with U. S. History as of today although I probably will go over some material with the students today and Monday. I have told the students that they need to keep their materials from U. S. History this year because 50% of their TAKS in tenth grade is this course and 35% of the exit exam is this course. They are the last class to take TAKS. The review materials, in particular, will be valuable. With budget cuts, it is unlikely that high schools will run that material for their students. I suggest the students put their materials including their notebooks in a big plastic bag and put it some place they will remember in tenth grade.
We now go into geography in preparation for high school. All students attending public schools in Texas will take geography next year; I cannot speak for the private schools, but the geography we will be covering will help those taking world or U. S. History in high school so I expect the work to be done by all students. Also, if your student transfers from a private high school which does not teach geography to a Texas public high school, that student will have to take geography to graduate.
This work will involve lots of map work, map reading, studying the physical world and place/location. The students will need map pencils and black ball point pens by Monday if they do not have them. They will need these for next year also.
Please contact by e-mail if you have any questions.
Science Update
We are in the home stretch and almost finished with testing. The last district testing, LTF “laying the foundations” is this week for Math, Science, and English. Designed to prepare students for the AP exams in high school and provide the students with their first look at the kind of rigorous testing to come in AP classes.
TLW:
1. Each student should have a manila folder with Nine Different Lesson Plans, a Lessons Note Packet, an Objective Packet and a TAKS Attack Packet inside; the students should be taking that information, choosing one lesson and synthesizing it into one creative writing story. The story can be of any genre they want, folk tale, science fiction, poetry, comic book etc… What I do want them to do is take the material from the lesson and use it in an original fashion and apply the content in an original way.
This story assignment will be due on Friday, May 7, 2010 I will give time this week after testing for students to work on these stories.
2. As soon as LTF is finished we will be completing two outdoor activities: Croquet Physics, and Water bottle rockets the students will need nothing for the Croquet but we need 16 empty two liter soda bottles for water rockets. Please help and send me any bottles you can by Monday the 10th other wise I am going to be chugging some Soddy Pop next week.
3. We will finish out this next two weeks covering Electricity and Light.
