Maternity Leave

Hello Everyone!

I'm officially out for the year for maternity leave. I would like to welcome Mr. Feece to the classroom as my replacement this year.

Special message to my students: I will miss all of you very much. I will think about you often and pray that you are doing well in school and being your best selves. :) Don't worry, I will come visit when baby gets to be a few weeks old.

God Bless!
Mrs. Smith

PLEASE RETURN YOUR BOOKS!

I am missing many of the books from our classroom library. If I have trusted you with a book, please live up to your end of the deal and bring it back. I am especially interested in the return of Edith Hamilton's Mythology. It is black with a horse-like figure (pegasus) on the front. I lent that book to someone from my personal bookshelf and would be very bummed if I didn't get it back.

THANKS!

To Kill A Mockingbird Background Info/Context

8th grade will be starting To Kill A Mockingbird in February when I go on maternity leave.

To prepare for this book study, we will be looking at the context, themes, setting, and vocabulary needed to understand this book. For starters, here are some links to read:

Sparknotes Context: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/context.html

Wikipedia's entry on the book (keep in mind this is for general info and should be compared to the information found at more reliable sources): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird

Sparknotes Themes, Motifs, and Symbols: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/themes.html

What is the genre "southern gothic?"
Wikipedia: (pay particular attention to the middle paragraph under "features")
Wisegeek
Sparknotes (stop reading after "twisted psyches" when they start talking about Faulkner)

1930's photos and art slideshow

Calendar Updates, Grades

Please check the calendar above for updates. Also, grades for quarter 2 are complete in Powerschool. Paper report cards go home today. Please check powerschool for additional comments.

LAST DAY OF THE QUARTER IS...

Wednesday, January 13th. Please be sure you have met ALL THREE of your AR goals. To check, login to your account at school OR go to Home Connect and use your normal Renaissance Place/AR username and password to get in.

Congratulations Corpus Quiz Bowlers

Congratulations Corpus Quiz Bowlers for their win yesterday. We were down after the first two rounds but managed to pull it off in the end! Good teamwork and sportsmanship!

Our next match will be at home in Mrs. Smith's room on Wednesday, January 13th. Spectators are welcome. The room fills quickly, so be here by 3:20pm for the best availability of seating.

Vocabulary Midterm

Welcome back!
This week, we will be reviewing all vocabulary words learned so far this year.
For 6th grade, the lists are pre, post, mono, poly, uni, bi, tri, quad, co/com, and contra/counter.
For 7th grade, the lists are ped, man/manu, spec, dict, ject, sect, port, miss/mit, graph, and scrib/script.
For 8th grade, the lists are mob/mot/mov, grad/gress, pos, sed/sid/sess, log, ono/nym/onym, tain/ten/tent, fer, cap, and pel/puls.

We will have a large JEOPARDY review game on Monday, January 11th.
The midterm will be on Tuesday, January 12th. It will count for 2nd quarter.
The end of the quarter is January 13th--I will give you the entire class period to read for those of you still lagging in your goals.