March 28, 2011

First day of Term 4!


Minimal Day (See the schedule on our school homepage.)

Finish Shackleton video
Video -- Last time we got to. . . .
A1 to South Georgia -- still have to scale mountains
A2  to the Whaling Station
A3 to song on Elephant Island: "It's a Lie"
A4 to high mountain ridge -- slid down

Today we took a practice test (for participation points) on our seventh grade prefixes and suffixes, and we took a test on external text features.

External Text Features:
Make sure you can recognize 
captions
graphs and charts
tables
table of contents
index
glossary
titles
headings
subheadings
bolded words
 

Book-of-the-Month:  Sign up for your book by April 7.  Be half-way through reading it or so by April 18, and bring it to class all that week and the next so you are prepared to do some in-class activities with the book.  The book for this time should be contemporary realistic fiction: a novel that could happen in our time, but is a fictional (made-up) story.  Select a book that has 100 pages or more and that you have not read before.  

Contemporary Realistic Fiction 

 

Preview of Term 4 Targets  -- Receive this list in class on March 30.
    We will be taking the State Core Test this term (the last week of April).  Improve your score by reviewing and learning these items.

To download and print this list, click on the link here:

Preview of Term 4 Targets.doc

1. Review prefixes and suffixes and associated words.  Prefixes and Suffixes Chart 2010 
2. Test your knowledge of external text features
3. Review commonly confused words.  confused words chart.doc

4. Using Apostrophes to Show Possession

5. Lie and Lay

6. Internal Text Structures   

   chronological, sequence, description 

   Slide show from April 1 ( internal text structures.ppt ) for -- 
   Descriptive   Description Internal Text Structure
   Chronological  Chronological Internal Text Structure
   Sequence   Sequence Internal Text Structure

7. Main Idea, Important Details,  Summarizing

        Also writing paragraphs:  Transition Word List from Ms John.doc

   Play some very simple games with recognizing main idea: http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/h/mainideap2.cfm 

   http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/h/mainideap3.cfm   

    

8. Writing complete, correct sentences, and how to fix sentence fragments and achieve sentence variety.    Clauses and "Is it a complete sentence?"

   9.  Using context clues of definition and explanation to figure out what a word means.

           Context Clues for Seventh Grade

   10.  Review commas in a series.  

   Example:  The orange highlighted part shows commas in a series.

   "Adverbs, words that describe or add information to verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, should be used sparingly."  

          For more information on Parts of Speech, go to  Parts of Speech.

   Game with Commas in a Series

   Remember this?   Commas in a Series -- What's Different?

   11.  Review parts of a story: exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action. 

   12.  Review how we learn about a character in a story:  through his or her speech, actions, appearance, thoughts, and through what others say about that character.  

   13.  Review figurative language used in writing, especially simile and metaphor. 

   Glossary of Literary Terms

   14.  Consider more how to choose the best word to use by recognizing shades of meaning.  

   Is the water she spilled on her lap tepid, warm, hot, or scalding?  That would make a difference! 

   Is that person you're going to the jewelry store with your friend,  your helper, or your accomplice.  That could make a difference to you, and, in the case of the last word, to the police! They're all people you could hang out with, but have different shades of meaning.

   Shades of Meaning

    

   15.  Review effective research and reporting (inquiry), including asking questions, using reference books and reliable sources, and using informal citation.

   16.  We'll also look at more poetry and at author's and reader's purpose.  

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If time: Teacher Read-Aloud
Don't forget to see Ms. Dorsey if you'd like to attend the Writers' Conference on Thursday.