I want to welcome you all to the 2008-2009 school year. I am looking forward to a very productive year! We begin the year in Religion by trying to uncover our unique gifts and how we can use these gifts to help our relationship with Jesus develop. We will continue to celebrate our special gifts through our “Student of the Week” activity. Each week, a student is selected randomly to be featured on our bulletin board. His/Her classmates will then post a paper shape with one carefully thought out and positive comment about this student. At the end of the week, these “shapes” are presented to the student as a reminder that he/she touches the lives of those around him/her in meaningful and positive ways. Hopefully, it encourages positive self-talk as well as encouraging the students to look for the best in their classmates. We will continue to look at relationships, especially the most important of relationships, that which we develop with Jesus.
Our focus in History will be the early years of The United States of America from exploration through the Civil War. We will begin with the earliest settlers in North America, followed by group study of explorers. Groups will complete research packets and then share their findings with their classmates. We will continue our study through the Colonial Period. Students will also begin a study of current events, they will be assigned this task on a rotating basis and each student will need to read two articles, one of which will relate to the race for the presidency.
The seventh grade math course is a continuation of last year’s curriculum, with Holt Middle School Mathematics, Course 2 as the primary text. We are beginning with exponents, algebraic expressions and integers. As the year progresses, we will be working on more algebra and geometry skills, such as solving equations and using formulas to find surface areas. Throughout the year students will be practicing and polishing their computation skills with positive and negative whole numbers, fractions and decimals. The seventh grade geography course centers on the Eastern Hemisphere. Students will first concentrate on some basic terms and practice some map skills before studying the countries of East Asia and the Pacific World. Hopefully, we will be able to connect the study of this part of the world with information students may have gathered during the recent Olympic Games.
As you can see, the seventh graders will have a very full year ahead of them. We are off to a wonderful start and I anticipate great things to come!
Mrs. Kersey
