I was having a little trouble connecting to the internet yesterday, so this is the post for both yesterday’s class and today’s.

The root words:

Tuesday Able, Ible meaning able to. Example words included curable, ability, capable.
Wednesday Re meaning again or back. Example words included revise, reestablish, reverse.

The DLW sentences were:

Tuesday – The Petrified Forest located in the Painted Dessert of Ariz. is a hole forest of trees turned to stone by ancient volcanic lava. (Hints, Comma for nonrestrictive phrase and clauses, Using the Right Word, Abbreviations)
Wednesday – 1/2 of the people of nev. lives in las vegas and the other half live outside it. (Hints, Abbreviations, Numbers, Hyphen, Subject-Verb Agreement, Capitalization, Comma between Independent Clauses)

Tuesday was a Writing Workshop Day and we looked at all the writing contest opportunities listed on the Writing Workshop page. I offered to help any student before school, after school, at lunch or between classes who might like to enter any of the writing contests. Prizes range from cash, savings bonds, scholarships and other prizes. Our mini lesson for the day’s writing workshop was on word choice and many of the different types of word that we can look at to improve word choice in our writing. I gave the students a packet to put in their English Binders that covered Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs, and Heteronyms. We also reviewed Antonyms and Synonyms. Several resources (Dictionaries, Thesauruses, Other writers’ work, Descriptive Word Poster, etc.) were listed for finding alternative words for our writing. Then we were given most of the class period to write. We were instructed to turn our revised Anchor Piece in by the start of class on Wednesday with the phrase: Word Choice Revision written under the date in our header. The revision must also be stapled to the top of the original Anchor Piece with the yellow highlighted words.

Wednesday we were back to Treasure Island. The book is getting very interesting and there is a lot going on now. We read aloud in class chapters 8 and 9 and most of chapter 10. We practiced stopping at a few points and visualizing the scene that was taking place. We have to have our study guides ready to be graded for points tomorrow and we need to have two to three sentence summaries for each chapter through the end of chapter 10. There are a lot of characters now as well. A list of all the characters that we need to have some description for has been put on the back board in the room. That list includes:

Squire Telawney
Doctor Livesey
Jim Hawkins
Mrs. & Mrs. Hawkins
Billy Bones (captain)
Black Dog
Pew
Israel Hands
Long John Silver (Barbecue)
Mr. Dance
Tom Redruth
Harry
Ben
Tom Morgan
Mr. Arrow
Joyce
Captain Smollett
Hunter
Mr. Blandly
Job Anderson

It is important to keep all of the characters straight so I am continuing to keep my book highlighted and available for any student who might start getting confused on which character is which.

There was also a writing assignment today. Each student has to put themselves in Captain Smollett’s shoes and write a ship’s log from his perspective. How are things looking to Captain Smollett and what might he have included in the ship’s log for the beginning of the voyage? This writing assignment is to be done in the Response section of our WR’s notebook.

Today’s primary lesson centered around using available resources. Many of the students did not get all of their points on the daily language workout sentences from last week or the review paragraph we did in class today even though the correct answers were available in the flip charts or the text books. Every grammar rule demonstrated in the daily sentences and the weekly paragraphs are basic rules and can be found in the resources provided for the student’s use. One of the sentences last week ask the student to decide whether the word south when used as a direction should be capitalized. I pointed out that the correct rule could be found on the yellow flip chart under #44. Still when the same error appeared in today’s paragraph review, several students didn’t bother to get up and look up the rule. We will keep working on these basic grammar rules and points will be lost if students do not use the tools provided for them.

Today’s DLW sentence is:

greenland, the most large island in the world, administered by denmark.

The errors can be found in the form of a Sentence Fragment, Capitalization, and an Adjective (Comparative/Superlative) problem.

The root words we covered today were:

Dict – speak, say (dictate, contradict, dialect)
Contra, Counter – against, opposite (contradict, counterfeit, counterclockwise)

We reviewed through Chapter 7 of Treasure Island and checked study guides. We also looked at our reading toolkits and have a prediction worksheet to do as homework. Crews also received 5 points for every boxtop they had in their treasure chests today. Way to go crews! Lots of booty going down in those ledgers.

Tomorrow is a Writing Workshop day and everyone needs to have their Anchor Piece with 20 highlighted words to work on.

Oh, I almost forgot, anyone still not putting the correctly formatted header on their assignments has to write their header 50 times and turn them into Mrs. Scales. What a waste of time. I mean really, wouldn’t it be a lot easier to check the header before turning in your paper than having to write the same old thing 50 times.

We had a two hour delay today so everyone got to sleep in a little. That meant that only 3rd and 4th periods actually had English class today. Daily Language Workout sentences were turned in, 1st and 2nd period will have to turn them in on Monday. The rest of the class time was given to read today’s chapters.

Everyone, whether they had class today or not MUST have read through chapter 7 by Monday. Student were told on Thursday that even if they did not have class on Friday they would have to be ready to start chapter 8 on Monday. Study Guides will be graded on Monday and are worth 25 points. They must be completed through chapter 7 to get full credit.

The second two chapters of Treasure Island were really good. We read aloud in class chapter 2 and 3 today.

Black Dog showed up at the Admiral Benbow looking for his ol mate, Bill. The captain wasn’t very happy to see him and they ended up in a fight. Black Dog’s left shoulder was cut and a chunk of wood from the Admiral Benbow sign was knocked out from the captain’s swinging saber. Black Dog’s visit and the excitement of the fight caused captain to have a stroke. The doctor came along to check on Mr. Hawkins and “bleed” the captain to keep him in bed for a while.

Jim’s father dies then a discusting blind begger came and slipped the captain the “black spot.” The blind beggar leaves and Captian Billy Bones explains that the black spot is a summons and that it is his chest that the men are after. You see Billy Bones was once the first mate of Captain Flint and Flint told him where he burried his treasure before he died. Unfortunately, Billy Bones falls dead just after explaining that to Jim.

Although it was fun doing the “jump in reading” we were not able to finish reading chapter 4 today in class. Everyone was reminded that they had to read chapter 4 as homework and have their study guides updated before class tomorrow. It was also clearly explained that if we do not have school tomorrow (because of the lovely snow and wind) Friday’s scheduled reading of chapters 5, 6 and 7 also need to be read before class on Monday. There will be a homework check for points on Monday and all study guides must be completed through chapter 7 for full points.

Our root word for today was Pre, which means prior, in front of or before.

Some of the boys in first period moved my rocker to the front of the room where it will stay while we are reading the wonderful novel we have just begun. Thanks Jordan, Kyle, and Zayne.

Book order forms are out for January and anyone wishing to order needs to have their money to Mrs. Scales by next Wednesday, January 13th.

Our root word for the day was Sub, Sup, which means under or less than. Several example words were given.

Our DLW sentence was: The Great Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt were bilt with more than too million blocks waying two tons each. Mrs. Scales did not give us hints today, but anyone who is really good with grammar knows that there is a subject verb agreement error, some using the right word, and spelling errors in today’s sentence.

As one of the reading strategies a color code for characters could be found on the front board today. It read:
Squire Trelawaney – pink
Doctor Livesey – yellow
Jim Hawkins – orange
Mr. & Mrs. Hawkins – blue
Billy Bones “captain” – green

After going over some reading pointers to help sharpen our insights, we began reading Treasure Island. It was great, we highlighted each character and their descriptions in their color to make filling out our study guides easier. The first chapter was mostly green and yellow. A lot of the chapter described the captain who showed up at the inn. There were little bits of information about Jim Hawkins and his parents who own the inn, but mostly captain and how he drank a lot of rum and watched out for other sailors or ships. Then the yellow came in near the end when Dr. Livesey stopped by the inn one evening to look in on Mr. Hawkins who had taken ill. Well, let’s just say that the captain and Dr. Livesey didn’t get along right from the start.

It is easy to see how the author, Robert Louis Stevenson kept readers looking for the next weekly installment. After reading chapter 1 it is pretty clear that something is going to happen in the next chapter. Mrs. Scales explained that this literary technique is called foreshadowing.

Mrs. Scales reminded everyone not to get behind on their study guides and that any reading listed on the lesson plans must be completed whether we are in class or not.

Today marked the beginning of our Treasure Island unit. After doing the regular daily routine:

Root Word – Onym which means name or word. Normally used as a suffix such as in the following example words, homonym, geonym and mononym.

Daily Language Workout sentence – Both the countries of guatemala and belize border mexico they are too the South. With the hints, Capitalization, Using the Right Word and Semicolon.

we embarked on a treasure hunt through the school. Each crew was lead by their captain who had seen the secret map. Several crews made it through the entire island, finding all five treasures and the placket. Booty was tallied up in our crew ledgers and everyone received their own copy of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, Treasure Island which we will begin reading as a class tomorrow.

Mrs. Scales reminded everyone of all the resources available to in the classroom to check their DLW sentences prior to turning them in on Friday. Because the sentence errors are all covered by basic grammar rules that all 7th graders should know and understand, there is no reason for anyone to get less than 100% on these weekly assignments. All you have to do is look up the grammar rule for anything you are not sure of.

We were also reminded that everyone must have chosen their Anchor Piece and have one copy with an updated header put into the page protector in their English Binder and one copy with 20 words highlighted in yellow by the beginning of class tomorrow.

It was great to see everyone again today after the Christmas break. We began the day by me sharing my New Year’s Eve masque. I shared that my husband and I celebrated New Year’s Eve and our 22 wedding anniversary by attending the Masqerade Ball at Union Station in Indianapolis. Then we took the time to go around the room and let anyone who wished to share tell about their holidays.

We heard about the 4 gal New Year’s Eve party fun at Kelly’s, in which a new and upcoming band was formed. A couple of students talked about the go carts they recieved for Christmas and the soccor goal that was given as a Christmas gift so Katey would stop kicking the ball against the house. Debbie talked about the Barbie doll with a flute that she recieved.

Then we got started with the daily language workout sentence:
90 Million People are added to the Worlds population each year. Hints: Numbers, Capitalization, Apostrophe (possessives)

and the root word:
• Root Card # 38 – HOMO (Greek) same, equal, like, common; one and the same – Example words Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs

Everyone was instructed to pick an Anchor Piece from their graded first semester writing assignments. This piece of writing will be used for many things over the next few weeks. One copy needs to be printed with an updated header and put in the page protector in each student’s English Binder. The second copy needs to have 20 words highlighted in yellow.

We also began learning about the Treasure Island unit that begins tomorrow and the cooperative learning groups we will be working in.

All in all, it was a very productive and entertaining day in Mrs. Scales’ room.

If you haven’t read the book yet, be sure you do before the movie comes out!