7th Grade Team October Newsletter

Staying connected to our families is important to our teachers. In addition to the front page of our Canvas courses, we are excited to share this monthly newsletter with our families to keep you aware of upcoming events, activities, lessons, units, and materials from our classes! The 7th Grade Team has compiled this newsletter to share some of the upcoming experiences your student will be having with us. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child's teachers!

As a reminder, the final day of the 1st Quarter is Thursday, October 20th. Families are encouraged to use the instructions at the bottom of this newsletter to check Canvas regularly for students' progress in each class.

Students are wrapping up their 2pt perspective drawings this week. After learning how to draw 3-D shapes using two vanishing points, students then applied those skills and created their own cities/buildings. The objective was to fill their page and make a realistic looking, and creative scene. It was great to see students build an entire world on their page and the unique things they added!

Featured Artist: Natalie Wiltshire

7th grade choir has been working hard on singing strong and with two consistent parts. The students are doing very well with projecting their voices and we are moving right along with our music. The choir has been focusing on sight-reading and learning folk music as well. Some of the folk music is from the U.S, Britain, and Turkey. Students will soon be switching to holiday music to prepare for their concert in December.

The 7th Grade Band has officially set their Winter Concert Repertoire and are super excited about it! We are working diligently to master the notes and rhythms and are moving on to incorporating dynamics and ensemble balance.

Check out this photo of 7th grade students learning how to lead each other in a small rehearsal during Intervention!

Students in PE are currently learning new ways to stay physically active both in and outside of school. Last week we learned a little more about volleyball, and over the next few weeks, we will be incorporating soccer! Along with that, we will be adding some fun new games to the mix.

In wellness, we are finishing up our nutrition unit. We are learning about ways to eat healthier, discovering new fruits and vegetables, how to read nutrition labels, and how to plan our meals to resemble MyPlate (a guideline that helps us figure out how much of each macronutrient we should be eating for each meal).

In technology, students have been working with digital citizenship concepts (cyberbullying, personal/private information sharing, plagiarism, and online identity) in order to create podcasts using professional podcasting software. These podcasts will inform people how to become better digital citizens!

Next week, students will begin to learn the basics of video editing software in order to create a commercial for JAJHS.

Mrs. Danner's and Mrs. Kline's Classes:

ELA 7 is moving from reading realistic fiction to writing narratives and studying how our writing is constructed. We will be focusing on developing characters, using dialogue correctly, and trying to keep our audiences glued to every word. Additionally, our blocks are competing to read the most books. So many of our students have been active readers this year, and we want to keep it going! Readers will be eligible for a reward at the end of the term.

Mrs. Heinig's Classes

Students in Mrs. Heinig’s classes will be launching into Unit 2 Realistic Fiction reading and writing. We will be watching to see how a setting shapes a plot or character, as well as how an author uses characterization to develop their characters. We will be identifying the theme and thesis, as well as watching the author’s craft of figurative language. We are looking forward to participating in the classroom plays this month and diving into great books. In addition, we will be writing our own stories with a friend--after we have studied what the professionals do. Be sure to ask what your student is reading.

Students are finishing their module on percents using proportions in 7th grade math. Students have been working on using percents to find percent change, increase, decrease, error, commission, and interest. Our module assessment for Math 7+ is Friday, September 30 and the Math 7 assessment is Tuesday, October 4th. As we move into our next module, we will be focusing on rational numbers and how to perform operations with these numbers, including real-life story problems! This will be our first module without a calculator!

Students in science just started our chapter on Thermal Energy and Heat. Today students took part in an exciting lab where they built their own thermometers and tested them in liquids of different temperatures. Students will use this data to create their own temperature scale. Next week we will apply our knowledge of conduction, convection, and radiation as we try to prevent an ice cube from melting in a lab called “Stay Cool”.

Students in Mrs. Brar’s class are having a blast learning about Ancient Greece. This week, students participated in an Athenian democracy simulation where they played the role of an Athenian member of the Assembly and voted on a new school rule. Students were able to analyze how Athenian democracy has influenced modern-day democracy. In the next few weeks, students will be competing in the Classroom Olympics and learning about the Persian War and the Golden Age of Athens!