A Week in Review
Miss Foyle - Middle School Religion & LA - 10/8/15
Announcements & Reminders
As we are passing the halfway mark for the first trimester, I invite you to take a couple minutes to let me know how I'm doing (in regards to the weekly newsletters) by taking this brief survey. Your feeback is much appreciated!
*Red Folders will be sent home on Thursday this week. Please sign and return these with your child on Tuesday, October 13.
*6th graders will be attending their field trip to the theater (short story plays) on Thursday, October 15th. Students are required to be in uniform and to bring a sack lunch on that day - they will eat upon arriving back to school, so please make sure your child eats a hearty breakfast that morning.
*Are you watching the Chicago Marathon? Keep an eye out for Nurse Kari & Miss Huntington (5th grade) from our Hill Street campus. (And good luck to all the runners out there!)
Class Updates
6 Language Arts
Nope, overall this week was pretty low key - the students had MAP testing for Reading & Language on Monday, and on Tuesday they were on a field trip for Science. With no school on Friday, we really only had two solid days together!
Here's a brief overview of what we accomplished: Students...
*reviewed and reflected on their Boy anticipation guide;
*responded to an essay prompt about their favorite things using sensory details, similes, and metaphors to describe these items;
*defined what a prefix is and became familiar with ones like "ab-," "bi-," & "con-";
*identified POV (point of view) using House on Mango Street as a read aloud/mentor text;
*reviewed nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs with interactive practice;
*checked out library books with Mrs. DeForrest;
*conferenced about their Boy vocab entries.
And we had a few good laughs along the way...
6 Religion
Later in the week, we turned to the sharing of our treasure through tithing. Have you heard of the "french fry tax"? That's one way to think of what God asks us to do through tithing. (You can ask your child about the Skittles & Starbursts object lesson too.) Students read and discussed an article and the Bible passage about the widow's two mites to think further about tithing.
On Wednesday, students in 6B led our school in weekly Mass. Students did not have class on Tuesday (due to a field trip) or Friday (due to teacher PD).
8 Religion
On Tuesday, everyone was randomly assigned a colored card as they entered class - this was for an activity that helped to illustrate some of the root causes of poverty. We were able to do the activity outside since it was such a beautiful day and we needed a lot of space! Students rounded out the activity with a follow-up discussion in the classroom, where they were asked to reflect on questions such as "How might some of the “step backwards” experiences be connected to poverty?", "Did your perspective about your own or others’ privilege (or lack of) change as a result of this activity?", and more.
Students were challenged on Thursday to consider what components make up a good lesson plan, and in doing so, they learned a little bit about Mother Teresa and the first Catholic Social Teaching principle in the process. This was done in light of an upcoming group project, where small groups of students will develop and present 20-25 minute lessons on their chosen CST principle and its related saintly model.
Contact Info & Social Media
Email: kfoyle@icsjschool.org
Website: icsnorthpark.com
Facebook: facebook.com/icsnorthpark
Twitter: @icsnorthpark