7th Grade Team January Newsletter
January 6, 2023
Stay Up-to-Date with our Classrooms!
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, 2nd Quarter Report Cards will be sent home with students on Friday, January 13, 2023.
7th Grade Electives
Art
Band
Congratulations to the 7th Grade Band for a wonderful Winter Concert. We will now be reading new music to make selections for our May concert. We are continuing to work on rhythmic literacy and how to use a tuner. We will also begin learning how to play in small ensembles.
Choir
At the end of last year, we had a wonderfully successful JH Holiday Choir Concert. Thank you to all who attended and also all who contributed to the Sugar Plum Lane fundraiser. We made over $1000, which is fantastic! 7th grade, you sang wonderfully at the concert as well.
In class, we are starting new music as we get into our “Pop Music” unit. Our next concert will have music of popular styles: musical theater, radio pop, rock, jazz, etc. The students are currently voting on their music in class and working hard to learn it before the next concert in February. Can’t wait to see you all there!
Engineering
The first-semester engineering students are wrapping up their work as we prepare for the end of the class. It’s been really fun to see all the creative SolidWorks projects students have designed over the last few weeks!
PE and Wellness
Students are learning fun new ways to modify games. This week they will be participating in giant volleyball and creating a game to go with it.
As new students come in for the following semester we will be learning the rules and how to act in the gym along with our normal routines. We will also be learning fun new games and bringing back some old games from previous years.
Technology
The students from the first half of the year are waving goodbye to their time in this class after having successfully leveled up with many different programs! In summation, they gained competency with Paint.NET, Google Draw, Windows Movie Maker, Mixcraft, Google Slides, and Audacity. Congratulations! I’m looking forward to welcoming the next group of students who will finish the year with me.
7th Grade Core Classes
ELA
Mrs. Danner's and Mrs. Kline's Classes:
As the semester ends, the argument begins! We returned from break to new argument activities designed to help students think more critically about their positions before crafting their arguments. On Monday, students will begin their Lincoln Conspirator arguments from the perspective of a modern-day researcher seeking justice in historical cases. We will also have ELA MAP testing beginning January 23. Students have been working hard. We are excited to see their progress.
Mrs. Heinig's Classes
We have been reading about nonfiction topics that the students have chosen. Our ELA focus is to show the kids that the skills they are developing--reading, researching, writing, and then putting together an engaging presentation in order to TEACH something--are real-life skills that real people use for real purposes. During this learning week, we are adding text features to our writing in order to make the presentations captivating, educational, and attractive to the audience for which we prepared it. We will close out the unit learning from our classmates’ presentations. We will also learn from seven parents who live and work in our community as they give presentations they have used in their places of employment. We will have parents representing Battelle, Chase Bank, OSU Medical, OSU Pharmacy, Honda, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Math
In math 7 classes, we finished our Module 6 over equations right before break. We will start Module 7 on inequalities this Wednesday. This module will build on what we learned from equations to connect to inequalities. This will be a quick module but important nonetheless. Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Garner’s classes will begin MAP testing January 9th. Mrs. Lostumbo’s class will start MAP testing on January 12th. We are excited to see how our students have grown the first half of the year.
Accelerated Math
In Mrs. Garner’s Math 7 Accelerated class we are finishing our Module 7 unit over solving equations and inequalities. Not only are students solving one, two, and multi-step equations, but they are also learning to solve split variable equations, which is an 8th grade standard! Students will work on solving inequalities in the next few weeks. Our module assessment is Friday, January 20. Mrs. Garner’s classes will begin MAP testing January 9th. We are excited to see how our students have grown the first half of the year.
Science
Students in science are studying the Periodic Table. Lab groups explored the characteristics of graphite, zinc, and copper in a hands-on lab. Each student has been assigned an element, and they are researching and creating a slide show about that element. Next, students will be identifying chemical and physical changes.
Social Studies
This week in social studies, students are studying the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Students are investigating the Roman ruins using Virtual Reality, maps, artifacts, and primary sources. Our goal is to learn more about Roman culture through our study of the famous Roman city. Next week we will move on to studying Roman technology, religion, and class structure. Our Roman unit will come to a close with an argumentative essay focused on the collapse of Rome.