Yesterday I showed students how to access their Office 365 accounts. We also started typing our short story drafts through this program.
Office 365 is a fabulous resource our district has made available to students. Through Office 365, students can access files through the internet, without needing access to the school network. This eliminates the need for students to use flash drives to be able to work on computer projects at home and school. Office 365 also makes it possible for students to use the online versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel - even if these programs are on their home computers.
Another great feature of Office 365 is students can share documents with one another, allowing students to collaborate together on assignments in a new, exciting way. I will admit that this can be overwhelming for us teachers, but it really opens up some creative possibilities.
With this feature, students have each been given a district email account. I took some time in class to explain that the school district owns these accounts (just like they own my own). And because these accounts are owned by the district, the district has the ability to access these accounts and their contents at any time. This includes any files students create or upload in their OneDrive accounts. While I don't say this to scare students or parents, it is good to be aware of as students grow as users of technology.
Finally... our school district provides a free download of Office 365 to any students in our district. That means families can download the software to home computers to be able to use any of the programs available through Microsoft Office (like Word, Publisher, OneNote, PowerPoint). There is an icon on our junior high webpage that will walk you through this offer.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Vocabulary building has begun...
Our first Vocabulary Builders packet was given out this week. These packets were designed to help students develop their vocabulary decoding skills, add new words into their personal word banks, and introduce the idea of using morphology (word parts such as Greek and Latin roots).
Words students will work with in this first packet include: tyrant, blunder, brutal, waiver, feline, annual, and several more. The words are a mix of new words and words that students may already know. Since I've been teaching from these lists, I can't help but notice how often I come across many of these words in my own reading and students often point them out in their reading as well.
Throughout the school year, we will try to complete twelve of these packets (approximately 2 each block). Additionally, we will pull vocabulary words from the different stories and novels we read and do similar work.
As we work on vocabulary building this school year, my emphasize is mostly on the decoding skills (use of context clues, examples within the sentence, and morphology) more than definition memorization.
Here are some resources related to our vocabulary work:
List One Vocabulary Packet
Root Word List A (meant as review)
Root Word List B (will be emphasized in 7th grade)
Root Word List C (will be emphasized in 8th grade)
Words students will work with in this first packet include: tyrant, blunder, brutal, waiver, feline, annual, and several more. The words are a mix of new words and words that students may already know. Since I've been teaching from these lists, I can't help but notice how often I come across many of these words in my own reading and students often point them out in their reading as well.
Throughout the school year, we will try to complete twelve of these packets (approximately 2 each block). Additionally, we will pull vocabulary words from the different stories and novels we read and do similar work.
As we work on vocabulary building this school year, my emphasize is mostly on the decoding skills (use of context clues, examples within the sentence, and morphology) more than definition memorization.
Here are some resources related to our vocabulary work:
List One Vocabulary Packet
Root Word List A (meant as review)
Root Word List B (will be emphasized in 7th grade)
Root Word List C (will be emphasized in 8th grade)
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Welcome to 7th Grade and to E-STEM 7 English!
Did anyone else's summer go by faster than usual this year? I feel like it was just the last day of school and here we are at the beginning of a new school year. Despite by fly-by summer, I am excited for this new school year and have spent some of my summer working on curriculum for this new school year.
As I thought about this first blog post of the school year and debated various topics, I finally settled on introducing something I am very excited about. And that is Writing Workshop, something new that I am adding to my curriculum planning.
While my 7th grade students have always been assigned different writing assignments throughout the school year, this will be my first official time using a writing workshop format. This change has been spurred by a few things. First, even with the state writing tests vanishing, we know that writing is such an important skill for students interested in any career path and that currently students in our district have shown some room for growth in their writing. Secondly, the ELA (English Language Arts) Common Core Standards, which our state has adopted, call for equal time spent writing and reading and have greatly increased the expectations for students in different writing genres.
The main resource I will be relying on this school year to help develop Writing Workshop is the Lucy Calkins Writing Program. This program outlines the major components of writing workshop and includes targeted writing mini lessons to help students' writing flourish.
What I have liked the most about this resource is that its focus is building writers from their individual starting points and that while there are whole class lessons, another component is individual and small group conferences for continued instruction. I also have been impressed with how the resource uses a natural writing sequence so that all aspects of writing have time in the spotlight - not just the organization and conventions, but the generating of ideas and best describing what you want to say.
So please ask your students to share their writing with you throughout the school year. Our focus first trimester is realistic fiction writing, which are always fun for students and often entertaining to read.
As I thought about this first blog post of the school year and debated various topics, I finally settled on introducing something I am very excited about. And that is Writing Workshop, something new that I am adding to my curriculum planning.
While my 7th grade students have always been assigned different writing assignments throughout the school year, this will be my first official time using a writing workshop format. This change has been spurred by a few things. First, even with the state writing tests vanishing, we know that writing is such an important skill for students interested in any career path and that currently students in our district have shown some room for growth in their writing. Secondly, the ELA (English Language Arts) Common Core Standards, which our state has adopted, call for equal time spent writing and reading and have greatly increased the expectations for students in different writing genres.
The main resource I will be relying on this school year to help develop Writing Workshop is the Lucy Calkins Writing Program. This program outlines the major components of writing workshop and includes targeted writing mini lessons to help students' writing flourish.
What I have liked the most about this resource is that its focus is building writers from their individual starting points and that while there are whole class lessons, another component is individual and small group conferences for continued instruction. I also have been impressed with how the resource uses a natural writing sequence so that all aspects of writing have time in the spotlight - not just the organization and conventions, but the generating of ideas and best describing what you want to say.
So please ask your students to share their writing with you throughout the school year. Our focus first trimester is realistic fiction writing, which are always fun for students and often entertaining to read.
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