Spartans of the Month: November

Congratulations to Julia and C.J., our Spartans of the Month for November! Way to go!

Thanksgiving Dodgeball Tournament

The Spartans brought home a victory in the annual Thanksgiving Dodgeball Tournament. Mrs. Drakeley's homebase was named the seventh grade champions! Congratulations Homebase 303! Here are some photos from the event.

Scholastic Book Fair

Spartan students will have the opportunity to attend the Scholastic Book Fair at CMS! The Book Fair will take place December 1 - 10. Each homebase is assigned a date to attend the book fair. Students should bring cash or make checks payable to CMS Activity Fund.

Homebase Schedule to Attend the Book Fair:
301 - Mrs. Wright - Friday, December 3rd
302 - Mr. Gasbarrini - Friday, December 3rd
303 - Mrs. Drakeley - Monday, December 6th
304 - Mr. Cornali - Monday, December 6th
401 - Mr. LaSalvia - Monday, December 6th
Chorus/Band Students - Friday, December 10th

For further information, see the information packet sent home with students on Wednesday, November 24th.

Spartans are Thankful for TweenTribune

Thanksgiving arrived early on the Spartan team! Students in Mrs. Wright's Language Arts class and Mrs. Drakeley's English class were treated to a cross-curricular unit on 11/22 - 11/24. Students read articles on the online student newspaper, Tween Tribune, then created user accounts to post responses to the articles.

Language Arts: Survivor Reading Challenge

The following TRIBES were named the SURVIVORS in Mrs. Wright's SURVIVOR READER CHALLENGE:

• Period 1: Tribe Sharks - Amanda, Jada, and Mia
• Period 5/6: Tribe Whales - Dan, Matthew, and Kelly
• Period 8/9: Tribe Sharks - Rhyder, Nick, and Taylor
  
• Period 10: Tribe Fish - Paige, Michael, and Josh
• Period 11: Tribe Waves - Dara, Julia, and Ian

Clash Day in Sparta!

Spartan students embrace Clash Day, held on November 19th.

Spelling Bee

The CMS Spelling Bee was held on November 18 during homebase.

Congratulations to Spartan Breanna W. for being the runner up in the school competition! Excellent job, Breanna!

Team Tee-shirt Day!

Spartan students show their team pride on November 12th by participating in Team Tee-shirt Day!

Language Arts: Nonfiction Unit

Students are beginning a unit on nonfiction to kick-off the second nine weeks. We started the unit by studying several nonfiction terms to review and expand our knowledge of this genre.

With a strong background in nonfiction terms, students are now competing to be the survivors in Mrs. Wright's Survivor Reading Challenge. We are reading a journal called "Survive the Savage Sea" about a family's struggle to survive after a shipwreck. Which tribe will be named the survivors of the challenge? We will find out soon! After the story, we will read several news articles of real survivor stories.

Before Thanksgiving Break, we will be joining Mrs. Drakeley's English classes to investigate on-line news writing on a website just for middle school students called TweenTribune.

When we return from the holiday, students will read a personal narrative called "Where Are You Now, William Shakespeare?" to explore this nonfiction genre. We will follow-up this story with some encyclopedia articles on Ronald Reagan, an important person in the story.

After all of this experience with nonfiction writing, students will have the opportunity to try their hands at writing a nonfiction book review on a library book. The book review will be written in the style of a news article, using features and techniques discovered in this nonfiction unit.

To wrap up the unit just as we are wrapping up our holiday gifts, students will participate in a Reference Material Scavenger Hunt in the library. This will be the perfect way to ring in the new year, with new knowledge from books!

Upcoming English Units

The Spartan students are finishing up their five paragraph essay about the Glopsnerch that they each created. These essays are due tomorrow, November 9.

We will be starting a unit on nouns, pronouns, and adjectives next. This should be a review unit for the students. This unit will begin on Wednesday, November 10 and take us through the week before Thanksgiving.

During the week of Thanksgiving, English and Language Arts classes will be teaming up to bring you an exciting project involving the use of editorials! Stay tuned for more information!

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Spartans of the Month: October

The Spartan Team would like to congratulate Zack and Kari, our Spartan Superheroes of the Month, for excellent work in October. Keep it up!

Spirit Day

Students in Mrs. Wright's homebase participated in a school spirit day by wearing the new 2010-2011 Spartan tee-shirt.

Olweus Anti-Bullying Program

Spartan students participated in the first classroom meeting of the Olweus Anti-Bullying Program on Friday, October 29th in homebase. CMS adopted this program this year to stomp out bullying at our school. Each month, students will join in a discussion in homebase to raise awareness of anti-bullying techniques and empower students to take a stand in stopping bullying at CMS. Here are some images of the shields we made and the pledge we signed as part of our commitment. Our Spartan Superheroes will Shield the School from Bullying!

Seeing Double in Red Ribbon Week

Here are some Spartans participating in Twin Day Red Ribbon Week. The week features theme days to remind students to say no to drugs!

Language Arts Update

FICTION SHORT STORY UNIT:
In language arts class this month, students practiced literary analysis of story elements while reading fiction short stories. We read the following stories this month: "Young Ladies Don't Slay Dragons,""Collecting Team," and "Three Skeleton Key."

Students got to demonstrate their plot-writing skills by completing a creative writing assignment on the short story "Collecting Team." Students wrote the next episode of the story, casting themselves as characters to help save the day for the Collecting Team!

We will be reading one additional story next week to conclude the unit before the end of the nine weeks grading period.

NOVELS FOR THE FIRST NINE WEEKS:
In addition to the short stories, students have been reading an independent novel from the library, due November 1st. When the books are due, we will complete a book project on the novel and take the Accelerated Reader test.

The SSR bell-ringer book that students have been reading for the first nine weeks is the novel Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie. The novel is due October 27th, and we will be taking the AR test then. Many students have already finished this book and gone on to the second novel, So B. It.

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY:
Mrs. Wright's "Prepare-y for Harry: Reading Can be Magic Challenge" is underway. For the next month, students are invited to read the novels in the Harry Potter series to prepare for the seventh and final movie. Students were given the official rules for the challenge in class.

Spartan Tee-Shirt Sale

Spartan students are invited to purchase a tee-shirt to show their Spartan spirit! We will be wearing our shirts on School Spirit Days and during team activities such as our field trip. The sale ends Friday, October 1.

Fit Day

Spartan students participated in the annual Fit Day event for 7th grade students. We had a great day of fitness and fun!

Self Discovery Unit

Spartan students have started a Self-Discovery unit in English class. The students will be completing two assignments. The first is a 5 paragraph essay about themselves, their families, their friends, and various favorite possessions and activities. This essay is written at school and will be due on Friday, September 10th.

The students will also be completing a project entitled, "All About Me From A-Z". Spartan students will use each letter of the alphabet to think of one thing to describe them or tell about something important to them.

Both of these projects will be taking place over the next few weeks. I am looking forward to seeing the final copies and learning more about each Spartan student.

Welcome Spartans!

The Spartan team would like to wish a warm welcome to our newest group of Spartans! We are looking forward to a great 2010-2011 school year at CMS!

Spartans of the Month

Congratulations to Amber and Kyle, our May Spartans of the Month and Anna and Jake, our June Spartans of the Month!

Book Swap

Spartan students participated in the Book Swap on Tuesday, May 25th. Take a look at some photos from the event.

Spartan Students Participate in Twin Day

We were seeing double on May 14th as Spartan students participated in Twin Day. Check out our Spartan twins.