This Friday's Assembly

This Friday afternoon, there will be a holiday assembly with a basketball tournament, holiday activities, and several students getting to pie a teacher in the face!  Make sure that you are able to attend this assembly by ensuring that you have all your work turned in for every class and that you are maintaining your excellent Spartan behavior this week.  It'll be an afternoon you don't want to miss!

Attention Algebra Connection Students

Upon the remaining days of school before our Christmas Vacation, students are reminded that we will have a series of three quizzes (December 10, 14,18) pertaining to our Algebra unit.  With two weeks remaining, prepare to finish strong!

Thanksgiving Charity Dodgeball Game

On Wednesday, November 21, CMS will hold its annual Charity Dodgeball assembly in the afternoon.  Students may be a part of their homebase team by bringing in the signed permission slip and a $2 donation to the Canonsburg-Houston Food Pantry by tomorrow, Friday, November 16.

Even if they do not wish to sign up to participate, students may still attend the assembly on Wednesday, as long as all of  their classwork is made up.  Make sure you check with your teachers and ensure that you are caught up so that you can enjoy our afternoon assembly!

English Grammar Units

In English class, we are just finishing up our review unit on nouns, pronouns, and adjectives.  This unit is culminating in a chapter test today.  Students had the opportunity during yesterday's class to complete a practice review quiz, work on a review packet, ask questions about any confusing terms/items, and complete some games to review.

We will begin focusing on our next mini-unit on Monday.  This will be a unit covering verbs and adverbs.  We break Chapter 3 into two parts (verbs and adverbs & prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections) to make it more manageable for the students.  The verb and adverb unit will be finished before Thanksgiving break!

REMINDER:  A great tool for English is Edmodo.com.  Students have an account here.  They can find resources for studying, games we've posted to be used for review, and can even interact with myself and Miss Kaczmarek by asking questions that will post on our personal accounts. 

CMS Writing Guide Blog

I just wanted to take a moment to share the CMS Writing Blog with all of you.  This has many helpful tips on a variety of topics.  These should take your writing to the next level!  Please visit the Writing Guide as often as you wish to get help!

cmswritingguide.blogspot.com

Also, here is a link to an e-book copy of our CMS Writing Guidelines.  This will be a valuable resource to you in your middle school years and beyond!  Consider bookmarking it!

CMS Writing Guide

English class - Schedule posted

A schedule has been posted in Edmodo for the upcoming assignments for English. You can use this to get organized and keep track of what is going to be happening each day.  This is especially important for next week, as we have many end-of-the-9-weeks assignments that are coming due.

To access Edmodo, go to:  www.edmodo.com

Your sign in (for most of you) is the same as your computer sign in at school.

Click on the Calendar tab at the top of the page.  This will take you to the English calendar.

Hopefully this will be helpful in keeping track of upcoming assignments.  You can also check Edmodo for helpful posts, test reviews, and online quizzes and games that can help you if you are struggling in class!

7th Grade Fit Day

Spartans participated in our annual 7th Grade Fit Day on Friday, September 21st.  We spent the day traveling through fitness stations at the stadium and at CMS.  Congratulations to our winning girls' relay team of Jessica, Jill, Macy, and Taylor.  The Spartan team would like to congratulate the Knights and the Titans for our three-way tie for the first year ever!

Language Arts: September

Students in Mrs. Wright's language arts class will be focusing on literary elements and fiction short stories during the month of September.  Students will be reading and discussing the short stories together in class and may access their textbook online from home. 

Additionally, we are reading the novel Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.  This novel tells the story of Sal Hiddle and her adventures with her friend Phoebe in Euclid, Ohio, and with her grandparents on a cross-country trip to see her mother. 

Spartan Tee-Shirt Sale

The Spartan tee-shirt sale will be going on now through Friday, September 21, 2012.  Students should bring in their order form with size information along with $10.00 cash to their homebase teachers.

Spartan English

Mrs. Drakeley has some  help this semester in English class!  Miss Kaczmarek will be student teaching in English from now until December.  She will be sending home a letter very soon to introduce herself.  She wants to pass on that she is very excited to be at CMS, and Mrs. Drakeley is thrilled to have her!

Welcome 2012-2013 Spartans!

The Spartan teachers would like to welcome our new students to the middle school!  We are looking forward to an excellent year with all of you, and we have many enriching learning experiences planned.  Be sure you come to school everyday ready to learn and participate in your classes.  We are excited to have you on our team!

Finishing out March in English Class

Spartan students have been hard at work over the last few weeks of English class. They have been working on a persuasive essay called "Dumb Law". This essay allowed students to select an old, outdated law from a provided list and defend this law, saying why it should still be enforced.

The students used the three forms of persuasion that they were taught in English: appeal to reason, appeal to emotion, and appeal of good character.

Next up is a Letter Writing Unit, where students will learn the differences between business letters and personal letters and will discover how to write each kind.

February Students of the Month

The Spartan Team would like to congratulate Renna W. and Michael D. for being selected as our Students of the Month for February! Keep up the great work, Renna and Michael!

January Students of the Month

The Spartan team would like to congratulate Marissa H. and Jeffrey B. for being selected as Spartan Students of the Month. Keep up the great work! We are so pleased with both of you!

Comma Projects for English

Spartan students are beginning their comma unit in English class. Students will be working in groups of 3 or 4 in class to create a detailed presentation about one comma rule. Each student will become a PRO at this rule, and will teach their classmates about it during their presentation.

The students will be given several days in class to work on this, and presentations will be Friday, January 27 - Friday February 3.

I'm excited to see what the students come up with!