Hello, Grammarland!

I've been blown away by your students' creativity these past weeks!

Here are a few of the 7th graders' fall poems currently adorning my bulletin board:

This week I tried something new with my 8th graders: one pagers. My 7th graders loved them, and now they want to do them too. Here are a couple of the 8th graders' interpretations of "The Raven":

If you are an 8th grade parent, please click on the link below to sign up to work our fall festival game. Thank you to the wonderful parents who have already signed up!
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a084eafa822a7f58-fall


SHOUT-OUTS!!! To Taylor, Nathan, and Grayson, because you spoke at my OCC chapel; to Jonas, because you closed in prayer at said chapel; to Erika, for lending me her beautiful highlighter in my time of need; and to McKenzie, for adding a showstopper item to our Fall Festival basket.

COFFEE: PLEASE and THANK YOU - Our basket is looking amazing! You have until October 28 to turn in items. We still need a great big basket. A couple more gift cards will help increase the value of our basket, but any item is appreciated.

Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes

It’s time to pack Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes! Each year, LCS students send boxes to impoverished children all over the world. To pack a shoebox, simply choose: Boy or Girl,  age 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14, and pack the box with age-appropriate necessities and toys.

 Here are some guidelines for packing shoeboxes:

 Pack: school supplies (some children cannot attend school if they don’t have supplies), small toys, stuffed animals, hair bows, brushes & combs, soap, wash cloths, socks, t-shirts, stickers, tissues, flashlights, fishing kits, sewing kits, hats, scarves, soccer balls, pumps, Slinkies, plastic cups, cars  - anything small, packable, and necessary.

Don’t pack:  food, vitamins, liquids, lotions, shampoo, chocolate, glass,  or any toys that suggest war. No Pokemon and no Harry Potter. NEW in 2017: DO NOT pack any candy or toothpaste.

 Any standard size shoebox is fine. You may wrap or decorate the box in any way, but the top of the box must be removable. Don’t tape the box closed. We will secure each box with rubber bands.

Dollar Tree, WalMart, and the clearance/dollar sections of Target and Office Max are excellent places to shop.

Pinterest is full of craft and packing ideas for shoeboxes!

If you still have a rainbow loom and bands, please make some bracelets for shoeboxes!

One of the most important things you can place in your shoebox is a note from you. You can include a picture and your address; the child may write a letter to you! Your shoebox may introduce a child to Jesus Christ, so do your best to share His love!

You may pack as many shoeboxes as you wish.

Shoeboxes are due by November 22!  Please drop them off in my classroom (room 124). If you have any questions, please email me!

PROJECTS DUE SOON!

8th Grade Narnia - MONDAY, Oct.28

6th Grade Castles: Thursday, October 31

7th grade Narnia: November 4

Word of the Long Weekend:

vermillion: a vivid orange red.

May God bless you!

Mrs. Desjarlais

Fall is here! Sort of....

Well, at least, a NC kind of fall is here.

My 7th graders are learning a beautiful poem by Robert Frost, "Nothing Gold Can Stay". We wrote our own fall poems, and are illustrating them for display on our class bulletin board.

Thank you to everyone who has donated items for our Fall Festival basket! Here's the current situation:

 We still need a basket to hold it all, a crafty person to arrange it, and anything else you'd like to bring in. Local coffee shop gift cards are a good idea, but so is anything else in the coffee vein. I am so excited about this basket! Now, to keep myself from bidding on it....

Make plans to come to our fabulous Fall Festival! It's November 2, from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. Eighth grade parents, please sign up here to help with our Fall Festival game!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A084EAFA822A7F58-fall


Parting is such sweet sorrow.......

The last page of The Last Battle. It's so hard to say goodbye to Narnia! We still have projects due, though. Here are the due dates for projects:
8th grade projects: October 28 (your child has a rubric)
6th grade castles: October 31 (your child has a guideline sheet/rubric)
7th grade projects: November 4 (your child has a rubric)

Poems!
6th grade, "Rabbi Ben Ezra", Oct. 24
7th grade, "Nothing Gold Can Stay", Oct. 24
8th grade: "The Raven" - first half - November 7

Have a wonderful weekend! Here's a weird word for your weekend. It'a a noun, with French and Greek origins:

phantasmagoria:A dreamlike state in which images, both real or imagined, blur together; a constantly changing series of scenes or events that shift in color and intensity May God bless you! I so enjoy being part of your child's middle school years. I pray for my students every day. KD

Here's Perry. She "helped" me with lesson plans last week.


Happy Friday!

Well, today ends our Penny War. I have high hopes for our 8th grade bucket, but one can never predict the outcome for such an imprecise sort of endeavor! It's been a fun week, though. Dunkin Donuts and all....

I really enjoy my time with my middle schoolers. It is a tough age, I know, but your kids are wonderful.

Thank you to everyone who has donated items to the Fall Festival basket! I can't wait to see what it will look like in a few weeks. It has a very....caffeinated ambiance already. Mrs. Ross is quite taken with it !

6th graders...work on your castle project. Follow the guidelines on your sheet. It's due on Halloween!

7th and 8th graders...work on your Narnia project. I handed out rubrics on Monday. Please follow them, and do a great job!

8th graders will finish  The Last Battle next week. Our next book will be The Secret Garden, and the vocabulary is already on Quizlet. Please have a copy of the novel by next Wednesday.

7th graders will take their verb test on Monday. We will finish Voyage of the Dawn Treader in a week or so, and our next book will be Number the Stars,

6th graders will finish The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe  in the next two weeks. Our next book will be The Hobbit.

Some shout-outs......

6th grade: to Greyson, who is always cheerful; to Hunter, who is sooo funny; and to Haley, for being such a sweet presence in our class.

7th grade: To Yuremi, who is working hard and doing a great job, and always with a smile; to India, who is an excellent helper to me; to Danny, who always has a positive attitude in class; to JJ, who keeps me informed as to which hunting season it is; to Brooke, who scrupulously cares for her novel by keeping it in a Ziploc bag; to Noah, with whom I can converse herpetologically;  to my XC runners, Juli and Nathan, for representing LCS on the cross country trails;  and to Joel, who is new this week and who is already a wonderful part of our middle school family.

8th grade: To Alyssa, for nerding out with me when we discovered a little bit of Dr. Who inside The Last Battle; to Cristina, for sharing her cool concert pictures with me; to Sloan, Austin, Grayson, and Jonas, who found a hilarious send off of "The Raven" for us to enjoy in class; to Brayden, for starting each day with some peachy hand sanitizer from my desk; to Robert, for talking in English class without being bribed; and to Seth and Connor, with whom I can discuss the state of the Carolina Hurricanes.

To my homeroom: thank you for hanging out with me first thing in the morning,  and for being serious about our book and its parallels to the book of Revelation.
To my 7-1 class, for working hard on grammar, and for not giving up, even when it gets difficult.
To my 7-2 class, because you are extremely funny. And sometimes punny.
To my 8-2 class, because you meet and exceed the high expectations I have for you.
To my 6th graders, because you love Narnia, and because you call me out for leaving the"k" out of the word "pumpkin" that one time on the board....
And to all of my students who fill out their planners day after day. It's worth all the candy and pencils and washi tape to motivate you to succeed. Plus, you make me feel like a rock star, since you line up for my autograph after class.

 I really love my students!!!

Here's a lovely word of the day:
inimitable: unique and beyond imitation; impossible to duplicate or copy

Now, go be inimitable!

Blessings,
KD

Happy fall!

This is kind of a lengthy blog, but I am so proud of my middle schoolers!

My 6th graders are learning grammar, which can be a hard job, especially if you've never learned it before. Today I played a modified game of four corners with them. I had them write a list of verbs, then I called out some action verbs and sent them to various landmarks in my classroom if they wrote down the same verb. Whenever I'd call out a verb that no one had written down, several people would say, "That was a great idea! I never would've thought of that!". I was so surprised. Instead of responding negatively because they didn't write it down, they saw it as a learning experience. And it was a great excuse to run around the room during English!

My 7th graders are learning about figurative language - it's what makes poetry pretty,  and it's why you want to keep reading your favorite book. When we get the hang of it, we'll play a game in which students have little cards with snippets from various works of  literature,and they'll match the example to a card with the literary element written on it. I predict more running around my English classroom.

My 8th graders are learning "The Raven". We have listened to recordings of Robert Frost reading his own poetry, but poor Edgar Allan Poe never had the opportunity to do that. So, I found something else for us to listen to this morning: an audio recording of James Earl Jones, Mr. Darth Vader himself, reading "The Raven". Nevermore never sounded so......creepy. 

Some shout outs.....

6th grade: To Khaleb, for learning French so we can converse; to Sidney and Addyson, for keeping my room nice and neat,to Grayson and Jorden, for conquering vocabulary lists;  to my students who are always willing to help a fellow 6th grader get from place to place, and to my new students for working so hard. 

7th grade: To my brand new student, Meredith, for sharing her salvation story; to Jared, who brought a coffee cup for the 8th grade Fall Festival basket; to Tyler, for juggling school and a three-weekend run at Temple Theatre; to AJ for his excellent manners; to Nathan, for being punny - yes, punny;  and to Levi, for his interesting and creative writing. Which he sometimes illustrates!

8th grade: To Grace, who has already recited about half of "The Raven", to Connor, Todd, and Tucker, for being valuable additions to our varsity soccer team; to my faithful prayer group girls, and to Grayson, for steadfastly defending her NC State Wolfpack.

8th Grade: Here's the current state of our fall festival basket. It smells amazing! Please send an item or two if you can, so that we will have a beautiful basket to auction at the festival! I will be emailing a game schedule soon.

 

All middle school: Please get started on your projects! Parents, ask your child for his or her project sheet.

Word of the day: erudite

er-ə-dīt

Possessing knowledge as a result of study.

As in, my wonderful students are erudite.

That's all for now. May God richly bless you.