Hello students,
This week we'll be looking at Parts of Speech in ELA and finishing our unit on "Where in the World is Georgia?". Below is our schedule. Some websites that you may want to see are below. Have a great week at the Rock!

Websites
Parts of Speech Games and other resources
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/parts-of-speech/middle-school/fcat-words-pick-the-parts-of-speech/
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_vocab.htm
http://jc-schools.net/writeaway/prompts.html
http://topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx?cat=47
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/links_grades_kindergarten_12/whiteboard_interactive_site.htm

Georgia Studies
http://www.exploregeorgia.org/trip-ideas
www.mystatehistory.com (audiobooks)
http://www.history.com/
http://video.pbs.org/
Mrs. Pastor
Spelling (Test 2)-chart describe club company condition control court deal develop direct
ELA GPS-ELA8W1 and ELA8C1
Monday (Library Day-9:05) Warm up: Writing Assignment Lesson: Grammar Preview of Parts of Speech-IVANCAPP-Spelling Words Preview Task: Guided Practice with Students from Holt Grammar Book Closer: Homework Preview and/or Whiteboard Review of Spelling and Grammar
Tuesday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Types of Nouns (Graphic Organizer-preview) Task: Guided Practice with Students from Holt Grammar Book (compound nouns) and practice Spelling Cloze Activity with Word Bank Closer: Homework Preview and/or Whiteboard Review
Wednesday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Tchart Proper and Common Nouns-Noun collage Task: Guided Practice with Students from Holt Grammar Book and Spelling Words Activity Review Closer: Homework Preview and/or Whiteboard Review
Thursday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Concrete, Abstract, and Collective Nouns Task: Guided Practice with students from Holt Grammar Book Closer: Spelling Quiz Review-Whiteboard Review-Homework Preview
Friday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Graded Grammar Review on Nouns-Types of Nouns Collage or Musical Carousel Task: Spelling Test and AR testing on books read this week Closer: Spelling Word Hangman-Whiteboard Review

GA Studies GPS-SS8G1b Lesson: Review of Georgia’s five physiographic regions. http://www.exploregeorgia.org/Video
Students will read (and/or listen to audiobook at www.mystatehistory.com)from their textbooks.
Task: Students will look through travel brochures in the class library. Students will utilize computers to research places to visit in Georgia. Students will review Word Wall and preview new vocabulary. flora, fauna, Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, semidiurnal tide, tide, saltwater marshes, freshwater sloughs, estuaries, watershed, reservoir, aquifer

Tuesday Warm Up: Vocabulary Preview-Sketches
Lesson: Students will read (p43) about Georgia’s Environment and take notes. Task: Students will complete the Pocket Folder foldable and notecards on Georgia's Seven Wonders from their textbook. Closer: Homework Preview and/or Whiteboard Review
Homework: To make notecards of vocabulary terms for Friday’s quiz. Place in the pocket foldable made in class.

Wednesday Warm Up: Copy chart from p. 54
Lesson: Students will read about Georgia’s Natural Resources.
Task: Students will work in pairs to create an electronic travel brochure entitled the wonders of Georgia. They will choose one place in Georgia they would like to visit and tell about its natural resources. Rubrics will be given.

Thursday Warm Up: Georgia River Map (label)
Lesson: Review of Georgia’s Natural Waterways.
Friday Warm Up: Writing Assignment/”It’s Your Turn” Lesson: Chapter Review-Vocabulary Quiz Task: Students will finish powerpoints or electronic travel brochures and others will read local newspaper articles and magazines about Georgia. Travel brochures will be available in the class library. Kaolin and granite samples will be shown in class. Some may research Georgia’s resources and sites at http://www.exploregeorgia.org/trip-ideas Closer: Whiteboard Review

Hello students,
I hope everyone enjoyed our Writer’s Celebration on Friday. Everyone read their narrative essays about summer vacation. Everyone took their Student Handbook tests and finished their map projects. We were very busy for these first two weeks of school. We have more pretesting to complete this week in Star Reader and with Map testing. Map testing is scheduled as follows: Monday – Science- Tuesday – Math- Wednesday– Language Arts Thursday – Social Studies Friday – Reading. Check below for our schedule and the standards we’ll be following. We will be reading and visiting Reading sites such as www.starfall.com. Library Day is Monday!
See you on Monday!
Mrs. Pastor

ELA GPS-ELA8W1 and ELA8C1
Monday (Library Day-9:05) Warm up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Grammar Review of Sentence Structure and Compound Subjects and Verbs-Spelling Words
Task: Guided Practice with Students from Holt Grammar Book
Closer: Homework Preview (Verb Phrases) and/or Whiteboard Review of Spelling and Grammar

Tuesday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Grammar-Types of Sentences Review-4 square graphic organizer
Task: Guided Practice with Students from Holt Grammar Book and Spelling Words (3 column TRACE-COPY-RECALL) practice Spelling Cloze Activity with Word Bank
Closer: Homework Preview and/or Whiteboard Review

Wednesday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
ELA-Map Test-Grammar Review-Homework Preview-AR reading-STAR TESTING and set up AR Logs

Thursday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Lesson: Chapter Review-Grammar Quiz-Graded Review
Task: Spelling Test and AR testing on books read this week.
Closer: Spelling Word Hangman-Whiteboard Review-Homework Preview

Friday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
Reading-Map Test-Grammar Review-Homework Preview-AR reading-STAR TESTING and set up AR Logs

GA Studies GPS-SS8G1b
Monday Warm up: Vocabulary Cloze Activity
Lesson: Review of Georgia’s five physiographic regions. Students will answer review questions (map handout) and read from their textbooks.
Task: Students will complete Signs of the Times and Guided Reading activities. Students will review Word Wall and preview new vocabulary. climate, weather, vertical climate, drought, wind current, trade winds, prevailing westerlies, ocean currents, hurricane, nor’easter, tornado, El Niño, La Niña, and global warming

Tuesday Warm Up: Vocabulary Preview-Sketches
SS8G1 The student will describe Georgia with regard to physical features and location. d. Evaluate the impact of climate on Georgia’s development. Lesson: Students will read (p22) about Georgia’s Climate and take notes.
Task: Students will complete their Guided Reading assignments in collaborative pairs.
Closer: Homework Preview and/or Whiteboard Review

Wednesday Warm Up: Georgia Rivers Map (Label)
Lesson: Clay Maps of Georgia-Read the newspaper and make a cartoon showing what the weather will be like for the weekend forecast.

Thursday Warm Up: Writing Assignment
GA Studies-Map Test-Vocabulary Quiz Study Guide
Closer: Whiteboard Review

Friday Warm Up: Georgia County Map (Where am I?)
Lesson: Chapter Review-Vocabulary Quiz
Task: Students will finish Clay Maps of Georgia-Read the newspaper and make a cartoon showing what the weather will be like for the weekend forecast. (set up stations)
Closer: Georgia Stories Videospan>

August 17

Hello,
I hope you have been going to all your classes and finding 8th grade to be interesting. Make sure you have gotten your ids, lockers, and read your Student Handbook.Start reading soon. Please review the standards that we are currently working on in our classes.
ELA
We are working on narrative essays. We are studying sentence structure and paragraph structure. Homework is given each day Monday to Thursday in grammar or writing.
ELA8RC1
The student reads a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) per year from a variety of subject disciplines. The student reads both informational and fictional texts in a variety of genres and modes of discourse, including technical texts related to various subject areas.
ELA8W2
The student produces a narrative (fictional, personal, experiential) that:
b. Creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose, audience, and context.
c. Relates a clear, coherent incident, event, or situation by using well-chosen details.
d. Reveals the significance of the writer’s attitude about the subject.

Georgia Studies
We are currently studying geography as it relates to our home state of Georgia.We will be completing map projects, travel brochures, physical maps, etc. in our studies.
SS8G1
The student will describe Georgia with regard to physical features and location.
a. Locate Georgia in relation to region, nation, continent, and hemispheres.
b. Describe the five geographic regions of Georgia; include the Blue Ridge Mountains, Valley and Ridge, Appalachian Plateau, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain.

See WEBSITES post. Sites to visit for this lesson:
Fifty Nifty States
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=35821&title=Fifty_Nifty_United_States_

Interactive Puzzles
http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html

Hyperlinks

neic.usgs.gov/neis/states/georgia/georgia_history.html
The U.S. Geological Survey’s page on earthquakes in Georgia.

www.blueridgemountains.com/blue_ridge_mountains.html
Information on the Blue Ridge Mountains, Fannin County.

www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/statesong.htm
Contains words and music for “Georgia on My Mind.”

www.foxfire.org
Home page for Foxfire, an organization committed to preserving the Southern Appalachian culture.

www.frommers.com/destinations/georgia'sbarrierislands/
Contains information on Georgia’s barrier islands.

www.fs.fed.us/conf/webcam.htm
The web cam atop Brasstown Bald.

www.geography.about.com
The geography page of About.com.

www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Website of the New Georgia Encyclopedia

www.gilmerchamber.com/members/apples.asp
Contains information on Ellijay apples.

www.graphicmaps.com
Provides latitude and longitude information for U.S. and world cities.

www.helenga.org
Home page for the unique north Georgia town of Helen.

www.kidsdomain.com
Contains geography games.

www.mapnation.com
A free Internet mapping service.

http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_3_,00.html
Contains a recommended list of disaster supplies.
This site will take you out of the CD. It will be necessary to reboot the CD to access it again.

www.weatherbug.com
Website provides local weather information.