Happy Holidays!

After a few weeks of studying character development, students in my classes were ready to ace the Chapter 2 mastery assessment today. Over the three week holiday, they should be reading, reading, and reading some more. When we return from winter break, they should have finished (at least) one book and be ready to analyze a character from that story. We're going to do a fun project!
I have collected the Chapter 2 packets and we will revisit them when we return in 2013, just to make sure everyone is on the same page with the grammar pages.

If you're feeling generous, please consider donating to my latest DonosChoose classroom project:

visit www.donorschoose.org/mrs.heartt

Wishing you all a warm and wonderous holiday!

What Happened To November?!?!

Well, it certainly went by in a bllluuuuurrrrrr! And here we are in December. We have turned in the 4 Types of Writing Packets and moved into Chapter 2: Character Analysis... My favorite!

A series of unfortunate events befell me this week, so I missed the entire week of school! I'll be up and running again on Monday, I promise. We have lots of catching up to do!!

Here are some recent photos to keep your spirits up:

Halloween Hijinks

Halloween was a happy day! I challenged my students to dress like a character from a book for extra credit and some even did it!

And here was my Hunger Games-inspired costume. No, it wasn't Lady Gaga! I'm obviously Effie Trinket!

Next week the final draft of the "Empress Theodora" summary is due, as well as the Writing Packet. Also, Benchmark 1 will happen on Monday.

What Happened?

Wow! Where did the last month go?!?! It has been a busy time, from Student-Led Conferences to the beginning of Weekly Workshops. October is nearly at its end and will culminate in a most exciting Halloween even this Wednesday.

Teachers and students are encouraged to dress in costume and participate in the costume contest! I'm offering extra credit to my students who dress as a character from a book. I'll be playing along too, of course!

Our packet has been focused on the four types of writing that could be on the CST (only ONE essay will be given for the CST)- Persuasive, Narrative, Summary, or Response to Literature. Students will be writing a summary, revising, editing, and turning it in with the Writing Packet.

The LAST day to take an AR quiz for the first trimester will be on November 2, NEXT FRIDAY. Get 'er done, kids!

A Walking Trip to the Library

On Thursday, September 27th, 3rd period took a walking field trip to the Napa Library. We went with Mrs. Banta and Mrs. Hillman's classes too. We got a tour of the library, did a scavenger hunt of library resources and students got to take home three free books from the library book sale! It was a very quick, but successful trip. Hopefully, all these fabulous students were reacquainted with all the fun that can be found at the library.

Chapter 1 is Underway!

To recap our first weeks of school:

We had a "Reading Frenzy" on the first day of school. Everyone left class with a book to read!
I learned your names.... Was I the first teacher to remember your name or the last?
We agreed on class expectations.
We made beautiful self-portraits.
We found out what reading range you should stick to, so you will grow as a reader.
We learned about the different genres of literature.
We made Ch. 1 packets! Extra credit for dancing!!
I introduced our first chapter and we took Cornell notes about plot.

Stay tuned for a read-aloud like you've NEVER experienced before... Starring Ms. Gibson!

Chapter 1 packet party pics:

What is the best book you've ever read?

While finishing up our self-portraits last week, some of the faster finishers shared what they like about their favorite books:

Can you guess who these students may be??

Facts About Kids and Reading

I'm working on creating a brochure for Back to School Night next week. In researching statistics about reading 1,000,000 words a year, I discovered an excellent PDF from Scholastic, which you can see in its entirety here: Scholastic Facts About Reading

I find this sort of information RIVETING, of course, so I think you will too :)

In fact, I liked it so much, I made a Wordle out of it:

Greetings, Readers!

Today my website went "live" and is now connected to the Harvest Middle School website. WHOOT! I'm official!
To my students: please feel free to click around and check out all that this new site has to offer. I may decide to open up comments. If so, I will welcome your thoughts and questions.

Homework tonight is to fill out your Trimester 1 Reading Log for the books you've already read so far this school year. It's fun to keep track of what you've read and how you've grown as a reader.

Remember, the goal is to read 1 MILLION words this year. We are shooting for reading 40 books (at least!). I know you can do it!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I am absolutely thrilled about the changes I made to my classroom this summer. I admit, I am a bit of a Pinterest addict. It is full of great ideas. But what use are ideas if you never put them into action? I spent some time during the summer collecting ideas and then making them happen. For example, I found these great nursery bookshelves, and thought, "Those would be perfect in my classroom!"

Boring white is NEVER my style, so, of course I had to HEARTT it up. It was my first time ever using a skill saw, so don't look too closely at the edges. I did these all by myself and I'm positively giddy with the results:

My classroom library is ready for action!

Welcome to my NEW and Improved Website!

Welcome to your most awesome year of Language Arts!