**UPDATED-7th Grade** First Full Week: August 15-19

Hello again!

I hope you all had a nice weekend, recharged your batteries, and are ready for our first full week of the 2011-2012 school year!!

CLASSROOM POLICY NOTE:
Parents, hopefully you have read about this on the syllabus I sent home with your students (you were supposed to sign it; it is due for all students tomorrow, Monday August 15), but I wanted to address it on the blog, as well.

Due to a large amount of missing and late work last year, I have decided to implement a new policy I call "Homework Think Sheets." Under this policy, each time an assignment is due in my class, I have required all students to have something to turn in; either the completed assignment (ideally) or one of my Homework Think Sheets (shown below-click on the image to make it larger):
As you can see, students without completed work are required to name the assignment, the reason why they don't have it completed, and give a date when they plan to turn it in. By taking the time to fill out this piece of paper, students will then be given a second chance to turn in the assignment for reduced points. Failure to turn in this "Think Sheet" will result in a grade of Ø on the assignment. If any assignment is not turned in within two days of filling out the "Think Sheet," I will be contacting parents about the situation.

Please note: This policy does not excuse students from doing their work; rather, it is a concrete way for me to keep track of students' late and missing work, and to allow students to provide feedback on why they are not completing their work. Hopefully this will be an excellent data tool which can be used to track student behavior, as well as for me to modify my assignments to student needs and interests.

If you have any questions about this policy, please feel free to e-mail me at school. :)

Now, for this week's activities:

**OPEN HOUSE! Come meet me and the other Discovery School teachers on Thursday, August 18th, from 7:30-9:00 AM!!**

6th Grade: This week we will continue looking at maps, and will do activities on the types of maps, parts of a map, geographic features, and map grids. All of these activities will be started in class, but some may require extra time to finish at home.
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7th grade: We will continue studying maps this week by looking at the various map projections used by cartographers (map makers). **UPDATED** The first quiz of 7th grade will be sent home as a take-home exam on Friday, August 19. There will be no review questions on the blog, as this will be a take-home exam. **UPDATED**
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8th grade: Family will continue to be our theme this week; hopefully each 8th grade student spent time this weekend interviewing their families for their family history project...that information and the family tree will be due Tuesday, and we will be working on our presentations, which will be given on Thursday and Friday.
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9th grade: We will be finishing up our short Renaissance and Reformation review on Monday, and then moving on to the Age of Exploration/Discovery on Tuesday...we'll start out with an overview video and then focus more deeply on the first two countries to explore...can you guess which ones they were?!
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Here's to another great week at Discovery School!

KF

8th Grade "A History of Me" Assignment and Websites

Hey 8th graders:

Here's the information I wish I'd printed off for you today...my apologies!

1. Write down the five most important things that have happened in your life, and write 2-3 sentences why they were important.

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

2. Use the Internet or books to find five important events that have happened in the span of your own lifetime, and write 2-3 sentences about them:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

Date: Event:

3. On a separate sheet of paper, create a timeline showing the major events in the world and the events in your own life.

Here are some websites you can use to find out about the major world events during your lifetime:

http://www.infoplease.com/yearbyyear.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_history_(1990–present)

http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1990timeline.htm

http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/timeline.htm

Have fun, e-mail me with questions! :)

KF

Blank timeline image retrieved from: http://www.2020site.org/templates/Blank-Timeline-Template.html

Week 1 of School! Week of August 10-12

Hello Everyone!

Welcome back to a new school year!

I am so excited to get this year started!

My room is ready:












I've printed everything we'll need for the next few weeks, so all I need are my students! :)

Here's what you can look forward to during the first 3 days of classes!

All levels (6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th) will start out the year going over the classroom syllabus and rules and setting a quarter 1 goal for themselves.

On Thursday and Friday:
6th grade will be taking a Map Skills Pretest (don't panic, it's a PREtest!) and going over it to understand what you need to learn over the next few weeks.
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7th grade will move right into a review of the parts and types of maps, something I KNOW we went over early last school year :)
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8th grade will review my favorite thing in the world, Primary Sources, on Thursday! Then on Friday we will start looking at our Family History project (don't worry, they tie in nicely :)
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9th grade will spend Thursday and Friday reviewing the Renaissance and Reformation!
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Hope you've had a wonderful summer, and that you'll return to school tomorrow fresh and ready for an AWESOME school year!!

KF

First Post of the 2011-2012 School Year!!!

Greetings Discovery School Parents and Students!

For those of you who haven't met me before, my name is Kristen Fink. I am originally from Iowa, USA, and have bachelor's degrees in history and journalism, and my Master of Arts in Teaching. This is my second year at Discovery School, and my third year of teaching. This year at Discovery I will be the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grade social studies teacher. I am also the coordinator of the school yearbook and the faculty supervisor for the Model United Nations team.

This is my classroom blog, and I work very hard to make it a resource for you. Each week you can log onto this site to check out an overview of what we will be studying that week, special information and announcements from the school, and the #1 blog hits generator, quiz review questions (with answers)! Please take a moment to answer the poll question to the right: your feedback will help me make this blog the best it can be!

I am located in the secondary building, room #4, and my door is always open to parents and students...please let me know what I can do to help all our Discovery Students succeed!

Enjoy the last week of summer...
KF

The School Year is Almost Upon Us...

Look what happened in Room #4 today! It's almost school time!!!!!!! :)

BEFORE...

AFTER...
I also got to break in the library's new rug...if anyone wants to get me one of these for Christmas, I will not say no! :)
















See you next Wendesday!! :)

KF