Language Arts

	Language Arts 3rd Quarter

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Taping the lines for the basketball court.

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Stephanie painting the first key.

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Taping and painting the key.

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Finally painting the second key.

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Still painting the court.

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Emerson painting the key.

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Finishing up the other side.

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Community Service

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Almost there!

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Stephanie packing weeds to the trash pile.

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awards

Welcome to middle school language arts:

Fundraiser:

Our class will be putting together a basket for P.E.C.K.

We have chosen to name it "All About Chocolate" and, of course, it's all about CHOCOLATE! All chocolate contributions must be in before the 24th of February. P.E.C.K. will be sending out letters with more information.

Class:

The count down to our academic "super bowl" is just around the corner. Students are diligently reviewing standards, learning new standards and preparing for the big test in April.

Book reports are due the last Thursday of each month and should be completed outside of regular class.

Literture circles are going well and we have had many requests for new book sets because they have read ALL the books available! Yeah!

Service Learning:

Our Bountiful Baskets Co-Op is gaining momentum, last distribution we had enough participants to get cases of fruits and vegetables. Students who volunteered last Saturday enjoyed passing out the produce and helping people to their cars with their bounty.

Students also spent two Fridays at the park, picking up and clearing weeds around the basketball court. We hope to repaint the lines on the court later this spring.

Thank you to everyone who helped out at the Harvest Carnival we made over $300! Yeah!

We hope to have another fundraiser to help us fund our 8th grade trip, stay tuned for more information.

We are currently participating in a class competition for the canned food drive. If you have any non-perishable food items to send in, please send it in. The deadline is Tuesday, Nov. 22nd. The winning class will get a pizza party and we'd really love to win that! Yum! :D

Also, we're filling a basket with lots of goodies for Peck's Basket Raffle; we've chosen a "chocolate" theme for our basket. Please help us out and send in something yummy. Thank you.

Students will be bringing home a progress report on Monday, just in case anyone would like to use our five day weekend to get caught up on missing assignments.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Mrs. Coleman

Honor Roll Assembly will be held on Friday morning at 8:30. I hope we'll see everyone there to support our awesome students.

Wow, the time is just flying by...our annual Harvest Carnival is coming up fast!

The biggest 8th grade fundraiser is the Harvest Carnival. This year we will host it on Oct. 31 from 12:30-2:30. Everyone is invited to attend.

Tickets will go on sale next week, $.25 each or 4/$1. Most games will cost between 2 and 4 tickets to play, there will be a few that can be played for 1 ticket.

The schedule will go something like this:

12:30-1:10 preschool and grades K-1

1:10-1:50 2-4th grades

1:50-2:30 5-7th grades

2:30-3:00 Clean up and home

If any parents would like to come in and help out, we would welcome your assistance. Additionally, we need some help with the cake walk --if anyone would like to do some baking it would be very appreciated. Please contact Ms. Tiffany and I will get back to you.

This year our 8th grade students will be adding another community service project to their schedule. We have started a Bountiful Baskets Co-op site in Golden Shores and the 8th graders will be taking turns helping out.

For those interested in getting some really fresh produce, this is the place to go: www.bountifulbaskets.org

We will continue to go to the park once a month and clean up around the basketball court.

In language classes this month we will focus on "functional text." Functional text is basically text that explains or teaches something. Examples would materials such as: manuals, recipes, directions, etc.

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I look forward to seeing your smiling faces; I sure missed you all over the summer. I love my job!

Our junior high students scored very well in reading last year and we look forward to high scores this year as well. All grade levels did well, 65% of the eighth grade passed, 67% of the seventh grade and the sixth graders led the way at 92.3%! Which means that 74% of our junior high students earned passing scores in reading last spring. Great job everyone!

This year's incoming junior high students start out the year with a combined reading pass-rate of 84%! Woo hoo! That is an awesome beginning to a wonderful school year. Please congratulate your child on their hard work.

My focus this year will be on improving their writing scores. I know my students can write well, so let's prove it to the state!

Last year's eighth grade students worked hard on cleaning the area around the basketball court at the community park and painted lines on the court. I hope everyone who enjoys playing in the park, will go down and check out their hard work.

This year's eighth grade students will continue to take care of the park as a year-long service project. All students will be given the opportunity to take part in the project. Also, each student will need signed permission from their parents to leave school on designated days. When the weather permits we'll

A special thanks goes to Mr. Coleman for measuring, taping and painting the final coat. We know it was a lot of work!

Mr. Warren asked all the teachers to post a biography on our web pages to introduce ourselves to the community. So -- here is the “short version” of my teaching career, to date. :)

Me:

I would say that I'm a bit of an adventurer, a risk-taker and a leader. I love learning, taking new classes and often spend my school breaks researching for new lessons and units. For instance, we traveled parts of the Oregon Trail for a unit I created when I taught the fifth grade and we recently took several weeks to drive all over California collecting information and pictures to build a unit on westward expansion and the gold rush. I usually take classes, attend workshops, and/or conventions during breaks because that always gives me new ideas and energizes my lessons.

My family:

My husband and I have been married 29 years; we were high school friends, then sweethearts, so we have a wonderful shared history. We have three beautiful, independent daughters and 7 grandchildren. They are spread out from Sandpoint, ID to Sheppton, PA. Which means that we don't get to see some of our grandchildren very often, but it does give us an opportunity to travel when we can afford it.

My education and experience:

I went back to school to earn my AS when our youngest started school in 1994, then continued on to earn a BA from Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. Upon graduation I discovered that it was unlikely that I would find a teaching position in Sandpoint, Idaho so we packed up the girls and moved to Parker, AZ where I taught 5th and 6th grades for 5 years.

While in Parker, I decided that I wanted to pursue a master’s degree so I conducted some research and finally decided on the University of Phoenix and started taking classes. I completed my MAED, Technology Curriculum and Instruction, in 2003.

What brings me here:

In 2005, our youngest graduated from high school which gave us the opportunity to pursue some of our own dreams, so we packed up and headed to Alaska to teach in the bush for a while. After two years in Alaska and many enjoyable experiences including walking on glaciers, moose hunting, salmon fishing, snowmobiling across frozen lakes, taking my 8th grade class on a field trip that required flying out on small planes in groups of 4-6, and attending the Alaska State Writer's Consortium in Juneau (WOW!) I decided that I was too far away from our daughters (who had started giving us grandchildren at an alarming rate!) so, we moved back to Arizona.

I have been teaching at Topock for four years now and I am loving the small class sizes, the dedication of the staff and the wonderful community. I have a homeroom class (8th grade) and I teach Language Arts to the middle school students. I am also the Special Education Director/teacher.

Christmas is just around the corner and our middle school students are wrapping up a productive quarter! We are awesome! This quarter we have pulled together to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to raise breast cancer awareness, raised over $400 towards our 8th grade celebration, planted mesquite trees, and now they are hard at work on the holiday program. We hope to see everyone at the performances on Wed. Dec. 15th (1:30 or 6:00 pm) and an oncore performance will be held on the 16th (time to be announced later.)

As the first half of our school year comes to a close, many students are looking forward to a little break before we start our ramp up for the state tests that are held in April. When students return from winter break we will be focusing on all those standards, refreshing their memories and reviewing test taking skills. So, lots of hard work ahead of us! I hope everyone has an awesome break and gets a little rest, too!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mrs. Coleman

Wow, I can't believe it's already time for our first break!

We are just zipping along this year. Students have been working in literature circles for the last month, many are on their second or third book! Awesome.

We have continued our focus on story elements for the entire quarter, with a few stops along the way for poetry, expository text and functional text.

In our quest to ensure that all children succeed, sixth grade students have been tested using DIBELS and DAZE. (For those that are not familiar with the programs they are simple 1-3 minute tests that evaluate their fluency and comprehension.) I have been testing them weekly, bi-weekly and/or monthly as I work to ensure that they are meeting their goals. I'm happy to report that they are doing very well and most are showing marked improvements.

We'll be focusing on writing next quarter. Students will be writing a research paper (expository text) and we will continue to revise our biographies.

I hope everyone has a relaxing vacation and comes back ready to learn!

Welcome to the 2010-2011 School Year! Are you ready to READ?

This year we will be dedicating ourselves to improving our reading scores on the AIMS tests. This quarter the middle school students are focusing on story elements. All of our reading passages in class are devoted to improving our understanding of the story elements and book reports will revolve around demonstrating their understanding of the story elements.

Students will use a journal in class for responding to text and daily writing. We need to build those muscles up so that we can become better readers and writers; and in the process we're going to add some more skills to our repertoires!

In the side bar you will find links to the choice board which is used for book reports and the rubrics that will be used to score them.

Welcome to the Middle School! I look forward to an awesome year!

Some of you may have noticed that the "homework" tab doesn't work. I have reposted the Choice Board and Rubric on the site as sub-pages under the home page. You can click on the individual titles and view them.

Eighth grade students are working on an opinion essay regarding the new health care bill, they will be earning credit for the essay in language and social studies. If you see them around town please ask them for their enlightened opinion!

All other students are polishing their memoirs for final publication on Friday the 14th. I hope to have the books put together the week before school is out. If there are any parents who would like to volunteer to help put this together please contact me so that we can coordinate a time.

In reading classes we are working on the next level of standards. Students are using their new text books and reviewing vocabulary, answering leading questions and learning how to take good notes. If you would like to help your student with the process at home, I encourage you to have them read an article and give a short summary (either verbal or written) that includes the main idea and supporting details.

You may email me by clicking on my email link on the teacher page of the school Web site, or you may type the address of vcoleman@topockazschool.com .

Thanks for stopping by,

Mrs. Coleman

Well -- here it is the end of April! Wow, have we moved fast this year! AIMS tests are finished and we've "moved on up" to the next grade, all in the interests of ensuring that all our children succeed! No exceptions! For the next month your child will be working on next year's concepts to, hopefully, give them a head start on those core standards.

Also, if your student is new to junior high, we'll be addressing socialization, moving from class to class, expectations for classroom behavior and dealing with a new teacher...in their case, 3 new teachers! We hope that by moving ahead with our curriculum we will see more of our students exceed the standards next year. Wouldn't it be awesome if simply changing that one little thing gave us a big jump? We think so.

So a heads up to the way I work...book reports are homework. The last book report this year is due on May 10. Students are given a choice board, see the homework tab, in the files section for a copy. You will find two different choice boards and the rubric that I use to grade book reports. Book reports are worth 100 points, so they're well worth the effort to get it right!

In Language Arts: Students are working on creating a memoir. We've all written at least one story and we're diligently polishing to get it ready to be published. I hope to create a class book for each student to take with them at the end of the year.

In Reading: Students are finishing their class novels and/or working on those standards that they haven't gotten yet. My thought is that it will give us a head start for next year. Many students are still struggling with "reading to learn," others are stuck on summarizing ONLY the main ideas, still others need to reinforce vocabulary in context, so this work may be very different from student to student. Don't let that throw you off, if I have given a student a work sheet to reinforce summarization skills that means that is the area she/he should be polishing.

This last month is going to fly by, but please feel free to drop me a note, via email or by child, :) and I will try to get back to you that day. I look forward to hearing from you. Mrs. Coleman

March Update

Spring break is just a week or two away and we have so much to get caught up on! Oh my, practicing for the AIMS tests in April, monthly book reports, reading strategies and writing prompts!

March 11th is the last day of the quarter and the last day for our March book report! This month we're doing something different, all students will create an oral presentation for "Book in a Bag" using the paper lunch sacks I have provided with Ms. Charlotte's help.

Bags are available in the class room.

Students should decorate the bag to represent their book.
They should have a minimum of 5 items to tell their story but please limit the items to no more than 10.
Every student should include an item to reference the main character(s), the setting, and the plot.
Other items should help to tell the tale.

Students will be graded on:

How well they followed the directions
How well they tell the tale
Eye contact, voice, and content
Presentations should be at least 3 minutes but no more than 5 minutes.

Well, here it is the end of January! Wow, does time fly when you're having fun. :)

This month we started AIMS practice, the junior high students are working on reviewing reading strategies and responding to writing prompts. We know that all of our students can excel this year and we're doing our part to ensure that they haven't forgotten anything.

Our first book report was due the 8th of January and the next one is due the 11th of February. I hope that everyone has a good time with the choice board style book report.

This quarter I have added a few new choices. They are: A wanted poster for the villain of the story, an advertisement for the book with a review, a map of the setting (drawn like a street map) with a description of the story and a compare-contrast essay. Students have the new choice board along with the rubric that will be used to grade their reports.

Welcome to middle school language arts!

Mr. Warren asked all the teachers to post a biography on our web pages to introduce ourselves to the community. So... here is the “short version” of my teaching career, to date. :)

I would say that I'm a bit of an adventurer, a risk-taker and a leader. My husband and I have been married 28 years; we were high school buds, then sweethearts, so we have a wonderful shared history. We have three beautiful, independent, daughters and 5 grandchildren. They are spread out from Sandpoint, ID to Hazleton, PA. This means that we get to travel a lot during my breaks. :)

In 2005, our youngest graduated from high school which gave us the opportunity to pursue some of our own dreams, so we packed up and headed to Alaska to teach in the bush for a while. After two years in Alaska and many enjoyable experiences including walking on glaciers, moose hunting, salmon fishing, snowmobiling across frozen lakes, taking my 8th grade class on a field trip that required flying out in groups of 4-6, and attending the Alaska State Writer's Consortium in Juneau (WOW!) I decided that I was too far away from our daughters (who had started giving us grandchildren at an alarming rate!) so, we moved back to Arizona.

I am now teaching at Topock and truly loving the small class sizes, the dedication of the staff and the wonderful community. I have a homeroom class (7th grade) and I teach Language Arts to the middle school students. I am also the district Technology Director and the Sped Director/teacher.

I finished my classes for SPED certification last May and passed the AEPA to earn my certificate in special education in June.

I look forward to continuing to work, and learn, with the staff and students at Topock.

Mrs. Coleman

vcoleman@topockazschool.com

You may email me at vcoleman@topockazschool.com,