Welcome to Miss Lachowicz's Classroom 6-8

Religion:

Each quarter every junior high student, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, are encouraged to volunteer seven (7) hours of service in various areas: school, church, family, or community. An adult in charge must sign a service sheet for authorization and explanation of services done.

Every Friday we attend 8:30 mass to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist. Before Christmas and Easter we receive the sacrament of reconciliation. Students are urged to go more often to Reconciliation and every Sunday Mass with family and friends. Attending and experiencing any sacrament ritual is extra grace as well as extra credit. Extra credit is given for weekly Gospels' write-ups.

Sixth graders focus on learning the Old Testament of our Bible from creation to our Lord's birth, and issues in the Christian world today. We compare and contrast our one true Catholic Christian religion with many others but focus on the good of all mankind throughout time. We research this remarkable faith of Jesus' (Judaism) that led us to be Christians today. We do all of our studies with "respect and responsibility" to learn more and appreciate others around us who impact our lives. We will be visiting a synagogue, mosque, temple, and other houses of worhsip for our curriculum project and see how people worship differently. The Catholic New World newspaper wrote a marvelous article and took pictures of our World Religion project and trip in 2008. We are truly honored and blessed with such an exciting article about our students learning experiences. They worked most diligently.

Social Studies: Our journey in World Cultures takes us to many ancient civilizations where our students compare and contrast different people, traditions, beliefs, cultures and ways of life from around the world throughout time. We add to their banks of knowledge with details about artifacts from early civilizations. We explore the differences and similarities of yesterday's and today's people. We recognize and examine all the contributions that changed our world. We study the geography of continents, oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts, plains, and other various lands features, etc. We explore various people who have made great contributions to our lives and to the world. We examine how the first clans and tribes became cities, towns, villages, then countries. We analyze how people lived and cooperated to become the first productive civilizations. We focus on Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Italy this quarter. We will be heading to the Field Museum to examine Ancient Egypt at the end of October or beginning of November for our field trip..

English: Our sixth graders are constantly using all their language knowledge since first grade regarding punctuation: periods..., exclamation marks!, question mark?, the comma, hyphen-, apostrophe', "quotation marks." We memorize the rules of capitalization and punctuation and apply these rules daily in all of our subjects. Sixth graders' paragraphs consist of six sentences minimum. Complete sentences in all subjects are necessary for proficient writing. Topic sentences and indented paragraph writing are reviewed when writing an essay, report, or research paper. MLA Style is used throughout of writing in junior high. Sentence structure and identifying all words as specific parts of speech in sentences are the focus. Subjects and predicates are identified.

Aug-Sept-Capitalization, Punctuation, Conjunctions, Interjections, Articles / Oct-Nov-Nouns & Pronouns / Dec-Jan-Adjectives /Feb -Verbs

Subject Predicate........Nouns Pronouns Verbs Adverbs Adjectives Proper Nouns Proper Adjective Prepositions Conjunctions

 

Vocabulary: New Vocabulary books replaced the old speller! Every student is expected to complete the units weekly on their own. We correct pages together and review for weekly tests; spelling tests and unit content tests.. Most of the workbook is done independently as this junior high grade level. Sixth graders are exceptional in following a schedule and developing a routine. Hats off to sixth graders! We focus on meanings in context, examples of antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, homographs, homophones, prefixes, suffixes, and base root words. Focusing on syllables, stress marks, the individual parts of words, and their similarities are our goals. Vocabulary and spelling are lifetime skills that follow all of us forever. Feel free to move ahead all you want. Handwriting really counts in this subject! Make your letters correctly in all your writing.

Helpful website for hearing and learning our weekly words. http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/vocabulary/iwords.cfm?sp=&level=A 

Reading: We start short stories from our literature reader and read novels in between. We compare and contrast our many stories to examine characters' traits, settings, inferences, sequencing, plots, conflicts, themes, and main ideas. We read and write samples of descriptive, narrative, expository, fiction, non-fiction, drama, biographies, and fantasy. We learn about cultural differences as we read a large variety of literature from Mexico, Africa, China, all throughout Europe, and America. Esperanza Rising, Julie and the Wolves, Hatchet, and The Blue Dolphin.

Visit Our Classroom

Any Concerns please e-mail me at<slachowicz@stmaryschool.net>Homeroom Teacher Room 8

Updated 12/17/08