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It's April!

It is hard to believe that it is already April! Of course, April 1st would not be complete without a middle school prank! I was greeted by this little creature first thing this morning!  
The kids shared a few of their April Fool's jokes with me, and we had some good laughs. However, this one was my favorite:

Apparently, this young man's dad came up with the idea to play a little joke on Mom.  I would have loved to have seen the look on her face when he came home and presented her with this referral.  

On a more serious note, we started The Giver last week!  In English 7H, students have been assigned one of three focus questions to follow throughout the book.  In English 7CP, all students will be focusing on the same question.  Students must find passages from the book that address their question and complete quote responses.  These passages serve as a catalyst for class discussions, as well  require students to think critically as they read.  


In addition, students read an article about book banning and wrote a short essay about whether or not they thought books should be banned.   This topic certainly got them fired up, and they were able to find numerous reasons to support both sides.
We are continuing to use Noredink.com to practice grammar, punctuation, and usage.  This week we took a pretest on commonly confused words.  Once again, what I love about Noredink.com is that if students do well on the pretest they are done with that topic.  Kids who do not do well can complete several practice exercises and then take the post test.  It is so nice to not have to spend countless hours on something that many students already know!

I hope you all have a wonderful Spring Break!  

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