Welcome to Mr. Spencer

Hi! My name is Spencer Hong. I just turned sixteen years old and this is my twelfth year in Singapore. This year I was on the varsity golf team and traveled to Taiwan for a tournament. But I also like to play basketball and volleyball (was on the freshmen volleyball team last year). I am here to help you guys with math and social studies, but also to get you ready for your up and coming middle school lives. I’m doing this because I have always wanted to know what it would be like to be in the shoes of a teacher, so, that is what I am doing. By the end of the week I believe that I will have a better understanding of what it is like to be a teacher, but also what it feels like to enrich the minds of our youngsters. Hopefully, I can offer some advice to the kids on how to be very successful not just in middle school, but also in years after that. My expectations of the students are that they treat me just like Mr. Buxton, they give their 110% when Mr. Buxton and I are teaching, and that they most importantly have fun!  Overall, I am very excited to help these kids with their emergence into young adults and into middle school.

Tik-a-tok

Use tik-a-tok next week to add your poems. Make your poetry digital booklet your most impressive piece of work to date.

Student of the Week: Riya

For next week:

• Be thinking about a topic that makes you really mad
• Be thinking about a world event that you would like to research (Be creative and think )

The Friday Message - How can you be greater than even you believe you can be?
 http://youtu.be/eVi4k44A1Yo

Piclits - A Picture Tells a Story

• Print out your  piclits that you made in class  today. (GATE) - You have the choice to do this activity or not.) See example if you are interested.  http://www.piclits.com/ 

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

• Fakebook - Due tomorrow
• Remember - Word study assessment is tomorrow.  Make sure you are comfortable on the topics listed yesterday on the blog

Math
Study link 8.6

Class party - "Don't kick a gift horse in the mouth" ...Work that out'!

Word Study & Advanced Book Clubs

H/W
Read some great poems, 'I wonder' today. Really impressed by your creativity. Watch the class door tomorrow to see examples of  impressive poems.

• New Book clubs - Make sure you are reading and keeping up to date. Next meeting is next Wed. 
• Do this exercise. Win TQ ONLY if you score 10/10 on first try. Do not cheat..please - if you do, you are cheating yourself and your classmates. http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/exercises/comma_splices_ex2.htm

Optional

• Because you care enough...are  you willing for fun to go back and read one of your earlier writing assisngments and check for any fused sentences or comma splice errors. Let me know if you do!

Math
Study Link 8.5

Fakebook - How is your team progressing?

RLA - Word Study Assessment

• Do you feel comfortable on all of the Word Study topics for Friday's assessment?
• What is etymology and why is it important?
• What  are 'portmanteau' words
• Can you create word webs from root words e.g. 'read'
• Know the difference wit hexamples between homophones and homographs
• What is 'schwa'?
• Can you create vocabulary lines to show the continuum of synonyms  e.g. plot synonyms on a line for the word 'big'
• What have you learned in word study that has helped you the most?

Anisha - Can you copy the link to your book?

Enjoy Han's song again

The Sound of Silence

Boys - Anybody can make a promise. Do you have what it takes to keep the promise?

Math
Study Link - 8.4

Reprint your I/O poems if you have adapted them for white space and line breaks (Due: Wed)
Enjoy...the sound of silence again - What sounds does silence make?


I Wonder Poems (Due: Wed) - "Lesson leanred are seldom repeated"
Think purposefully about your line breaks and white space in this poem.