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Wild Bird Release

Last Tuesday a woodpecker that lives in a bird box outside our house ran into our living room window. I went outside and found him on the ground with his eyes closed. I gently put him in a little box and took him to the Peninsula Humane Society/SPCA's new Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The wonderful people there put him in a special incubator for birds with head trauma and nursed him back to health.

This morning I picked up the woodpecker, brought him home, and released him back near his bird box. As you can see from this video taken by my husband David, the woodpecker is as good as new!

He is a Downey Woodpecker, and so I've named him Robby after one of my favorite actors, Robert Downey, Jr.! I'll keep you posted on his activities. And if "he" is really a female, well call our friend Roberta! I'll be seeing some of you today at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center's Open House at 1450 Rollins Road in Burlingame. See you there!

The Oxford English Dictionary

A very special thanks to Owen who brought in his family edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The original, like I told the students, is in 20 volumes, and university libraries usually have a set in their reference sections. Demand the best! Especially in your dictionaries! The edition we saw today in class is the 2 volume Compact set that comes with a Bausch & Lomb magnifying glass to read the tiny print. There are other Oxford Dictionaries of shorter length for daily use, but it is now possible to access the Oxford Dictionary online.

And for those of you interested in the history of the dictionary, you can read this amazing New York Times bestseller: The Professor and the Madman.

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Dear Middle School Parents,

Thank you so very much for the generous holiday gifts. I plan to use the Amazon card to get some music I had when I was a teenager. And perhaps a fabulous scholarly book on the ancient world! Thank you. I am grateful beyond measure! And especially, thanks for everything you do to help me help your child.


Molto Grazie,
Gwen Minor

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”---Abraham Lincoln
This has been one of my favorite quotes and has guided me in difficult times. It is a very positive message about working hard and knowing that your time will come eventually.
Mrs. Minor’s 7th grade students are preparing for the Tuesday, March 6th California Writing Standards Test. They have learned how to write a variety of Narrative Essays, Descriptive Essays, and Expository Essays. February is reserved for the learning of Persuasive Essays. A good way to help your child is to ask him or her to show you the Essay Writing unit booklet, which shows the structures we are using. Help with Response to Literature (an expository form) can be as simple as talking to your child about character, setting, theme, literary techniques, and lessons learned from any story we have read. This will develop their thinking skills and help them to respond when the time comes.

Response to Literature Essays

On Tuesday, March 6, all 7th grade students in the state will be taking the California Writing Standards Test. That's just over a month away!!! We have covered Descriptive Writing, Narrative Writing, and Expository Writing. Persuasive Writing is covered in February. Here are some photos of our classes working on our Response to Literature Essay activities. Response to Literature is a form of Expository Writing and analyzes a work of literature. Ask your child to show you his or her Essay Writing unit booklet we made in class.

  

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Whoops! I erased Monday's agenda before I took the photo! Sorry! Believe me when I say it was packed with activities, having just come back from vacation! 

A WORD ABOUT UNIT WORKPACKETS:
Unit Workpackets are to be worked on in class AND at home! A Unit Workpacket is handed out when we start the unit and is due, completed, the day we take the unit test. The pages are not done in order, but Reading skill pages are in the front of the packet and Grammar skill pages are in the back. There are usually a few pages that can't be done because we didn't get to a story in the book, but by and large, they all should be completed. Some pages have story titles on the top but only because they use examples from a story to demonstrate a reading skill or concept. A lot of kids will say they can't do it because they haven't read the story, but they can do it, they just haven't read the directions. In the back of each Unit Workpacket there are a number of grammar pages that can be completed at any time.