Welcome to 7th Grade Team Legacy!

 Welcome back to school, Hawks!

Our hope is that this blog provides clarity surrounding classroom, Heritage MS, and WFPS initiatives and grants you access to a one-stop shop for information for the 2024-25 school year. Please use this blog as a resource as much or as little as you need. Students and families will receive an email notification when updates are made, and we encourage families to save this link and/or click the "Subscribe" button to get email notifications when this blog has updated posts.

First, we wanted to give you course updates on what your learner(s) has started learning within each of our classrooms. Also, important dates to mark on your calendars!

• Monday, September 2nd: No school
• Thursday, September 5th: Picture day (Retake day: October 25th)
• Monday, September 23rd: No school

ELA: This week, students are reviewing annotating articles and summary writing. We have also started using Quill.org. This site will be used district-wide to support learning with grammar, sentence structure, word choice, and other writing activities. Students will be working through individualized lessons 3 times a week for 30 total minutes a week.  

Math: This week, learners are working on getting accustomed to CPM, our math resource, which is used each day in our class. Each day after completing a lesson, learners are assigned 5-10 problems to complete in their Mathematicians Notebook. Answers to these problems are available in the eBook that all learners should have access to. Instructions to log in are posted on Schoology if your learner needs a reminder. 

The tentative pacing schedule that our classes will follow is posted below and on Schoology. It includes the lesson of the day and the homework assigned for each night. Throughout the week, I will be doing random homework checks to see that learners are completing the assigned problems and will use this data as part of their responsibility grade for the quarter. 

Science: Students are actively working on our "Characteristics of Life" unit with their show project due on Friday, August 30th. They will be asked to conference with either myself or the student teacher, Savannah, to show their understanding of the 5 characteristics of all living organisms. All resource materials are located on Schoology.  

Our next unit will be "Functions of Cells." This will be introduced later this week to students and more information will be shared in the next blog post as we expand expectations for what we are asking students to know and be able to do within our classroom! 

Social Studies: This week, the students are exploring United States History prior to European contact. Specifically, Native American tribes throughout North America. Through research and collaboration, students will find information about each indigenous group's culture and environment. Eventually, we will look back at their findings to see how colonization impacted these groups.  

 

Their creativity will be put to the test for our show project! After wrapping up their research, students will design a small Native American community. Through Minecraft or drawing, they will create a replica of one of America's first communities! 

Second, we wanted to give you the inside scoop on how to contact your student's core teaching team:

• ELA: Christina Lindmeier, CLindmeier@west-fargo.k12.nd.us
• Math: Michelle Bruer, MBruer@west-fargo.k12.nd.us
• Science: Sally Richardson, CRichardson@west-fargo.k12.nd.us
• Social Studies: Julian Hoey, JHoey@west-fargo.k12.nd.us

Third, we wanted to provide links to important district and building resources:

• District Calendar: This gives a monthly view, and there are PDFs at the bottom that provide the complete school year calendar with non-school days and important district-wide dates marked.
• Heritage Middle School Website: For building-specific information, including the student handbook and activities information.
• Grading Portal Links: Gives you access to three resources. Standards-based grading information to get a better understanding of our grading practices, Schoology to gain access to course resources and daily grading, and PowerSchool to see final grades quarterly. 
• Example 7th Grade Report Card: Updates are available at the end of each quarter and will be mailed to you. For daily grading information, please refer to Schoology.

Last, we wanted to give you information on the classroom structure. The majority of core classrooms operate on a Personalized Learning track, which is based on our district's strategic goals. To find out more information on the ins and outs of personalized learning, please refer to this great resource -- CLICK HERE.

Each unit will be available on Schoology for students to navigate and will contain:

• The learning targets listed for the unit that identifies what students will need to be able to show an understanding of by the time they conference.
• Learning options will be available with both required and optional lessons. Each task will be assigned to a learning target for the unit, and multiple options for them to choose from. For example, there may be multiple options for learning tied to the same learning target for students to choose the item(s) that best fits their preferred learning style.
• There will be checkpoints throughout the unit to check for understanding. It may be that they are drawing a concept, making connections between the vocabulary, or taking a quick comprehension check quiz. This gives the teacher a heads-up of any misunderstandings in their learning and ensures that they are on track.
• Last, there is a show project assignment or assessment. This is usually a choice board full of options to choose from and they will be asked to schedule a conference to present their project. A future post will give more information on this.

Personalized learning also allows students the opportunity for flexible pacing. They self-paced their learning and set pre-determined goals each day. These will be available for the teacher to view and assist as needed. This also allows us to arrange our classroom seating flexibly and allow for students with the same learning preferences to sit together, as well as sit with those who are on a similar learning path as their peers. 

That was a LOT of information! We will continue to work through the 7th-grade need-to-knows, and please comment below with any questions you may have. We are here to help!

Future posts include:

• Schedule of deadlines for units, dress-up day schedule for Homecoming, extracurricular start dates, conference dates, and holidays
• Social media links 
• Highlights from the classroom as we kick off the school year!

If you have a topic that you think would be beneficial to communicate, please do not hesitate to contact Sally Richardson [CRichardson@west-fargo.k12.nd.us].