Wright City Middle School

Buy One Get One Free Book Fair May 7-11

Come to the 2^nd Annual Slip Into Summer Reading BOGO Book Fair.  Buy one item, get one item of equal or lesser value for free.  Get some great books to help keep your reading skills up over the summer break.​

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This has been an amazing year in 7^th grade Social Studies: World History.  This year marked a new beginning, with 7^th grade Social Studies changing over to cover the history of the world from 1300AD to World War II. The main purpose of this course is to cover the culture, history, government systems, landforms, historic figures, economics, and the way of life of people from those time frames.

In addition, we will be reviewing geography knowledge and skills and remembering historical events on those days of the year. The periods of history that we focus on in 7^th grade includes the Renaissance, Reformation, the First Global Age, The Age of Absolutism, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, World War I and the Aftermath, and World War II and the Aftermath. 

This was a great year with an amazing class of students and a wonderful new area in history to teach them.  The pictures given show you an idea of what of our students created for their infomercials over an invention during the Industrial Revolution.

Elizabeth Dennis

7^th Grade Social Studies​ 

     What's Going on in Computer Class?

Seventh Grade students are learning touch typing and word processing.  Students are practicing correct key techniques to promote safety and efficiency.  (Ask them about carpal tunnel syndrome!)  They are also using frequent practice sessions to build skill a few characters at a time.  Many students have reached speeds of 40 to 60 words per minute with excellent accuracy.  In addition, students are learning to use features of Microsoft Word, such as alignment, line spacing, indentation, margins, tables and drawing tools.  More importantly, they are learning about alternate ways to access these features.  (Did you know that pressing the ALT key in Word will display keyboard shortcuts that allow access to common features without using the mouse?)

Eighth Grade students are learning to create spreadsheets and use web applications.  Students have been creating and formatting spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel.  (Ask them about formulas!)  Students have also been getting familiar with a wide range of free online tools that offer creative alternatives for organizing and presenting information.  Students have used ToonDoo (comic creator), TimeToast (interactive timeline) and Prezi (presentation tool), to name just a few.  (Did you know that Prezi allows multiple users to work simultaneously on the same presentation from remote locations?)

Exploratory students have been working to write and illustrate a children's story in e-book form.  They have submitted ideas for their stories and are currently working to develop their characters.  This class just completed their Quilt Project, for which each student researched quilt patterns then designed several of their own quilt squares.  All squares were printed in color and joined together to form one class "quilt."  These students have also formed groups to design and implement a service project.  Four of the groups will be sponsoring an awareness program for important issues at school and two of the groups will be sponsoring events to support local needs.​- Debbie Gaines

Each week, the students learn and use reading strategies and skills. They do this by modeling the skill or strategy in large group, small group, and partner settings. Then to solidify the concepts, the students separate back out to read a book and journal about it, using the focus skills and strategies just learned. This gives each student an opportunity to read and grow at his or her own pace, and allows each student to push themselves to the fullest. Just recently, we have been tackling the concepts of inferences, theme, predictions, and character and setting.

Because understanding vocabulary is a crucial part of developing better reading comprehension, the students have been learning multiple new words each week to help build and maintain their vocabularies. They love it when they learn a new word and then see it in their books as they read! Not too long ago, the students had an opportunity to take a cumulative quiz to test their retention of the words they have learned. This, they may not have loved so much, but they did get an idea of how well they knew the material!

Throughout the rest of the year, the students will continue to learn and practice the skills and strategies necessary to be strong readers and will hopefully have completed some book trailers of the books they have finished reading during the year.

 -Ms. Janas