Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade classes are starting on the basics of reading and writing, and they are learning fast. They are starting to recognize letters and their sounds. The students are working on writing their names and words. They are drawing and looking at pictures to help them learn the words. Students have started writing their own sentences. Some of them are even starting to read books! Don't you wish you were little again?

Ms. Judy's second graders are learning about adjectives, verb tenses, and nouns. It seems like they really know their stuff! In Mrs. Bollin's third grade class the students are learning about letter writing. They wrote letters to Mrs. Bollin asking her to do something silly. If the letters had a proper heading, body, closing, and signature Mrs. Bollin would do the silly action. You may have seen Mrs. Bollin chicken dancing in the office, or perhaps doing the Hokey Pokey in the hallway. They have also written to each other, Laura Bollin, and the Bears. If they wrote the letters correctly they would get rewarded with what they had asked for in their letter.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth grades have been working hard. In the fourth grade, they've been working on verbs. They also journal write every morning. They did a seasonal project titled "If your Christmas tree could talk." I wonder what it said?

Next in fifth grade news, they've been getting down to business, Literally! They've learned how to write a proper business letter. They wrote to a business or person of their choice. Last but not least is the sixth grade. They have been learning about different types of poetry. They've been learning about parts of speech and punctuation, too.

The junior high has been busy with projects. The seventh grade has worked on an autobiography.

Before the holiday break, the seventh grade was working on an art masterpiece project. The students were to pick out a famous art painting of their choice and write a story about the painting. Both seventh and eighth graders wrote short holiday stories. Now both classes are working on a research paper from a novel that was chosen by each student from a list given by Mrs. Dezonno. The eighth graders worked on memoirs at the beginning of the year. They presented an oral presentation on a recent issue. Both 209 and 212 created a five-episode television documentary and wrote a persuasive essay. Mrs. Dezonno is always looking for ways to help students with tests, so she assigned both seventh and eighth graders, to create English games to help them study.

That's the Good News around St. Viator in English classes from all three floors!

Room 309