"Don't Stop Practicing"

The Noun Lovers present their 1st hit single!

Mythology Presentations

Reminder to all Greek God and Goddess researchers. Your PowerPoint or Posterboard is due to me tomorrow!!!!!! This Friday we will share the presentations, limit our choices for "God of the Year" and then have our final "debate" on the 30th!

Enjoy.

Elite 8!!!!

The Spartans advanced to the CYO Football Tournament's Elite 8 today with a come from behind 12-8 victory over St. Anthony de Padua. Eric Marrero made a tough throw to the corner of the endzone and Tochi Oti snatched the ball away from a defender to seal the win with just 36 seconds on the clock. The boys now take on St. Louise de Merillac tomorrow (Sunday 11/11) at 1pm at Loyola High School. A victory tomorrow puts the boys into the Final Four!

Spartan Nation where have you been? Thanks to all of our great parents, but now it's time to line the stands with red and black! Any Jr. High students in attendance are guaranteed bonus points, so come on out and cheer the Spartans on to victory!

Spartans Continue Playoff Run

The Spartans moved onto the second round of the CYO playoffs today with a convincing 28-14 victory over Our Lady of the Assumption. Tomorrow they will take on Holy Name of Mary at St. John Bosco High School at 12 noon. Holy Name is an excellent team and the Spartans want and need your support. Come out and cheer on the boys as they lok to make their second consecutive Sweet 16. Directions and playoff information are in the posting below. See you there tomorrow!

Spartans' Playoff Schedule!

Spartan Nation, the football team's playoff run begins this Saturday bright and early at 9am at St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs. All football players MUST meet at St. Jerome School at 7:30am so we can caravan there together. (Contact Mr. B if for some reason you can't meet at school ASAP.) All of our great fans are more than welcome to join in the caravan out to St. Paul as well. If/When we win, our next game will take place Sunday at 12 noon at St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower. The team(s) we play Sunday play right after us on Saturday, so you might want to stay for a little bit and get a feel for the opposition! There is $4 admission fee for adults and $1 for children. The full bracket can be found at http://www.cyousa.org/ and click on the flaf football link.

Here are the directions to St. Paul High School: 405 South to the 105 East to the 605 North (stay on the 605 for almost 3 miles); Take exit #12 Telegraph Road and head toward "Telegraph Road East" (for about 2.5 miles); Turn left on Greenleaf Avenue, St. Paul is at
9635 GREENLEAF AVE , SANTA FE SPRINGS 90670

Sunday's game at St. John Bosco is even easier to reach. Take the 405 South to the 105 East and exit Bellflower Blvd (just before the 605 interchange). Make a right on Bellflower and the school will be on the left hand side at 13640 Bellflower Blvd.

Come out and support the Spartans in your red and black! Mr. B and Mrs. Cobbs still have shirts available for $10 each. Any students joining the crowd can earn a few bonus points for attending the playoff games! See you there, GOOOOOOOOOOO SPARTANS!

Vocabulary Preparation

8th graders, a key element of your high school entrance exam and future academic success is vocabulary. One of the keys to achievement in this area is knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes. Our Literature books do an excellent job of presenting these "meanings" and providing solid vocabulary words from the stories and poems we read. In addition to these two provisions, we will also be adding a "word of the day" exercise to each class session. In order to make this a learning experience while maintaining enough class time for grammar, writing, and literary analysis, we will be creating vocabulary workbooks. Each workbook will consist of five sections: 1) vocabulary from our readings; 2) word of the day; 3) prefixes; 4) suffixes; 5) root words. It will be your responsibility to "study" these words and word parts; ask your parents to review them with you.

Each week you will be assigned a set of pages from the textbook that provides information on roots, prefixes, and/or suffixes. You will be required to write that information into the appropriate section of your workbook.

Each day at the start of class you will need to copy into your workbook the word of the day exercise and have them completed by the following Monday.

Depending on the stories read during the course of a week, you will receive a "spelling list" on a Monday that will include vocabulary words which you will be tested on the following Friday for spelling and vocabulary knowledge (like we have already been doing this year).

The vocabulary workbooks will be graded on a bi-weekly basis using a basic rubric similar to Mr. Ortega's interactive notebook. To check up on your progress/comprehension we will play some review games like "Cake Walk Comprehension," "Bingo," and "Jeopardy."

Please have your workbooks created no later than Monday, October 29th.

Important Football Update

Attention all Spartans football players (and families)! This Saturday's game against St. Anthony has switched locations to Meadows Park in Manhattan Beach - we will NOT play at Loyola this week. The game will still take place at 9am; players need to arrive no later than 8:30am. Sunday's 3:00 game against St. Bernadette will also take place at Meadows Park as planned. Meadows Park is located at 1200 North Meadows Ave. Take Sepulveda South past Rosecrans and the mall. Turn left on Manhattan Beach Blvd and left on Meadows. The parking lot is behind the school.

Remember, we play this weekend to end the regular season as undefeated league champions! Please come out ready to cheer on the boys as they attempt to reach a goal we have been working towards since mid-August.

Newberry Reports

"So a man can stand up"

Well, class of '08, you "finished" Johnny Tremain. I realize summer reading may not be at the top of your list, but remember there is a lot more coming for the next few summers in high school! Take the lessons learned in Johnny Tremain and try to apply them to your daily life. It is important at this time in history to recognize the problems that do exist, set aside our own pride and arrogance, and strive to assist others less fortunate than oursleves. Don't wait for a tragedy to strike (like Johnny) before understanding how important selfless service is. Also, particularly in light of 9-11 and the troops around the world, remember those who have gone before us so that we might enjoy freedom. Academically, remember the lessons in historical fiction, literary elements, and especially, theme! I hope you enjoy the rest of the school year.

Homework 9/18: English workbooks ("to the right, to the right")

JT is almost done!

Alright c/o '08, your work with Johnny Tremain is nearing an end. Hot Seats ended today and we reviewed for the book quest as well. Remember to review tonight for tomorrow's final JT assignment, the quest. Here's a bit of an advantage for those checking the blog. First ten students to email me (spartan7th@hotmail.com) with the correct answer to this question will receive two bonus points on the quest: What was the date of the "shot heard round the world" in Lexington?

Good luck tomorrow!