Welcome to 7th Grade!

Hello! My name is Mrs. Dagum, and I will be teaching middle school science, math, and religion this school year! This will be a productive year full of learning and hands-on activities. I chose to teach at St. Frances Cabrini because of its emphasis on academic excellence, Catholic values, and providing a supportive, safe environment for students to learn and excel.

My passion is science and math (STEM), and I have extensive real-world experience in these fields. I am excited to teach your students critical thinking skills and make each student feel as if they have a place to grow and learn. I want to encourage curiosity in my classroom, invite students to ask why, and emphasize how problem-solving can be fun!

I am looking forward to the 2024-25 school year—it will be fantastic. Knights Unite!

Child Development

Spiritual

7th graders are at a stage where they are curious about moral choices in life, both their own and those of other people.  They are also concerned with making moral choices guided by their faith.

Social/Emotional

Students at this age are conscious of the opposite gender but mostly stay close to their own sex.  They are interested in cultivating relationships with friends and desire to be accepted by others.

Physical

This age group varies widely in growth and development. They are adjusting to puberty and its related changes. Life for a seventh grader is becoming more complicated because of new and varied experiences, expectations, and rapid physical changes.

Middle School Highlights

Specialists

  • Art
  • Music
  • Health
  • Physical Education

Leadership Opportunities

  • Student Council (Executive Council and Class Reps)
  • Student-led Mass
  • Safety Patrol
  • Liturgical Choir
  • School-wide mission project: Water for South Sudan

Learning Experiences

  • Beginning and end-of-year retreats
  • Various field trips

On-campus After-school Activities

  • Art
  • Cross-country
  • Basketball
  • Volleyball
  • Coding
  • Spanish
  • Robotics
Service Activities

Part of our focus is to develop a missionary spirit within our students. Therefore, middle schoolers participate in service projects that relate to Catholic Social Teaching. The school, led by our Middle School Student Council, joins together in a special service project that varies dependent on the needs of our global and local community every school year.

Curriculum

Religion:
• Primary Resources: Alive in Christ and Catholic Youth Bible
• Texts:
     • Faith First: Jesus in the New Testament
     • Faith First: Church and Sacraments
     • Catholic Youth Bible
• Areas of Study:
      • Six Tasks of Catechesis
      • Prayer and Worship
      • Scripture and Tradition
• Service Projects
• Liturgical Participation

Literature and Vocab:
• Primary Resources: Prentice-Hall Literature short stories & plays; Novel-study: A Long Walk to Water, Call of the Wild, “Romeo and Juliet”; various nonfiction stories & articles • Units of Study: Fiction, Nonfiction, short story, plays.

Language Arts (Writing and Grammar):
• Primary Resources: Write Source
• Units of Study (Writing): Descriptive, Narrative (Memoir), Research, Argument, How-to, Speeches
• Units of Study (Grammar): Figures of Speech, Sentences, Punctuation, Parts of Speech

Math: 

• Primary Resources:
      • 5th:  Text -  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Math Expressions Grade 5 (Common Core)
      • 5th/6th Compressed:  Text – Big Ideas Learning, Big Ideas Math Green (Common Core)
      • 6th/7th Compressed:  Text – Big Ideas Learning, Big Ideas Math Advanced 1 (Common Core)
      • Prealgebra:  Text – Big Ideas Learning, Big Ideas Math Advanced 2 (Common Core)
      • Algebra:  Text – Holt McDougal, Algebra 1 (Common Core)
      • Geometry: Text – Holt McDougal, Geometry (Common Core)
• Secondary Resources:
      • IXL Online – Math teachers correlate the use of IXL to their specific curriculum.

Social Studies:
• Texts:
      • Prentice Hall: Medieval Times to Today
      • Gibbs and Smith: The Washington Journey
• Areas of Study:
      • World History from the Fall of Rome through the Renaissance
      • Washington State History
      • Current events
• Research Projects
• Learning Fair

Science: 
• Primary Resource: Text – Prentice Hall: Science Explorer
• Area of Study:
     • Earth Science: 
            • The theory of plate tectonics
            • The causes and effects of earthquakes and volcanoes
      • Life Science:
            • Identify organisms based on existing classification systems
            • Bacteria
            • Protists
            • Fungi
            • Plants
            • Animals

Assessment:

A progress report and report card are issued three times during the year at the middle and end of each quarter respectively to inform parents of their child’s progress. In addition, weekly grades are available on SchoolSpeak Parents Portal.


Technology:

Our seventh graders are 1:1 with technology and each student has their own Google Chromebook. Throughout each school week, they use it to conduct research, practice note-taking skills, and create presentations that allow them to combine their writing and oral presentation skills with a creative technology component. We reinforce digital citizenship through student collaboration on projects, and they use Google Classroom to allow for effective communication on mini-projects and class assignments.

Enrichment: Students attend weekly enrichment classes for library, music, PE, and Art.