- No school next Wednesday!
- Jupiter Grades is up and running. Some classes, like spelling, are just getting started. Encourage your child to be regularly checking in with his/her progress. Feel free to use your own login to support your child!
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
⅚ Language Arts
This week in Language Arts, we started our spelling/vocabulary instruction. This instruction will take place on Tuesday and Thursday. In each class (5th and 6th) there are 3 programs running at the same time. Students were placed in a program based on past performance and recent spelling assessments. Our goal is to find the right fit for each student, so placement changes may occur as needed. I will be facilitating small group instruction along with Courtney Sherman and Bob Mitchell during this instruction time.
The students received a packet for the first lesson, but once the workbooks arrive, the students will complete assignments in their workbook. If your student is in the Wordly Wise program, there are online activities that your student can use to practice the vocabulary words (http://www.wordlywise3000.com/). The Spellography program has many rich activities as well, but you will find those in the workbook.
The students also completed 2 journal assignments this week. Many of them were excited to notice an increase in their fluency and production on the second try. We also reflected on our journal writing and shared our writing in class.
Also, just a reminder that in most cases, your student should be reading a literature group (assigned) book and an independent reading book. Students should be reading for 20 minutes a day, 5 times a week. This can happen on weekends as well, whatever fits your student’s schedule.
⅚ Social Studies
In Social Studies, we are studying the candidates, offices and issues of the upcoming election. We identified the candidates who are up for reelection and their opponents. Students selected the candidate that they will be creating a poster for and started researching that candidate’s web site for issues and information. There have been some great political questions and discussions in class. Although we have not spent a lot of time on political parties yet, the students have many questions about the differences, which we will be exploring in the upcoming weeks. A great dinner topic for sure!
Today is the United Nation's calendar day for Peace. Through the work of PEACE ONE DAY, there is a worldwide effort to make this day a worldwide cease fire and day of non-violence. For more information and great videos (videos for 5th grade and up) see the website - http://peaceoneday.org/
The Global Truce 2012 is a 5 minute video and the 9 minute video gives a great background on the story of Peace One Day.
News from Ms. O
Grade 5 Math
Students in fifth grade have been working hard to manage all of the demands of math this year! I have tried to streamline the way that things get distributed (eg. giving them all the homework in one stapled packet), so that there isn’t a trail of missing homework in cubbies and on the floor around the house! I have already noticed that a lot less is ‘missing!’ The focus of this week has been: using our math observations to make sense of a growing cube sequence. This work is early algebra and demonstrates how essential it is to understand patterns. We have been using the questions:
- How are new arrangements changing, how are they staying the same?
- Where is the original set of cubes from arrangement 1 in the new arrangement?
- What can you predict about the next arrangement; the one after?
- Could you figure out how many cubes in the 100th arrangement?
- What generalization did you use to make that prediction?
What’s next!? Multi-digit multiplication!
We have also been working on building a best practices classroom by talking about norms for discourse (taking private reasoning time and using protocols for partner talk), justifying our thinking (How do I show and explain what I think?), and selecting and sequencing (teacher listens to students while they talk and scaffolds making meaning discussions based on student ideas). It is highly productive experience! I have told students that it is their obligation to themselves and others to think, talk, and act on their understanding! Please feel free to come in any time to watch us in action!
FASTT math will begin Monday. Expect that if your child does not have a written assignment for the night, they should be on FASTT math! If computer access at home is an issue, we can set up time during core to make sure this happens 2-3 x weekly!
Grade 6 Math
6th graders have been playing games this week, and last, that build their understanding of the properties that make each number unique! We have been playing the Factor Game and have completed some analysis of the math behind the game. Today, we will play the Product Game, another game that tugs on student understanding of what makes each number similar and different than other numbers. New/old vocabulary includes: FACTOR, PRODUCT, MULTIPLE, DIVISOR, PRIME, COMPOSITE and others. While practicing basic computation, students are also going to begin noticing patterns in certain numbers that dictate processes like finding the least common multiple so that you can add fractions.
We have also been working on building a best practices classroom by talking about norms for discourse (taking private reasoning time and using protocols for partner talk), justifying our thinking (How do I show and explain what I think?), and selecting and sequencing (teacher listens to students while they talk and scaffolds making meaning discussions based on student ideas). It is highly productive experience! I have told students that it is their obligation to themselves and others to think, talk, and act on their understanding! Please feel free to come in any time to watch us in action!
⅚ Science
Science has been fun! We have been moving molecules this week, playing with liquid water, solid brass, and air in a basketball! The focus of the unit, What is matter and what makes one substance unique? is a nice parallel to our work in 6th grade math with the properties of a number. I have been trying to integrate real life questions into the mix, so that students know why it is important to understand matter and its properties. Explaining frost heaves, learning about why a thermometer goes up and down, knowing why concrete sidewalks are made the way they are, and looking at bridge expanders help us make sense of the science we learn in class. Ask students what they know about moving, attracted molecules, hot and cold, and be AMAZED! They have learned a lot!
Ms. Q’s Corner
Math 7
This week we reviewed number systems, order of operations, a few basic math skills and had a geometry quiz on Wednesday. Students have received their quizzes; and they have been placed in the assessment section or their notebook. They may correct them to improve their score.
We logged onto Khan Academy. This nifty site will allow students to practice math skills at home or at school. If students get done with their math work early, they should plug away at this site. We have also begun our work on skill sheets. These sheets practice 24 math skills that students will become more proficient in as the year goes on.
Finally, we began our first Connected Math Unit: Variables and Patterns. We collected data about on how many jumping jacks we were able to perform over time. We looked for patterns and
trends.
Math 8
How many pennies can a paper bridge hold before buckling? Students looked at the relationship between the thickness of the bridge and the number of pennies it held, along with looking at the length of the bridge and the number of pennies it held. We graphed our results and looked at the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. How are x and y related? We finished the week with a retake of the number system and operations quiz. Students also worked on reviewing some basic skills.
Science 7/8th
The big question: Where does the “stuff” come from that transforms a seed into a tree? We created an experiment to see if seedlings in a closed system will increase mass, decrease mass or stay the same. We took notes about life processes and delved deeper into photosynthesis. We learned about the uses of glucose in plants and went out to identify and gather some wild food. We enjoyed some delicious sumac tea. We ended the week with the “Life” Series video on plants. We witnessed how plants adapt to their environment, how they obtain energy and insure their survival.
This Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room:
Language Arts
The week started with our usual Independent Reading Monday Reading Cafe! The class decided that we should start bringing in some light snacks for this class period. Seeing as we are calling this time a “Reading Cafe”, we wanted to bring this title to life. Students who wanted to bring in snacks for the class volunteered and we put together a Snack Schedule all the way up to Thanksgiving Break. Please ask your child if they signed up, and if they did ask them for the Snack Schedule they were given Friday in class. As the week went on we started our work in punctuation, comma use, and a review on what makes a complete sentence. Students learned a very important lesson: Punctuation Can Save Lives! Ask your child how punctuation can save a life :) Through a “human sentence building” activity students started reviewing/learning the basic comma rules. We are also doing a very light-hearted review on homophones, seeing as the “to, too, two” and “there, their, they’re” can always be confusing. As we continue working on our constructed responses, or LEAF (Lead/Focus, Evidence, Analysis, Finisher) paragraphs, students had to take a stand on a current issue happening in schools all across Britain, and ask themselves whether or not what’s happening in Britain should happen in the United States. Students needed to make a decision and form an opinion with evidence and analysis to back-up their thoughts. Both 7th and 8th grade did some great work. Ask your child about what’s going on over there and what they think about it!
Students also shared out some writing from their Language Arts journals in class on Wednesday and Friday.
Social Studies ⅞:
This
week classes have wrapped up their comparing and contrasting of the
Vermont constitution with the United States constitution. In our wrap-up
we learned some pretty cool things about the Vermont constitution,
including that Vermont was the first to require the creation of public
schools in their constitution! Once we wrapped up our knowledge around
the constitutions we started our work on the 3 branches of government.
Students did some great group work looking at the structure of our
national government vs. the state of Vermont’s government structure. We
will be finishing up the week talking about the balance of powers. This
work is leading us directly into our upcoming classes around the Vermont
elections: who are the candidates, and where do they stand on the big
issues in Vermont. Students will be doing a lot of work, research, and
conversation around this in preparation for the Vermont candidate forum
on October 5th!
Peace Day is today, September 21st, so we took time out of our Social
Studies class to talk about Peace One Day. You can learn more about this
and talk about it with your family by going to http://peaceoneday.org/.
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