Updates and Announcements

We are nearing the end of the school year! Students are having so much fun learning our rich curriculum without the looming state tests. Their leisure in learning is an incredible sight to see.

This week, the Phoenix Symphony is coming to perform on Monday.

Clubs: The final day of clubs is Friday, May 11 (exception: K-1 Art).

The Prep tour will take place on Friday, May 11^th.

We are looking forward to honoring our fifth-grade scholars promotion to sixth grade at the Arete gym on Wednesday, May 23rd at 5:30 pm. Students should wear semi-formal clothes of their choice to this event. Boys should wear trousers, a collared shirt, and dress shoes, and girls may wear an outfit appropriate for a religious service or wedding, such as a nice dress. Students’ clothing should cover the same amount as their uniform polos and shorts. If ladies would like to wear a strapless or spaghetti strap dress, they should wear a cover as well. Students should arrive by 5:15 and will be directed to sit with their class.  We will have a ceremony for the students and the PSO will have refreshments to enjoy after it is over. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you know your child will not be able to attend. We are excited to celebrate with you!

Our week in learning

This week in language arts, students will be reviewing their grammar notes from throughout the year in preparation for their end-of-year grammar test. In addition to reviewing their classification and diagramming skills, they will review parts of speech, predicate adjectives and nominatives, direct and indirect objects, pronouns and antecedents, rules for making a word possessive, and using colons and semicolons. On Wednesday, students should take home a practice test that will serve as a study guide for the test next Tuesday, May 15th.

In Across Five Aprils, students will finish the book and begin their final literature project: creating a newspaper page which contains:

• A title
• A summary of a Civil War battle or event (2 paragraph minimum)
• An opinion article (see handout for prompt; must include 2 quotations; 2-3 paragraph minimum)
• A Civil War era photograph to accompany the summary
• An advertisement of a Civil War era product

The project will be due on May 16th. Students will be given some time in class throughout the week, but this project should be largely completed at home.

This week in science, students will finish learning about the nervous system by learning about the lobes of the brain and their functions. The study guide is due on Friday, and a review game will take place in class on Thursday. This will allow students to correct and clarify questions on their study guides before they are due. The nervous system unit test will be on Monday, May 14.

Students are beginning their exciting unit on Native Americans: Cultures and Conflicts. Students were separated into groups on Friday to read chapters about specific regions of Native Americans. In these groups, students will prepare a short 15-minute lesson with notes about their chapter. Presentations will take place on Wednesday. We will also learn about relations between Indians and European settlers before the American Revolution, revisit the Louisiana Purchase, and the Trail of Tears. Students will also learn about the effects of European diseases on the Indian population, and the Sand Creek Massacre. Students already have their study guides for this short unit. The study guides are due Wednesday, 5/16 and the test will be on Thursday, 5/17.

Students will be completing their study of angles this week by studying the properties of quadrilaterals, as well as getting in some protractor practice by teaching each other how to draw quadrilaterals. To help review for the Friday test, students will be reviewing Thursday in class as well as creating a geometry toolkit  with all of our important concepts from this unit.