Updates and Announcements

What a wonderful week! We are loving the cooler weather and using the outdoor spaces on our campus more and more every week.

The tutoring sessions on Thursdays are going to no longer include math. Instead, Mrs. Anderson will be tutoring on Grammar. I know our students will benefit from this extra instruction.

Please send water bottles to school with students. Most of our students have them, but we are encouraging students to use their water bottles instead of taking class time to go to the water fountain.

We are going to start having “Free Choice Friday” during our bell-work time on Fridays. Students will be able to bring in their favorite non-pop culture games, read, or talk with friends before the bell rings instead of doing bell work. This is an activity that can be earned throughout the week. Students will know at the end of the day Thursday if they earned this privilege.

Our week in learning

Our students worked diligently on their descriptive writing paragraphs last week.  We have discussed how to use the writing process to make revisions and this week we will take our papers to publication by creating a class book.  We will also introduce compound elements and conjunctions in grammar.  We have had several requests for grammar tutoring, so beginning next week, there will be grammar tutoring on Thursdays (instead of Math) from 3:05-3:40 pm.  

We have also completed our 25 roots for the first quarter.  Students will receive a root review which they should begin working on.  We will take a test over roots 1-25 on Wednesday, Oct. 5th.  Please begin studying now!  

In Literature we are almost done reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  We will finish the book this week and are looking forward to literature celebration on Friday, October, 7th.  More details are forthcoming!

All of our students did a lovely job on their recitations last week, and we also introduced our next poem, “Narcissa,” by Gwendolyn Brooks.  Students should be prepared to recite their poem by Wednesday, October 5th.

We are continuing the chemistry unit this week. We will be reading The Mystery of the Periodic Table and taking notes throughout. We finally learn how the modern Periodic Table was organized.

The due date for the Science Fair Essay is quickly approaching! Please ensure that your child is working on the project such that they will be able to turn their essay in the last school day before Fall Break!

This week in history, we will continue learning about the Aztec culture and cover the Incas. Students will get their study guides on Thursday for their unit test. The unit test will be on Friday, October 7th. Note that this test is the day before students leave for Fall Break so students can partake in rest and relaxation! Students will continue journalling from the perspective of an Aztec or Inca at the end of each lesson.

This week we will review all of the material in Unit 2, and will take the test on Thursday.  We will complete in class review of multiplication and division on Monday, and will then review order of operations as well as bar models on Tuesday.  During our Wednesday math groups we will complete the Unit Cumulative Review. If your student needs extra help, please be sure they attend tutoring on Monday and Wednesday!

Study Skill of the Week

Flashcards can contain many different types of information. Many students think we just use them for math facts, phonograms, and vocabulary words. We can also write the questions for study guides on one side and the answer on the other. For example, one side says “Which civilization developed an accurate calendar based on the sun?” and the other side says the answer, which is “Maya”. Encourage your children to make flashcards based on study guides or worksheets that are send home. They will get to review the information while creating the flashcards, then a valuable resource to quiz themselves when they are done.