Updates and announcements
What a great week we had!
Students started a new “reward” type procedure where they get the opportunity
to earn letters to spell out our virtue of the month. If students spell it out
by Thursday, they get a “Free-Choice Friday” during bell-work. Students can
bring in a quiet game to play between 7:20 and 7:50.
Students will start doing the
announcements this week, starting on Tuesday with our French Phrase of the Week.
Everyone in class will get the opportunity to do the announcements at least once
this year.
Curriculum and Math/Phonics
nights are combined this year. This parent-only event will be on Wednesday,
August 29th. More information to come next week.
Our week in learning
This week, students will learn about the idiom
“Chip on your shoulder”. Students will recite “The Eagle” on Wednesday, 8/29.
As a routine, students will have two weeks to memorize their poems. This will
be a regular rotation and the recite date will be on the “Due Dates” section of
the board.
Students will continue learning Greek and Latin
roots, learning porcus, ornis, and avis. Students will have a weekly quiz over
these roots next week. Students should expect a similar roots quiz every
Wednesday.
In spalding, we will continue to work through the
rule pages. They will continue spalding homework using the words from these
rule pages. Our spalding tests are usually scheduled for Thursdays.
In Literature, we will read through the fifth
chapter in “Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. We will focus on summaries and
identifying and defining vocabulary words from the chapter. Students will work
in groups to write a condensed summary of chapters 1-5 and compare/contrast
Eustace with a character of their choosing. Please note that not all classes
will be in the same part of the chapter every day, but should end the week on
the same chapter.
In Writing and Grammar, students learn about nouns,
subject nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. We will have a grammar test next
Thursday. Students will continue “Outlining Wednesdays”, focusing on using
their outline to write a summary.
This
week in science, students will finally get to test the paper gliders they made
last week and see if their changes resulted in planes flying further. They will
also practice analyzing results as they examine how far their airplanes flew.
We’ll continue our study of the scientific method by exploring independent and
dependent variables, with a short quiz on Friday. Students will continue
practicing their practical, hands on skills as we test different kinds of tape
in the Sticky Tape experiment later in the week.
This
week in history we will continue studying Unit 2: Maya, Inca, and Aztec
Civilizations, focusing on the Mayan civilization. Discussion will include the
major theories of what caused the Mayan disappearance, culminating with a
Socratic discussion on this topic on Friday. Students will also begin a
journal, imagining themselves to be part of these ancient civilizations on a
near-daily basis. Our Wednesday lessons on U.S. Geography will this week be
focused on the Mid-Atlantic region.
In
math, we will continue our unit on whole numbers. Students work on dividing a
number by tens, hundreds, and thousands, and take their first unit test on
Thursday. Our first math groups will take place on Wednesday, 8:00-9:15. Please
note that we will have frequent quizzes in math. When a “b” quiz comes home for
homework, that means there will likely be a quiz the next day. This means there
will be frequent, low stakes math quizzes.
