Updates and announcements

We are off to a strong quarter! Students are adjusting well to the block schedule and are excited by the challenge of switching classrooms.

The Maricopa County Library system has many free resources that can be accessed using your library card login. To do so, go to https://mcldaz.org/ and click on “My Account” in the top right hand corner, and log in using your family’s library card and password. From there, click on “Research” in the top bar and then “A-Z Resources”. The resources are organized alphabetically. The Britannica Library Encyclopedia and Student Resources In Context are both great sources for science fair research. You can also search for books that are available through the website.

This Wednesday is the Read a thon!

Friday is a half day. We teachers get the opportunity to learn in the afternoon.

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “To kill two birds with one stone”.

Students will recite the poem “Narcissa” on 10/31, following the same two week schedule as last quarter. We will learn about “The Road Not Taken”. Students will recite that poem on 11/14. PLEASE NOTE: though it is not long, this is a tricky poem to memorize last minute because it does not rhyme. Students should work a little every night to memorize this.

Students will learn about the roots medicus, sanus, and holos. There will be a roots quiz over these next Wednesday, following the same schedule as last year. Students should expect a similar roots quiz every Wednesday over the roots learned the previous week.

In Literature, we will continue reading “Where the Red Fern Grows”. Students will begin their journal entries. For every chapter, students will write one 5-6 sentence paragraph about a virtue a character showed during that chapter. We will be looking out for foreshadowing and figurative language.

In Writing and Grammar, we will classify and diagram sentences with coordinate conjunctions. Students will have a quiz over this material on Friday.

In Science, students will continue their study of classification as they dive into the Fungi Kingdom, with a focus on comparing and contrasting with the animal kingdom. There will be a short quiz over the animal kingdom on Monday, and a short quiz over the fungi kingdom on Friday. Thursday will be a work day for science fair projects, and students will review how to correctly write a procedure for an experiment. Please be sure you are following the due dates in the science fair packet-by November 5th, students should have their experiment designed and nearly ready to start trials. 

This week in History, students will finish instruction in our unit on the Reformation, including lessons on the “Counter-Reformation” and a revolution in science. Students will be given study guides for their test on the Reformation on Monday, since they will be due the following Monday (November 5th), with the test on November 6th. On Wednesday, students will review all 50 states to prepare for their location test of all 50 states the following Wednesday, November 7th. Since these two tests are back to back, please encourage students to study multiple days in advance for each. 

In math, we will finish our current unit on Fractions. We will spend quite a while on fractions this year. This week, we will test on the current unit on Tuesday, October 30th. Starting Wednesday, we will begin our next unit on Multiplying and Dividing Fractions. 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. Due to starting a new unit, we will not have math groups this week.