Week Apr 14-18
Hi everyone!!! I hope you had a fun and relaxing break. It’s hard to believe that the 4thquarter is among us and conferences are around the corner. Spring conferences are on April 23rd and 24th and I would like students to participate in these conferences because we will be discussing recommendation into the accelerated classes at the middle school. It’s a big decision and I want students to get a full understanding of what they’re committing to. With that said the 4th quarter will be a great way to assess the students’ level of commitment and ability to succeed in accelerated classes at the middle school.
Events this week… Events the week of 4/21-4/25
Thursday 4/17: Family Fitness Night 6:00pm Wednesday 4/23: Conferences
Friday 4/18: No School Thursday 4/24: 1/2 day, Conferences
Friday 4/25: 1/2 day, Popcorn Day
ELA
During Reading and Writing Workshop students are continuing to craft argument paragraphs by examining the prompt of year-round school. This week’s activities include…
Dissecting the Prompt by Highlighting the main verbs in the prompt, Underlining the components the prompt tells you to include in your paragraph and Re-reading the prompt to understand the steps you will need to take to write your paragraph. Students will free write a general claim and then narrow that claim by adding a summary of evidence. Also, the students will learn that for the claim to be persuasive, an argument writer must support it with the most effective evidence that comes from a variety of credible sources. Credible sources are websites, reports, and articles developed by experts and journalists. The goal with these lessons is to help students to evaluate the credibility and effectiveness of the additional evidence they find for their
arguments.
SOCIAL STUDIES
In this week’s lesson, students explore the causes of the American Revolution. Focusing on the period from the Seven Years’ War to the battles at Lexington and Concord (1756 to 1775), students trace the disputes between the British government and her colonies. They will examine the British Parliament’s attempts to tighten control from the early Navigation Acts and the Proclamation of 1763 to the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, the Tea Act, and the Intolerable Acts. Students will explore how colonists responded to the increasing control by Britain and analyze conflicting accounts of a variety of events such as the
Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. In doing so, students analyze how colonial and British views on authority and the use of power without authority differed. They will read biographies of significant colonial leaders and compare their contributions during the Revolutionary War era. Students also focus on the role of political ideas, such as liberty (unalienable rights), representative government, and consent of the governed (social compact) as they analyze colonial disputes with Great Britain.
SCIENCE
Cycles of Life is our theme this week in Science. Some of the material we will be covering are Earth’s systems which include recycling water,carbon and nitrogen. The water cycle is the movement of water between the
Earth’s surface and the air changing from liquid to gas. The stages in the water cycle are evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. Evaporation is when liquid changes to gas. Condensation is when gas changes into liquid. Precipitation is water falling to Earth’s surface in some form such as rain, sleet, snow, or hail. The carbon cycle shows the transfer of carbon between the atmosphere and living things. Carbon is important because it is part of carbohydrates that the body uses for energy. The way nitrogen moves between the air, soil, plants, and animals is called the nitrogen cycle. Animals get nitrogen from the proteins that we eat. Plants, animals, bacteria, and decomposers are all involved in recycling nitrogen. The air is 78 percent nitrogen.
MATH
This week in Math we will begin 6th grade content. The name of our 6th grade math series is called Big Ideas. Unit 1 in Big Ideas focuses on the concepts of evaluating algebraic expressions, writing expressions, the properties of addition and multiplication, and distributive property. Some of these concepts we touched on
in 5th grade, however, we will be examining these concepts more closely throughout the week. After each
lesson students will be assigned problems to begin in class and will most likely have to complete the ones they don’t finish for homework. Even if your child finishes during class I am still requiring them to take their work home so parents can check that the work is getting done. Also, after 2 or 3 lessons students will take a 10-15 question quiz to ensure mastery of the concepts before moving on to the next lesson. Furthermore since this is 6th grade content students will be receiving letter grades. I will show the students the breakdown of how the letter grades are determined. Lastly, the students’ performance on the 6thgrade assignments will give me a good benchmark as to which students are ready for accelerated math.
Hi everyone!!! I hope you had a fun and relaxing break. It’s hard to believe that the 4thquarter is among us and conferences are around the corner. Spring conferences are on April 23rd and 24th and I would like students to participate in these conferences because we will be discussing recommendation into the accelerated classes at the middle school. It’s a big decision and I want students to get a full understanding of what they’re committing to. With that said the 4th quarter will be a great way to assess the students’ level of commitment and ability to succeed in accelerated classes at the middle school.
Events this week… Events the week of 4/21-4/25
Thursday 4/17: Family Fitness Night 6:00pm Wednesday 4/23: Conferences
Friday 4/18: No School Thursday 4/24: 1/2 day, Conferences
Friday 4/25: 1/2 day, Popcorn Day
ELA
During Reading and Writing Workshop students are continuing to craft argument paragraphs by examining the prompt of year-round school. This week’s activities include…
Dissecting the Prompt by Highlighting the main verbs in the prompt, Underlining the components the prompt tells you to include in your paragraph and Re-reading the prompt to understand the steps you will need to take to write your paragraph. Students will free write a general claim and then narrow that claim by adding a summary of evidence. Also, the students will learn that for the claim to be persuasive, an argument writer must support it with the most effective evidence that comes from a variety of credible sources. Credible sources are websites, reports, and articles developed by experts and journalists. The goal with these lessons is to help students to evaluate the credibility and effectiveness of the additional evidence they find for their
arguments.
SOCIAL STUDIES
In this week’s lesson, students explore the causes of the American Revolution. Focusing on the period from the Seven Years’ War to the battles at Lexington and Concord (1756 to 1775), students trace the disputes between the British government and her colonies. They will examine the British Parliament’s attempts to tighten control from the early Navigation Acts and the Proclamation of 1763 to the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, the Tea Act, and the Intolerable Acts. Students will explore how colonists responded to the increasing control by Britain and analyze conflicting accounts of a variety of events such as the
Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. In doing so, students analyze how colonial and British views on authority and the use of power without authority differed. They will read biographies of significant colonial leaders and compare their contributions during the Revolutionary War era. Students also focus on the role of political ideas, such as liberty (unalienable rights), representative government, and consent of the governed (social compact) as they analyze colonial disputes with Great Britain.
SCIENCE
Cycles of Life is our theme this week in Science. Some of the material we will be covering are Earth’s systems which include recycling water,carbon and nitrogen. The water cycle is the movement of water between the
Earth’s surface and the air changing from liquid to gas. The stages in the water cycle are evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. Evaporation is when liquid changes to gas. Condensation is when gas changes into liquid. Precipitation is water falling to Earth’s surface in some form such as rain, sleet, snow, or hail. The carbon cycle shows the transfer of carbon between the atmosphere and living things. Carbon is important because it is part of carbohydrates that the body uses for energy. The way nitrogen moves between the air, soil, plants, and animals is called the nitrogen cycle. Animals get nitrogen from the proteins that we eat. Plants, animals, bacteria, and decomposers are all involved in recycling nitrogen. The air is 78 percent nitrogen.
MATH
This week in Math we will begin 6th grade content. The name of our 6th grade math series is called Big Ideas. Unit 1 in Big Ideas focuses on the concepts of evaluating algebraic expressions, writing expressions, the properties of addition and multiplication, and distributive property. Some of these concepts we touched on
in 5th grade, however, we will be examining these concepts more closely throughout the week. After each
lesson students will be assigned problems to begin in class and will most likely have to complete the ones they don’t finish for homework. Even if your child finishes during class I am still requiring them to take their work home so parents can check that the work is getting done. Also, after 2 or 3 lessons students will take a 10-15 question quiz to ensure mastery of the concepts before moving on to the next lesson. Furthermore since this is 6th grade content students will be receiving letter grades. I will show the students the breakdown of how the letter grades are determined. Lastly, the students’ performance on the 6thgrade assignments will give me a good benchmark as to which students are ready for accelerated math.