Please click here to read the notes from the January 24 meeting for middle school parents.
From the Desk of Ms. Demitropoulos: This New Year if off to a great start in room 106! We started our leveled Words Their Way spelling groups and have been meeting in our small reading groups as well to learn about nonfiction topics. The kiddos are teaching their classmates through their How-to writing stories. In addition, we participated in our first every Junior Achievement Day to learn about wants & needs and explore these ideas through hands on activities. Science has been everyone’s favorite subject this month as we journey through our light and sound unit. Last week, the students used tuning forks to discover vibration and the sounds it can make. We also started a new tradition where the kids can read in the dark with a flashlight- Flashlight Fridays! We are creating wonderful memories together and are looking forward to the 100th Day and Valentine’s Day celebrations in February. Science has been everyone’s favorite subject this month as we journey through our light and sound unit. Last week, the students used tuning forks to discover vibration and the sounds it can make. We also started a new tradition where the kids can read in the dark with a flashlight- Flashlight Fridays! We are creating wonderful memories together and are looking forward to the 100th Day and Valentine’s Day celebrations in February. From the Desk of Ms. Kaim The first graders began the month of January with several snowman themed activities. They wrote stories about snowmen, read books about snowmen, and made snowmen glyphs with their fifth grade buddies. The first graders read Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution and made their own resolutions about being better students and friends. They learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and practiced choosing kindness. We visited Lifeline Theatre to see the play “We Found a Hat.” Sharing is not always easy, but the friends in this play figured out how to make it work! In science, we concluded our study of matter. The boys and girls observed matter changing from one state to another. They created salt crystals and observed candy canes placed in different liquids. They also made pinecone bird feeders and crystal trees. A memorable activity was watching ice cream be made with liquid nitrogen and then eating it! Our continent of the month was Europe. The boys and girls learned about famous European landmarks, animals and works of art. They read The Littlest Matryoshka, A New Coat for Anna and The Story of Ferdinand. Afterwards, the first graders created nesting dolls, dyed paper coats, and made flowers for Ferdinand. The month was supposed to ended with a delicious Taste of Europe, but that event had to be postponed due to weather! In math, the first graders used a variety of patterns and strategies to find sums and differences for basic facts. D’Nealian handwriting lessons continued to focus on using the proper strokes, slant, size, and spacing when forming lowercase letters. A special event was participating in a visit from Junior Achievement. We took a field trip to Historic Wagner Farm to participate in the From Farm to Table workshop. The first graders learned about chickens and cows. They practiced bartering in a country store and then tromped through the snow to visit the farm animals outside. We are looking forward to celebrating the 100th day of school in February! From the Desk of Ms. L. Murray January has flown by! Honestly, by far our fastest flying month...of course, that may have something to do with our two unexpected days off! The past and the present...January was about reflecting on the elder members of our family to learn about our individual heritages and culture. Second Graders interviewed an elder member of their families to create a project for our Museum-style presentation. Students asked questions about cultural heritage, experiences with immigrating to the United States and how life was different and similar in the interviewer and interviewee's childhoods. We meshed this understanding with how the United States has changed thanks to freedom-fighters during the civil rights movement such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and a girl named Ayanna Najuma who participated in peaceful sit-ins to make change. Second Graders also engaged in a paper quilt-making activity after watching a video about how quilts have been used within the African American community to communicate cultural understandings as well as a means of hiding secret codes for people enslaved to find their way to freedom. Students learned about common symbols used to communicate important information to ensure safe passage on the Underground Railroad. They then created individual paper quilt squares that we connected to make a class quilt. We are poets! During our Writers' Workshop, Second Graders have been flexing their poetic muscles as they learned to look at ordinary objects with a poet's eyes, find music in their poetry by experimenting with line breaks, and capturing small, memorable moments in their "Small Moments" little books. We also created some winter-inspired art to coordinate with our poems. Students' work hangs on our classroom "Poetry Line" for all to read. It has become a favorite stopping point in our room! In Math, we finished our fifth chapter and began our sixth chapter - Understanding Division. Students are learning to use algebraic expressions, i.e. 6 x n = 42, n = 7 to find the quotient for division problems: 42 divided by 6 = 7. Students are applying the vocabulary terms, quotient, dividend and divisor to construct division problems as repeated subtraction of equal groups. Second Graders are learning to model division with bar models and counters as well as to apply the division algorithm to multi-step word problems. In Science, Second Graders participated in center activities as they explored the concept of motion. Working together in groups, Second Graders rotated through five centers to complete activities related to 1.) Reading Comprehension - students read and outlined an informational text on wheel-and-axle systems and how they move, 2.) Vocabulary Development - students read definitions in context and composed original sentences related to terms on the concept of motion, 3.) Investigation - students were given the challenge of creating various wheel-and-axle systems with two different sized wheels and rods to determine how placement and size of wheels affects accuracy and speed of movement down a ramp, 4.) Technology - students used iPads to watch the brainpopjr.org video on "Simple Machines," and 5.) STEM Challenge - students had the choice of watching one of two youtube.com videos on how to fold paper to create motion. Students could fold a simple spinning top or a more complicated paper Dreidel. From the Desk of Ms. Thiel: 2019 was off to a wonderful start! It is hard to believe we are beginning the third quarter. In math we tacked fractions! The children were able to generate equivalent fractions, put fractions in simplest form and identify common denominators. We ended our chapter with comparing and ordering fractions. This month we began reading a new novel, The One and Only Ivan. The children are enjoying getting to know our new characters. We are exploring theme as well as figurative language and learning to identify them in context. The children are all working very hard during our Lookingglass Residency as they learn about using actors’ tools including their voice, imagination and body. Our informance will be Friday, February 15th at 9:30 in the auditorium. We completed our unit on the Earth, Sun and the Moon. Our last investigation led us to discover the different phases of the Moon and how to identify them. We had a blast at the Adler Planetarium on our field trip. The end of our unit came with perfect timing as many children were able to view the Lunar Eclipse, which led to great discussion! In Social Studies we began our unit on Early Explorers. We discussed reasons for European explorations and the technology that made it possible. We have learned about the aims, obstacles and accomplishments of early explorers. We then traced the routes of these explorers to identify the areas they claimed. In Writers Workshop we continued to work on our informative piece. We laid out our chapters and began writing with our selected text structure. The children have added fun ways to elaborate on their information including; jokes, fun facts, graphs and pictures. We are finishing revising and editing before moving on to the introduction and conclusion. From the Desk of Ms. Milstein: While the month ended abruptly due to weather, January was still a month full of learning in 4th grade. The students completed their trips on the Oregon Trail as our unit on westward expansion came to an end. A few of the final lessons from this unit were favorites of the class. When learning about the Transcontinental Railroad, the class broke into teams representing the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the Central Pacific Railroad Company as they raced to build their portions of the railroad. Our class also used our new virtual reality headsets to explore various scenes from this historical time period. It was such a neat experience, and we can’t wait to use this technology again with a new topic! The unit culminated with a test that was more exciting than usual. This is because the students themselves wrote the exam. Each student wrote three different types of test questions that were compiled to create the class test. In order to prepare their peers for the assessment, the students participated in various activities including the pictured “musical chairs” style question and answer circle. After finishing a 4 week round of math centers, it was time for the class to partake in their next STEM challenge. This time, groups were tasked with creating a structure that would allow five pencils to float in a tub of water. The groups had ten index cards, five metal brads, and one foam sheet. We saw a variety of designs, but had widespread success with the challenge. The class noticed that the models with more surface area on the bottom seemed more buoyant than other designs. We had a few very special Chinese classes this month as well. Mr. Qiao brought in a calligrapher to demonstrate the art of formal Chinese calligraphy. During an extended class the students got to try to technique themselves. From the Desk of Ms. Caskey: Students in 317 are warming up with self-selected Jerry Spinelli books! We formed small book clubs where we meet every day and discuss everything from ethical dilemmas with these character-rich stories to connecting between other texts or our own lives and creating scenes from the story based on text evidence and so much more. We’re wrapping this author study up after the cold days and getting back into a WWII perspective on the Pacific front. ELA had students in 317 teaching each other about noun skills in grammar and we began a memoir unit in Writer’s Workshop. Stay tuned for a parent invite as we dig deep into our short lives. Math got off to a running start after break when we began a new unit on decimals. Our culminating project for this unit will start in February where it is sure to be a delicious supplement to our learning! We continue our Classroom City simulation, where we are sustaining businesses and city functions. We are finding opportunities in every nook and cranny in Bell City while managing personal finances at the same time. Ms. Weindruch is also jumping in to guide us during Financial Literacy with ideas such as specialization and cost/profit. This unit will carry us a little into quarter three with the cold days and other schedule changes. After that, we will get into ancient history for the remainder of the year. Our Planetary Science unit is wrapping up, and as we zoom further away from the Earth, we get an understanding of how temperature, atmosphere, and light play an important role in how astronomers understand what is going on “out there.” We will culminate our unit with a trip to the Adler and an interest project. From the Desk of Mr. Klein: In sixth grade physics, the students are engineering an apparatus that will airdrop a small object by free fall (i.e., an apparatus that will drop an object out of a moving vehicle and have it land on a specific target). In addition, work continues in two other areas of exploration: volume measurement and the related topics of force and motion. Seventh grade literature currently is featuring a second look at science fiction as the review the works of the “New Wave” of writers, including those of Harlan Ellison, Frederik Pohl, and Ursula K. Le Guin. The class will display their understanding of the material through a variety of projects: a story map, an oral report, and a flowchart. Experiments in seventh grade chemistry are now focusing on the characteristic properties of density, boiling point, condensing point, melting point, and freezing point. Other work currently being conducted in class continues in two other areas of exploration: chemical reactions and the related topics of scientific and decimal notation. In addition, the seventh graders travelled to the Museum of Science and Industry to experience learn more about diabetes and to conduct testing to determine if a patient is diabetic. In addition, the class also viewed a film regarding the importance of water on this planet. The eighth graders in their study of biology are focused on Darwin’s theory of evolution with concentrated emphasis on the puzzle of life’s diversity, the ideas that shaped Darwin’s thinking, and the presentation of the case. |