Important Dates and Reminders

September 25 - Mechanisms Fair, Academy ACL Gym, 2pm.

October 1 - Dress Like Your Hero Day and COUNT DAY!!  Attendance this day is very important!! 

October 5-8 - Fall Break

October 12 - Read-A-Thon.  Early dismissal at NOON; Get your sponsor sheets in to your homeroom teachers!! Also End of Quarter 1

October 15 - Teacher Work Day - no school

October 25-26 - Family Conferences

Attendance Policy: Please check your Family Handbook regarding excused vs. unexcused absences. Also, if your child will be absent for any reason, please email both your child's teachers AND the office.

Division III News

LifeSkills

Students in Dr. Ricotta's class have been introduced to the 'Celebrations & Concerns' bucket for situations and events happening in class, encore, and playground. They’ve also been discussing how bodily fluids from sneezing, coughing, and teeth hygiene spreads germs and bacteria. So using the tissues on the table would be advantageous for all of us!

'Perceive" has been their lifeskill of the week. How one looks, acts, & speaks reflects how others think of them. Perception is in the eye of the observer whether it is accurate or not.

Ms. Brown’s class focused on how to join in to conversations and activities, as well as how germs are spread.  We talked about using the “cough pocket” (the crook of one’s elbow) when we sneeze or cough to ensure that we are minimizing the amount of germs we spread.

World of Math

In Ms. Brown’s math class, students learned how to add using various algorithms, such as partial sums.  They will be taking their assessment with Ms. McDonough on Friday morning. Beginning Monday, we will complete the remainder of Unit 2, which focuses on subtraction algorithms.

Using family numbers, students in Dr. Ricotta’s class learned how to create a line plot graph. Together they graphed the number of family members living in one household. With this graph, they learned how to find THE MEDIAN from a set of data. Students also practiced multi-digit column addition as well as partial sums.

In Ms. Burns’ class, students are learning all about adding, subtracting, and multiplying decimals. We are working with Multiplication with Powers of 10 as well.  We are rocking this unit!

Art of Language

Mrs. Burns' class has been focusing on identifying main idea and supporting details in our reading and on writing 5 sentence paragraphs that include a topic sentence, 3 supporting details and a conclusion. 

Dr. Ricotta’s Art of Language class is still exploring The Secret Garden. It has kept the students engaged, entertained, and anxious as they read about a lonely, contrary little girl. The journal entries from each chapter of this book has been such a delight to hear the students share.  She reports, “We are having so much fun reading this classic piece of literature as we learn about English Gardens, the moors, and Yorkshire accents.”

Ms. Brown’s language arts class has forayed into reading non-fiction books, while still focusing on non-fiction writing. Students were allowed to bring non-fiction books of their choosing, and several students have brought some very interesting books such as The World’s Most Haunted Places, and a book about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It’s been fascinating to talk to students about what they’ve chosen to read.

Students focused on writing summaries of their daily reading as though they were reporting for a newspaper, answering questions such as who, what, why, when, where, and how. Our workshop lessons for writing for the next several meetings will focus on conventions and their proper usage in our writing, and proper use of “academic language” in our writing.   Today, students will be starting work on an expository piece about a topic they know a lot about--the topics will vary, but we think that students will have some very interesting pieces to share!  Some students are still working on their nutrition essays as well.

Scientific Inquiry

This week, students researched and have each prepared a page for our class medieval medicine book which we will complete when our paper making project is finished. We’ll then transfer our findings to our medieval paper!  Students worked diligently in class this week to locate information on their assigned herbs and have been surprised by not only their uses during medieval times, but also by their uses in the modern world!  Thank you to all who have located samples of these herbs.  Some are more difficult to locate than others!

Next week, we will begin a scientific inquiry unit in which we will study the effects of temperature on matter.  Students will investigate through the scientific process how heat and cooling affect matter, as well as conduct experiments to explore simple chemical reactions.  This unit will wrap up on October 12.