Monday, April 30, 2018

4/30 Weekly update

Hello, Families!
We hope our students had a restful break!

  • On Wednesday, May 2, Students will be attending Machine de Cirque at the
Flynn Theater, please make sure permission forms and money has been
handed in prior to the show.

  • Students/ parents need to turn in input forms for next year’s student placement

  • Conferences are being held this Thursday, May 3.  Slots are filling up quickly!
If you have not been able to schedule and would like to please let us know.



Language Arts- This week students students will start with making corrections
to their westward expansion narratives.  This can be done in class and, if need be,
worked on at home. We will then begin an in-class reading of the novel,
The Schwa Was Here, which we will modify into a child’s picture book or an adult
informational handbook. We will alternate days between the book and Industrial
Revolution topics.

Social Studies:  This week will will begin our final unit of the year!  The unit is on the
Industrial Revolution. We will start with an introduction and then move into the early
inventions that influenced the way we live today.  A reminder to any student who
was not around for the Westward Expansion test on the Friday before break.  
These students will need to be prepared to take the test on Tuesday.

Literacy: Students need to make sure all discussion questions for
A Wrinkle in Time are completed and turned in.  This week they will also be
starting their book project.
Math: Students will spend the week working on LCM- Least common multiple.

Science: Students will be finishing chemical reactions. We will soon begin our unit
on energy.

Monday, April 16, 2018

Weekly Updates & Homework

Happy week before school vacation!

This week students in Language Arts class will be working on a
writing assessment.  This requires students to write an historical fiction
narrative (story) or complete journal entries using facts from our study
of westward expansion topics.  This means your student has homework
all week! Tonight students need to complete their fact sheet and
planning guide, and the rest of the week requires them to write. Stories
will need to be completed by Friday.

Social Studies: This week we will wrap up a very successful Oregon Trail
simulation game.  The students are having fun with this. We will wrap up with
processing the challenges and difficulties faced by the pioneers.  At the end of
the week, we will have our final assessment on the Westward Expansion unit.  
Students should begin reviewing 15 minutes per night starting Tuesday
(vocabulary words, Timeline notes and "you teach" questions/notes).

Math: Students have been working on finding the GCF of two numbers using
several different methods. They should all have a minimum of 7 problems done
by now and are looking to complete the page by Friday.Many students have not
yet handed in the volume and surface area of rectangular prisms worksheet
(first page only). They should have completed it by now, as it was assigned over
two weeks ago, and all students had a minimum of three days of class to work on the problems.Today we worked on data vocabulary and will be working on learning to
build, and interpret box and whisker plots.

Monday, April 9, 2018

4/9/18 Weekly Update

Good morning, Families!

Eligibility forms for sports have begun!  Every Thursday, school-sport athletes
must have their forms signed by all teachers.  Please note: This option is
available to all parents that would like feedback on your student on a weekly
basis!

Grade 6 parent/ student conferences will be held on Thursday, April 19 and
on Thursday, May 3.  Sign up sheets will arrive home with your child very soon.  

Language Arts students will receive a review sheet today to prepare for a test on
Friday, April 13.  Many students also still need to pass in their Sign of the Beaver
book summaries.  These summaries were the first writing grade of the new trimester.

Social Studies:  We just finished our Westward Expansion timeline last week.
 This week we are embarking on one specific aspect of Westward Expansion.......
the Oregon Trail.  Students will participate in a simulation/game activity that will
hopefully touch upon the realistic hardships of what these pioneers experienced.  
We will wrap this up with student choice topics to research based on the
hardships and realities of the journey.  Please ask your son/daughter questions
throughout the week to help reinforce their learning.

Literacy- Reading a minimum of 20 minutes a night makes a huge difference
in writing and preparedness for future schooling.  We can make some great book
suggestions if your child can’t seem to find anything!

Math students will be working in groups and teaching their peers about Greatest
Common Factor and Least Common Multiple.

In Science, students are finishing their work with testing chemicals and writing
conclusions about their findings.  There should be an assessment next week.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Weekly Update 4/2/18

Good Morning Families! 4/2/18

A quick reminder: today is a half day! Also, Check your mailbox for
report cards!

This week students will have 3 days of Math SBAC testing for a little
over an hour on each of the three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  

Our SBAC testers and Science Fair finalists will be honored with a brief
assembly (15 minutes) on Friday morning, April 6 from 7:30- 7:45.

For Literacy class, students should be reading a minimum of 20 minutes
per night.

Math practice worksheets and answer keys can be found at mathdrills.com
Fraction work would be most helpful.

Social Studies:  This week students will wrap up their timelines on the
Westward Expansion events that we have been learning about.  All timelines
should be finished by Wednesday.  If you would like to see your son/daughter's
timeline, they are online in their google drives.  We will then move onto
"The Oregon Trail". This will focus on some of the hardships some of the early
pioneers experienced.  We will learn about this through a video and a simulation game.

Language Arts students will continue learning about the Lewis and Clark expedition
in preparation for their own Journal or story writing.  Sign of the Beaver book
summaries are very past due!  Please ask your student about handing in
their summary.

REPORT CARD INFO:

We would like to thank you for your continuous support and patience with the
report card delay.  Our tech specialists have been trying to solve the mystery
of the disappearing report card comments and other glitches in the program.
Below you will find the directions for viewing all teacher comments through
Power school that the should have been visible on the report card.  Also,
PBGRs written in all capital letters in PowerSchool are the grades that show
up on the report card. For example, PBGR.MMS.ELA.R READING is a report
card grade.

1. Sign into PowerSchool
2. Click on the STANDARDS GRADES tab
3. Click on the teacher/ course
4. Scroll down to the PBGR grades
5. Click on the comment icon in the T2 column.  
6. To view the next teacher's comment, continue to scroll down, and repeat steps 3-5.

Thank you,

Team Independence