Newsletters

May/June Newsletter

The end of the year is near! 

I hope you find this newsletter informative and helpful. Always feel free to reach out to me at jbigonia@aos93.org or at 644-8177. 

5th Grade Homeroom

When students arrive at school, they pass in homework and unpack for the day. They then either go to breakfast or stay in the classroom for a brainteaser puzzle and to connect with classmates. At 8:10 AM, the whole school gathers to do the Pledge of Allegiance and have a morning meeting in the center. Our 1st academic class, ELA, starts after the pledge. 

We just finished our 5th read aloud of the year: Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar. This is a great book that touches on middle school relationships and social life but mostly focusses on a fictitous outbreak of a new living fuel called Biolene (made entirely of a new species called ergonymns).  This book is a great intro in some life science topics like bacteria, cell division, and exponential growth. We are also reading short stories from Paul Jennings periodically throughout the school year. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the 5th graders have homeroom time with me for 20 minutes or so. During these times the 5th grade students develop executive functioning skills, do some read aloud, check grades on Powerschool, play community building games, and partake in other activities. 

Almost every week, we are writing and filming an episode of the South Bristol Scoop for LCTV. In our most recent filming session, the officer we were interviewing was blown away with the questions the 5th graders had devised to ask him. The kids are doing a really good job with the whole process of brainstorming, writing, and producing each episode. You can find the episodes here: https://lctv.org/category/south-bristol-scoop/

5th Social Studies

Currently, we are studying the colonization of what we now call the United States. We've learned the 13 English colonies and other details of the colonial period. Most of our work on this unit has been through a simulation. The students earned money, supplied 3 ships, and sailed to the "New World" to start and build a colony. They've experienced many hardships along the way and the students have gotten a great feel for what life was like in the 1600s. 

Our final unit of the year will be the build up to the America Revolution. 

Most Mondays, I am sending students home with a copy of Scholastic News to read and a single sheet to fill out that reviews the reading. These assignments are due on Wednesdays. This is part of our current events study and I hope this builds good study habits and organization. 

I am using PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in social studies. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work: being a responsible, respectful, and engaged learner.  You can login to Powerschool by going to https://aos93.powerschool.com/public/. You login using the username and password in your child's planner. 

See the 'Syllabi' tab for the syllabus for this class. 

5th Science

Our current unit is Earth Systems. We've studied the states of matter and properties of matter (eg. density). Then we looked closely at the distribution of water on Earth. Students created several graphs to show this data. We studied the water cycle and the rock cycle. We'll also study Earth's structure and how the surface of the Earth changes over time. The students will be looking at fossils and conducting a hardness experiment on different types of rocks. 

Kelp project

Our harvest event was rained out on April 30th. The crew from Boothbay Sea and Science Center did harvest the kelp from Clark's Cove in a steady rain in the Damariscotta River and delivered our kelp back to us that same morning. The 5th graders spent the late morning and afternoon working with our kelp. We did taste tests of raw and cooked alaria and sugar kelp. Most of the kids really didn't enjoy the flavor. We measured the longest blade of each species. The sugar kelp grew to 107 cm and the alaria grew 86 cm long. Soon, we will make a lunch together where every menu item has some processed seaweed in it. 

I am using PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in science. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work: being a responsible, respectful, and engaged learner.  You can login to Powerschool by going to https://aos93.powerschool.com/public/. You login using the username and password in your child's planner. 

See the 'Syllabi' tab for the syllabus for this class.  

6th/7th Science

A reminder: we are doing the 6th grade curriculum this year because we did 7th grade last year and this year's 6th graders will be taught the 7th grade curriculum next year. 

The 6th graders are wrapping up their study of force and motion. They learned Newton's three laws of motion. They did much of their learning through the Rollercoaster simulation that culminated in the kids building a marble roller coaster that had to work reliably and that they had to explain using key science vocabulary. 

Our final unit of the year will be about weather and climate. The students will learn the difference between weather and climate, and about fronts, air masses, weather prediction, air pressure, wind and ocean currents, and climate change. They'll learn the parts of the atmosphere and how temperature changes in each part. 

The 6/7 class is also continuing last year's work on our buoys/lobstermen of South Bristol project. We have finished about 100 buoys! We have more research to do to make sure we have the buoys of all current lobstermen and to get a brief biography of each that will be kept at the South Bristol Historical Society in perpetuity. We are on track to make and publicly present our first buoy display featuring about 50 lobstermen. I can't wait for everyone to see it!

I am using PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in science. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work: being a responsible, respectful, and engaged learner. I will also be reporting traditional grades for 6th and 7th grade. The goal is to familiarize students with how they’ll be scored in high school. 60% of a student's grade will be determined by their test/quiz scores on summative assessments and 40% will be determined by classwork and lab scores. All assignments and assessments in middle school can be retaken for a higher score.You can login to Powerschool by going to https://aos93.powerschool.com/public/. You login using your child's gmail account. He/she can show you how to do this and how to navigate around the site.

​See the 'Syllabi' tab for the syllabus for this class. 

8th Science

Our current unit is Waves and Energy. The students have already learned and been assesses on the energy portion of the unit. We are now focussed on learning about waves, how they are produced, how they are found in nature, and how humans manipulate waves for our own purposes. The kids will learn how the internet works, how a router works, and how computers work using waves. It's all pretty fascinating stuff!

​I am using PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in science. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work: being a responsible, respectful, and engaged learner. I will also be reporting traditional grades for 8th grade. The goal is to familiarize students with how they’ll be scored in high school. 60% of a student's grade will be determined by their test/quiz scores on summative assessments and 40% will be determined by classwork and lab scores. All assignments and assessments in middle school can be retaken for a higher score. You can login to Powerschool by going to https://aos93.powerschool.com/public/. You login using your child's gmail account. He/she can show you how to do this and how to navigate around the site.  ​

See the 'Syllabi' tab for the syllabus for this class.