Newsletters

January/February Newsletter

Welcome to my latest newsletter. I hope you find this newsletter informative and helpful. Always feel free to reach out to me at jbigonia@aos93.org, through Rooms, 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. After breakfast, we have a 15 minute homeroom time. We do some reading, check Powerschool, play community building games, share about what's happening in our lives, etc. We have also been working on our typing skills on Wednesday and Thursday mornings on typing.com. Students can login in from anywhere if they want to practice outside of school. At 8:15, the whole school gathers to do the Pledge of Allegiance in the center. Our 1st academic class starts after the pledge. 

We regularly participate in read aloud in the 5/6 classroom. We have finished our readers theater book No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman. The kids got so much better at knowing when to start and stop reading their lines. They were great with using different voices for different characters. We are now reading a few short stories from Paul Jennings. Soon, we will start a short novel by Gary Paulson called Lawn Boy. It is about economics, building your own business, and has many wild twists that make kids laugh. 

6th Grade Math

The 6th graders are making great progress in the iReady books. We are in lesson 9 right now, in our 2nd unit. We have homework most nights that we have math. 

Current Unit:

- Unit 2: Decimals and Fractions (Lessons 7-11)

Skills:

- Add, subtract, and multiply multi-digit decimals- DONE!

- Divide whole numbers and multi-digit decimals- DONE!

- Understand division with fractions- DONE!

- Divide fractions

- Solve volume problems with fractions

Next Unit:

- Unit 3: Decimals and Fractions (Lessons 12-14)

Skills:

- Understand Ratio Concepts

- Find Equivalent Ratios

- Use Part-to-Part and Part-to-Whole Ratios

We also do math games and/or challenges once every two to three weeks. 

Students have 45 minutes (2 lessons) of self paced independent learning to do on the iReady Classroom website each week. This 45 minutes needs to be completed between Monday at 8AM one week to 8AM on Monday morning the next week. This helps students review concepts and allows them to try math topics we'll cover in the future. 

I am using Unified Classroom/PowerSchool to keep track of work completion in math and to keep track of assessment scores. My goal for each student is to score a 3 or better on each mathematics standard. This score indicates mastery of the standard. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work (engaged learner, responsible learner, and respectful 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 Social Studies

We are closing in on finishing our 2nd unit of the year: Native Americans, with a special emphasis on our local Wabanaki. We are studying Wabanaki culture in depth but also looking at nations of Native Americans in different parts of the current USA. 

Our next unit is European explorers to the 'New World.' We'll be studying their reasons for exploring, where they were coming from, and how they changed the land and people they met when they arrived. The students will each write a research paper about one explorer. 

Most Tuesdays, I send 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. We also watch CNN 10 to learn about the news of the day in a kid-friendly way. 

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

5th Science

We are in the midst of our Earth Systems unit. We are briefly studying the states of matter. Next up is our analysis of water distribution on Earth. We'll also study the water cycle, the rock cycle, compare hardness of solids, learn the different spheres of earth and how they interact, and use fossil evidence. 

I am using Unified Classroom/PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in science. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work.  You can login to Powerschool by going to https://aos93la.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

We are in the midst of our Earth Systems unit. We briefly studied the states of matter. We are wrapping up our analysis of water distribution on Earth. We'll also study the water cycle, the rock cycle, compare hardness of solids, learn the different spheres of earth and how they interact, and use fossil evidence. 

The 6/7 class is also continuing last year's work on our buoys/lobstermen of South Bristol project. We have been getting a slow trickle of photos and information about the lobstermen but it has been hard to work as a class on this project lately. 

I am using Unified Classroom/PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in science. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work. You can login to Unified Classroom by going to classroom.powerschool.com. 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

We recently finished our study of space. We are now in our Force and Motion unit. This is a pretty brief unit about Newton's Laws of Motion and putting them into action. We'll be discussing gravity, too. We'll be doing a couple of experiments related to these laws, 3 online gizmos (virtual labs), and culminating the unit with the design, construction, and racing of CO2 dragsters in the school gymnasium. 

​I am using Unified Classroom/PowerSchool to keep track of work completion and assessment scores in science. Students will also be scored on the Habits of Work. I will also be reporting conventional grades for 8th grade. The goal is to familiarize students with how they’ll be scored in high school. You can login to Unified Classroom by going to classroom.powerschool.com. 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.