Newsletters

January/February Newsletter

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 are on our 3rd read aloud book of the year. It is called Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen. This is a book about money. A 12 year old boy inherits his grandfather's old riding mower. After just one time mowing his yard, several neighbors ask him to do theirs. Everything snowballs from there. He invests money in stocks, sponsors an athlete, and ends up with an incredible amount of money by the end of the summer. The book is very funny, but also teaches kids things about finances. We will also be 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.  

5th Social Studies

We are in the midst of our 2nd unit of the year: Native Americans. We'll give special emphasis to our local Wabanaki. Students are researching and presenting their findings about Native Americans from different parts of the current US. The students are looking into their culture, customs, government, ways of getting food, and their types of shelter. We will compare these regions to one another and then work together as a class to learn as much about the local Wabanaki culture as we can. 

Our next unit will be studying Europeans who explored the world and the Americas.  

Most Tuesdays, 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

Space is our first unit of the year and we are almost done with it. The students have studied Earth's seasons, a planet in our solar system, and day/night and changes in shadows during a day and throughout a year. They have also studied stars, constellations, and galaxies. We kept a moon journal for one month, learning about the phases of the moon and we'll be making a scale model of the solar system in front of the school. 

Our next unit is Earth Systems. We'll study the states of matter and properties of matter (eg. density). Then we'll look closely at the distribution of water on Earth. Students will create several graphs to show this data. We'll study 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. 

The 5th graders recently said good-bye to the sugar kelp and alaria they were growing in a tank in the classroom. The kelp spent 6 weeks in our classroom. Daily, we measured the pH and salinity of the Instant Ocean water that we mixed ourselves. Once a week, we fertilized the kelp. We measured the kelp when we got it and the day before it left our classroom. It grew quite a bit! Our kelp is now planted in Clark's Cove near the Darling Marine Center in Walpole. Over the winter, while we wait for the kelp to grow on the farm, we'll study kelp more, have a visit from the Boothbay Sea and Science Center and do some cooking with kelp. In late April or early May, we'll take a trip to DMC and harvest our help. 

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. 

Our most recent science unit was History of Earth. We learned about Pangea and plate tectonics, geologic time, carbon dating, and how the surface of the Earth is changed. This was a pretty brief unit.

Our current unit is Force and Motion. This is a big unit. Much of our time with be spent engaged in the very fun Roller Coaster simulation from Interact. The students will work in teams learning all about force and motion. They'll conduct several experiments and culminate the simulation by building a marble roller coaster. In this unit, we'll also learn about circuits, conductors, insulators, and magnetism. We'll also do lots of calculation of speed.  

In early November, we celebrated Maine Bioscience Day by having 2 visitors from Bigelow Labs in East Boothbay visit the 6/7 and 8th grade science classes. The students conducted two experiments- one about density of water and one about changing the pH of water. Our visitors were excellent and the kids had a lot of fun. 

The 6/7 class is also continuing last year's work on our buoys/lobstermen of South Bristol project. We have finished about 80 buoys so far. 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. Later in the year, we'll make our first display for these buoys and hopefully unveil it to the public. 

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

We've been studying space in 8th grade science. We've studied a little bit about Earth, Earth's seasons, telescopes, and several stars in the Milky Way. Each student was assessed about how seasons happen on Earth. They each created a poster to display their knowledge of a star they chose. We also learned about asteroids, meteors, comets, and other galaxies. We reviewed the phases of the moon, as well. Finally, the kids did a couple activities to help grasp the enormity of the universe (as well as looking at it microscopically). 

Our current unit is much more hands on: Force and Motion. The students will be studying Newton's Laws of Motion, looking at collisions, going in depth about gravity, conducting a couple of experiments and completing a lab report for each, doing virtual experiments with online Gizmos, and designing and racing both wooden and 3D printed CO2 cars. 

In early November, we celebrated Maine Bioscience Day by having 2 visitors from Bigelow Labs in East Boothbay visit the 6/7 and 8th grade science classes. The students conducted two experiments- one about density of water and one about changing the pH of water. Our visitors were excellent and the kids had a lot of fun. 

​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.