Newsletters

March/April 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 typing 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 been reading a few short stories from Paul Jennings. We are also in the midst of 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 currently in lesson 13 of the 3rd unit of the year. We have homework most nights that we have math. 

Current Unit:

- Unit 3: Ratio Concepts and Equivalent Ratios (Lessons 12-14)

Skills:

- Understand Ratio Concepts

- Find Equivalent Ratios

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

Next Unit:

- Unit 4: Ratio Reasoning (Lessons 15-18)

Skills:

- Understand Rate Concepts

- Use Unit Rates to Solve Problems

- Understand Percents

- Use Percents to Solve Problems

We also do math games and/or challenges once every two to three weeks. Some games we play are Multiplication Baseball, Coordinate Battleship, Hit, Miss, Bullseye, Estimation Clipboard, Esti-mysteries, Commit and Capture, etc. 

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 immersed in studying European explorers to the 'New World.' We've been 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 are each writing a research paper about one explorer. 

Our next unit is about colonial America. We'll use multiple resources to study this time in our country's history. We'll spend quite a bit of time using a simulation called Discovery. Students act as colonists: from packing for the trip across the Atlantic, to choosing a place to land to setting up their communities and completing daily tasks for survival. Students are trying to set up a successful, long-lasting colony. 

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. The students have been amazingly consistent getting these assignments done each week! 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 briefly studied the states of matter. We then did an analysis of water distribution on Earth. We are also studying the water cycle, the rock cycle, comparing hardness of solids, learning the different spheres of earth and how they interact, and using fossil evidence. 

Our next unit will be Matter. The students will start with some review of things they learned in previous years and previous units. They will learn about atomic structure, the periodic table, mass vs. weight, the law of conservation of mass, electrical and thermal conductivity, circuits, and chemical and physical changes.

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: Engaged, Respectful and Responsible.  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

6/7 is just wrapping up the Earth Systems unit where they learned about states of matter, water distribution on Earth, the water and rock cycles, Moh's hardness scale, and fossil evidence. They even created a travel brochure for minerals traveling through the rock cycle.

Our next unit is Matter. The students will start with some review of things they learned in previous years and previous units. They will learn about atomic structure, the periodic table, mass vs. weight, the law of conservation of mass, electrical and thermal conductivity, circuits, and chemical and physical changes.

On some Fridays, we are watching a series called Brain Games and having great discussions about each episode. 

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: Engaged, Respectful and Responsible. 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 are wrapping up our Force and Motion unit with the design, construction, and racing of CO2 dragsters in the school gymnasium. The students have completed their designs and now have two weeks to construct their wooden cars and print their cars on the school's 3D printer. 

We'll do a mini unit on the design/build process using a trial of Mosa Mack. This will take a week or two. 

Then we'll delve into a study of Waves and Energy. In this unit, we'll be discussing the types of energy, energy transfer, the law of conservation of energy, calculating potential and kinetic energy, determining insulative and conductive properties and use that info for engineering design, learning about different types of waves and their properties/behaviors, and learning about how Wifi, the internet, and radios work. There are many hands-on activities and designs for students in this unit. 

In late April, we'll spend a little time reviewing concepts in preparation for the May Science MEA test. 

​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: Engaged, Respectful and Responsible. 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.