Newsletters

November/December Newsletter

There are less than 2 weeks left in trimester 1, believe it or not! 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. At 8:05, 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 5th grade classroom. We just finished our first read aloud of the year: The Young Man and the Sea by Rodman Philbrick. The students gave the book a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars as class. 

We occasionally read short stories from Paul Jennings. 

Our next novel will be Rain, Reign by Ann M. Martin. This is a book about a girl and her beloved dog navigating life and a big storm. It is a book that gives a look into the life of a girl 'on the spectrum' and how she sees and copes with life. This book pairs very well with Rules, the book the students have been reading in ELA with Mrs. Wright.  We get to explore many homophones as we read. 

We have advisor time from 11:10-11:30 AM each day. During these times the 5th grade students are developing executive functioning skills, doing some read aloud, checking grades on Powerschool, playing community building games, etc. 

6th Grade Math

We are just wrapping up the first unit of the year in math. The student have completed 6 lessons (with about 4 sessions in each lesson) so far this year. The kids are working hard and learning a lot. Students can expect some homework each night that we have math. 

Current Unit:

- Unit 1: Expressions and Equations (Lessons 1-6)

Skills:

- Find the area of parallelograms

- Find the area of triangles and other polygons

- Use nets to find surface area

- Work with algebraic expressions

- Write and evaluate expressions with exponents

- Find the greatest common factor and least common multiple of 2 numbers

Next Unit:

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

Skills:

- Add, subtract, and multiply multi-digit decimals

- Divide whole numbers and multi-digit decimals

- Understand division with fractions

- Divide fractions

- Solve volume problems with fractions

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

Students have 45 minutes 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 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 school binder. Please reach out if you need login information!

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

5th Social Studies

The students did a great job on our geography unit. We are now diving into our 2nd unit of the year: Native Americans. This will conclude with a special emphasis on our local Wabanaki. 

Each student currently has a region of the US they are responsible for researching. Which Native American tribes live(d) there? What geographical features do you see there? What type of government do they use? What are some customs and traditions? What inventions have they created? The students will do a slideshow presentation of their information and present it to their classmates. We will do a similar project where we'll work together as a class to find the same information about Wabanaki people.

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. 

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

5th Science

We are beginning the year with a study of space. The students have been studying earth's seasons, a planet in our solar system, day/night and changes in shadows during a day and throughout a year. We are about to study stars, constellations, and galaxies. We kept track of the moon in a journal for a month to notice patterns and changes in the moon phases. We will soon be making a scale model of the solar system in front of the school. If all goes according to plan, we'll have a star gazing evening at Wawenock Golf Club in early December. 

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.  You can login to Powerschool by going to https://aos93la.powerschool.com/public/. You login using the username and password in your child's school binder. Please reach out if you need login information!

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

6th/7th Science

We have just finished our first unit of the year- Cells. We learned about how life is structured and how cells divide to make more cells for growth and repair. 

Our next unit is Heredity and Reproduction. The students will learn about Punnett squares, how simple and complex traits get passed on, some of their own characteristics that have been passed on through a few generations, and sexual vs. asexual reproduction, among other things. 

The 6/7 class will also be continuing last year's work on our buoys/lobstermen of South Bristol project. We have finished about 50 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 the 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. I will also be reporting traditional grades for 7th and 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 classroom.powerschool.com. You login using the username and password in your child's school binder. Please reach out if you need login information!

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

8th Science

 The 8th graders are in the midst of their study of space as we've zoomed out to more distant parts of the universe. The students have been learning about stars and galaxies in their research and with online science gizmos. Closer to home, we also learned about seasons and the phases of the moon. 

Our next unit will be relatively brief. We'll be studying force and motion including identifying Newton's laws of motion in our world. We'll explore the relationship between distance and mass in gravitional pull. We'll do two experiments through online gizmos and two experiments with classroom/lab materials. The culminating project will be designing and building/printing a CO2 car to race against classmates.  

Honors science students continue to go above and beyond by doing an extra assignment every two weeks and putting together an end-of-trimester project that is due just before Thanksgiving. I've told the students that a regular assignment (a topic of their choosing) should take somewhere around an hour to complete. The end-of-trimester project should be more on the order of 3 hours work. The students have been exploring and doing a great job with their work. 

​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. 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 classroom.powerschool.com. YYou login using the username and password in your child's school binder. Please reach out if you need login information!  ​

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