Newsletters

March/April 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 just finished our 4th read aloud book of the year. It is called Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher. This is a book about a classroom that is supposed to have a substitute, but the sub gets sick and the kids decide to run their own class for the day. It is fun to imagine a day without a teacher. The kids rated the book a 4 out 5 stars. 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. The students are getting better at writing their segments and performing in front of the camera. You can find the episodes here: https://lctv.org/category/south-bristol-scoop/

5th Social Studies

Since my last newsletter, we have started and finished our unit on European explorers coming to the Americas. Each student wrote a research paper about an explorer and shared that with the class. We wrapped up the unit by summarizing the reasons explorers were exploring. 

Currently, we are studying the colonization of what we now call the United States. We'll learn the 13 English colonies and other details of the colonial period. Most of our work on this unit will be through a simulation. The students will earn money, supply 3 ships, and sail to the "New World" to start and build a colony. They'll experience many hardships along the way and the students will get a great feel for what life was like in the 1600s. 

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

Our current 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. 

In December, the 5th graders 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, we'll take a trip to DMC to 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 current unit is Force and Motion. This is a big unit. Much of our time will be spent engaged in the very fun Roller Coaster simulation from Interact. The students are working 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.  

The 6/7 class is also continuing last year's work on our buoys/lobstermen of South Bristol project. We have finished 78 buoys so far and 33 more buoys ready to finish. 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

Our current unit is Force and Motion. The students have been 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. 

Out next unit will be Waves and Energy. 

​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.