nichols news

This week in Science class we...

• reviewed how to write scientific reasoning

• compared the movement of energy and matter through food webs

• modeled an aquatic food chain as a class to generate data that we will use next week to look at how certain toxins move through food webs

Next week students will begin looking at the phenomenon of biomagnification in food chains

If you have any questions please feel free to communicate with at sparker@cvsdvt.org

• This week, students learned about mental health and mental health disorders. They discussed health habits to help build resilience around the challenges of life.

• Some of these habits include: having a support system, contributing to the community, self-esteem/self-worth, and having healthy coping mechanisms to deal with stress. 

• Next week, students will learn about warning signs and risk factors to notice in themselves or a friend around mental health. 

Any questions or concerns, feel free to email kdavis@cvsdvt.org

English

We continued our second unit this week by learning about the requirements of an annotated bibliography. We studied how to write a citation using MLA format, we reviewed summary writing, and we discussed the nuance it takes to evaluate a source. White day students turned in their first round of annotated bibliographies today, and red day students will turn them in on Monday. 

Interested in helping your student stay on top of their English homework? Ask to see their planners and their bookmarks. I made students write down ALL their unit 2 deadlines in their planners and on their bookmarks.

Social Studies

We finished our 9/11: It’s Complicated unit this week. I am looking forward to seeing the students’ flowcharts and reading their evidence and reasoning. Assessment scores will be posted on Jumprope by the middle of next week. The students worked hard and learned a lot of challenging history in this unit, and I feel good about their engagement and effort to start the year.

White Day students began our next unit, The Human Journey, this week. We’ll be looking at the transition from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Revolution and discussing why humans began creating civilizations, governments, and laws. Red Day students will start this unit on Monday.

Going forward, students should expect social studies homework most nights to help reinforce what we’re learning in class.

Dinner Table Talk

• Tell me about your book. What are the characters like?

• How did the Annotated bibliography go?

• What's feeling hard for you these days?

• How are you feeling about all the deadlines? Anything I can do to help support you?

• How do you think your 9/11 assessment went?

• White Say, how was the first day of the new unit in social studies?