We had a full but short week with a Fun Run Prize Day at the end! Check out the pics of your students being excellent leaders and role models with their 2nd grade buddies. I am so proud of the kindness, gentleness, and positivity they show with their little friends!

Announcements/Reminders/Requests:

• Conference sign ups will go out in the Weekly Blast--look for the sign up link there!

• Multicultural Night is just one week away on October 3, from 5-7PM.

  • Bring your family to experience the diverse cultures of our Northridge community.  This is one of Northridge Elementary's most treasured events.  Pick up your passport at the entrance and stop at every booth to get a passport stamp.  While getting your passport stamped, sample the various cultures through art, history, photo opportunities, games, and samples of food.  Be sure to get your picture taken at the special photo opportunity created by NRE students in art class.  Skip cooking dinner and purchase tacos, quesadillas, burritos, or fried rice from La Muerte Esta Rica and Tiger Den.  Then take a seat to watch the Mandarin and Spanish classes perform.  Complete the night with some boba from Tiger Den and a snow cone from Snow Bros.  

  • The 2025 Multicultural Night will be a night to remember!  Volunteer for set up, clean up, and during event support here. 

• Outdoor Ed

  • Remember to register your student for Outdoor Ed at Stone Canyon here. Registrations will close 2 weeks prior to your trip. 

  • Order Outdoor Ed T-shirts in MySchoolBucks. Orders are due by Friday, Oct. 3!!

  • Look here for a Parent Planning Guide that contains information about the daily schedule, Stone Canyon staff, packing lists, conversations to have with your child pre-trip, etc.

What We've Been Working On...

Math

This math chapter has focused on rational/irrational numbers, and working with positive and negative integers. Some groups are starting to take their chapter test and are getting ready to start a new chapter. Scored math chapter tests will come home with your student.

ELA

We continue our study of Brown Girl Dreaming and we are combining it with a mini-history unit on what the United States looked like at that time. We've learned all about The Great Migration, and we are still working on refining our writing using text and visual sources as references. We've also been learning and working with Latin/Greek word stems (roots, prefixes, suffixes) to expand our vocabularies.

Reminder: Students WILL have some homework of reading/responding to questions while we read Brown Girl Dreaming. Please help them check their planners for that night's homework.

Science

We'll be moving on to learning about Physical/Chemical Changes next week.

Mental Health

We will be alternating meeting with other gifted 6th graders not in Discovery and meeting with our Discovery 2nd grade buddies. 

In our GT-specific mental health session we started learning about the overexcitabilities/intensities of gifted students and sharing stories about the pros/cons of these traits.

Important Dates: 

Sep 29 - Oct 3 - Book Fair

Oct 3 - Multicultural Fair

Our new classroom is cozy and comfy, and we've all gotten used to our new space and new routines. Thank you to the students and families who volunteered to come out and help with the move last weekend--I appreciate you!

Announcements/Reminders/Requests:

• Ms Oliver's Amazon Wish List We are needing a few consumable items, a few items for a prize wall, and a digital clock for our classroom. Absolutely no obligation to purchase anything on it, but thank you in advance if you're feeling generous!

• Photos. Please email me and let me know if you do NOT want your child's face in any of the photos I put on this website. I post photos so you can see some of the cool stuff we're doing, but I want to make sure to respect everyone's privacy.

• Outdoor Ed

  • Remember to register your student for Outdoor Ed at Stone Canyon here. Registrations will close 2 weeks prior to your trip. 

  • Please note that payment is collected through MySchoolBucks, not through the Stone Canyon registration site! 

  • Look here for a Parent Planning Guide that contains information about the daily schedule, Stone Canyon staff, packing lists, conversations to have with your child pre-trip, etc.

What We've Been Working On...

Math

We have finally gotten to dive into our math curriculum!

If you'd like to support your child at home or have them work on math at home, here are a few options (that are, of course, totally optional!). Students have their login info taped inside their planners.

Beast Academy. This includes grade-level math problems and concepts, logic puzzles, games, and graphic novels that go along with the curriculum.

iXL. This is an individualized program that targets your child's specific areas for math growth and should be presenting content exactly at your child's level.

ELA

Our new unit, Memoirs and Autobiographies, is in full swing! We're kicking it off with Jacqueline Woodson's novel in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming. Through this novel we're exploring questions of identity, how where we come from (and who comes before us) shapes who we are, and the civil rights movement. This is also a great lead in to our deep study of memoirs and how writers write about their own lives.

Students WILL have some homework of reading/responding to questions while we read Brown Girl Dreaming. Please help them check their planners for that night's homework.

Science

We've been learning about volume of regular and irregular objects, and we did a fun lab using graduated cylinders to measure the volume of irregular objects. We also started our study of density and witnessed some pretty fun density demos with various liquids!

Mental Health

We got to do Origami with Friends this week with Ms Howell and other GT kids in the grade. The goals for this are to build friendships outside of Discovery, learn geometry through origami, and learn patience/resilience while folding some pretty complicated solids! This week we've been working on creating cubes.

Important Dates: 

Sep 22 - No School/ Professional Development Day

Sep 26 - Fun Run Prize Day

Sep 29 - Oct 3 - Book Fair

We've had a great week! The students are settling into our regular classroom routine nicely. We are almost done with our beginning of year testing and are enjoying finally getting into the year's curriculum!

Announcements/Reminders/Requests:

• Classroom Move

  • We will be moving our classroom to one of the mobile classrooms by Monday, Sept. 8. There are many reasons for this, but ultimately, it was necessary for one class in the school to move out. I volunteered to be that room because we are lucky enough to have such an amazing classroom (15 responsible kids!) that we have the capacity to handle it. I spoke to the kids about it this morning and I appreciated them sharing their feelings and being receptive to the move. We'll spend our community time next week helping to move some items and getting used to the change.

  • What this means for you: drop off and pick up will be at the mobile with the green doors by the garden. Nothing else will really change!

• Ms Oliver's Amazon Wish List is now live! I will periodically update the list and let you know when I do. Absolutely no obligation to purchase anything on it, but thank you in advance if you're feeling generous!

• Photos. Please email me and let me know if you do NOT want your child's face in any of the photos I put on this website. I post photos so you can see some of the cool stuff we're doing, but I want to make sure to respect everyone's privacy.

• Outdoor Ed

  • Student registrations for Outdoor Ed at Stone Canyon are now live and can be found here. Registrations will close 2 weeks prior to your trip. 

  • Please note that payment is collected through MySchoolBucks, not through the Stone Canyon registration site! 

  • Look here for a Parent Planning Guide that contains information about the daily schedule, Stone Canyon staff, packing lists, conversations to have with your child pre-trip, etc.

• ALP Family Input Survey. If you haven't filled this out yet, please do! Survey link here.

What We've Been Working On...

Math

We've been doing some fun word problem solving this week so I can get an idea of how your student thinks mathematically. We've also learned how to make and fold Hexaflexagons--ask your student to see theirs! We took our iReady test this week as well, and we're hoping to get started on our new curriculum in small groups next week.

ELA

We've warmed up our reading and writing brains these past couple weeks. We started Writer's Workshop by decorating our Writer's Notebooks and learning how to start living like writers. We did some five senses writing outside in nature, and we've been practicing building our fluency and stamina with our writing.

We have also read a few short stories and started learning norms around discussions, finding vocabulary, and responding to texts.

Science

We started our Physical Science unit by reviewing matter and learning about mass: what it is, how we measure it, and why! We did two fun labs on measuring mass of items wiht a triple beam balance and an inquiry about whether Double Stuf Oreos truly have "double" the mass of regular Oreos. Ask your student about the results!

Mental Health

We're reviewing our Sources of Strength Wheel from our Sources of Strength curriculum, identifying which activities and people help us build resilience and help us stay mentally healthy. We also met our new Discovery Mental Health counselor, Ms K, and did a fun art activity on identifying the way we, as GT learners, learn and operate.

Important Dates: 

Sept 01 - No School/ Labor Day

Sept 02 - Cold Stone Night