The Headlines, 8/31

It was wonderful to see so many of you at Curriculum Night.  I hope you felt that many of your questions were answered and you have a clearer picture of what is ahead this year.  If you missed it, please check out the PowerPoint link on the right hand side of the page to see what you missed, and please let me know if you have any questions!


Math:We have completed Unit 1 of Singapore Math which covered place value, factors, and multiplying and dividing with powers of ten.  We will take the Unit test tomorrow (Monday), and will start our next Unit Wednesday. , beginning with order of operation.

Literature:We have made it through Voyage of the Dawn Treader  chapter 5, and are enjoying some great class discussions.  We will continue moving through the book and will also do some character work this week.  Please help your child be sure they are keeping on top of the Voyage packet.  We are working on this both in class and at home, however at the end of the unit they will be graded on completion of the vocabulary and comprehension questions.  

Writing/Grammar:Our focus last week was classifying adjectives and adverbs as well as beginning to diagram short sentences.  They are catching on quite quickly and next week we will review the four types of sentences and introduce journal writing.

Spalding: We began our word lists last week and will continue completing our rule pages and begin our next list.  Please be sure words are dictated to students three times and are written with rules and markings.

History: We took the first History test on Tuesday and began our new unit on World Lakes on Friday.  We will also be learning about the regions of the United States throughout the year.  This week we learned how the country is separated and added a map to our History notebook.  Test corrections will be going home Monday. As this was a challenging test for many of our scholars I will be giving a half point for each correction.

Science: Friday we took the test over the Scientific Process. These tests have not yet been graded, but I am confident the class did well!  Our next unit will be a brief review of classification of animals which we will begin Monday.

Announcements:

• Math tutoring will continue this week on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 3:05-3:45.  At this time we will be focusing on Math, however as the year progresses content areas may change.  We will invite your students to tutoring as we see fit, however, if you would like your child to stay, please let us know.

• Congratulations to Ashley Deegan our winner of the estimation jar, hopefully she did not eat all the candy in one setting, and thank you to Danielle for bringing it in and sharing about herself.  We will choose a new star student this week to bring home the Estimation Jar.

Upcoming Tests/Quizzes.

• Monday, August 31, Tuesday, Sept. 1: We will be taking the Galileo pretests in ELA and Math.  This is the standardized test that Great Hearts gives three times a year to help gauge student progress as well as prepare for state testing.  We will be taking these on laptops in the classroom

• Monday, August 31: Math Unit 1



Wish List:

• The germs are spreading!  Please send in Kleenex and disinfectant wipes if you are able.

Important Dates:

• September 7th: September 7th, Labor Day
• Wednesday, September 9th: Singapore and Spalding Night, 6:00 pm

The Headlines, August 24th

We had a  productive and busy second week of school.  Our scholars are becoming comfortable in our routines and we have had some excellent class discussions.  We are looking forward to another wonderful week!


Math: Last week we continued our study of place value and then moved on to finding multiples and factors.  We also learned about prime factorization.  For the week ahead we will be reviewing multiplying and dividing by tens and hundreds.  We will have a unit test at the end of this week or beginning of next.

Literature: We have been enjoying Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  We are working through our comprehension and vocabulary packets, and we ended the week by working in literature circles.  The class did a great job of working in groups and staying on task.  This week we plan to get through Chapter 5 of the book and will have a short quiz on Friday.

Writing/Grammar: Our focus last week was using punctuation and capitalization rules to improve our writing. We ended the week by taking an open note quiz.  This week we will begin reviewing parts of speech and will introduce sentence diagramming.

History: We have been working hard to learn and understand maps and geography.  The students brought home a study guide this weekend over the unit.  We will review the study guide today and will take the Unit Test on Tuesday.
 

Science: We spent last week preparing and executing the Paper Airplane Lab.  The class really enjoyed this unit and I was quite impressed with the creativity they put forth.  This week we will be preparing and presenting our Lab Reports.  On Friday we will take the test over The Scientific Process.

Announcements:

• Math tutoring will begin this week on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 3:05-3:45.  At this time we will be focusing on Math, however as the year progresses content areas may change.  We will invite your students to tutoring as we see fit, however, if you would like your child to stay, please let us know! 

Upcoming Tests/Quizzes

• Tuesday, August 25, Geography
• Friday, August 28, Scientific Process
• Friday, August 28th, Voyage Quiz
• Monday, August 31, Math Unit 1



Wish List:

• Thank you so much for supplying your students with all of their supplies, at this time we are doing very well!

Important Dates:

• Curriculum Night,  August 24th from 6:00pm - 7:55pm. 
• Charger Night at Chipotle, Tuesday, August 25th
• Galileo Testing, Monday August 31st (Math), Tuesday, September 1 (ELA)

 

Enjoy some pictures of our young scientists!

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Updates

As many of you probably noticed, the date listed for curriculum night was incorrect.  Grades 3-5 will have theirs on August 27th.

This information is from Ms. Toyin:

Dear Parents,

You are cordially invited to our Curriculum Night event, taking place on Thursday, August 20th 

(K-2) and Thursday, August 27th (3-5).The event starts at 6:00 p.m. with opening remarks from the Headmaster in the Arete Gymnasium. The purpose of this event is to acquaint you with the school's curriculum and individual classroom procedures across all grade levels. Teachers will give parents an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, that this is a parent only event and the event will begin in the gymnasium at 6:00 p.m. We look forward to seeing you all at this event.

Schedule

K-2 Curriculum Night: Thursday, August 20

3-5 Curriculum Night: Thursday, August 27

Curriculum Night Schedule

6:00 p.m. - 6:25 p.m.	Welcome and opening remarks by Mr. Gillingham and Ms. Pantalena in the gymnasium
	A-L	M-Z
6:30 p.m. - 7:10 p.m.	Homeroom                                                6:30 p.m. - 7:10 p.m.	Specials in MPR
7:15 p.m. - 7:55 p.m.	Specials in MPR                                        7:15 p.m. - 7:55 p.m.	Homeroom

Also, Clubs are now open! You may begin registering you child(ren) in clubs. Clubs are a great way to provide additional elements to our already rich curriculum. They also allow students to make new friends who share common interests. Go to ArchwayArete.org, scroll over the Extracurricular tab, and click Club List to find the clubs’ times and cost or use this link: http://www.archwayarete.org/images/2015-2016%20clubs.pdf

Playground and Spalding Notebooks!

As many of you know we have some great news regarding our playground expansion.  Click here to read the exciting opportunity that has brought us one step closer to expanding our playground and building an outdoor classroom! We hope you will accept this challenge. Thank you for your contributions toward making our campus a beautiful place for learning and playing.

Also, Spalding notebooks are in the front office.  If your students does not have one, please make sure to contact the office, they go quickly!

The Headlines! 8/17

We have successfully survived the first week of school!  I hope that your students enjoyed our first week as much as I did.  This a wonderful group of scholars who have a positive attitude and a desire to learn and grow.  I am looking forward to a great year!

I will be sending out this newsletter weekly in order to keep you informed of the content we are covering in class, as well as any announcements, our wish lists, and tests, projects, or quizzes.  Please be sure to subscribe via email and you will always be kept up to date on any new posts.

Math: We started our unit of week by taking a pre-test, and then began our first chapter in Singapore on place value and estimation.  Next week we will be continuing this unit and will review finding factors and multiples of numbers and will learn prime factorization.  We also began looking at how to create bar models in problem solving.

Literature: To prepare for our upcoming literature study of Voyage of the Dawn Treader we took time to review the plot and characters of Prince Caspian.  Monday we will begin reading Voyage.  There will be a literature study to go along with the reading each day that will focus on vocabulary and comprehension.

Writing/Grammar:  We started the year by writing a paragraph and creating an illustrated hand to share about who we are.  This week we will begin presenting these to the class.  We also discussed the denotative and connotative meaning of words, and set learning goals.  Next week we will focus on editing and begin a review of sentence diagramming simple subject/verb sentences.

History: The first activity of the year was a review of world geography and the location of the continents and oceans.  We also looked at latitude and longitude and how lines of lattitude effect climate.  Next week we will continue our study of Geography by examining time zones and different types of maps.  Students should be bringing home their notebooks and studying thier vocabulary note cards. We will be taking a quiz over this next Thursday.

Science: To begin thinking like scientists our first unit is a study of the Scientific Method.  We have uncovered the difference between testable and un-testable questions as well as how to find independent and dependent variables and controls in experiments.  Next week we will be putting this knowledge to practice by creating a paper airplane lab.

  

Upcoming Tests/Quizzes

• Thursday, August 20

 

Wish List:

• Thank you so much for supplying your students with all of their supplies, at this time we are doing very well!

Important Dates:

• You are cordially invited to our Curriculum Night event, taking place on Thursday, August 20th from 6:00pm - 7:55pm. The purpose of this event is to acquaint you with the school's curriculum and individual classroom procedures across
  
  
  all grade levels. Teachers will give parents an opportunity to ask questions; we look forward to seeing you all at this event.

The First Day!

I hope everyone is getting tucked in and having an early  bedtime tonight and is as excited as me to start our year!

I just have a few quick notes to keep in mind.  As you can see from our schedule we have a very late lunch, so we will have a snack mid-morning.  Please be sure you send a healthy snack that can be eaten at their desk and does not require refrigeration or utensils. 

It looks like we do have a couple of peanut allergies, so they should be peanut free as well.

Please also send in a water bottle for the classroom.

I look forward to seeing our new fifth graders bright and early!

Welcome!

Dear Fifth Grade Families,

Welcome back to Archway Arete Fifth Grade! I look forward to meeting you and your fifth grader at Meet the Teacher tomorrow night.  Families with the last name beginning A-M, should come from 5:30-6:30 pm and families with a last name beginning N-Z, from 6:30-7:30 pm.

Students should bring all school supplies to this event. There will be limited parking on campus, though, overflow parking will be available in the shopping center across Baseline Road, and next door at CarLife after 6:00. The Archway building is the westernmost building on campus, and the entrance is on the west side.

I want to first thank you for the privilege of teaching your students.  As a parent myself, I know how important a teacher is in the life of a child. I am very excited for this second year at Arete.  I was honored to be a member of the first year staff and could not have asked for a more thoughtful and kind group of parents and colleagues. 

I started my teaching career in 2000 in the Kansas City area where I graduated with a degree in Elementary Education from Emporia State University.  I taught fourth grade for four years and then had the opportunity to stay home with my children.  In the interim I practiced a different type of teaching, working as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor.  However, my love of children and education drew me back to my first calling.

I married my husband, Shawn in 2001 and we have three children, Maya, 12; Isaiah, 10; and Will, 7.  After living in Overland Park, Kansas for almost twenty years, our family moved to Phoenix in 2010 and made our home in Ahwatukee.

When I'm not working I stay active; running, teaching yoga, and any other type of fitness activity!  I love to read and discuss literature with my book club and we are active in our church community.  We spend lots of time carting kids to baseball, basketball, football, and dance. 

This year your fifth grader will continue to learn and grow as a scholar and leader.  In Literature we will continue to study the great books, beginning with Voyage of the Dawn Treader (please keep the remainder of the Classics to Keep collection at home until needed).  In Science we will delve deep into the human body systems and in History we will explore the way our civilization has evolved.  In Math problem solving skills will be developed further using Singapore strategies.  

Teaching is my passion, and I am so honored to be a part of Great Hearts Academy.  I look forward to a fruitful and passion filled year with you and your child!

Sincerely,

Shauna Anderson

Hello, friends!

My name is Michelle Porcelli and I am thrilled to serve as Ms. Anderson's apprentice teacher for the 2015-2016 school year. The Great Hearts mission and curriculum inspired me to travel quite a long way to join your scholars at Archway Arete. I was born and raised in Chicago, IL and graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Before heading out to college I developed a passion for cinema and enjoyed working for a children's film festival and film camp. Over my college years I presided over the campus yoga club and served as an apprentice to a Pilates instructor and studio owner. Most recently I served as a learning assistant and research assistant for the Physics Education Research Group at the University of Maryland. The insights I gained from this experience lead me to realize the might of the Great Hearts curriculum. I am grateful to work here at Archway Arete in an academic program I believe in and with colleagues that inspire me. Moreover, I am excited to learn and to celebrate learning with your young scholars!

Sincerely,

Michelle Porcelli