Headlines 9/19

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and enjoying these cooler mornings and evenings! 

Our students worked hard last week and accomplished quite a bit.  They enjoyed a chemistry lab, took a history test, and learned a new song with our French Prep mentors! 

If you  have  not yet RSVP'd for the Spalding and Singapore night this Wednesday, please let us know if you will be attending.  We plan on going through the basics of each subject as well as allowing plenty of time for Q & A. 

Here is the news for this week!

ELA

This week in writing we will begin our first formal piece of writing, a descriptive paragraph.  Students will choose a topic and will then go through the writing process to revise and edit for a final copy.  In literature we will continue to study characterization by finding textual evidence to support our inferences about the characters.  Students should be working to memorize their poems, and recitations will begin on Wednesday!

Math

All of our students did a wonderful job working through various types of word problems last week! This week we will begin reviewing and practicing long division and multiplication and will review bar models that use these operations.  

History:

This week in history, we will continue learning about the Maya culture. Students will get to participate in a friendly game of pok-ta-pok and engage in a socratic discussion involving the disappearance of the Maya. Students will continue journaling from the perspective of a Maya person at the end of each lesson.

Science:

We are continuing the chemistry unit this week. We will be reading The Mystery of the Periodic Table and taking notes throughout. We will learn about the pitfalls and successes of the early chemists. Our Friday activity will solidify our understanding of elements, compounds and mixtures.   Students should continue be working on their project at home!

Study Skill of the Week:

Starting this week we will begin to introduce new study skills to help the students as they prepare for Prep!  This week we will focus on using flashcards to aid in studying.  Students will practice pulling seven cards to study at one time, putting the cards to the side that they show mastery with, and focusing on the cards that need more review.  They can repeat that process with the remainder of the cards until they have gained mastery of all!