Monday PE | Tuesday O&A to Nana Cardoons --need some volunteers | Wednesday ART | Thursday Geek Out | Friday No before school study hall ART |
Important Dates Tues, May 15 - Parent Talk: Gender & Identity, 6-7 Wed, May 16 - Parent Talk: Mindfulness, 6-7 May 18th: After School Bike Ride: sign up in the office | Click here to sign up:
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Writing: Spelling activity 1/ day. If you don't yet have a full draft, you may want to work on your memoir as well.
Reading: The usual - read the newsletter as a family on Monday. Other nights, book of choice!
Math: Daily math homework - check your child's agenda or contact teacher
End of the year fundraiser--we need your input!
For the past 5 years, Level 3 has done an end of the year fundraising dinner/event. The event usually compliments our current project—so this go around it’s health. The dinner is a lot of work, but students love the opportunity to take on responsibility. So we want to make sure students and families are able to make the commitment if we go forward with the idea. One part of homework for the week is to turn in the ballot—this helps us know who is interested and who can help. Please turn this in ASAP—Tuesday would be awesome!
Another great week of body systems! This week we explored the nervous system—everything from the parts of the brain to neurons. We learned that our brains have excellent neuroplasticity which means we can change our brains for better or for worse. Keep making progress on those Geek Out goals, which is great example of neuroplasticity in action.
Ask what do you need to do to change your brain? (Do the work and practice!)
Talk about the progress you’re making on the Geek Out goals.
Extend the learning by researching more about the brain—there’s too much!
Literacy
The Merlin memoirs are coming along lovely! It’s so fun to see and hear what have been important moments in these amazing kiddos’ lives. Our trip to Jennings McCall helped us to compare our moments to our elder buddies. Everyone had interesting stories to share—although at times very different situations, still similar themes to our memories.
Ask what’s been happening in your lit circle book and how does it connect to health?
Talk about what you enjoyed during our Jennings McCall visit.
Extend the learning to look back at favorite memories as family.
5th Grade Math: Hey 5th grader mathematicians, did you know that you did some algebra this week? We started the week by creating a math dictionary - trying to match different phrases, like "split evenly," "double" or "in all" correspond to mathematical operations. We used this knowledge to make sense of some fancy multi-step word problem, transforming complicated problems into simple expressions, like "5n + 3." Best of all, students were challenged to take a random expression and invent a word problems to match. This week, we'll be reviewing to get ready for a test.
Ask what was your invented word problem about? What operations did you have to include?
Talk about what "x" or "n" means in an expression.
Extend the learning by looking for real-life word problems that you face day-to-day - show your 5th grader how important it is to understand how to transform words into the correct mathematical steps!
6th Grade Math
We learned about expressions this week including how to solve them when given values for variables. Students mutter about showing their lines to prove their work, but they’re building a foundation for important math skills for now and for those to come in middle/ high school and beyond!
Ask what does it mean to show your lines?
Talk about the different ways to show multiplication in algebra.
Extend the learning by writing expressions for a recent shopping trip.