Sunday, January 19, 2020

Weekly Update: January 19th





Reminder: There is NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 20th in remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Class Updates: 

Social Studies: Since returning to school in January, we have been working through our unit on the Roman Republic. On Friday students were introduced to Julius Caesar and were able to investigate his legacy. We will continue learning about Caesar but ultimately how the Roman Republic morphed into the Roman Empire.


Science: We have completed the Metabolism Unit and all grades have been posted. Students can retake the written part of the test Wednesday after school if needed. This week we will start the new unit, Traits and Reproduction which focuses on the variation in flexibility of spider silk.

Literacy:  Teaching kids to reflect upon their own work is incredibly rewarding.  Asking them to examine their effort as well as their end products is what their most recent Google Classroom assignment did. Their Atlas Obscura Reflections were due this week.  Latin Unit 6 test grades will be posted tomorrow.  This week we'll tiptoe into a longterm adventure of learning about social injustice, and how children have brought about enormous change.  Have a wonderful long weekend!

English: This week we were in the library working on character change projects by using an online resource called "Make Belief Comix."  Students were able to plan and design a comic strip, illustrating Scrooge's character change from A Christmas Carol.  In addition to their comic, students wrote captions for each scene they created.  Next week students will shift focus a bit and start researching for their historical fiction projects, which are due at the end of the month.

Math: We are continuing this week on our inequality and expressions unit.  Students spent last week expanding and factoring the distributive property and will start combining like terms this week. Our second test of the semester will be next week, so make sure not to forget about inequalities.