Class Updates
by Mrs. Gaal and Ms. Marrion
This week's Friday envelope contains:
-Writing exercise: Role, Author, Format, and Topic from Esperanza Rising
-Math Check-up (Quiz)
-Instrument Worksheet
-Science Sound Materials from Binder
Humanities
Students have been very busy this week reading, predicting, analyzing, discussing, and evaluating text from Esperanza Rising. We reviewed some forms of figurative language such as similes and foreshadowing and found evidence of both of these from the text. Students have also been discussing the topic of immigration and reading first-hand stories and current newspaper articles about the immigrant experience. We looked at images representing reasons why people might leave a country and reasons why people are pulled into a country. This all leads students to conduct their own interview of someone who has immigrated to another country. That interview should be either video or audio taped and be completed by next Friday.
In writing workshop recently, we have reviewed the following tips to keep in mind:
-Vary everything: This includes sentence starters, sentence length, and sentence structure.
-Words matter: Students were given a packet of descriptive adjectives to use as a resource when writing. Please encourage them to use this!
-Know your audience: Students picked a role, audience, format, and topic to follow based on Esperanza Rising. Feedback was given electronically, but please take a look at what they wrote.
As always, more information about all the topics that we have discussed in class, including the immigration interview, can be found on the FHS website, under the “topics” page.
Math/Science
Next week we will be concluding our math unit, Bits and Pieces, Ratios.
The test is scheduled for Thursday, November 20. Your child has received a copy of 2 review packets to assist with preparation. (These documents can also be found on the FHS homework site – calendar view - Nov 20.) In addition, Bits and Pieces review problems and an answer key can be found on the same page. If your child chooses to do these problems focus on:
5 of 14 #4-15 (page 21)
7 of 14 #2,3,4 (page 23)
8 of 14 #5,6 (page 24)
9 of 14 # 4-15 (page 25)
10 of 14 #1-14 (page 26)
12 of 14 #6 (page 28)
14 of 14 #1-12 (page 30)
Math XL for School.com offers another vehicle for review. Please know that your child has reviewed how to access all of these options.
In science, we are continuing our unit on Newton’s laws now focusing on Newton’s Second Law. Currently we are solving word problems utilizing the formula F=ma.