EPIC House January Newsletter
Extraordinary Passionate Innovative Community
Happy New Year 2015!
- Winter MAP testing: Wednesday January 14-Thursday January 15 Please be sure your student has a good night's sleep and a solid breakfast for these days. Healthy snacks are also welcome during testing sessions.
- Monday January 12th: Girls Skills and Drills Basketball starts
- Saturday January 17th: Orchestra Solo Recital @ Neville Museum
- January 21: 5th grade movie @ BayPort in afternoon
- January 22: End of 2nd quarter
- January 22: 5th grade choir rehearsal @ BayPort 1:30-2:50
- January 23: NO School
It's a new year which represents a fresh start for many of our students. We continue to work on doing the right thing, being safe, respectful, and responsible each day. This is also a great time to check in with your student if they need any more school supplies. Pencils continue to be on a shortage from day to day.
Epic students work together!
Epic students are creative!
Epic students are life long readers!
What's happening in our classrooms?
Science with Mrs. Tennie
In science, we are continuing our study of Microworlds. Students will be taking part in various experiments and learning about lenses and magnification within the coming weeks. This week, students are learned and reviewed PHEOC. PHEOC stands for Problem, Hypothesis(prediction), Experiment, Observation, and Conclusion. During our experiments, students have been using the PHEOC model to organize their thoughts before, during and after the activities. We have also been working hard at using descriptive language and giving lots of details in our observations. We are truly becoming great scientists! In the coming weeks, students will continue to use magnifying glasses and microscope to explore microbes in the world around us!
Social Studies with Mrs. Maroszek
Writing with Mrs. Tennie and Mrs. Devine
The first week back to school our students have been practicing their paragraph writing skills. We have reviewed what components are included in a paragraph and applying those skills into our daily writing. I am blown away at the progress we have made this week by reviewing these skills. We will be moving into our informational writing pieces. Students will writing short informational articles on an animal of their choosing, then work with a peer to edit, revise and publish their piece electronically on Google Classroom. We are excited to start this collaborative project!
Language Arts with Mrs. Tennie and Mrs. Devine
We have also recently started book clubs. Students are working in flexible guided reading groups to read an instructional level book, set reading goals, and answer comprehension questions. Students meet on a weekly basis to discuss their books together and set the new goal for the week. This has been a highlight for many students and created a friendly competition between first and second hour LA classes on how many books can be read in a month!
First hour Math with Mrs. Maroszek
To start January, first hour math class started chapter 4 which focuses on multiplication of whole numbers and decimals. Concepts we will be working in this unit are: shift patterns when multiplying by zeroes, exponents, different multiplication strategies, single digit and double digit multiplication. Currently, students are reviewing strategies to solve multiplication problems. We are doing two-digit multiplication problems and will begin multiplying with decimals next week.
Second hour Math with Mrs. Maroszek
For students in second hour math class, we are wrapping up chapter 3 which focuses on multiplying and dividing fractions. Prior to break, students worked hard to learn to multiply fractions. It is now a pleasant surprise to students that dividing fractions is VERY similar to multiplying fractions. Students are working on writing and solving division problems using fractions. We will wrap up this chapter before the end of quarter 2 and move forward with multiplication strategies.
A quick reminder about Moby Max: students are expected to complete division Fact Master by January 15. Knowing multiplication and division facts is extremely important as we move forward into multi-digit multiplication and division with whole numbers and decimals.