Cluster 2 News
September 28, 2023
Cluster 2 News!
Hello Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers!
Happy Fall! It has been a pleasure getting to know all of the students. The purpose of this SMORE is to communicate information about all of the learning that is taking place at WMS. Please reach out if you have any questions.
Fall conferences will be on October 19 and 24. In the coming weeks, you will receive more information from your child's advisor about how to sign up for a conference. We look forward to meeting you to discuss your student’s progress!
We have i-Ready testing on Monday October 2 and Tuesday October 3. Be sure the students have charged Chromebooks.
Best,
Cluster 2 Team
English with Ms. Soares
Hello and welcome to English! It has been so wonderful to get to know your students over the course of September. We started the year off learning about Notice and Note Signposts. This strategy will help students practice their reading skills and get used to thinking about the story. Our first book we will read as a class is called Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. The story is about a 10 year old girl and her family who seek refuge in Alabama during the Vietnam War, and the culture shock and challenges they experience as they adapt to a new way of living.
A practice we will be doing for the entire year is independent reading. The expectation is that your student is reading for 20 minutes at least 4 days of the week. They can read books, graphic novels, comics, or listen to an audiobook. The goal is to make reading fun! Some ways you can help your student is to remind them to read, bring them to the library, or even read with them. If there is anything I need to know or if you have any questions, please feel free to teach out.
Read on!
Ms. Soares
Social Studies with Mr. McDermott
Hello! We’ve had a great start to the year in Social Studies. This week we are using our studies of continents and oceans and parts of a map vocabulary to help support us as we start our Globe Project. We will spend the next days graphing latitude and longitude coordinates as we create the continents on our large maps. This will lead to further study of thematic maps and how different maps can show us all about our Earth. Look out for your child’s globe hanging in the 6th grade hallway during conferences!
As we move into next month, we will dive into our study of the ancient past. We will begin by learning how we know about the past, and the various professions related to its study. Archeology will be highlighted, as our following units have a strong connection to the field.
Math with Ms. Tammaro
Hello and welcome to math!
It was great to see so many caregivers at back to school night. In case you missed it, here is a link to the grading policies in Cluster 2 Math and an introduction to Desmos.
We’ve covered a lot so far this year. Our first week was spent learning routines and talking about how we can apply a growth mindset to math. Everyone can learn and grow from their mistakes, especially in math. We then started our first unit on geometry. We learned about parallelograms, triangles, and other polygons. Students used three strategies to find the areas of shapes that are not parallelograms or triangles: rearrange, decompose, or enclose. After a quiz on area, we started talking about how to find the surface area of rectangular prisms. We’ll continue learning about surface area and classifying polyhedra for a bit and wrap up with an assessment for unit 1. Here is a family resource for topics you can discuss at home. By this time next month, we should be into our second unit on ratios.
Until then,
Ms. Tammaro
Science with Ms. Ferguson
Greetings! How much space does a plastic doll take up (volume of irregular objects)? Sixth grade scientists were given a bucket of materials including beakers, water, graduated cylinders, and pipettes to solve this problem. Ask them about it! Previously, students found the volume of regular solids and liquids.
Currently, students have been busy mastering the use of a triple beam balance to measure the mass of objects. The unit will culminate in an Egg Drop Project. Students will use the engineering design process as well as their creativity to make a container to prevent a raw egg from breaking when dropped from the balcony in the main foyer of the school. The twist is that the container and egg must have a mass under 150 grams. Don’t worry, the teacher will provide the eggs! It is sure to be a messy eggsperiment, so any donations of paper towels and wipes would be greatly appreciated! Here is more information about Science this year.
Best,
Ms. Ferguson
ELA with Ms. Martin
Hello Everyone! I am so excited to be part of the Cluster 2 Team. This school year has been off to a great start. Students have been busy learning new routines, schedules and expectations. I have been happy supporting all our 6th Grade Learners as they make this transition. As we move into new units, lessons and concepts I look forward to continuing to support our learners in various academic environments. Families and students with various accommodations will be hearing from myself or various staff members for meetings to help develop a plan to support your student best. Please reach out with any questions, concerns or comments as I am always happy to help! :)