Cluster 1 Newsletter
January 2024
Hello Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers!
Happy New Year! We hope you had an enjoyable holiday season.
Upcoming Dates
Progress reports will be posted on PowerSchool by January 24-- be on the lookout for updated grades at that time. Reach out if there's anything we can do to support your student, or answer questions that you may have.
Our next round of i-Ready testing will take place on January 29 and 30. Please send students to school with charged chromebooks and full bellies!
The next installment of Caregiver University will take place on February 8th. Check out the flyer below for more details on how to sign up!
Thank you for all that you do to support our learners. We appreciate you! As always, reach out if we can help in anyway!
Yours,
Cluster 1 Team
English Language Arts Update
Howdy!
We’re continuing along in our first round of book clubs this year. Students have, generally, shown a keen ability to prepare for and participate in insightful student-led discussions of their novels. I’ve been impressed by their thoughtful responses on the weekly discussion questions and the autonomy they’ve shown in preparation for Friday’s discussions. As we progress, I would love to see students push their analysis even further. "Go deep" is an oft-heard refrain in ELA these days.
One way to support your students is to review their weekly discussion question responses with them before Friday. At this level many students are reluctant to revise their writing, but it’s a great way to improve the quality of their work. Reach out if there’s anything I can do to help support your learner!
Yours,
Zack
Math Update
Over the past few weeks in math class we have been working on dividing fractions. Students have used many strategies to reason about these division problems: finding common denominators, asking questions, and drawing diagrams. We did a fun Scavenger Hunt in class to review for our upcoming quiz. Students haven’t yet connected it to the traditional algorithm that many of us were taught. We are starting out with the common denominator and tape diagram strategy to build conceptual understanding. We will continue working on fraction division and then move into fraction multiplication to find area and volume. Our next unit will be all about decimals.
To stay in tune with our work in Unit 4, please check out the Unit 4 Family Resource.
Thank you,
Ms. Palermo
Science Update
Hello!
Pop Quiz - What is the “powerhouse” of the cell? What about the “post office” of the cell?
In Science we have jumped headfirst into our Cell Museum Project! Students are working in small groups to learn about specific organelles (parts of the cell) and will work together to build a model of the organelle along with a display that will be shared with our school community!
Ask your sixth grader which organelle they are studying!
I am sharing a calendar of the project with weekly goals for student groups and due dates: http://bit.ly/organelleproject2024
Also, you can check in on our progress via the Cluster 1 Instagram!
Thanks!
Miss Daigneault
Social Studies Update
Unit 6.2 Western Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa
Essential Questions
Why do human communities create government and laws?
What common elements do religions share and how do their differences matter?
How is the physical environment connected to people and the way they live?
Enduring Understandings
Students will begin to understand that:
The predictability of the Nile’s floods, and the agricultural prosperity they brought, gave the Egyptian and (later) Nubian government a stability that was unusual in the ancient world; the pharaonic system in Egypt lasted over 2800 years. These features also contributed to a religious cosmology that emphasized Ma’at (order and justice) as the norm established by the gods, and eternal life as a possibility. Ma’at was an ideal that also structured families and social roles.
The earliest religions of Western Asia and North Africa were polytheistic, filled with deities inspired by nature and human nature. Men and women found a place for themselves within these religions as worshippers and priests/priestesses. Political and religious power were joined, with monarchs either seen as divine themselves or as semi-divine intermediaries with the gods; the authority of these theocratic rulers was absolute.
After the collapse of Bronze Age societies in the Western Mediterranean, the Phoenicians and later the Persians demonstrated that new models of governing could work: either a network of maritime city-states organized around trade, or a vast multi-ethnic empire that knit its territories together through civic and administrative innovations.
Learning Objectives:
I can assess the credibility of sources relating to the geography of the Nile River Valley in order to draw conclusions about how the Nile shaped life in Egypt and Nubia.
I can analyze the credibility of a source concerning the role of the pharaoh, and trace the ruler’s and others’ positions in the social hierarchy.
I can categorize Egypt’s gods and goddesses by function and decide which would be the relevant deity for solving various civic or personal challenges.
I can depict the practices and rituals that ancient Egyptians believed would secure an afterlife by creating illustrated summaries based on primary and secondary sources.
I can use evidence in primary sources to refute historical narratives about Nubia.
I can generate inquiry supporting questions for the Guiding Question “Were women powerful in ancient Egypt and Nubia?” and examine textual and visual sources to answer them.
I can use student-generated supporting questions and diverse evidence to answer the Guiding Question “Were women powerful in ancient Egypt and Nubia?”
I can use knowledge and evidence from sources to support, in debate-style, an assigned position on the question “Were women powerful in ancient Egypt and Nubia?”
I can explain the causes and effects of the Bronze Age Collapse using a secondary reading.
I can describe how the Phoenicians innovated in civic life and maritime trade.
I can analyze innovations in Persian government and civic life in order to argue their hierarchy of importance to the empire’s success.
Contact Us
Zack Allen - English - zachary.allen@watertown.k12.ma.us
Jessie Daigneault - Science - jessie.daigneault@watertown.k12.ma.us
Ann Palermo - Math - ann.palermo@watertown.k12.ma.us
Megan Lipson - Social Studies - donna.lipson@watertown.k12.ma.us
Jim Duffy - Special Education - james.duffy@watertown.k12.ma.us