March 7th Grade Newsletter
Language Arts
Students are currently reading a whole class novel by Mark Haddon, titled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. We will be exploring the concepts of narrator reliability and coming of age. We will also seek to understand others different from ourselves as we use literature as a vehicle for promoting empathy and understanding. Students need to continue keeping up with their Article of the Week (AOW) homework as we have had five this quarter, and continue working towards their AR/i-Ready goals by reading for 30 minutes each day at home. Some good questions to ask your student are: What makes a storyteller reliable? What topics from the story are challenging to you and why? What is autism and how do people with autism like to be treated?
Social Studies
Students wrapped up their Economic Happiness unit by comparing and contrasting governments and economic systems within countries in the Eastern Hemisphere. They looked at the Global Happiness Index as well as a number of other sources to infer what life looks like in different countries.
We will start our Silk Road unit next week and students will engage with primary and secondary sources to see what obstacles the travelers faced as well as how this network of trade routes helped change our world forever. Students will use their research using multiple sources in order to create an invention that would have helped the people during this time period. Students will create a sketch, sales pitch, and model of their invention.
If you have any extra art supplies including fabric, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, glue, straws, buttons, etc- please let me know. You can email me at e_occhiuto@dpsk12.net.
Math
Pre-Alegbra
Integrated I Math
Students are continuing their learning around systems of equations by expanding to graphing inequalities and solving systems of inequalities. The added layer for inequalities is that students need to shade above or below the line and determine if the line should be solid or dotted. Students will work to interpret features of the inequality to make these decisions. Students are also taking this learning about systems of equations and applying this to create a business plan to help them make decisions about prices, cost, income, and expenses.
Science
With our third unit, Human Biology, coming to a close (the Interim exam covering this unit will be held on March 4th and 5th - ask your student to review their study guide beforehand!), we will build upon what we’ve learned as we start Unit 4: Genetic and Heredity. We will cover a wide range of topics - from the structure and function of DNA to traditional Mendelian Genetics (remember punnett squares!?) and beyond!
Students will engage in hands-on lab investigations, including extracting DNA from a banana and measuring/analyzing data related to inherited traits. Near the end of this unit, students will learn about how genetic modification affects our world today (in the form of GMOs) and debate the ethics of using tools like CRISPr to modify future generations of humans.
If there are any parents out there whose careers are related to any of the topics (or genetics in general), we would love to feature you as a guest speaker to show how these topics connect to real-life professions. Please reach out to me (max_geimer@dpsk12.net) if you might be interested!