Cluster 1 Newsletter
For the upcoming week 9/27 - 10/1
Picture Day is Monday! Forms went home with students earlier this week.
Progress reports will go home on Thursday 10/7. The first round will be a sheet of paper sent home with the student, but future versions will be viewable online.
As a reminder, Watertown Middle School is closed Friday (10/8) and Monday (10/11). Have a nice long weekend!
Yours,
Cluster One
P.S. Please follow this link for the specialist newsletter for updates from Art, Phys. Ed, Health, Music and more: https://www.smore.com/tp4sx-specialists-teachers-weekly-update
ELA
This week in ELA, students began reading our first whole class novel, “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai. This is a novel written in verse and tells the story of a young girl who leaves Saigon during the Vietnam War and eventually resettles in the United States. We will be reading this book over the next few weeks, so be sure to ask your student about it and even read with them!
Students have been using Notice and Note close reading strategies to tackle a novel in verse, and how that differs from reading a traditional prose novel. Teachers have been impressed with the level of insight and discussion happening in English classes!
Math
This week in math, students continued to focus on finding the area of triangles and parallelograms, specifically finding the correct base and height of each shape. This culminated in a quiz today where they were able to show what they know! If students weren’t able to complete it in class, they will have a chance to finish it next week.
Starting Monday, we’ll be working on geometry in three dimensions. Students will be identifying prisms and pyramids and using different strategies to find the surface area of them.
Science
Egg Drop prep is in full swing! Students have been hard at work creating their projects and getting ready for drop day on Tuesday!
Next week we will continue our work on metric mass, while working towards combining mass and volume for some discussions of density.
Social Studies
This week, students in Social Studies class continued their study of Earth’s imaginary lines, and the globe project we use to apply what they have learned. Students worked on identifying the Equator and other lines of latitude, the Prime Meridian and other lines of longitude, and the hemispheres of the globe. We used coordinates to graph states, Texas and one mystery state! Ask your child what the mystery state was!
Next week, students will continue work on the globe project and refine their latitude and longitude identification and usage skills. This is all with the goal of beginning to graph continents using a set of coordinates.