Odyssey Observer
Odyssey Magnet - - Grades 2-5 - - Friday, Sept. 29, 2023
Updates
Getting in the Groove!
Odyssey Spirit Wear (Repeat Info)
Student Spotlight
Balke's Homeroom - Saoirse
Beloved Foods: Carrots, Homemade Mac and Cheese, Strawberry Yogurt
Desired Free-Time Activities: Read and Sleep
Cherished School Subjects: Math and ELA
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Math
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: I am extremely awesome at swimming
Blattner's Homeroom - J.D.
Beloved Foods: pancakes
Desired Free-Time Activities: sports
Cherished School Subjects: art
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: pickles?
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: In the summer I eat breakfast at 10:20+.
Tibbets's Homeroom - Edward
Beloved Foods: ALL foods, but mostly pizza.
Desired Free-Time Activities: Playing with friends; electronics
Cherished School Subjects: Recess and lunch!
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Geometry Dash
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: I’m tall
Velpel's Homeroom - Wesley
Beloved Foods: Pizza and quesadillas
Desired Free-Time Activities: Riding my bike, playing games
Cherished School Subjects: ELA and social studies
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Dogs
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: My mom said I was able to count to ten when I was two.
Witzeling's Homeroom - Chirag
Beloved Foods: pizza, Meethai (Indian sweets)
Desired Free-Time Activities: Playing video games, soccer
Cherished School Subjects: P.E. and ELA
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Soccer!
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: I can mostly only fall asleep on my left side. I have sat on the same seat on the bus all the time.
From Ms. Balke - Grades 2 and 3
Homeroom
Kiwanis Picnic: On Friday, we enjoyed some community building at Kiwanis Park which the kids earned with 500 community TOPS tickets.
AGENDAS: AWESOME work getting agendas signed! It;s so important for your child to tell you about their school day!
CLASSLINKS: Our chain is almost to the floor! That means we are all following expectations and doing our very best while at school!
ELA 2/3
Read Aloud: Love That Dog and other favorite poems by various authers
Spelling: We continue to learn the required and optional activities for daily spelling. We will begin personalized lessons next week.
Writing: Students have begun free-writing. This will be done daily and they can write about ANYTHING they want!
Science 2/3
ARTIFACTS: Thank you for sending artifacts! Students will use these to construct their timelines and for visuals when they do their presentations!
SCHOOL DAY TIMELINE: We practiced making timelines by creating a “School Day Timeline”. Be sure to look for it today when your child arrives home!
HISTORY OF ME TIMELINES: Next week, we will begin creating a timeline of our individual history from t=the time we were born to the present day.
From Mrs. Blattner - Grades 2 and 3
Homeroom
This week we learned about Batman.Our motto of the week is to “Believe In Yourself”!
Although we are often in the ‘green zone’ and ready to learn…we discussed how sometimes we lose control and find ourselves in the ‘red zone’.
We continue to work on using ‘square breathing’ and other calming techniques.
Math 2/3
MULTIPLICATION
Purple Group: representing multiplication with arrays, exploring situations that require division
Blue Group: exploring factors and multiples
Yellow Group: comparing different methods of multiplying 2-digit by 2-digit numbers
ELA 2/3
Read Aloud: Continued Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, inspiring writing through poetry
Poetry: analyzing poetry, types of poetry, characteristics of poetry, and writing our own poetry
Spelling: we each have personal spelling lists that we are working through
Handwriting and touch typing daily practice
From Mr. Ghiglieri - Social-Emotional Grade 2
From Madame Hooyman - Grade 3
From Mr. Tibbets - Grades 4 and 5
SEL
I’ve fielded a lot of questions about ‘why’ this week, so we’re discussing WHY we come to school
We do hard things so that we can be the people we WANT to be
Social Studies
This week:
Examining flawed thinking and corrected thinking as we explore the ‘Motel of Mysteries’
How do we look at artifacts
Partner presentations focused on artifacts from ‘Motel of Mysteries’
Monday presentations will focus on an analysis of a regular household object from the late 20th/early 21st century. How do we describe it?
Coming Up:
Culture, Society, and facets of civilization
Introduction to the DIG! Project
Earth Science: (Tibbets homeroom)
This week:
Solidified our thinking about the moon
Solar and lunar eclipses. How are they similar and how are they different?
Weight vs. Mass introduction
Gravity introduction; The moon and tides
Coming Up:
Gravity exploration–how much do we weigh on different planets?
Review for our first assessment
From Mrs. Velpel - Grades 4 and 5
SEL - Do Your Best
We cleaned our desks. We will do this twice a month.
We talked about doing your best, using the seven tips for doing your best (100% effort, try multiple times, self-reflect, ask advice, optimism, failing with dignity, project confidence).
Students learned about a boy that had to travel a long distance for school activities.
We learned about the beauty of hard work.
ELA 4/5
- Students chose a topic for their essay and made a subtopic plan of action. Some started writing their essays.
- We wrote about text to text connections.
- Next week we'll do some vocabulary work.
- Student reading logs should be added to daily (but only once on the weekends).
Life Science (Velpel Homeroom)
- We worked on our research question and gathering information about our topic of choice. This has been a great stretch for students to keep digging deeper on topics instead of just focusing on the surface level.
- Students worked on creating a slides presentation with limited words on it (so they are important as a presenter to give us the information instead of reading it). It would be awesome to ask your child to show you what they have so far!
From Ms. Witzeling - Grades 4 and 5
SEL with Owl Group
Homeroom - Desk cleaning this week.
SEL - this week’s theme ”Do Your Best” We have discussed this and also started watching videos from “The Kindness Project” to discuss
Math
KHIM Math 5 (Red group)
Reinforcing classroom expectations
More multiplication fact cards for “Halve and Double” or “Double and Halve”
Continuing Unit 1 - Volume expressions and then figures made of two or more prisms.
KHIM Math 6+ (Silver & Owls)
Reinforcing classroom expectations
Metric conversion quiz taken
Here’s an overview of Unit 6
https://im.kendallhunt.com/k5/families/grade-5/unit-6/family-materials.html
Next up: adding/subtracting fractions with unlike denominators
Physical Science: (Witzeling Homeroom)
Discussions:
Completed a quiz on sound, light, and waves.
Next up - forms of communication - some history & analog vs digital
From Madame DeJarlais - Grades 4 and 5
For more French fun, play Duolingo, a free app anyone can play on their Chromebook/phone.
Phy Ed with Mr. Verheyen
Grades 4 and 5 We Missed You page
Teacher Wish List
Balke - 🚫
Blattner - fidgets to share (any type)
Tibbets- 🚫
Velpel - 🚫
Witzeling - 🚫
Hooyman/DeJarlais - 🚫
Ghiglieri - 🚫
Odyssey Directory
Questions? Concerns?? Compliments???
Please email the appropriate person from this list of Odyssey team members; we'll get back to you!
Jean Balke - Grades 2 and 3: balkewolffjean@aasd.k12.wi.us
Jenni Blattner - Grades 2 and 3: blattnerjennif@aasd.k12.wi.us
Brian Tibbets - Grades 4 and 5: tibbetsbrian@aasd.k12.wi.us
Courtney Velpel - Grades 4 and 5: velpelcourtney@aasd.k12.wi.us
Dory Witzeling - Grades 4 and 5: witzelingdorot@aasd.k12.wi.us
Stephanie Hooyman - French 3: hooymanstephan@aasd.k12.wi.us
Krista DeJarlais - French 4 and 5: dejarlaiskrist@aasd.k12.wi.us
Nate Ghiglieri - SEL Grades 2: ghiglierinatha@aasd.k12.wi.us
Melissa Fields - Music: fieldsmelissa@aasd.k12.wi.us
Kadie Smith - Music: smithkadie@aasd.k12.wi.us
Erin Sjostrom - Art: sjostromerin@aasd.k12.wi.us
Bryce Verheyen - Phy Ed: verheyenbryce@aasd.k12.wi.us
Rachel Richards - Strings: richardsrachel@aasd.k12.wi.us
Matt DePietro - Band: dipietromatthe@aasd.k12.wi.us
Holly Goymerac - Secretary: goymeracholly@aasd.k12.wi.us
Jessica Nesemann - Secretary: nesemannjessic@aasd.k12.wi.us
Kari Krueger - Principal: kruegerkari@aasd.k12.wi.us
David Nitka - Associate Principal: nitkadavid@aasd.k12.wi.us
Going Out of Town?
Upcoming Events at Highlands/Odyssey!
October
7 - Tough Kid Challenge - Field - Runs all day
9 - PTO Meeting - LMC 3:45-4:45 pm
10-20 - Book Fair
17 - Picture Day/Vision Screening
17 - Parent/Teacher Conferences 4:00-7:30 pm
19 - Parent/Teacher Conferences 4:00-7:15 pm
25 - Ody/Mag Advisory Committee 6:00 - Hig/Ody LMC
27 - No School
November
6- PTO Meeting - LMC 6:00 -7:00 pm
16- Picture Retakes
22-27 No School
December
11 - Odyssey Open House 6:00-6:45 pm
22-29 - No School - Winter Break
January
1 - No School (Last day of Winter Break)
8 - PTO Meeting - LMC 3:30-4:30 pm
15 - No School
22 - No School
26 - Family Movie Night 6:00 pm doors open, movie starts at 6:30 pm
February
5 - PTO Meeting - LMC 6:00-7:00 pm
8 - Odyssey 4/5 Music Concert - Gym 2:45-3:15 pm
13 - Parent/Teacher Conferences 4:00-7:30 pm
15 - Parent/Teacher Conferences 4:00-7:15 pm
19 - No School
21 - Ody/Mag Advisory Committee 6:00 - Hig/Ody LMC
29 - Odyssey 2/3 Music Concert - Gym 2:45-3:15 pm
March
11 - PTO Meeting - LMC 3:45-4:45 pm
20 - Strings/Band Concert - Gym Time TBD
22-29 - No School - Spring Break
April
1 - No School
4 - Odyssey Interim Showcase - 6:00-7:00 pm
8 - PTO Meeting - LMC 6:00-7:00 pm
10 - Ody/Mag Advisory Committee 6:00 - Mrs. Cash's room
18 - Goodies with Grown Ups - Gym 7:00-8:30 am
May
6 - PTO Meeting - LMC 3:45-4:45 pm
7- Odyssey Skate Party - Skate City 5:30-7:30 pm
16 - Fun Run 4:30-6:00 pm
24 - No School
27 - No School
June
5 - Odyssey 5th Grade Farewell - Kiwanis Park 5:00-6:30 pm
6 - Field Day/School Picnic/Kona Ice Day
7 - Last Day of School - dismissal at 11:27 am
Odyssey Magnet School
Odyssey-Magellan Magnet School provides learners that are highly gifted with a challenging study of math, science, communication arts, social studies, and foreign language in a stimulating classroom environment, with experienced and dedicated teachers.
Students in grades 2 through 5 attend school on the Odyssey campus located at Highlands Elementary School. Students in grades 6 through 8 attend school on the Magellan campus located at Wilson Middle School.
Email: velpelcourtney@aasd.k12.wi.us
Website: om.aasd.k12.wi.us
Location: 2037 North Elinor Street, Appleton, WI, USA
Phone: (920) 832-6250
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OMMagnetSchool