GCIS Weekly News 5/12/17
Weekly Celebrations, Successes, and Up Coming Events!
We're not here to be average; We're here to be AWESOME!
Staff Appreciation Week!
Office News
Color-A-Thon is just around the corner! We are so excited to host our color-a-thon again this year on Friday, May 19th! Click here to sign-up and learn more about it! Packets are now due to the GCIS office! Please make sure that your student turns in their packet ASAP! You can still get donations online!
Registration at 9:30 am
Race starts at GCIS at 10:00 am
DJ, Activities, and Grilled Lunch at Grand Junction Track to follow race.
Adult Lunch is $3.45
If you have questions in regard to this event, please call our office @ 515-738-5721.
F & P testing is coming up! We will be testing our students on the following dates:
-4th grade - May 15th
-5th grade - May 16th
-6th grade - May 18th
Please remind your students that they may want to continue to bring a sweatshirt for the morning as it is usually chilly first thing. Our expectation is that students stand outside until 8:15 when the morning bell rings. (Unless they are eating breakfast).
COLOR RUN
Click here to sign-up and learn more about it!
If you have questions in regard to this event, please call our office @ 515-738-5721.
GCIS COLOR RUN is Scheduled for FRIDAY MAY 19th!
Rain Date is set for Monday May 22nd!
Add it to the Calendar!
Friday May 19th: Color Run Grand Junction
- Rain Date: Monday May 22nd Grand Junction
5th grade Trip to Living History Farms
- Friday May 26th
No School Monday May 29th
Last Day: Friday June 2nd
- (No Lunch Served)
- GCIS students dismiss at 11:30 am
Color Run Details
Run is at 10:00am
Activities, DJ, and Grilled Lunch at Track at conclusion of the race/walk.
Last Day
We will be dismissing from GJ at 11:30am
No School Lunch Served that day!
4th Grade Happenings!
Science- This week we are zooming into balloon powered cars. We are learning the vocabulary- chassis, axle, air resistance, bearings, accelerated force, friction and inertia. The students have been totally engaged in constructing and testing their vehicles.
Reading/Social Studies- We are continuing myths. We are learning allusions and theme through the myths.
Math- We have started Unit 5 which starts us out adding fractions and leads us into adding mixed numbers with like denominators. Many of us have passed all the levels of our multiplication testing. We see ice cream sundaes in our future for passing our facts with factors times 12.
5th Grade Happenings!
Lit./SS: In reading, we are wrapping up our unit on point of view. Students are now able to describe how a narrator’s point of view influences how events are described in a text. Next week we will begin our poetry unit. Students will learn ten different styles of poetry and work on writing some of their own pieces. In social studies, we will be continuing to learn about how early European explorers have impacted our U.S. history.
Math: We just started new unit dealing with decimals and exponents. Yee Haw
Science: We have been talking about the need to conserve water this week. There is an assignment due Tues., May 2nd showing how each student tried to conserve water at home. We are also learning where the oceans of the world are and how currents move. There will be a quiz on Monday where students will be labeling the oceans on a map needing proper spelling and capitalization
6th Grade Happenings!
In math, students are presenting their car projects.
In science, students are working on redesigning the human body to make it better.
In reading, we are working on our economics unit. Students get money for being good and lose money for misbehaving. Keep reading 20 minutes every night at home.
Special Education News!
4th reading students are studying about Medusa in their mythology unit.
5th reading students are still learning about poetry.
5th grade math students found out the volume of the Willis tower in Chicago.
6th grade students had an awesome day at outdoor classroom.Title News-Mrs. Hoffman
Patience was learned……...mostly. The students that decided on a class rug changed their mind and wanted to take a piece home with them to keep so I ended up cutting the rug into 25 squares and the students got to pick the piece they wanted to continue to work on. There are many steps to felting so you will have to ask your child how they made it. I had to chuckle when one of the students asked how many animals had to die to get the wool. I told them that a person shears the wool off at least once a year and the llamas, alpacas, and sheep love it! It’s like getting a haircut. I have included a few pictures to show what we did.
Band News
Congratulations on an awesome concert! I was very proud of everyone because you all tried hard and brought your “A” game.
I will also be handing out a summer lesson sign up after the concert so we can get that squared away.
4th grade instrument testing will start next week beginning on Monday.
Art
6th graders are doing an optical illusion that makes it look like a tunnel going back into a hole. They are learning about gradation, color changing from light to dark or from one color to another.
5th graders are learning how to make different fonts of graffiti type. They get to pick a 4-6 letter word that inspires them and then they are going to make it in graffiti type. Then they are also coloring them with gradation.
4th graders are learning Gyotaku… the Japanese art of fish printing! They get to choose the fish they want to print, figure out where it’s habitat would be (ocean, river, lake) and then they paint a background for their fish to look like it’s habitat. Then we get to paint the fish and print it onto their background! Cool!
T.A.G.
4th grade TAG students made a spin art machine! They had to learn about centrifugal force and how it pulls the paint to the outside.
5th grade and 6th Grade TAG students participated in the America Answers Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl. It is an online competition against other teams from across America!!! (The quiz bowl that we did in the fall was just competing against other teams from Iowa.) The 5th grade got a 79%, which is about a C+ grade. The 6th graders received an 82% score, which is about a B-. where they rank against the other teams across America!
Counseling News
Tenacity and Determination are May’s Words of the Month. Let’s finish the school year with tenacity to learn and determination to reach our learning goals!
Keep a Growth Mindset as we approach the end of the school year. When learning new becomes more difficult, we might need to ask for help or try a new approach to the lesson. People who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset.
They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts).
This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning. This brief video further describes the growth mindset: https://youtu.be/ElVUqv0v1EE
Nurse News!
I wanted to share this video from Eric Paredes Save A Life Foundation. A Parent's Guide to Sudden Cardiac Arrest