Communication Development Program
October 14, 2016
Upcoming Events and Reminders
- Wednesday October 19 (5 to 8), Thursday October 20 (12 to 8 with a teacher dinner break from 4 to 5) and Friday October 21 (8 - 11): Student Led Conferences. Your child is the rockstar in this meeting, so please remember to bring them along WITH their Chromebook. Our room will be open during all conference times other than our dinner break, so please come at your convenience. SPECIAL NOTE: On Wednesday from 7:00 - 8:00 the team has a meeting scheduled. The classroom will be open for you and your child; however, staff will not be available during this time. Sorry for the inconvenience.
- Wednesday, October 19: Early Release Day (1:00)
- Students will be coming home with a permission slip to see Life Of Pi during read aloud to support our Island Trilogy. Please sign and have them return on Monday.
This Week Happenings
Language Arts/Social Studies
- Our 6th and 8th grade students finished reading the Island trilogy this week with our 7th graders almost complete. There was some great discussion on the theme's of survival and teamwork during our reading.
- Students finished the World War 1 unit with a writing assignment about all they have learned. Ask about their "green screen" pictures.
- Students completed an assessment to show how well they were able to take a reading passage and find evidence within the text. This is a skill we have been working on during reading groups.
Math
This week students all learned the rules to add and subtract positive and negative integers. They used positive and negative chips to help them as well as the song Row, Row, Row, Your Boat. Which goes a little something like this:
- Same sign Add and Keep
- Different Sign Subtract
- Keep the Sign of the Larger Number
- Then You'll Be Exact
Students also took notes in their journal for both adding and subtracting. They all realized that when we subtract all we have to do is change the addition to a subtraction and then change the sign of the next number. We are continuing to look at ways we use negative and positive integers in the real world.
Science
Matter matters! We began our exploration of matter this week. We learned that to be matter, something must have mass (the stuff something is made with) and volume (how much space something takes up). Students measured the mass of a deflated and inflated balloon to prove that air is matter since it has both mass and volume. The week was wrapped up with students combining Science and Language Arts to create Matter Matters booklets that provided practice with writing complete sentences with correct grammar, punctuation and specific adjectives.
Speech
What's the cause? What 's the effect? Those were the questions we asked ourselves this week. We practiced identifying cause and effect in various scenarios and then came up with real life situations of our own. The students wrote about their own cause and effect life experiences, and then transferred them to an ice cream project to be displayed in the classroom. We also listened to a short auditory story and wrote a picture story to retell it.
Mrs. Kearns and Ms. Logan
We had a great week for social group! Our 6th graders worked on "Respectful Disagreement Skills". We worked on staying calm, explaining our point of view, listening to someone else's point of view, and acting nonjudgementally. Our 7/8th grade social group worked on how to to communicate when you are upset. I love this fall weather! Get outside and do something active with your families! Have fun!