Odyssey Observer
Odyssey Magnet - - Grades 2-5 - - Friday, Oct. 6, 2023
Odyssey Spirit Wear (Repeat Info) LAST CALL!!!
Tough Kid Challenge
Picture Day
PTO Sponsored Dinner for Conference Nights - Can You Help Out?
Here's the sign up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080C48A4AB2AA1F85-44796519-fall#/
Odyssey/Magellan Advisory Meeting
ADVISORY BOARD MEETING ON OCTOBER 25 AT HIGHLANDS LMC 6:00-7:00 pm
Agenda: presentations by grades ⅘, Exploratorium, schedule and girls’ day, PTA updates, fundraiser, high school TAG services, guidebook, parent volunteers.
Hot Lunch
Scholastic Book Fair
Pack 'n Snack
Student Spotlight
Balke's Homeroom - Eliijah
Beloved Foods: Burgers and Fries, Apples, Ice Cream Sundaes
Desired Free-Time Activities: Swinging, Computers, Hanging with Henry
Cherished School Subjects: ELA, Science, Math
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Programming
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human:I LOVE drawing
Blattner's Homeroom - Aiden
Beloved Foods: tacos, burgers, fish sticks
Desired Free-Time Activities: family games
Cherished School Subjects: math & reading
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: math
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: I can hold my breathe underwater for 12 seconds!
Tibbets's Homeroom - Lucy
Beloved Foods: Beans
Desired Free-Time Activities:Soccer, playing with Duke (puppy!)
Cherished School Subjects: Social Studies/ELA
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Bearded dragons
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: I can play multiple instruments and beat most people in a foot race!
Velpel's Homeroom - Elsbeth
Beloved Foods: Mac and cheese, ice cream, carrots, and pasta
Desired Free-Time Activities: Play with friends
Cherished School Subjects: Social studies, ELA, and Science
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: Llamas
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human:
Witzeling's Homeroom - McKenna
Beloved Foods: mac’n’cheese
Desired Free-Time Activities: sketch, paint, read
Cherished School Subjects: art and music
Self-Proclaimed Nerd About: space and giraffes
Something Unique or Awesome About This Human: I can imitate birds songs well and I’m pretty good at art and singing.
From Ms. Balke - Grades 2 and 3
Homeroom
CLASSLINK TOPS CELEBRATION: We reached from ceiling to floor this week with our CLASSLINK chain! We will be planning a class celebration for next Friday! More details to follow!
ORGANIZATION: Students are focusing on executive functioning skills as they learn to prepare for each class, transition between classrooms, and keep their materials organized.
ELA 2/3
READ ALOUD: Runaway Ralph, we are enjoying listening to Ralph’s next, great adventure!
THEME: Poetry ~ students are learning about the structure, elements, and types of poems.
Spelling: We continue to settle into a weekly spelling routine completing required and optional activities
Science 2/3
PERSONAL TIMELINE: Students are planning and creating their personal timeline.
STORYTELLING: Students will write a nonfiction story to compliment their timeline.
DAILY GAME SHOW: Every day, we start class with a game show which includes many interesting questions relating to science and social studies. Ask about what your child learned!
From Mrs. Blattner - Grades 2 and 3
Homeroom
This week we learned about Captain America. Our motto of the week is to “choose happy!”
Although we are often in the ‘green zone’ and ready to learn…we discussed how sometimes the blue zone distracts us with emotions.
CLASS LINK TOPS CELEBRATION: We reached from ceiling to floor this week with our CLASSLINK chain! We will be planning a class celebration for next Friday! More details to follow!
Math 2/3
MULTIPLICATION: we took a test on Thursday, there will be more multiplication in our 3rd unit
FRACTIONS (new unit next week!):
purple : this group will work on a basic understanding of fractions as numbers
Red: this group has a basic understanding of fractions, and will work through using fractions as numbers
blue: this group will expand their already solid understanding of fractions
yellow: this group will connect their fraction understanding to decimals
ELA 2/3
Read Aloud: Continued Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, inspiring writing through poetry
Poetry: types of poetry, characteristics of poetry, writing poetry, and enhancing our poetry
Spelling, handwriting and touch typing daily practice continues
Students read daily - they should always have a novel at school to read. We visit the school library each Tuesday afternoon.
From Mr. Ghiglieri - Social-Emotional Grade 2
From Madame Hooyman - Grade 3
From Mr. Tibbets - Grades 4 and 5
SEL
Discussion about enjoying the little things in life
Students filled out notecards about different topics they would like to see addressed during our SEL time. There were a LOT of good responses!
Social Studies
This week:
What is ‘Culture’? What do we value in our society
Students will begin to communicate what’s important to them. We will use this as a basis for our groups during the DIG project
Feedback on The Week, Jr. summary–all students received feedback on their first summaries. Our second summary will be even better!
Geography–Continents & Oceans; Physical landmarks of the world
Coming Up:
Culture, Society, and facets of civilization
DIG Project & Cultural Universals
What’s in the news?
Earth Science: (Tibbets homeroom)
This week:
Finished up sun, earth, and moon systems
Reviewed and assessed our learning
Coming Up:
Solar System overview
Creating the scale of the solar system outside!
Planets and their qualities
From Mrs. Velpel - Grades 4 and 5
SEL - Enjoy the Little Things
Enjoying the Little Things was the theme of the week.
We watched a Ted Talk about enjoying Rubik's Cubes.
We completed a pie chart about things we enjoy from different categories. This was fun!
We decorated our SEL journals.
We learned about some people that enjoy doing things for others because it makes them feel good.
ELA 4/5
- Students are working on their essays when we have extra time.
- Students worked on some vocabulary activities this week. These were pretty tough for some of us!
- Word of the Week: Garble - to confuse unintentionally. If you hear your child say this word (or a variation of this word), shoot me an email and I'll reward with a TOPS ticket!
Life Science (Velpel Homeroom)
- Presentations start next week! Students chose their own dates of presenting. Here's the presentation schedule if you need it.
From Ms. Witzeling - Grades 4 and 5
SEL with Owl Group
SEL - Theme: ”Enjoy the Little Things” and more of the “Kindness Project”
Math
KHIM Math 5 (Red group)
12 x 12 is a gross.
Finishing Unit 1 - Volume Test likely on Monday
Next Unit: Fractions is Quotients and Fraction Multiplication
KHIM Math 6+ (Silver & Owls)
Finishing Unit 6
https://im.kendallhunt.com/k5/families/grade-5/unit-6/family-materials.html
Next up: The first sixth grade book - Unit 1: Areas
Physical Science: (Witzeling Homeroom)
We have started on the force and energy part of our unit
Balanced and unbalanced forces
Next up: predicting motion, electric and magnetic forces
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 - Fun pens, scented colored pencils, fine line markers for writing!
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