The Pike Road Bulletin
Community 7 - January 4-15
Letter to Our Patriot Parents
Happy New Year to you and your families.
We will continue to use Remind101 to send text notifications and reminders. (You may sign up for text or email reminders by texting 81010 with the message @prsC7 or by emailing prsC7@mail.remind.com.)
Community 7 Lead Learners
Instructional Tools
Edmodo is our learning management system where assignments are posted. Here, you will see assignments, due dates, late notifications, tutorial and resource links.
Parents may access this through a unique code found on your student's edmodo home page. Signing up is easy-just go to www.edmodo.com, sign up as parent, enter your access code and fill in the required information.
Google Drive
This is where our learners submit their work. Each learner has created a shared folder for each Lead Learner where they upload or create their work to be assessed.
Learners receive feedback here, collaborate with peers, and create much of their work in Google Drive.
Ask your learner to open their Google Drive and share what they are working on!
Click here for a basic overview of how Google Drive works.
Composition Notebooks
While our learners have laptops, we continue to use Composition notebooks for notes, assignments, practice work, lab work and journaling.
Please make sure your child has a composition notebook for their respective classes.
Components of Our Day
8:00-1:00 (Lunch included)
90 min Science and Lab90 min Math
90 min ELA and Integrated History/ELA
1:00-2:00
Project Time - We will explore "How Does Culture Influence Who We Are?"
2:00 - 2:50
PE (some activities are ongoing during this time such as Band, PE, Music, Art and Drama)
Please note: Literacy and Writing Skills are integrated daily into each content area.
FreshGrade: Reporting and Communicating your child's Progress
FreshGrade is the reporting tool used to communicate what skills are being introduced and how our learners are performing on these skills. We are diligently working to improve the quality and efficiency of FreshGrade in order to ensure that you are provided with a clear and accurate view of what your child is learning. On Wednesday, we will upload into the Resource folder a list of skills that we will be working on for the remainder of this semester.
We will assess students based on their knowledge and application of skills and concepts through various methods and activities. We will then provide a level of progress towards meeting that standard. Lead Learners will upload some of their work as evidence to support the skill they were assessed on.
While learners may not have formal homework assignments, they are encouraged each day to identify a skill that "has not met expectation" and review the learning notes, tutorials, and practice activity. Additionally, we provide time for learners to complete all activities; there may be times when your child may need to continue working on it at home.
You and your learners have the ability to comment and send feedback to each skill. In most cases, the lead learner's name is listed in the top left corner of the skill. Learners also have the ability to upload additional work samples as evidence to show their growth with any particular skill.
As always, if you have a specific question about the level of achievement your student has, and need to communicate beyond FreshGrade, please email us.
Below are some informational links that may be of assistance:
Have several children at PRS? How to add multiple portfolios.
..........Learning Objectives..........
MS. AUSTIN
I will be working with C7 only from this point on, facilitating ELA and History coursework in the morning and interdisciplinary project time in the afternoon.
We will begin our study of geographical concepts, such as spatial perspective, map skills, understanding culture and its influence, population and migration patterns, and the importance of geography in our daily lives.
We will continue our studies with a focus on man and our relationship with nature, a complex but interesting relationship. We will examine natural resources, weather patterns, disease, etc. We will then look at population density, migration, birth and death rates.
We will be reading and writing daily, and each learner needs to have a separate notebook for ELA/History class. We will work on improving our writing, focusing on feedback (peer and lead learner) and revision. Please encourage your learners to READ more! Reading is the best way to improve fluency, vocabulary, thinking skills, increase imagination, comprehension, improve writing, and it’s just fun to get lost in another world. You know your children’s passions better than anyone, so help them find something they would be interested in. See the link below for tips on increasing reading at home!
Ms. Crowe
Life Science
Introduction to Ecology
As we start off our second semester, we will begin our discussion of ecology. During this unit, we will look at the interactions between organisms and their environment. We will discuss the social, economic, and aesthetic benefits of the various ecosystems of the world. In order to do this, we will build ecosystems using various materials. Students will then share with each other the various benefits of these ecosystems.
Mr. VanEgmond
Math 7:
Only a few of us got to start working on our "What if our class was the country of _______?" project at the end of 2015, exploring how the statistics of other countries would apply to our population using proportional relationships and percentages. We'll kick off 2016 collectively working towards making this application and sharing what we learn with each other through some class presentations.
Math 8:
Tying into the exploration of statistics of other countries, learners will find relationships in data and graphs that will provide an avenue to calculate rate of change/slope in those contexts. This will be a platform for us to construct equations that represent these graphs/relationships.
Solving Equations
Indirect Measurement
Indirect Meausrement
..........................................Recognitions........................................
----------------------------------------Announcements--------------------------------------
ASF Cinderella Performance Field Trip- January 28
Junior Youth Legislature
FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2016
ALABAMA STATE CAPITOL AUDITORIUM
The Alabama YMCA Junior Youth Legislature is in its 26th year and it is designed specifically for Jr. High students who show an interest in the government process. It is designed to prepare a selected group of young people for moral and political leadership in the American Democratic Process by providing guidance, training and experience in the theory and practice of determining public policy. It also provides a fellowship that makes for an understanding of other people’s problems, to help accept defeat without discouragement and to stimulate tolerance towards another’s point of view.
During this event, students from throughout Alabama will have hands on experience with writing and debating bills. They will have workshops on parliamentary procedure and how to write a bill so the mock sessions will be a model legislative program.
If you child is interested, please bring send registration form and money ASAP. The registration fee increases after December 16th.
P.O.P Pursue Our Passions
On every other Thursday, Community 7-8 have their "POP" Day. This is otherwise named "Pursue our Passions Day". It gives learners an opportunity to pursue their passions as well as explore other interests!
Thank you to our Volunteers and parents who have consistently made themselves available to make this a success for our learners. We are always in need of volunteers and encourage you to volunteer your time to help introduce learners to a passion that they may not otherwise know they have. We are just as excited to have volunteers to come and assist us with monitoring and supervising.
Volunteer Opportunities
POP Days have provided amazing opportunities for our learners thus far, but we are always looking for more volunteers to bring their expertise in. Please let us know if you want to come share a passion or profession with our learners! You can email Mrs. Dean mailto:robin.dean@pikeroadschools.org if you are able to volunteer any of your time to assist with our P.O.P Days.
Community Wishlist
Scrap electronics
Storage boxes or storage drawers
Chart paper
Putter golf clubs and Golf balls
Market Totes to house and carry books from space to space
Books for choice reading
Glue-elmers, hot glue sticks (small and large thickness), tape
Hot glue guns
Acrylic paint
Paintbrushes-all sizes
Contact Information
mailto:brittany.austin@pikeroadschools.org
mailto:danielle.crowe@pikeroadschools.org