Team Kathmandu: Week 13
November 21, 2025
Save the Date!
🍁Wednesday, Nov. 26-30: No School, Thanksgiving Break
🥳Tuesday, Dec. 2: Team Kathmandu Term 1 Celebration (Rescheduled)
🌟Tuesday, Dec. 9: 3 Religions Field Trip
⛄Dec. 22-Jan. 2: No School, Winter Break
Geography with Ms. Trenkle
This week in Geography we worked on our MENA map skills and vocabulary. We studied political, physical, and thematic maps, and reviewed them together and through a Blooket. Students will take their quiz on Monday (I felt another day was needed for students to study). On Tuesday of next week, we will be watching a Discovery Atlas video on Egypt and taking notes.
This week students each set one goal for Geography class to work on between now and winter break. Please check in with your student to find out what their goal is. I personally met with each student and am proud of their own reflections and goal setting.
Students should have turned in permission slips for our Three Religions Trip. Please have these turned in ASAP. No money is required for this field trip.
There will be no CEA next week due to the short schedule.
The week after Thanksgiving, we will dive into our Three Religions portion of the unit. Students will spend the week after Thanksgiving, learning vocabulary, and the history and basic tenants of the three Abrahamic Religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, through a secondary source reading and capturing notes in a graphic organizer (formative).
Congratulations to periods 1 and 4 who earned their incentives and voted to both have a candy salad party. We will have the candy salad parties on Tuesday in class—students may bring a bag of candy to contribute and leave it in their locker until Geography class.
Thank you for the awesome postcards—both virtual and via snail mail! We are continuing to read them and post them on our map! So fun and impressive! Thank you for sharing the project with your family and friends, and bringing the world to us!
Be sure to check out our GeoNewsletter, written by our own GeoScribes! Follow along and see the class through your students’ eyes! https://secure.smore.com/n/nbc3t
On Orientation Day students shared a song they would like to add to our class playlist. This Spotify playlist can be found here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7nWMWui4YoJ5WUxe9zqWIY?si=hV7LhQaNSu2SzPI6k58-QQ
A final request—if you, or anyone you know is traveling, and can send a postcard to our class, or post a picture with description from their travels, it would be greatly appreciated! Please see the adjoining flyer.
Pictures that are on our Kathmandu Can Do Attitude board can also be found here:
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B1gGmitydG4Qz1l I will continue to add pics to it throughout the year!
Amy Trenkle
Math with Mr. Brown
This week in Accelerated 6th Grade Math
This week calculated percent using the proportional method. This week students will participate in an RCT Assessment on Ratios and Percentage. Please discuss with your child where calculating percentages appear in the real world (shopping etc). Students should take advantage of iRecess (a quiet space to work and get help during recess MWF), our Virtual Classroom (www.framevr.io/brownmath after school help available upon request), and our Parking Lot (an in class means to submit requests, reminders, and questions) which are amongst various resources available to students outside of their normal class periods (and Advisory) to help towards success. Students should see me about any makeup opportunities. Resources available from Illustrative Mathematics to assist families with the curriculum we are following can be found at https://im.kendallhunt.com/MS/index.html.
This week in 7th Grade
This week students worked on looking at creating scale drawings and using scale drawings to analyze maps as well as on measuring circles. Students this week will continiue working on measuring and calculating circumference and area of circles and shapes containing circles. Please encourage your child to take advantage of iRecess (a quiet space to work and get help during recess MWF), our Virtual Classroom (www.framevr.io/brownmath after school help available upon request), and our Parking Lot (an in class means to submit requests, reminders, and questions) and all resources available to students outside of their normal class periods to help towards success. Students should see me about any makeup opportunities. Resources available from Illustrative Mathematics to assist families with the curriculum we are following can be found at https://im.kendallhunt.com/MS/index.html.
WEEKLY PARENT MEET UP
Every Monday I will be in the Virtual classroom (link above) from 3:30 to 4:30 for any parent who would like to discuss their child's progress.
Thank you for your support
-Mr. Brown marcus.brown@k12.dc.gov
Science with Ms. Johnson
Hello Scientists!
Great job with all of the labs over the past week. We learned about how to create and follow a scientific procedure using playdough. We then followed a procedure to translate a three-dimensional playdough mountain into a two-dimensional topographic map. We wrapped up the week with some fun review activities and our Unit 2 Rock Transformation Summative.
Next week is a short week; Students will be completing their Amplify post test and Roots Quiz 2.3. We will wrap up with a movie before sending everyone off for break!
The week after the break, we will start Unit 3, called Space Systems and Cycles. For this unit, we will have our Amplify pre-unit assessment.
shanishka.johnson@k12.dc.gov
English Language Arts with Ms. Byrns
Thank you to those who added to our “What is Team Kathmandu Reading?” Padlet. To see this digital bulletin board or add your own post/comment, click here. Note that you won’t immediately see your post because I have to approve each post or comment first (hence the board isn’t covered in 6-7).
This week students did a ton of reading. Not only did we read a long article about Sidney Crosby, as well as a shorter one about Carol Dweck’s research on Growth Mindset, but students selected 2-3 additional texts to read as they added to their notes on “ingredients to success.”
We were originally going to have the second unit test, a summative, this week. But I pushed it to after the Thanksgiving Break so that I would have more time to meet with students 1:1 to go over their writing from the first unit test. You can now see that work in Class Notebook and the scores in Aspen. They are making such huge improvements in their writing!
In our two-day week, students will take a vocabulary test and complete a “Related Media” assignment to fill out their graphic organizers for this unit (also on Class Notebook).
When we return from break, we will do some writing review, take the Unit 2 Skills Test 2 (summative) and have a class discussion. Some of the questions we will discuss are below. Feel free to discuss any of these topics at home. Have a great mini-break!
In your opinion, what is the most important ingredient to success?
What does it mean to be successful?
Which of these stories/articles was most inspirational? Why?
A few of the people we have learned about have reputations for being unkind or not particularly caring individuals. Do you think being caring gets in the way of success? Why or why not? Does this change your view of success?
Katy Byrns
Math 6 Resource with Mr. Shufelt
This week in Math we continued to practice finding equivalent ratios using ratio tables. We also practiced Unit Rates and Unit Price. We introduced the Proportional Method for solving problems with percentages. Next week we will continue practicing percentage problems. Once students come back from the break, they will have a Summative Assessment (RCT) on Monday and Tuesday, 12/1 and 12/2.
As a reminder, all students have one iReady lesson due every Monday. By 11/24 students should have passed 12 total iReady lessons. By 12/1 students should have passed 13 total iReady lessons. Please reach out to me if there is any issue with students completing the iReady lessons at home; students always have the opportunity to work on iReady during their recess. Pear assignments are opened on Mondays and Wednesdays and due Wednesday and Friday.
Please note that I’ve also uploaded a document for all the notes for our first unit to the class Canvas page and I will continue to periodically upload future notes as we progress.
Save the Date: International Night
January 25th
6pm – 8pm
Students and families from all grades are welcome and encouraged to join us for International Night!
This time-honored Alice Deal event brings together the Alice Deal community as we celebrate the many cultures and nations represented among our student body. The event includes "Taste of the Nation" tables where families share sample size offerings of foods from around the world. Please sign up as a host Deal International Night Volunteer Host Tables
Wear your dancing shoes - we will have a DJ! And of course, Deal merch will be on sale.
Join us for this festive night of celebration! Buy your tickets here https://DealInternation.givesmart.com
****International Night is our number one fundraiser for important scholarship dollars for the upcoming 8th grade foreign language trips!
Questions: shannonharrisbehm@hotmail.com
Holiday Market Looking for Student Entrepreneurs
Are you ready to shine?
Show off your creativity, talent, and entrepreneurial spirit at the Deal Holiday Outdoor Market – Student Entrepreneur Fair on Saturday, December 6, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM at Alice Deal Middle School.
If you’re a student entrepreneur selling your creations — or if you’d like to share a performance (such as singing, playing an instrument, or another talent) — we’d love for you to participate! Please note that both the market and any performances will take place outdoors, and all Deal students are welcome to apply.
To apply, please click on the student application form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uQiUxnjtI-w1jRVLefDxSypw1QmBejNDbGVRd8OIFQ8/preview
Questions? Please contact lead Virginia Arrisueno, at virginiaarrisueno@gmail.com
Library Corner with Mr. Reichlan
Please help us with our Battle of the Books Wishlist at Politics and Prose!
This wishlist is to support the Battle of the Books competition and reading initiative at Deal MS for school year 2025-26.
The goal is to purchase 20 copies of the books for the school and encourage families to purchase additional copies for individual use. Battle of the Books is a great way to encourage our students to read award-winning books and test their knowledge in a friendly competition with their peers! We hope to have both a schoolwide competition with teams from each grade competing to determine which students will advance to the district wide competition. You can learn more about the district competition here:
https://dcla.org/DCLA-Battle-of-the-Books
Learn about the great things happening this month at Deal's library. Check out great books and media, read about events at Deal and around the city, and
stay connected with Deal's Library:
Https://secure.smore.com/n/z01ut
Thanks,
Stephen Reichlen
Library Media Specialist
Deal MS – DC Public Schools
Deal Clubs
Is your child looking to meet some new friends? Or maybe they just want to join an afterschool activity. You can find the current list of Deal Clubs in the document below.
Attendance
Beginning this year, families are required to submit excuse notes for students in Aspen GO—the mobile-friendly version of Aspen Parent Portal. The previously existing online system we used has been disabled.
Instructions on how to submit an excuse note are available below.
Submitting an Excuse Note in Aspen GO (Parent Portal).pdf - 443.2 KB (pdf)
Envío de una nota justificativa en Aspen GO (Portal para padres).pdf - 543.4 KB (pdf)
Soumettre une note d'excuse dans Aspen GO (portail parents).pdf - 489.0 KB (pdf)
በ‘Aspen GO’ (የወላጅ ፖርታልParent Portal) ላይ፣ ፈቃድ-ማግኛ ማስታወሻ (Excuse Note)ን ማስገባት.pdf - 504.7 KB (pdf)
在 Aspen GO（家长门户）中提交请假条.pdf - 507.6 KB (pdf)
Nộp Giấy Xin Phép Nghỉ học Trên Aspen GO (Cổng Thông Tin Phụ Huynh).pdf - 315.5 KB (pdf)
Additional information on how to use the Parent Portal can be found at dcps.dc.gov/page/parent-portal.
