Team Kathmandu: Week 6
October 3, 2025
Save the Date!
Thursday, Oct. 9: Student Led Conferences*
Sign up with your child's ADVISORY teacher
Friday, Oct. 10: No School, Prof. Development Day for Teachers
Monday, Oct. 13: No School, Indigenous People's Day
Friday, Nov. 7: Picture Day Make-Ups
Learning Middle School Routines
We know that there is a lot of new skill building and adjustment from moving from elementary school routines to middle school routines—particularly in the area of time management. Often, the balance of homework, home life, and extra curricular is a struggle, which is completely normal. We recommend sitting with your student at the beginning of the week, or perhaps at the start of the weekend, to look ahead at what is coming up for the week in terms of homework and mapping it to personal and home obligations. Using the homework chart in this newsletter is a great start. While students do have time to work in academic advising it is often not enough time to complete the homework for each class or they may be pulled to do a make up assignment or a retake. Helping students to create a plan each week, for when they will be able to complete assignments, is often very comforting and helps students feel successful because they are able to complete assignments and not feel overwhelmed.
Geography with Ms. Trenkle
I am so, so proud of the community profile notes and community maps that students turned in this week! Wow! they are amazing! We then used these maps and notes, along with the DC thematic maps that we looked at in class, to start our community action letter (CAL). Students are writing their letter to a DC official in class. Students completed a brainstorm organizer and received feedback on their ideas. In Geography, we are specifically working on using detail to describe the issue and propose a reasonable solution. Students’ draft letters should have been completed by the end of class on Friday. If students didn’t complete it, they should complete it over the weekend. Students will type this letter, or handwrite neatly, in class on Monday, address their envelope on Tuesday and mail them to District officials on Wednesday! If students type it they must print it from home. If they are unable to print from home, they are welcome to hand write their letter. Students are asked to bring a business envelope and a stamp to mail their letters with on Wednesday. Due to the short week, there is no CEA the week of 10/6.
We will begin Unit 2: Sub Saharan Africa, on October 14.
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.
Amy Trenkle
Math with Mr. Brown
This week in Accelerated 6th Grade Math
This week, students worked on writing and solving division and multiplication equations from scenarios with mixed numbers and their real-world application. It is imperative that students continue to master and strengthen their basic multiplication facts. This week students will take their first RCT Assessment. 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. 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 various assessments, with a Summative Assessment (Tuesday) and a RCT Assessment (Wednesday/Thursday) on analyzing graphs, tables, equations, and word problems related to proportional relationships. Students this week will work on identifying the constant of proportionality to find the unit rate with fractions with a Formative Assessment on Wednesday. Please converse with students about the following terms and where they can be seen in their day-to-day lives: discount, markdown, mark-up, tips, commission, and sales tax. As we will be discussing percent, percent increase and decrease in upcoming lessons. 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. 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.
Thank you for your support.
-Mr. Brown
Science with Ms. Johnson
Hello Scientists!
Great job this week – I loved seeing you work hard on understanding plate boundaries, examining plate movement with milky ways, exploring wave motion, and more. Great work!
Next week is a short week, and students will be taking on an engineering challenge: designing a building that can withstand an earthquake! We’ll be using mini marshmallows and toothpicks as building materials, so we’re asking for donations of mini marshmallows. If you’re able, please send a bag of mini marshmallows with your student on Monday for our lesson.
We will wrap up the short week with Roots Quiz 1.6 on Wednesday 10/8, followed by the Amplify Critical Juncture assessment.
Looking ahead, our Term 1 Roots Summative will take place on Wednesday, October 15. This assessment will cover all root words learned so far. Please encourage your student to study over the long weekend! Blooket review links are posted on Canvas to help them prepare.
Root Words 1.6
Alp = mountain (think Alpine, The Alps)
Meta = after, beyond (think metacognition, metastasize)
Morph = shape, form (think metamorphic, morphology)
-ic = like, of (think artistic, scientific)
Sed = sit, settle, rest (think sedimentary, sedentary, sedate)
Keepers: uni, bi, tri, post, gen, poly, sub, hyper, pre, pyro, topo, seismo, petro, ign, super
Opportunities/Challenges
shanishka.johnson@k12.dc.gov
English Language Arts with Ms. Byrns
This week we spent a little time working on narrative writing. We focused on writing from a particular character’s point of view and incorporating dialogue. We also visited the school library where we met Mr. Reichlan, our school’s librarian, and had a chance to check out books.
Next week, we will read “Skitter Hitter” by Jason Reynolds. This story has two protagonists, and we will analyze how each character’s experiences influence how they treat others. We will explore character complexity and the ideas that people are multi-dimensional. By chance, this morning I listened to a podcast in which former Deal parent, Jordan Lloyd Bookey, talks with "Skitter Hitter" author Jason Reynolds. Many connections can be drawn between that conversation and the story we will be reading. And, I think parents can fully enjoy the episode even if your 6th grader isn't interested.
Students do not need to complete any Quill assignments during the short week. IF they have a WS for a past week of Quill, they are welcome to do those 3 lessons and let me know that they have made up that work (otherwise I won’t be checking the platform.) This might be a good time for them to work on their Term 1 Book project (see Canvas for more info.)
Our October reading focus is mystery and/or spooky stories. Students posted their October reading books on this padlet.
I look forward to meeting with many of you during Student Led Conferences. I hope you all enjoy the long weekend. I’ll be heading up to NYC with my 14-year-old to catch a couple shows and visit too many bookstores.
Katy Byrns
Math 6 Resource with Mr. Shufelt
This week we continued to review dividing fractions and mixed fractions. We practiced simplifying fractions by finding the Greatest Common Factor. We introduced word problems and practiced solving division and multiplication problems by identifying the dividend and divisor from the word problem.
As a reminder, all students have one iReady lesson due every Monday. Please reach out to me if there is any issue with students completing the iReady lessons at home. Pear assignments are given out on Mondays and Wednesdays and due Wednesday and Friday. Next week we will have student-led conferences on 10/09 as well as our first RCT (Required Curricular Task) on Tuesday and Wednesday which will cover Unit 3 on fractions as well as decimal addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
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.
Library Corner with Mr. Reichlan
Mr. Reichlen has created a new web collection of school and public library links to support the novel lists for independent reading texts from the CommonLit 360 ELA curriculum. Here students can find access points to all of the catalog records for recommended texts that support each of this year's unit themes organized by grade level and unit. Students can checkout and place items on hold. The collection will be updated throughout the school year to provide access to recommended titles as units change. See the link below for more information:
https://bit.ly/ADMSLibraryLibGuide_ELA_Resources
Stephen Reichlen
Library Media Specialist
Deal MS – DC Public Schools
