Team Antananarivo
Friday, September 11th
English and Language Arts with Mr. Winston
This week in English class, we continued exploring Unit 1, “Characters Who Grow and Change,” by completing our next two fictional readings: Home by Hena Khan and The Scholarship Jacket by Marta Salinas. Through each text, scholars analyzed how the protagonist, or main character, changed as a result of interactions with secondary characters. Scholars concluded the week with a writing lesson focused on how to effectively structure and write a CER paragraph using a claim, evidence, and reasoning.
We’ll begin next week with our first vocabulary quiz of the year. For reference, the vocabulary terms and their meanings are listed below:
Burden: something heavy and hard to carry; a difficult responsibility
Despair: the feeling of having no hope
Dignity: the quality of being worthy of honor and respect
Reluctant: hesitant or unwilling to do something
Reputation: the way people think about someone or something
Trait: a quality or characteristic that makes someone or something distinct
Transform: to change completely
After the vocabulary quiz, we’ll begin reading the next selection in our unit, Thrown by Mike Jung. With this story, scholars will track how the protagonist changes through conflict and dialogue. We’ll conclude the week with our first Unit Skills Assessment of the year. Unit Skills Assessments include two components: multiple-choice questions and a short-response question. Scholars will complete the assessment over the course of two class periods.
Lastly, please ensure that your scholar reads for at least 20 minutes each night. Consistent reading outside of class helps students build stamina, strengthen comprehension, expand their vocabulary, and grow into more confident, independent readers.
World Geography and Cultures with Ms. Wesselhoft
This week, students learned key map vocabulary, identified different types of maps, and began applying their knowledge of the 5 parts of a map.
Next week, we will continue practicing, reviewing, and applying these skills. Students will have multiple opportunities to practice in class, as well as nightly practice to reinforce what we are learning. Please encourage students to complete their nightly practice and ask questions about any skills they are still working to master.
We plan to end the week with our first summative assessment, which will focus on students’ ability to:
Identify the continents and oceans
Understand and use key map vocabulary
Recognize and interpret different types of maps
Apply their knowledge of the 5 parts of a map
Math with Mr. Ledix
We’ve had a great week in Math after testing! At this point, 99% of students have finished the Beginning-of-Year iReady diagnostic on their school-issued devices. This important assessment helps us determine appropriate class placements to best support each learner. Most students have been given their iReady diagnostic reports to take home to review with parents. If they do not have it, they should check their Math mailbox in Mr. Ledix's class, for their report.
Students have begun receiving math homework on Pear, accessible via Clever. They should have also begun their “My Path” on i-Ready. Students are responsible for at least one graded lesson a week on i-Ready—although it has been clearly communicated that at least two per week is required if we’d like to reach more “advanced” levels of math understanding. If your child needs help accessing Pear or i-Ready, they are welcome to visit me during recess for support. We appreciate your patience as teachers carefully review the data to make thoughtful decisions.
Earth and Space Science with Ms. Sagan
Hello Scientists! Congrats on finishing another busy (but short) week! This week, students were introduced to the scientific method and took a pre-test to see where their current understanding is. We also worked on our observation and inference skills, which led us into discussions of independent and dependent variables.
Next week, we will continue our exploration of the scientific method by completing the Hypothesis Exit Ticket formative and by completing our first big lab – the Slime Lab. During the slime lab, students will test how a single independent variable (ingredient or process that they change) affects multiple dependent variables (things that they measure, such as consistency, stretch, and more). This lab will reinforce to students that their experiments throughout science (until very high levels) should only ever have 1 independent variable being altered at a time, while keeping the other variables constant. This allows the students as scientists to more precisely identify cause and effect!
Alice Deal Middle School
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