You’ve probably all experienced a team getting better over time and a team getting worse or even falling apart. In middle school classrooms, we have been working on making our teams strong to help us gain strength as the school year progresses. We have brainstormed about cliques, troubleshot disagreements, and even made percussion harmonies with body drumming to synchronize through sound. Your sons and daughters have worked hard…GOOOOOO TEAM!

What’s going on in Math?

Did you know that “every time a student makes a mistake in math, they grow a synapse?” Research shows that mistakes generate stronger brain signals than correct answers and this leads to brain growth. -Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students’ Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching by Jo Boaler. We discussed the importance of making mistakes, and learning from them! It’s important for mathematicians to realize that mistakes are significant for brain development.

This week, Fifth Grade Mathematicians dove deeper into Place Value. In order to define digit value, students applied number lines to various numbers with different values to discover the meaning behind rounding. Sixth Grade Mathematicians worked hard conceptualizing ratios to real-life situations, and are very excited to start correlating ratios to fractions! After completing their assessment, students got to practice fluency and regrouping with a place value card game!

What’s happening in Science?

This week in science, we broke off the tip of the iceberg in our study about climate change. The scientists collaboratively answered the what, how, and when of the changing climate temperatures and precipitation patterns around the globe. Delving into the fact that the Earth’s climate is changing and whether humans are impacting that phenomena drove our curiosity to want to learn more. We are excited to keep you updated on our findings!

This week in reading…

Your avid readers cozied up to our middle school library this week. Really getting to know the characters in their course-study books guided their writing about reading to a new level. They dove even deeper into studying characters by analyzing the characters in our read-aloud “Popularity.”  I have enjoyed listening to their “book-club” discussions as they talked about their books with classmates reading similar genres.

It’s been another great week. Everyone is settled in and ready to learn. We will keep up the good teamwork! Important Dates
Wednesday, September 30th- Virtual Curriculum Night (Time-6:00- 6:30pm)
October 12th & 13th- Fall Break (NO SCHOOL)

*Newly added distance learning days*

October 9th

November 6th