Purple Curriculum Updates
Pre-Algebra I with MaryAnn:
In Pre-Algebra I with MaryAnn, the students had a math assessment on Tuesday. Overall the students did not perform as well as they have on previous tests. On Thursday I handed back those tests and had the students make corrections.. For each right answer, the student received a half point back. The score in purple on your child's test in the score with the corrections. The biggest issue continues to be careless errors. We began unit 5 on Wednesday. We talked about estimating sums and differences of fractions using the benchmarks 0, 1/2, and 1. Friday was math game day.
Pre-Algebra II with Jared:
In Pre-Algebra II, we started the week with a quiz on adding and subtracting fractions, and then been working with multiplying and dividing fractions. Students explored how they can speed up and simplifying their work by cross reducing before multiplying. On Thursday we introduced fractions into solving one-step equations, and then on Friday we used the laptops and went back to practicing on how to convert mixed numbers into fractions in order to multiply and divide.
Pre-Algebra III with Emily:
We finished up Chapter 3: Graphing in the Coordinate Plane
and took a chapter test on Wednesday. As a whole, the class did very well on
the test – the highest class average of our three chapter tests. I think slowing
down and doing extra practice really helped. We started Chapter 4: Real Numbers
on Thursday with a section on identifying prime and composite numbers, finding
the prime factorization of a number, and finding the greatest common factor
(GCF) of two numbers.
This week in Algebra, students completed their chapter 3 test and received those back. They may be found in their portfolios. We began chapter 4 with a focus on fractions, ratios, and proportions. Students learned to use conversion factors to change units, for example from miles per hour to feet per second. They also learned to set up proportions to solve for a variable.
This week we finished chapter 4 and the study of congruent triangles. On Monday we discussed congruence in right triangles and learned about the last of our triangle congruence theorems, the Hypotenuse - Leg Theorem. On Tuesday the students took a quiz over the past three sections, and on Wednesday, we discussed how to use corresponding parts of congruent triangles to find congruent triangles in overlapping and co-linear triangles. After a review on Thursday, the students took their chapter test on Friday.
Language Arts with Jared:
We ended this trimester's focus on 19th century American poetry with a look at Emily Dickinson's work. We had fun looking at videos that put her poetry to a variety of different songs. Students chose a poem from the poets we've studied, and will memorize it to present to the class in the next few weeks. In grammar we looked at troublesome verbs - sit/set, raise/rise, lay/lie, and students took a vocabulary quiz.
World Studies with Emily:
This
week in U.S. History, students worked on their Immigration Menu projects in class, which also included 7th
and 8th graders reading a 2014 editorial about immigration and an 1913
editorial about immigration, and 6th graders read more about
immigration from a couple Kids Discovery magazines. All students turned in
their three projects on Thursday. We held an “Immigrant Hall of Fame” ceremony
on Thursday where I read each student’s induction speech and students accepted
the honor in-character. Students who chose skits performed those. All in all,
it was a fun class and there are so many impressive and creative projects. In
World Studies, in lieu of current event presentations, we read the front page article
from The New York Times about the
mid-term elections and looked at some Senate, House, and Governor election maps
of the country.
Earth Science with Molly:
This week students began giving regular updates on their science fair projects. My hope is that they will work on these regularly and not procrastinate. I would like them to complete the data collection for their projects prior to the Thanksgiving Break, so they can have a break. On Tuesday, Jared brought a telescope with a solar filter to BNS and we tracked the movement of the sun during classes. Students were given the opportunity to view and sketch the sun spots visible through the lens. While they took turns viewing sun spots, student groups made solar ovens from pizza boxes. They scooped cookies and set them out for baking. The weather turned cloudy for the second half of the day, so the 8th grade students only got a brief glimpse into the telescope before the clouds prevented further viewing. At this point, the ovens were covered and put into the fridge for another sunny day in the coming days. On Thursday, students watched a video, The Savage Sun. They also spent time going over their chapter notes and reviewing for the November 11th unit test.
This week, the students spent the first half of Monday's class reviewing vocabulary and grammar concepts from Chapter 1B in preparation for Wednesday's test. They started Chapter 2A, which focuses on school subjects and class schedules, during the second half of Monday's class. On Friday, they practiced the new vocabulary through written and spoken activities. They also got to celebrate the end of Chapter 1B by learning the basic steps to Salsa, complete with music!
Spanish B
We
continued practicing using commands. We learned a new verb tense: present
progressive. We learned how to use the present progressive to give an excuse
when someone gives us a command. (For example, I can't clean my room because I
am doing Spanish homework.) We read a short story that was a modern day version
of Cinderella, except the woman who gets all the commands from her sisters wins
an award on a singing show and becomes famous.
Finally, we have been reading La
Gran Aventura de Alejandro, a reader that will expose the students to key
points about the history and culture of Spain. We will have an assessment next
week.
Spanish C
We
continue practicing the past tense and combining it with reflexive verbs. We
revisited the equivalents of the pronouns this, that, and that one over there.
We reviewed clothing vocabulary and added new vocabulary to describe color,
material, and size of the items. We will have an assessment next week.
Spanish D
We
continue talking about and practicing the subjunctive mood, its forms, and
forming sentences that have two clauses, where one of the clauses uses the
subjunctive. We learned a new type of clause that uses the subjunctive- one
that follows impersonal phrase. We have been talking about being a tourist and
good behaviors for tourists. We have been studying vocabulary that will be
useful when traveling. We will have an assessment next week.
Spanish D+
The
students continue working independently. They had an assessment on the present
subjunctive in nominal clauses.
We have started the clay unit! This will take several
weeks to complete. Students will be creating a tea light set, which will be a
combination of a lantern and/or votive holders. They started working on the
theme for their set, and building using pinch, slab, and/or coil techniques.
They we also be taking turns two at a time on the wheel.
This week we began our new unit I am nicknaming "the Restaurant project." In this project, the students will learn what it means to be an entrepreneur and open a restaurant. This will be the structure for the students to learn skills in MS Excel, as well as some new skills in MS Word and MS Powerpoint. This week the students were introduced to MS Excel and conducted surveys to determine which cuisine they would like to serve in their restaurants and what they might name their restaurants. After taking these surveys, they created tables and graphs to display their data.
Life Skills / Sex Ed with Molly:
This week our P.E. teacher Matt gave the students a slide show on social media. He discussed the different applications people use to communicate and interact with and he discussed the “good, the bad, and the ugly” of those application with the students. In the coming week, we will review the ideas Matt presented and watch a video on adolescent stress and ways to cope with the different kinds of stress.
Fall Elective Update:
Scratch with Holly: In the Scratch class, the students were introduced to the basic concepts of creating a computer program and how to create flow charts. They have learned how to create multiple objects or "sprites", backgrounds, and change the look of their sprites by changing their costumes. They have learned how to coordinate the actions of their sprites to create stories, games, and mazes, and to debug their programs and extend them.
Nature Observations with Emily: We wrapped up our fun, mostly outdoor, elective this week. Over the course
of the fall, we identified all the trees on campus and observed and recorded their
changes once a week. We planted perennial Alpine strawberries (thanks Sarah
Kominsky) after amending the soil and weeded and watered as needed. We took a
couple trips over to the YMCA community gardens and greenhouse. We did some
quiet drawing here and at the community gardens. We collected natural objects
and played with them to make some beautiful nature art. We took photographs one day and a
couple days we stayed inside and students chose and read from my books on trees,
insects, and fungi. I really enjoyed our elective and I hope the four students
did too!
Cooking with Olga:
The students in cooking elective were exposed to different methods of
cooking: boiling, frying, stir-fry, and baking. We practiced slicing, chopping,
cutting, peeling, measuring, mixing, and seasoning. We learned cooking terms
that they might see on a recipe, and learned how to follow the steps in a
recipe. We learned (the hard way!) what happens if we forget baking powder when
a recipe calls for it :). Some of the dishes we cooked were: rice and beans,
empanadas, cookies, ice box cookies, tres
leches cake, white cakes, corn flour fritters, apple pie, cinnamon apples, pancakes,
marinara sauce, meatballs, scramble eggs, salsa, guacamole, french fries, and
ice cream sandwiches. The students have a folder with all the recipes we made.
Book Club with Jared: In Book Club, students read the "Life as We Knew It" trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer. The books document a family's survival after an asteroid pushes the moon closer to the Earth, and the resulting global catastrophe ends civilization as we know it. We had a lot of fun exploring the possibilities of such a scenario.
Novel Writing with Jared: In Novel Writing, students got ideas for their novels, and began the long writing process. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and many of the students in this elective have already completed 20% of their word-count goal.
Digital Art with Patti: In Digital Art, students created a character focusing on the mouth. After they created their character, we talked about how they would have various facial changes. Concentrating on mouth movement, they redrew their character using seven basic mouth shapes. When their face changing characters were completed, we scanned their line drawings to convert them to digital art files in Adobe Illustrator. Here they added color and background. They then put the mouth movement to music by using Movie Maker and a song clip of their choice. They created frames that changed to the syllables of the words, which gave the look of singing!
Learning Buddies with T.J.: Learning Buddies helped the Red Room kindergartners in a variety of ways this past trimester: playing educational matching puzzles, making rainbow jewelry, doing hexagon honey bee crafts, touring the solar greenhouse, folding paper airplanes, and playing!
Landscaping with Molly: We worked around the BNS playground during this elective. Trees were trimmed to make them more friendly to play around and more easy to see around. Weeds were pulled and bulbs were moved. We transplanted turf in barren areas and dug mulch away from a suffocating tree on the playground. We occasionally worked in the YMCA Greenhouse removing crickets and prepping the soil for this winter's gardeners. These two young women were hard workers!
Knitting with Molly: Students chose knitting needle sizes and yarn they preferred. Some were new to knitting and learned to cast on, knit, and purl. They began, tore their work out, and began again with determination. Many students knitted scarves during the elective, while some crocheted. At the end of our elective, students learned to make a pom-pom and seemed impressed with their fluffy products.
Thank you from, The Purple Team
