Shelly & Justin 20/21 Blog

  Science: Poop! Students are learning about fecal transplants and how they affect a person's gut microbiome.  They are also working on writing their first scientific argument that contains a claim, evidence and reasoning.  Friday Oct 16 will be their final test for the Microbiome Unit and well move on to study the Metabolism.  Ask your child to share some of the key vocabulary or key concepts form their Sci notebook. Math 6 & 6/7:  Working on Area/Perimeter, Data collection, generic rectangles, Prime & Composite Numbers and Prime Factorizations. Covering lots in the first chapter and beginning of 2nd chapter of our CPM curriculum.  Chapter 1 does a lot of review and its been useful as many kids had wholes left over from our SPring semester online and a long summer.  Chapter 2 moves into some really new material like prime factorization.  This is a skill that many kids will need more practice with so ask your child to show you a prime fact...

Hello! Hope this finds you well. Social Studies Early People Project presentations start on Monday. I have been meeting one on one with the students are they are coming together well! Few reminders: Oct 22nd in Social Studies we will have a guest speaker from BLOC (feel free to join us). October 23rd there is no school for students. In Language Arts, we will take the eReading assessment on Tuesday & Thursday (10/20 & 10/22) Taking the aReading assessment During in person instruction students took short Reading and Math Readiness assessments at the start of the school year to help teachers determine what were the next instructional steps for each child. The FastBridge assessments are usually given at school, but this time, we need students to take it from a distance. Students will benefit from your support and encouragement to ensure the information received accurately reflects what they know and still need to learn.   The staff at Velma Hamilton Middle School, along with d...

Hello there! You should have noticed that progress reports were posted in IC this week. Some of the acronyms to interpret: MS= Meeting Standards, NMS= Not Meeting Standards, CP= Continuing Progress, NA= Not Applicable for this class at this point. Please reach out if you have ANY questions.  We finished up the "Who is the most capable hominid" group work this week in Social Studies. Students should continue to with on their Early People Project as well. Class zoom time the week of Oct 12th is dedicated to work time and teacher check in for the project. The students need a visual (hands-on) AND a written piece (at least 5-6 paragraphs in length). They will present them in class the week of Oct 19th. NOTE- some students have an intervention class during Social Studies. If so, they DO NOT complete any SS work, including this project.  On Thursday, October 22nd, we will have a guest speaker for Social Studies class. Angela Lang, the founder of BLOC (Black Leaders Organizing for C...

 Hello! Hope this finds you well. As always- please reach out if you need anything from us! (Shelly's number 608-501-3133). This week in Social Studies, we teamed up with Ms Guede's 6th grade class and looked at five Hominid groups. We will be working in teams and look at the following questions:  Date and Place of existence What did they look like? Did they have shelters?   If so, describe them. What type of food did they eat? Were they hunters or gatherers or both? What tools did they make? Did they use or make fire? Did they have religious or other types of  ceremonies?         9. Did they have oral or written language? Students will then need to convince the class their Hominid group is the most capable! In Language Arts we are working on CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning). We have two short stories; Eleven and Fish Cheeks, that we will use to write a claim, find evidence from the text, and explain your reasoning.