There will not be an updated blog post for next week. We will resume weekly updates in January.
Have a safe, fun, relaxing and joyful Winter Break and Happy New Year!!
Coming home.......a day's worth of materials IN CASE there are school closings. After Winter Break we will send home another day of work for a total of two days. (What??? This is a new one!) Please ask your 5th grader to find a safe place to keep these materials.
When the weather is severe, MMSD wants you to know how we will make decisions about closing any in-person programming in MMSD buildings. The safety of our students and staff is our top priority, and we always follow a set of guidelines to make decisions about whether school will be open or closed. Visit the following link for more information - Weather Information.
- No slippers
- Dress in layers as you will be going outside for recess time.
- One "stuffie" is allowed, but must be able to easily sit on top of or in the desk while allowing room work to be completed.
- No pillows.
- This is an OPTIONAL activity.
Middle School Lottery information from the Enrollment Office
On Friday, December 1st, current 5th graders will start applying for one of the following Lottery Schools. Application will open 12/1/23 at 8:00 am and will close 01/27/24 at 4:00 pm.
Badger Rock There is no attendance area preference. For more information on lottery criteria visit the following link - Middle School Lottery
Spring Harbor - Preference is given to students residing in the Memorial High attendance area.
Wright - Preference is given to students that reside in the Elementary Schools feeding into West High.
- December Number Corner will focus on classifying quadrilaterals, data collection and creating line and scatter plots. The games we will learn will strengthen our skills of making equivalent decimals and fractions and division of whole numbers resulting in fractional answers. Finally, we will revisit our friend, the ratio table, to help us with multiplication and division of whole numbers and recognizing their relationships.
- January Number corner will be revisiting some volume work. Daily, we will be given a "building" to observe, describe and look for patterns as it continues to grow. When a building is complete, we will use our observations to create a formula/algebraic expression that would work if the building continued to grow. In addition, we will be able to see how we can find the volume of a composite figure by looking at the rectangular prisms that work together to create the whole. In addition, we will do some problem solving with adding fractions of money and time.
- This week, we finished and assessed some division work. Then, we took the Bridges Interim Assessment #1 and our winter AMath. Next week we will finish up any testing that wasn't completed and then engage in some review work until Winter Break.
- In January, we will start Unit 4 on multiplying and dividing whole numbers and decimals.
- Our second EL Module which is about rainforest canopies. We will be using the narrative nonfiction text The Most Beautiful Roof in the World as well as a variety of other articles and text support our reading and writing.
- This week we talked about various text structures, how to use graphic organizers and what makes an effective summary. They will also be expected to write a summary independently. We will continue this work next week.
- After Winter Break, students will continue with this same work as we begin to prepare for a science talk about rainforests (more information to come).
- During our ALL Block, student are continuing to work on their fluency, how to understand complex text, figurative language and think about word structure.
- This week continued our second science unit of the year: Ecosystems Restoration
- The question we will be answering is:
- Our first chapter's guiding question was: Why aren't the jaguars and sloths growing and thriving?
- Our second chapter's guiding question is: Why aren't cecropia trees growing and thriving?
- Our third chapter's guiding question is: Why aren't cecropia trees growing and thriving in the soil?
- Determining how to handle "Big" problems
- Handling a problem in a group setting (favoritism)
- Being a decision maker
- Being a decision maker in regards to substances
- Watch the Randall Way video for December via your child's Google Classroom. (This month features kiddos from Godfrey's Class!!!)
- Our focus this month using integrity in the bathroom and we are working towards a goal of 1000 Raccoon Paws to earn a January pajama day!!
