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News From South Valley |
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| Mr. Angus’ Corner | |||
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One of our goals is to put things in place in order to make students successful. With so much there to support kids, it almost requires more work to not be successful. To that end, we are having a monthly Saturday School. Saturday School serves a dual purpose. First, it provides an additional consequence for students who choose inappropriate behavior. Second, Saturday School allows students who need more time for work completion, four uninterrupted hours for kids to just get things done. As parents, you may request your son or daughter attend, or teachers may recommend a particular student attend. |
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More From Mr. Angus I certainly hope that you have experienced as positive of a first semester as I have. I am continually in awe of the school community that I have become a member of! If you haven’t been in the building or called in the past month or so, let me highlight a couple of things that you may notice. First, if you call or come in you will probably be greeted by one of a number of student assistants. These students have been selected to help out the staff to be more efficient. They have been trained to answer the phone, greet parents or guests, and make copies. These students have been fantastic and a real life saver to those of us in the front office. Second, there may be times when you come in or call and I will not be immediately available. The reason for this is that I am spending about 2 full days a week in the classrooms where the real important work is being done. Tuesdays and Thursdays have been the days, so far, that have worked out the best for me to be in classrooms. On those days, I am in my office for minutes only. Being in the classes allows me to truly see the teaching and learning taking place. An added benefit has been that discipline referrals to the office have actually gone down slightly. The bottom line is that if you are asked to leave a message, or make an appointment, the reason is likely to be that I am in your child’s classroom.
I continue to thank you for allowing me to be a part of the school community and for the incredible support that I witness on a daily basis.
REMEMBER
Parents/ Guardians: Please remember that free after school tutoring is available for all students. Students may drop in with a quick question or with several questions. For more information contact: Ms. Miller-6th grade Mr. Williams - 7th grade Mrs. Larson - 8th grade Thank You for Using this Free Service During the Year
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6th Grade Grade 6 Language Arts Students are busy comparing and contrasting insects and lizards. Students had to read non-fiction articles and poetry to get information for this piece of writing. Within this unit, students learned about facts and non-facts! Reading and writing strategies were reviewed. Next, students will be writing poetry to use the figurative language they have already studied. Sixth graders are reviewing for test season and should continue to read at home each evening.
Social Studies Students have just completed studying the events that led up to the Civil War, the War and Reconstruction. Students will be venturing into the Expansion of the United States as homesteaders.
Math Sixth grade mathematicians are hard at work on geometry. We are problem solving and finding missing sides of polygons. During Spring Break I would like students to review their notes on mean, median, mode, range, fractions, exponents, and the geometry we are currently learning. This will help prepare everyone for CSAP’S! Reviewing basic math facts would also be helpful!
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7th Grade A “Special, Thank you” to everyone who came to visit with us during P/T conferences. If you were unable to attend please schedule an appointment to meet with us during team time (1:45-2:20). Otherwise, please look for your students grade slips every Friday.
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8th Grade
The Eighth Graders have been working very hard in all classes. Academic Enrichment classes have been dedicated to support content classes. When you look at grades on report cards for AE class, you need to be aware that this class is score that has been averaged from science, math, and social studies work. This learning has been most supportive in the actual content classrooms. We continue to apply our Second Step strategies learned from 6th grade to the present. The more you enforce the “Stop, think, and act” behaviors at home, the more we notice at school and the more success we have with student achievement.
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Unified Arts PE: Sixth Grade PE students have just competed a unit called TNT (a smoking prevention curriculum). They are now working on jump rope activities. Seventh and Eighth grade PE students are involved in a weight lifting and fitness unit. The Artists: 6th: Sixth grade artists have just finished learning how to gesture or “action” draw. Gesture drawing is describing what the object is doing instead of how it looks. Doing one is much like scribbling with a purpose. Each student took a turn modeling a pose and the other students captured the moment in one-minute sketches. Alberto Giacometti was a modern artist that took the gesture idea and transferred it into wire and clay sculptures. After seeing the artwork of Giacometti, students will decide on a gesture that they would like to capture in a sculpture of their own creation. Seventh grade artists are in the process of finishing their gothic boxes. Since they have not had the experience of learning to gesture or “action” draw they will also be trying out this form of art. Eighth grade students have just completed their Marc Chagall like surrealsitic collage/paintings. They are currently reviewing and practicing their blind contour and contour drawing skills and working on creating a wide range of values with pencil. This knowledge will be applied to a Trompe L’oeil valued study. Trompe L’oeil is French for “to trick the eye”. Students will bring to class small memorabilia from their middle school experience. These items will be arranged in a personal still life that they will depict in a high contrast drawing that shows the wide range of values observed in their items as well as shadows in an attempt to create a drawing that “tricks the eye”.
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