STEM Literacy UpdatesGeneral Literacy UpdatesThis week’s topic: MAP The literacy team completed fall MAPS testing with the students this week. We will be contacting students about make-ups and finishing tests next week during FLEX. The team will be reflecting with students on their scores and potential impacts they may have on their learning pathways. Please feel free to ask your student about their score. Hoffmann’s Big History Reading Expectations Students are expected to continuously read a variety of texts during the school year. One activity we completed was the reading test. Students had one minute to read an article and to mark where they had finished when time expired. We calculated the time it would take each student to complete the remainder of the reading at that pace. We proceeded to reflect on how that can impact the time needed to complete assignments and assessments. Students quickly saw that reading rates have a huge ripple effect on potential homework loads. Through continuous and challenging reading students can work on developing their reading skills, hopefully reducing time needed in the future for completing tasks. Infinite Campus Much like last year, Infinite Campus will be a place for parents and students to check on their student’s progress and proficiencies. Students are asked to consistently check to ensure that everything is up to date on their accounts. One of my goals is to keep parents notified of how their student(s) are progressing. I know that navigating the many systems shared out can be time consuming and confusing. Therefore, periodically I will send out a missing work report indicating what I have received from the students in line with work. The list below shows everything that I should have from your student at this point, but that I do not. I also mark incomplete work as missing, since it needs several revisions before even falling on our continuum of proficiency. Please review this with your student and let me know if you have any cares or concerns. On a side note, if a student submits late work, they need to contact either Mrs. Urban or myself of its completion. We will then update IC at that point. If your student feels that the list below is incorrect, please have them email with any updates. Thanks and have a great day! Where we are going… The Big History class has spent the last couple of weeks really building our understanding of thresholds. We are now starting our unit project that will last the next couple of weeks. Students who have already shown a proficiency in narrative writing had an option to select a pathway for demonstrating their understanding of thresholds from a historical, social, or current events point of view. We are developing their project plans using a guided thinking form. Students who still need to show proficiency in narrative writing will be working on a narrative around a threshold moment in their lives. Please reflect with your student on their current progress. Erickson’s, Oakland’s, and Owens’ Literacy In Literacy, we have been working on dissecting short stories by rereading, annotating, and digging deeply for elements such as theme and character development. Students have recently finished analyzing a text as a whole class in order to develop their skills; they are currently reading and choosing from a list of classic short stories that they’d like to dissect, analyze, and discuss with peers. Their next step will be writing a more lengthy literary analysis. As a reminder, students should be reading for a minimum of 20 minutes per night at home. The goal is to finish 20 novels this school year, and their reading logs should be frequently updated. All our slides may be found along with their class assignments and links to the short stories on bb9 and google classroom. |  Always looking to beg, borrow and steal some great resources that are out there... check out these Design Briefs on Curiosity Machine. Talk about ready-made ideas and great videos that spark major inquiry... this is STEM... alive and well! Enjoy and get ready to be INSPIRED!   |
SPIRIT WEEK IS HERE!
| Parents, Please take some time to complete the World Language survey by Wed. Sept. 23rd and clicking on the following site goo.gl/75HEJ Please select the Duolingo & the Rosetta Stone tab. If your child is currently taking Passport to Latin America, please select the Latin America tab for more information on homework or projects that we are working on. This website is still transitioning from a previous site that we used last year, so some tabs are current until the projects begin. Also, we are making salsa and guacamole on Monday 9/21 or Tuesday 9/22 and your child has signed up to bring some of the ingredients that can be found on the website. If you have any question, please contact me at glambert@waukesha.k12.wi.us Finally, if you are interested in volunteering in our class throughout the year to speak about your travels or help with cooking, please let me know. Here are the themes and the approx. dates (to the right): |  |  |