Gold Crew Week In Preview for April 2 - 6
Math – Mrs. Bennett
After School: Tuesdays and Thursdays
Email: sbennett@fps.k12.me.us
Web site: http://teacherweb.com/ME/FalmouthMiddleSchool/MrsBennett/h0.stm
Next week, Blocks A, B, C, D and E will have a quiz on finding the area and perimeter of rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, and circles. Please check with your child to see if s/he understands how to find these measurements. An informal review at home would be GREAT reinforcement. Blocks B, C, D, and E will then continue with discussions about what constitutes a similar figure as we scale up and scale down from the original figure.
Block A just took a Check Up and will start Investigation 3 about developing a strategy to determine the volumes and surface areas of prisms and cylinders. Rather than memorize a formula, students are encouraged to think of finding the area of the base and layering it by multiplying it by the height. This procedure is invaluable because it can also be applied to hexagonal, pentagonal, etc. prisms without the necessity of memorizing many formulas.
If either you or your child is confused by the mathematics of the current unit, please go to the handouts section of my web site and download the parent letter that pertains to the specific book. It provides a clear and concise explanation of the educational goals of the unit.
I enjoyed meeting many of you during conferences. Thank you for your support.
Spanish – Sra. Campbell
After school on Tuesday and Thursday
Email: mcampbel@fps.k12.me.us
Web page: http://www.falmouthschools.org/Marsha/index.html
We are continuing with Chapter 6. We have now been introduced to using the verb tener with que to mean “ have to” do something. We will continue to practice this usage as well as using the verb ir, to go, to say what we will be doing in the future. This is a great time to review the verbs we’ve had in earlier chapters. The students can check their cuadernos for verbs we have had.
The possessive adjectives were introduced this week and we will continue to work with them next week. These are a little confusing so don’t be surprised with your student is baffled. It takes a bit of time and practice. There are more activities on my Portaportal and also on “my Quia” link on my webpage that help with this chapter.
Le Français – Mme Turner
After school Tues. & Wed.
Email: gturner@fps.k12.me.us
This week we will learn to travel to different places with various forms of transportation. We will also finally leave the present and talk about what is going to happen! Students will make Cootie Catchers to use with friends and family. We will continue to work with and reinforce vocabulary from Ch. 5.
Please go to my web site where you can access articles from the New York times about French culture and politics! http://monet.edublogs.org/
Extra Credit: Students have an opportunity to get 10 pts added to their next exam grade. They need to go to the Portland Art Museum and view the French art work. They need to write down at least 10 titles of paintings and the artists names. This needs to be handed in for credit.
Science – Mrs. Stuart
After School Tuesday
Email: estuart@fps.k12.me.us
Next week we will finalize the labs on cellular respiration and combustion. Can your child tell you the similarities and differences between the two? On Monday/Tuesday all students with long hair need to make sure they have elastics or bands to keep bangs etc. pulled back. We will be determining what has more calories, walnuts or marshmallows?
They will also get the “Cheeseburger test”. This test covers a huge amount of vocabulary and information from the digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems. I have found that students embrace the opportunity to prepare and organize their ideas before they will write it in class on April 11th/12th. Please encourage them to write up a rough draft and have me check it.
In addition Mike Bell, MD, will be here on Thursday to talk with students and dissect pig and sheep hearts. Please ask your child about this, he is a wealth of information. We are very fortunate that he is willing to take his day off to help us.
ELA – Becky Hayes
After School: Tues/Wed.
Email: rhayes@fps.k12.me.us
Next week, students will be working on their oral speaking skills as well as their presentation skills. We will be practicing this using a Reader’s Theater technique in small groups; they’ll be reading a selection of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. It should be fun and exciting (don’t worry, no props, costumes, makeup, lighting, staging, music or anything like that is necessary!) It’s a fluency exercise to prepare them for when they’ll be presenting their narrative story later on in the week. We’ll also be continuing our grammar piece focusing on commas, colons, & semicolons.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Izzo: Seminar/ELA
We finished reading The Stolen Child and will begin to process our reading. Everyone will be presenting their small group work on Tuesday: The Timeline Group, Character Development Group, and the Music/Composer Group. We listened to the last chapter of the book…it is so great as everyone is totally silent listening to the words. We will also begin our memorization and interpretation of Yeats’ poem, The Stolen Child, connecting it to the book for the next two weeks. We will also begin to listen to the music that is an integral background element of the dissection of the book…Nat King Cole; Bach; Mahler; Waterboys; Mahler; Dave Brubeck; Miles Davis…should be fun. HAPPY WEEKEND!!! Journals due every Friday.
