To Our Middle School Families, Calendar October 19th- Curriculum Sharing Announcements Appropriate Shoes for PE! – Please remind your students to wear athletic type shoes on PE days. Lyndsay has had several kids wearing boots/sandals and unsafe footwear and some falls have occurred because of wearing the wrong shoes with no traction. Appropriate shoes would be closed toe tennis shoes. Upper-el Biking – The Upper-el Biking Unit with the City of Eugene taught by Ridgeline parent Salmon Stroich, will take place the weeks of October 17-21 and 24-28. The North parking lot will not be available for parking these weeks. Please plan accordingly and arrive early enough to park on the surrounding streets, at Crossfire, etc. Also, the 2 parking slots closest to W. Amazon in the South lot will be coned off. Academics Math - Assignments At the end of each assignment, the students are required to do the practice problems for the next assignment. The answers are at the bottom of the page, and the step by step explanation for how to complete each problem is shown in the example adjacent to each problem. This is a very important component of each assignment. It requires students to preview and attempt to tackle tomorrow’s assignment material BEFORE they come to class. The directions are for them to SHOW THEIR WORK STEP by STEP as it is shown in the book. They are required to read through and follow the examples in the front matter of each section. If after completing the practice problems, they still have questions for us, we can go over them before they begin the Practice Exercises that will be due the following day. Taylor and I are checking math journals each day for inclusion of these problems, and thorough demonstration of the steps as demonstrated in the corresponding frontmatter examples. Volunteer Opportunity Math class for Block I is from 9:30 am to 10:25 am. For Block II it is from 11:30 am to 12:25 am. During this short period Taylor and I are spread thin checking yesterday's assignment, and working with students struggling with concepts. We would love to have more time to do the latter. Checking assignments just consists of reading off answers from the key, checking for journal requirements, and writing down percentages. We would welcome a parent volunteer to come perform this task with each of the four math groups in each Block. This would free up 15 to 20 minutes of each math period for Taylor and I to give lessons to small groups and individual students. Please contact me if you are willing and available. Science - Using our presentation notes from last week, students are reflecting on the similarities and differences between their Earth structure region and the regions presented by their peers. We have taken time this week to really focus on this assignment. It is a challenge for them to find patterns, rather than state facts. It is a challenge to come up with questions that will lead to further investigations, rather than questions that you can just answer with a fact. This is tough stuff, but very necessary for developing our emerging scientist skills. Electives - Art Elective Update This week we worked on creating three dimensional form with shadow. It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes if you squint your eyes, you see the light better. Make of that what you will. We are also learning that it’s not so easy to draw what you see. We tend to draw what we think we see. Hmmm. art inspires philosophy once again. Chaperone Needed! Our art elective may have the opportunity to visit the Jordan Schnitzer art museum on November 4th We will need one chaperone to accompany us on this adventure! My car can transport seven students, so our awesome volunteer must be able to accommodate the remaining four students in his or her vehicle.Chaperones are admitted for free and are expected to assist with tour and studio activities. Please contact me if you are interested. Be our hero! Earn some volunteer hours creating art with our amazing students! Art Supplies Needed! Can’t chaperone? Have some old art supplies laying around needing a home? We could use donations of any number of the items listed below. Ink Pads Watercolor paint Printing ink Charcoal Oil pastels Sheer Curtain Fabric (silk screening) Road maps Old white sheets (for batik) Acrylic Paint Please contact me if you would like to donate any of these items. We appreciate each of our students for their precious unique characters. We marvel and gush about it. We are so thankful for the opportunity to be present for them, and feel blessed to work with this age group. We present challenges and expectations, and are rewarded and inspired by how much they grow in the two short years we have them! Thank you, Carrie and Taylor |