The Willow Weekly: Willow Weekly 10/3 to 10/7

Welcome to the Willow Weekly. Here you will find all of your Team Willow news and information. Please sign up for automatic updates and you will be notified whenever an update is made.

Upcoming Events:

Parent Teacher conferences October 11-13 Parent Sign Up for Conferences Link
Early Release Day- October 12
Rachel's Challenge Assembly- October 13
Picture Retake day October 21st
Second quarter bus passes required Monday, October 17
Red Ribbon Week 24th of October

Important Information:

After school help sessions and activities began Sept. 6th. At least one teacher from Willow will be available for help on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays until 4:00. A list of other after school opportunities can be found here.

T-Shirts Are Here!

We'll be ordering Team Willow shirts this year! Shirts will be $8, and we would like to have shirts ordered by the end of parent-teacher conferences. Please visit this form to place your order today! https://goo.gl/forms/asheaGU5cgJsXeXG3

If you wish to receive the text message reminders or email reminders of homework, please sign up by: 1) sending a text message to 81010 and put in the message as “@hxwillow”, and/or go to https://www.remind.com/ and enter the classcode: @hxwillow.

Visit the Hixson Scholastic Book Fair Online!

You can shop and order online to help support Hixson's library! The book fair will also be set up during parent-teacher conferences.

http://www.scholastic.com/bf/hixsonmiddle1

English –
We had a great week in ELA finishing up our "Launching the Reading Workshop" unit. Students reflected on their reading lives in a summative letter to me. Check out my blog for the details!
Our next unit will cover narrative writing, where students will be writing and publishing realistic fiction stories. This unit is a favorite of mine, and I'm excited to write alongside my students as they craft and develop their own unique stories.

Don't forget to stay updated with what's going on in ELA by visiting blog.katiekraushaar.com

Social Studies –

This week we wrapped up Mesopotamia with an open note quiz on Tuesday. I am in the process of grading the essay questions, but have been hampered by a pretty nasty cold, so it is taking a few extra days. This was a formative quiz, and so goes into the 20% column.

We began Egypt on Wednesday. The notes for Egypt are on my website. I have recommended to students that they write a page into their notebooks every day or so - that way it won’t be so overwhelming. In a few weeks, students will be working on a project that will be a summative grade (80%). There is a link to the directions on my website, if you would like to preview.

During this next month, we will also be doing several activities related to the upcoming election, culminating in a school wide vote.

www.hixson.webster.k12.mo.us/pages/Hixson/Classes/pettid

Lisa Pettid – pettid.lisa@wgmail.org

314-918-4602

Math-

This week in math we started working on converting between fractions, decimals and percents. We did an activity with guessing celebrity ages and talking about absolute value for how much their guesses were off. They had a chance to look over their tests this week and make corrections and reassess if they wanted to. Ask your student about their test score.

Algebra took chapter 2 test and is working through the second part of chapter two, where they'll have a project coming up.

Check out my blog for some of the great things we've been doing in class.

I found a nice website, check it out! Sign up for Table Talk Math here! The goal of this site is to provide clarity for what students could be doing to increase their math fluency and also provide prompts to discuss around the dinner table (or anywhere, for that matter).

To sign up for math homework updates message @math7port to 81010

algebra homework updates- message @a493a to 81010

Ashley Porter

porter.ashley@wgmail.org

mathrm214.blogspot.com

Science –

Willow Science

Here are suggested conversation starters for you young engineer:

Did you get your Compare & Contrast Objects project turned in on time?
What did you discover about your objects?
What did you see this week about the effects of gravity on a bowling ball and feather?
What is gravity?

The targets this week have been:

I am able to develop and use models to describe the role of gravity.

The cross-cutting concept have been:

Patterns: Observing patterns & events guides organization and classification & leads to understanding of relationships.
Cause and Effect: Investigating and explaining causal relationships may predict & explain events.

Activities students participated in this week:

Monday - Turned in Compare & Contrast Universe Objects summative project, and handed in Anchor C: Introduction to Graphing
Tuesday - Created Goal Tracking & Vocabulary Tracking pages in notebooks, and gravity introduction.
Wednesday: Watched all of Brian Cox’s Gravity Vacuum Chamber video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E43-CfukEgs), and class discussion Q&A regarding gravity. Began watching an Exploring Gravity video
Thursday: Students worked on sharpening their graphing skills by reviewing, taking notes, and class discussion on the procedure for correctly scaling quantitative data on graphs.
Friday: Guest teacher, Ms. Burroughs, students individually watched “Exploring Gravity” video and completed Google Classroom assignment #005 Exploring Gravity questions

Goal #2 I am able to develop and use models to describe the role of gravity.

4	I demonstrate innovation, in depth inference(s), or advanced application(s) with the learning goal. In addition to level 3 I am able to: critique models to demonstrate understanding of role of gravity in the universe.
3	I am be able to: explain motions of specific objects in the universe and solar system in terms of gravity.