ELA
In Ms. Simeone’s ELA class, students have been enjoying their first class novel, A Long Way from
Chicago by Richard Peck. We are set to finish the novel in the upcoming weeks. Battle of the Books
kicked off with a spectacular character fashion show, and both classes have a strong start to the reading
competition. The current leaders are Julian Tougas-Watt, Taylor Hildebrandt, and Brigid Kelly! Students
have also been working hard to complete their first book reports, and I am very impressed by the quality
of work they are submitting.
In Mrs. Chiasson’s ELA class, we will be wrapping up our unit on Scorpions within the next few weeks.
Students are thoroughly enjoying this novel, and once we have finished we will be designing our own
sequels! We have been doing a lot of writing, and I am noticing a real improvement in students’ ability to
respond to literature at length, as well as provide evidence directly from the text to back up their
thoughts. In the next month, we will be starting a unit on poetry, and students will have multiple
opportunities to create their own original poems and possibly submit them for publication!
MATH
This month in math, we looked at the three kinds of percent problems and three strategies, percent ratio
tables, percent bars, and the 10% trick, to approach these kinds of questions. Our students got really good
at figuring out what the question was asking for and how to solve it! We had our first unit test on all that
we have talked about this year and then moved on to fraction division. We then looked at fractions
divided by whole numbers, whole numbers divided by fractions, and then fractions divided by fractions.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Students have been working hard in social studies class. They have focused on the essential questions of
what classifies Sumer as a civilization and how the geography affects the way of life in Mesopotamia.
Classes worked with our librarian Ms. Clerkin to complete a research project on ziggurats. Students
researched ziggurats using several databases and worked in groups to analyze the role of different
members of the Sumerian society within the ziggurat. Students also analyzed the primary source The
Standard of Ur to conclude that Sumer had three social classes. Students used perspective writing to show
that not everyone had the same way of life in Sumer.
SCIENCE
In 6A science class we are wrapping up the human body systems; our last body system will be the
Nervous System. Students have been very engaged in learning about the human body systems and are
hopefully sharing what they are learning with you at home. There will be a big unit test on all of the
human body systems within the next few weeks so it is important that students are coming for extra help
before or after school and reviewing terms on Quizlet nightly. We will finish this unit with a short project
where students will make “public health announcements” that we will be sharing/posting around
McDevitt!