A Note About Field Trips

We are in full planning mode.  We have secured a date to visit Camp Highroads Outdoor Adventure Camp in Middleburg.  Here is a description of the program from Camp Highroads “Camp Highroad’s Team Challenge Course builds communication, cooperation and trust by helping groups to face challenges as a team. The course is made up of 20+ low level (max = 10ft high) challenge obstacles spread throughout the woods. Teams who bond and work well together will move to challenges that are harder and higher.” We are scheduled to visit Highroads on June 7^th. We have gotten charter buses for that visit and are working with the PTA on funding for the buses.  Camp Highroads would be a full day field trip leaving school around 9:00 and hopefully returning in time for school buses at 3:40.  

We will visit the National Gallery of Art Museum March 7^th as part of an FCPS plan to have 6^th graders visit Art Museums. This is a county provided trip.  

We are working on a trip to GMU to visit a college campus and learn about college options and choices. They will have openings in the spring so we are hopeful we will get in for a trip  

We will need to do some fundraising for trips as well as Promotion and Promotion Lunch. We will include details about this as we get closer.  

As always please contact us with questions

Important Dates & Reminders

• October 25: Picture Day
• October 28: End of Quarter 1, 2 hr. Early Release 
• October 31: Student Holiday and Conferences, no school for students
• Your student’s teacher will be in touch about signing up for conferences!
• November 8: No School
• November 11: No School
• November 23-25: No School

Language Arts

What we learned in September:

Unit 2 is Memoir Writing and Fictional Book Clubs. In Fictional Book Clubs Students will learn to 

• Track character trait and development
• Discuss readings with peers 
• Find the theme of a story 

In Memoir Writing students will learn to: 

• Analyze significant moments in their life
• Use narrative writing 
• Revise their writing using literary techniques

What we will be learning in October:

Unit 3 is Narrative Nonfiction in Reading in Writing: 

Students will learn to: 

• Understand that readers of nonfiction learn with others 
• Understand that literary techniques reveal images and feelings to enhance a message 
• Students use nonfiction topics they know a lot about and incorporate imagery, figurative language, and description to create well-written informational picture books. 
• Students are creating a picture book to teach others about traditions they participate in from their culture, religion, or just for fun! Please help us by speaking to your child about these traditions so they can include this information into their writing.

Math

What we learned this past month:

Fractions and Decimals 

Students learned:

• To multiply and divide fractions and mixed numbers.
• To solve single-step & multistep practical problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, & division of fractions and mixed numbers.
• To solve multistep practical problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of decimals.

Advanced Math 

What we learned last month:

This past month, students learned to…

• Solve single-step and multistep practical problems using proportional reasoning
• Determine a rate of change in a proportional relationship between two quantities
• Solve practical problems involving consumer applications (such as calculating tax, tip or discount are skills that are used on a regular basis when consumers go shopping or dine out at restaurants).

What we will be learning next month:

Next Month we will begin Quarter 2 and begin to..

• Investigate and describe the concept of negative exponents for powers of ten
• Compare and order numbers greater than zero written in scientific notation
• Determine square roots of perfect squares
• Identify and describe the absolute value of rational numbers.

Science

What we learned this past month:

Students learned… 

• weather vocabulary
• that weather is predictable and presented in a variety of formats
•  the difference between greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change
• air pressure and temperature changes in the layers of the atmosphere 
• the role of a convection current in the atmosphere 
• what fronts and air pressure system symbols mean on weather maps 
• the weather associated with fronts and pressure systems

What we will be learning next month:

Students finished quarter 1 learning about Astronomy and Weather. Quarter 2 will be focused on unfolding the timeline of American History.

Social Studies

What we will be learning next month:

Students will learn: 

• To locate continents, oceans, key geographic features on maps 
• To locate, describe, and compare/contrast the features of geographic regions of North America
• To locate major water features and evaluate their importance 
• To locate where Native Americans lived and making connections between past and present 
• To describe how the environment and resources of early American Indian tribes impacted their daily life, making connections between past and present