Hi Parents,
It was so nice to meet so many of you at Curriculum Night on Wednesday. Thank you to those who attended the D.C. fund-raising meeting right before that. We ended up having sixteen attendees, so we will receive scholarship points towards our trip.
On Wednesday night I spoke about our service project at the WeGrow Garden. If you are interested in seeing the garden, it is part of the Whatcom County Farm Tour happening this weekend. You can come visit the garden at 1815 Ellis St. from 10-4. I am still missing a couple of permission slips for our service project. Remember that it takes place over several dates this fall: 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, and 10/23. We leave school promptly at 12:30, walk to the garden, and return by 2:05. I could really use two people to help me chaperone our group on each of the above-mentioned dates. I am trying to put a Signup Genius together for the dates, so as soon as I figure it out, please look for it.
Speaking of field trips, I sent home the Fall Retreat permission slip today. Please ask your child for it. We will be heading to St. Joseph’s Parish in Ferndale for the day on Sept. 29th. Our retreat leader will be Joan Williamson, long time retreat leader for ACS. Our plan is to leave right after drop-off (around 8:15) and leave St. Joseph’s at 2:20 to be back for pick-up by 2:45. If you can drive either direction, please indicate on the slip. You need not stay for the day. Thanks!
We’re nearly finished reviewing the intricacies of nouns. We will finish our unit next week with a brush-up on possessive nouns before testing the kids’ abilities. We took our first Latin test today after playing a game of “Sparkle” to review the spelling and definitions.
In literature we’ve been enjoying “The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle” and the adventures and excitement this novel holds. We talked about cause and effect in a story and discussed the idea of a “chain of events” – that not all causes lead to only one effect, but that they can cause a ripple effect as well. We explored some chains of events in the story and gave examples from real life. We learned about the nature of conflict and that it is typically person vs. person, person vs. self, person vs. nature, or person vs. society. We had discussions about the variety of conflicts in the story and identified major and minor ones and how they drive the story. I reminded the kids that they have two book reports due by September 29th. If you could please encourage them to get one done soon, that would save me from having almost forty reports to grade at the end of the month.
Please have your child check FACTS on weekends against the corrected work I send home on Friday to make sure that everything has been input correctly. They often make corrections to their work (I encourage it), and I may add the new score to my paper grade book but not add it to FACTS. They need to bring the work to me on Monday and show it to me so that I can make the change in FACTS. This doesn’t happen often, but it is a safeguard I want them to have. Don’t ditch the work until you’ve double checked FACTS! I also reminded the kids about missing work and correcting work — that it must be done within two weeks. Beyond that we will have moved on to new things.
We have MAP testing the next two weeks. Our class will test:
- Tuesday, 9/19, 10-11:30
- Thursday, 9/21, 8:15-9:45
- Tuesday, 9/26, 8:15-9:45
- Thursday, 9/28, 10-11:30
Please be sure that your child gets plenty of sleep, a nutritious breakfast, and (hmm – we Catholics like things in three’s …) plenty of words of encouragement!
Thanks, and have a great weekend,
Chris