Next week we will kick off our History Expedition, The Ripple Effect: Perspective and the Impact of Historical Events. Students will be answering the guiding question of “How do historical events impact our lives today?” We will be analyzing the effects of policy making by first looking at current events, and reflecting on its history. We will be reading the news daily and analyzing news sources. My goal is to have students become critical thinkers by learning how to recognize bias, view issues from multiple perspectives, and research background information so that they can form their own educated opinions on issues. We will be analyzing the US Constitution and our Bill of Rights. We will understand how the government works. We will examine various historical policies, immigration, and civil rights.

Questions to Ask:
What happened in the news today?
What different perspectives can you take when analyzing news events?

Crew News
Jungle Jars has embraced Annsley Aker’s final expedition product, solar-powered mason jar lights, and we will be adding them to our inventory soon!

Highlights
I would like to highlight Annsley Akers, as her final product was approved by the crew to be sold through our Jungle Jars company.

I would also like to highlight Craig Pruski, as he donated all of our shipping and packaging items for Jungle Jars. Thank you!

We also had Aaron Dettling come and present to the class. Aaron is an expert in designing jumps for cars and snow sports. He has built jumps for the X-Games and other competitions around the world! He spoke with the students about how he uses physics and math in his designs.

Questions to Ask Your Child:
Where do you see evidence of art in different buildings and structures? How does architectural art from the past differ from the present?

Crew News
Jungle Jars is killing it! The crew gave a top-notch presentation to the SELS student body last Friday. We have already sold 54 Jungle Jars. We are currently packaging them up and delivering them next week. Thank you for your support! Please tell your friends and family about us… We are working to raise $1,000 to help Water for South Sudan buy a new drilling rig – The Iron Giraffe.

SELS News
No school November 21 – 25

Highlights
I would like to highlight Johan Sotelo for spearheading everything around Jungle Jars. He has put in an incredible amount of time and effort to market our product. He was contacted by EdCorps to contribute an article for their blog!

I would also like to highlight Katie Pruski, Marcy Thompson, Glenn Whitlow, Katie Benty, and Kari Sinoff for chaperoning our Sacramento day trip! Thanks for all you do!

Questions to Ask Your Child 
How do things work? Encourage your student to explore the mechanics behind everyday things: pens, mechanical pencils, can-openers, coffee makers, etc.

Crew News
We are moving forward in our business venture, Jungle Jars! We are finalizing our product, exploring possible donor recipients, and working on our mission statement. Hopefully, we will have everything ready shortly so you can order for Christmas!

SELS News
Fall Conferences will take place on October 24th and 25th. Please see “Fall Conferences” email for a link to the sign-up sheet.

I am attending the EL Conference in Detroit from October 26-28. I am very excited to bring back with me all the things I learn!

Important Dates: Check out our school calendar for important school events, minimum days, etc.

Calendar

Highlights
I would like to highlight Riley Thompson, Amelia Swanson, and Johan Sotelo. They showed amazing leadership skills last week when they gave Site Seminar participants tours of the SELS campus. The participants had so many wonderful things to say about all the 8th graders. They were impressed by their eloquence and maturity.

I would also like to highlight volunteers Kimmie Bullock, Heidi Link, and Katie Pruski. We encountered some challenges during our hike up to the SIerra Buttes fire lookout, and because of their flexibility and great attitudes, we all made it safely back to our campsite!

 Expedition

We have kicked-off our History Expedition, What the Bleep do We Know!? with a scavenger hunt through downtown Truckee. Students visited Truckee’s first dwelling, its first ski lift, and other places of historical significance. Everything is within walking distance; it might be fun to ask your son or daughter to show you where they went!

During this expedition students will continue to visit and reflect upon the essential question: How does perspective impact the interpretation of historical events? As we sift through America’s

history from the forming of our nation to WWI, students will analyze history through multiple perspectives; hence the title of our expedition. What do we know and where do we get our information? Our first Case Study, Rebel, Rebel, will take us from the first colonies to Jacksonian Democracy. I have scheduled our trip to San Francisco for April 15 – 17. We will be visiting Angel Island, Chinatown, the Cartoon Museum, and are volunteering our time at Glide Memorial Church. Please contact Marcy Thompson if you are interested in chaperoning.

Math

The students are wrapping up Chapter 7 where they learned how to use scatterplots to find the relationship between two different measurements for a set of objects. They identified associations between sets of data and represented the relationship with a trend line, found the slope of a line given its equation, its graph or two points on a line, and they found the equation of a trend line to fit linear data.

Reading/Literature

With our new expedition comes new reading. We are finished with science fiction, and are moving on to historical fiction and autobiography. Our first all-class read, Follow the River, tells the true story of Mary Ingalls, who was kidnapped by the Shawnee Indians in 1755. She escaped and followed the Ohio River back to her settlement after walking 800 miles. It is a powerful, and sometimes violent, story of a women’s determination to survive. We will be using this book to talk about perspective, stereotype, and courage. We will also be analyzing literary elements such as foreshadowing, perspective, style, mood, and others.

Writing

We have been working on honing our “on-demand” writing skills. This is a very hard, and sometimes frustrating skill to master. Our next writing assignment will have the students analyzing, from five different perspectives, Columbus’ expedition in 1492 and its results.

Students will also be analyzing political cartoons throughout this expedition and they will be required to create their own. These cartoons will incorporate writing pieces as explanations and to provide evidence on claims.

Who Am I?

Our Who Am I expedition is off to a great start. Because we are learning about advocacy and community, the students are drafting a proposal for SELS school improvements to be presented to our board of directors on March 2. They have identified needs and polled SELS’ students. After we whittle down the options, students will be drafting proposals and creating short presentations. The two groups with the best and most polished presentations will attend the board meeting that Monday night in March to present their proposals.

Upcoming Fieldwork

• March 12: Sacramento Capitol
• March TBD: Truckee Town Hall: Meet Mayor Alicia Barr
• April 15 – 17: San Francisco – camping at the Presidio

 Expedition

Our last case study, It’s Elemental, is all about the subatomic world, chemistry, and the periodic table. The students have identified substances and physical and chemical changes as they experimented with reactions. They have created a model of an atom and will be linking art with the elements. We are also in the building phase of our Rube Goldberg project, in which the students are building complex machines that will “turn a page”. They are solidifying their knowledge of force and motion and honing their engineering and collaboration skills. The end of the month will wrap up this expedition and in February we will begin our Social Studies Expedition. Details to come!

Math

The students are working with transformations and similarities. In this section students are learning how to transform shapes by flipping, turning, and sliding them on a coordinate graph. They are describing movement on a graph using coordinates and expressions. And finally, they are comparing shapes and using similarity to find missing side lengths of polygons, especially triangles.

Reading

We are breaking down the process of writing quality responses to literature. We are doing this in class as the students finish up their last book club book. In January we will be moving forward to and all-class read that relates to the Social Studies Expedition.

Writing

The students are writing short responses to literature based on the reading that they complete for that day. We are also spending 15-20 minutes free-writing in our writer’s notebooks. These free writes and responses to literature will be used (separately) to create longer pieces as we move forward. A final informative writing assignment will accompany the students’ Rube Goldberg project.

Upcoming Fieldwork

I am currently working on solidifying dates for fieldwork related to our next expedition. Our kick-off will include a walk through downtown Truckee. I will need about 5 volunteers to accompany us. Volunteers will be active participants. Please contact me if you are interested. I am also working on putting together a trip to Sacramento to visit the Capitol and a trip to San Francisco to visit Angel Island, Chinatown, and to offer our services to the community.

Expedition: We have finished up our physics case study, May the Force be With You. We studied force, motion, and energy and how they relate to our every day lives. Our fieldwork included visits to the Truckee Tahoe Airport and the Sacramento Aerospace Museum; both trips funded by the Truckee Tahoe Airport – thanks to Hardy Bullock! We learned more about the physics of flight and had a great time using flight simulators and boarding all kids of different airplanes. As our final Celebration of Learning project, the students are demonstrating their knowledge of the link between every day activities and physics through the medium of poetry. Our Poetry Slam will take place on Thursday, December 11 at 6:00 pm at the Truckee High School auditorium. Anyone and everyone are welcome to attend. I am asking that the students arrive at 5:30. We will be displaying other projects we have been working on throughout the year at Celebration of Learning on December 18 at 6pm. Our next and last case study, It’s Elemental, will focus on the atom, the periodic table, and chemistry.May the Force be With You 

Math: The students are working quickly through the new curriculum. We are currently working on chapter 5 as the students continue to focus on writing equations from word problems. They will be introduced to solving systems of equations where both equations are in y = mx + b form. They did great on the Chapter 4 test.

Literature: The students are reading their last book club book linked to our current expedition. We will be transitioning to an all class read as we move toward our social studies expedition and focusing on writing quality responses to literature.

Writing: We have begun writing our first short story. We are writing a science fiction story and exploring character development, setting, and the elements of plot. We will also be working on descriptive language, simile and metaphor, and other forms of figurative language.

Thank you to the families in our crew that continue to make this year’s experience so great for the students. I couldn’t do it without you; you are very much appreciated. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!!

We have wrapped up our unit on the exploration of our universe,
In a Galaxy Far, Far Away with a trip to Fleischmann’s Planetarium in Reno. The students demonstrated their understanding of complex topics by creating an encyclopedia that included illustrated models of concepts, explanatory text, and relevant vocabulary. Using technology, students presented difficult concepts to the class including information about types of stars and galaxies, nebulae, black holes, gravity, and more. They created activities and note-catchers for their peers to help further their understanding. We have started our Case Study May the Force be With You as we jump into the study of physics. We are currently learning about the basics of force and motion. Yesterday Kirk, from the Tahoe Institute of Natural Science, came into the classroom and gave the students an eye-opening presentation about the physics of bird flight. The best part was looking at real bird wings and understanding how they work. Field work for this unit is expected to include the Aerospace Museum in Sacramento, the Truckee Airport, the physics department at UNR, and a possible UNR basketball game.

Who Am I?

Students are continuing to grapple with their global issues research argumentative essays. They have written proposals, formatted an outline, and are working on their first drafts. They are learning how to properly use in-text citations, how to write transition sentences, and how to edit their own work using a rubric.

Math

We have just finished Chapter 3 as the students found patterns, created tables based on those patterns, and then graphed and wrote rules for their findings. The students did very well on this assessment. Chapter 4 builds on these concepts. It contains only 1 section, as it focuses solely on the connections between the four representations of data: patterns, tables, graphs, and equations (also referred to as “rules”).

Writing

The 8^th graders are continuing to work with the students in Akers’ Crew as they assist their peers in editing. The Who Am I Expedition is guiding the students through the process of formal research. We are also exploring poetry as we relate it to our science expedition.

Expedition

We are wrapping up our “Becoming a Scientist” case study and will be moving on to a deeper study of our solar system and the Milky Way galaxy. Students have been learning about the metric system and how to make accurate measurements. I am in the process of planning a day trip to Fleischmann’s Planetarium in Reno in October. I will let you know as soon as I have the date set.

Who Am I?

Students will be answering the question of “who am I as a global citizen” this year, and we have started diving into some tough social and environmental justice issues. Students are learning how to conduct research and how to sift through different news sources.

Math

We are wrapping up Chapter 2 of the math curriculum. We have been working with algebra tiles and equation mats as we learn how to simplify algebraic equations. While the students seem comfortable with the content, the process is still new to them. To be able to explain mathematical processes and work with a team has been challenging for some of the students, but they are learning quickly.

Reading

The students are flying through their books! Their book clubs on Friday are going well. Students are able to pick from a variety of discussion protocols to help guide them through. By the end of the book, the students are identifying theme and exploring how it develops over the course of the story line.

Writing

The students have been writing a ton! They keep a daily writer’s notebook where we have explored a variety of strategies to help them choose subject matter. We visited the school library and explored various “grabber leads” to help inspire the students in their own writing. They will be assigned their first formal research paper in the next couple of weeks. I am excited to be partnering up with the Aker’s Crew as we jump into peer editing. On Fridays the students will meet with the fourth and fifth graders, partner up, and assist them in editing their papers. The younger kids will get some great peer review while the 8^th graders will get real, hands-on editing experience.

Conferences

Don’t forget to go online and sign up for conferences (October 14 – 15); that week is also minimum days, so please be sure to make the proper arrangements for transportation. Students will receive a goal-setting and reflection document this week; please work with your student to ensure they come to their conference prepared to share!

Homework

Just a reminder that the homework so far has been the 5-6 math problems and 20 pages of reading. If a student has unfinished classwork, it becomes extra homework as well. There have been a number of students in class who are able to finish classwork early while in class and have gone on to complete their homework in class (and have no homework that night). I have been giving students ample time in class to complete their classwork. I will be talking to the students about time management skills to help them utilize their time in class better so that they don’t have classwork to take home. While this is the norm currently, again, there will be times that they will be assigned extra homework as we dive into bigger projects and research papers.

If you need the link to the math website or need more information, don’t forget to visit the crew website at www.connollycrew.weebly.com

What a month it has been so far! Our Star Wars Expedition has taken us to the Fleishman Planetarium in Reno, and even to Austria for a teleconference with some astronomers. If you missed our conversation and would like to check it out, we’ve posted it online here.

Students have been hosting some wonderful book clubs as we explore the world (or more appropriately, the universe) of science fiction. We’ve been reading A Wrinkle in Time, Ender’s Game, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Martian Chronicles, all of which offer a unique perspective on the struggles of the universe.

Students have been demonstrating their knowledge of essential science skills and pertinent details about our ssolar system in a variety of ways: first, we created a Metric Mini-Me, where we mastered metric length by measuring the length of major body parts and then squished a portait of ourselves onto a strip of 10 centimeters wide. It was a great challenge to see whose mini-me looked most like its illustrator! Then we created the Planet-Foldable, where we made accordian books to collect all the important data related to our planets. This week, we submitted some fabulous concept maps on our solar system. If you’d like to see your student’s hard work, be sure to check in their expedition notebook or stop by the classroom to see some work up on the walls.

This week we are gearing up to head out to Mono Lake as we dive deep into our explorations of our universe. Students have been working hard on their expert group presentations; topics range from The Big Bang, to The Drake Equation, to Nebula, to Black Holes. We will also have an opportunity to serve the community of Mono Lake with a service project through the Mono Lake Committee. Huge thanks to our parent volunteers for making our fieldwork a possibility!

Our math investigations so far have explored some mathematical models, specifically linear equations and inverse variation. We are still working hard to master our mathematician skills and learning a lot about how to make sense of our mathematical world. We recently dove into some investigations involving the Pythagorean Theorum and are learning how geometry and algebra can connect in really cool ways.

Don’t forget to go online and sign up for conferences (October 14 – 18); that week is also minimum days, so please be sure to make the proper arrangements for transportation. Students will receive a goal-setting and reflection document this week; please work with your student to ensure they come to their conference prepared to share!