Glad Tidings

A Newsletter from the Assumption School Angels

December 2019 Volume 4, Issue 2

GRADE 4

Over the past few weeks we have been back in New York City, but this time it is the New York Times Subway Station. There we met the Bellini Family and Mario who found Chester the cricket in a pile of rubbish. Chester was con-sidered a jinx as he ate a $2 bill and set fire to the family's newsstand. Now he is playing opera, a rumba, and classical music and bringing an abundance of customers to a once struggling newsstand. We will finish this book, A Cricket in Times Square, with a few different activities such as New York City and Connecticut travel brochures.

Greetings Parents and Students,

This past November we celebrated All

Saint's and All Soul's Day at Mass and

within our school. Students were encour-

aged to bring in photos of loved ones

gone too soon to adorn the "Stairway to

Heaven" in the church. Our Fourth

Graders and Kindergarteners also por-

trayed six different saints at the All Saint's

Day Mass. The students looked up infor-

mation on the saints and wrote a short

paragraph describing their lives. It was a

wonderful celebration of the saints.

Blessings- Mrs. Olson

GRADE 3

Three, two, one….blast off into the solar system! Third Grade has been on a galactic journey learning about the planets and other objects in our solar system. Do you know the difference between a terrestrial planet and a gas giant? When does a meteor become a meteorite? In Social Studies we took a different kind of journey when we boarded the May-flower and learned about the Pilgrims’ long ride to a new land. We en-joyed sharing some ship’s biscuits, cheese, and beef jerky like the Pil-grim’s would eat during their long journey. Besides honing our addition and subtraction skills with larger numbers, we spent time learning math terms such as addend, sum, minuend, subtrahend, and differences. The Community Property of Addition enables us to move addends around and still get the same sum. We were amazed at how many different ways you can arrange addends and still get the same sum! There is much excite-ment about beginning to learn the multiplication facts next. Games like Knights & Dragons and Sparkle make practicing spelling words so much more fun. Just in time for the season we are learning about Advent and Christmas traditions of our Catholic faith. Stay tuned for the next Glad Tidings to hear about what Grade 3 has been doing in Reading, Language Arts, and Vocabulary.

GRADE 4 & KINDERGARTEN BUDDIES

This past November we gathered as bud-dies to read and create Advent chains to celebrate each day leading up to Christ-mas. Grade 4 and Kindergarten celebrate Mass each week and Grade 4 helps them read the lyrics to songs and respond to Father Dan.

GRADE 6 SCIENCE

How long will it take to hop across the room? How heavy do you think your water bottle is? How much space does your textbook take up? How cold is it outside? That’s right, we are measuring, and we are measuring everything, length, volume, time, mass, temperature, and more! Let’s see how we measure up with precision and accuracy and maybe even learn how to put that information into an easy to read graph as we com-plete this chapter.

GRADE 7 SCIENCE

Yep, we are still stuck on cells. Man for little things, they sure do have a lot of information. We learned about what was in a cell and each organelles function. We will now be moving into osmosis, diffusion, and bonds...not James, molecular bonds.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

SPANISH—In Spanish, Grades 1, 2, & 3 are working very hard in learning how to count and how to say the days of the week, months, and colors.

FRENCH— In French, Grades 4 & 5 are doing very well in expanding their vocabulary by working with the verb to be and action verbs,

LATIN—Grades 6, 7, & 8 are exploring the Latin Language by learning classroom, city, and farm vocabulary. Grade 6 also completed a project on the Roman Gods. They also did a great job on their presentations!

MIDDLE SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES

GRADE 6 - Geography students have started their travels around

the world by exploring our diverse continent, North America, by

beginning here in the United States. They discovered some of our

national parks and shared their findings. They have learned about

the geography, government, economy, and people of our neigh-

bors to the north, Canada, and look forward to continuing their

travels to Mexico.

GRADE 7 - World History students have just completed investiga-

tions of the military empires of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Per-

sians and the contributions they made to advance society. They

compared the governments and military prowess of each and dec-

orated shields to reflect the ideology of these civilizations. We will

next explore Ancient America and Africa before moving on to the

Greeks and the many ways they have influenced our lives today.

GRADE 8 -American History students have thoroughly examined

how our forefathers created our Constitution and established our

government system. In pairs, the students completed a scavenger

hunt based on the Constitution and completed a related essay as a

culminating activity.

MIDDLE SCHOOL LITERATURE

All students continue to work to improve vocabulary use as well as

writing in response to literature.

Students in Grades 6, 7, & 8 have been reading poetry, together

with short fiction and nonfiction selections, and learning how to

apply their reading skills for comprehension and analysis of the

text. Our upcoming class novel for Grade 6 is The View from Satur-

day by E. L. Konigsburg and Grade 7 students will read Fever 1793

by Laurie Halse Anderson. Grade 8 students may choose from The

Diary of Young Girl by Anne Frank and Parallel Journeys by Eleanor

H. Ayer. The students will read, discuss, and analyze their novels

before demonstrating their understanding by sharing projects of

their choosing.

All students are reading the “outside” reading books they have

selected from the genres of either fantasy or science fiction and

will complete graphic organizers. They will present brief descrip-

tions and impressions of their novels to their respective classes.

GRADE 6 HEALTH

GOAL! Well, not that kind. We are finishing up our short term and long term goals before we go into our decision making pro-cess. Also, listen - did you hear that? Probably not, you were probably thinking about what you wanted to say, that you missed out on what was being said. Or maybe you didn’t catch some body language that would have given you a clue on to how the person you are talking to is feeling. We will be talking about how to listen as well, before we dive into smoking and why we shouldn’t start. We will prepare to enter the annual anti-tobacco poster contest as well.

GRADE 7 HEALTH

We took a slight detour and decided to talk about our skin. What makes up our skin, how can we take care of it, what happens when we do not take care of it and how to treat and prevent acne. While I would love to test out some napping theories, there will be no sleeping in Health Class. We will be discussing how much sleep we need, how to sleep better, what prevents us from getting a good night’s sleep and more! Don’t fall asleep, this is going to be a real eye-opener.

GRADE 8 HEALTH

It’s baking time! We will be heading to the kitchen to learn some basic kitchen safety, how to follow a recipe and even whip up some tasty treats! We will be starting with baked items that we will actually be selling at our 8th Grade table for the Chain of Lights! Yummy!

PRE-K PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Left, right, forward, backward, balance, jump, and land. We are hav-ing a great time moving all around and trying to figure it all out. What happens if we jump without using our arms or if we do not bend our legs? How do we jump up on something or over something? How do we land? How many different body parts can we balance on? What kind of objects can we balance on? All these questions and more are being dis-covered right here in Pre-K PE world.

GRADES K - 4 PHYSICAL EDUCATION

We had some Halloween and Thanksgiving themed fun and are now per-fecting some throwing, tossing, and kicking skills. Then, it is off for some Christmas/wintertime fun. We will sled ride, have snowball fights, pretend we are Santa, and walk on roof tops, train our reindeer, ice skate, and much more. We shall not have the winter blues!

GRADES 5 – 8 PHYSICAL EDUCATION

There was "Chaos on the Turkey Farm," but we got it all under control. We are getting ready for some hockey action and Christmastime fun! We shall defeat the Grinch and bring order back to the world.

STUDENT COUNCIL

The Student Council held a Food Drive from November 4-21 to help the St. Vincent de Paul Society stock their food pan-try. A total of 2,698 non-perishable items were donated.

GRADE 2

In this second marking term Grade 2 is moving onto verbs after shining and learning all the rules for nouns. They also have become proficient at know-ing their subtraction facts. It is now onto double digit subtraction and learn-ing how to regroup. As we enter the holiday season these Second Graders are preparing to honor Jesus by learn-ing about reconciliation. They under-stand about forgiveness and it shows in how they learn and play together.

KINDERGARTEN is unbeLEAFable!

In the month of November we discussed and reflected on what we were thankful for. Some things we were thankful for were Mary, Joseph, Jesus, God, our families, food, and our homes. We learned about the first Thanksgiving and even had a feast in our class-room.

For Veterans Day we created cards to say thank you to our Veterans. In Religion we created an Advent chain countdown to Jesus’ Birthday. We used pink and purple for the colors of Advent and on each chain has a nickname of Jesus in the Bible. Recently, we celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas and learned how St. Nicholas helped others. During rest time we took off our shoes and waited to see the magic of St. Nicholas. When we woke up from rest and went back into the coatroom to put on our shoes we noticed St. Nicholas left coins in our shoes!

GRADE 5

The second quarter is flying by, the “Splendid Six” are doing

amazing! In Language Arts, the students wrote creepy Hal-

loween stories, funny stories about what they did on the

weekends, and personal narratives of their proudest

achievements. In Reading, we sent our postcards, poems,

and letters to Number the Stars author Lois Lowry, and we

received a thank-you note from her, as well as an auto-

graphed copy of one of her books that we sent to be

signed!! We were so happy when we got the package!

Now, we are reading the classic book, The Lion, the Witch,

and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis! We acted out different

chapters, and we plan to create poems about the story! In

Social Studies, we are studying different Native American

tribes. We made dreamcatchers, helped out First Grade

with their totem pole, and read famous Native American

legends.

ART

What does peace mean to you? The Seventh and Eighth Grade stu-dents are posing questions such as this in the Art Room. These discus-sions are had to enhance their creativity. Next, sketchbooks are used to develop messages of peace through imagery as we begin the Inter-national Peace Poster Competition. Lions Clubs around the world have been sponsoring this art contest for over three decades. The 2019-2020 poster theme is ‘Journey of Peace.’ Creating peace posters offers us a chance to think about the importance of world peace and interna-tional understanding.

Students chose color pencils or markers to express their personal mes-sages on a large, poster format. These unique visions of peace will be shared with the school community and possibly the world. Each post-er is judged on originality, artistic merit, and expression of the theme. One poster from Assumption School is chosen and will move on to the District Contest. Once again, the peace posters were a kind reminder of the importance of world peace and a creative success for all.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH

As we progress through the second quarter, students continue to apply and extend their Math skills learned in the first quarter. During this winter period of potential school cancellations, it is good to see many students working their Khan Academy assignments. These non-compulsory assignments are intended to supplement classroom lessons and enable students to continue to learn and practice Math skills even when school is closed. Students can earn one quiz grade based on their percent of assignments completed.

GRADE 6 - Students extended their number sense pro-ficiency learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide whole and multi-digit decimal numbers. They learned how to estimate sums, differences, products, and quotients using front-end, rounding, and compatible number meth-ods. We continue to learn how to evaluate and solve al-gebraic equations, order of operations, and practice writing equations to solve everyday word problems.

GRADE 7 - Students completed their study of Expres-sions and Equations, learning more advanced skills neces-sary to solve multi-step algebraic equations and related word problems. We are just starting to learn about Ine-qualities; how to recognize, write, and graph inequalities, how to express word problems as inequalities and deter-mine the variable values that make an inequality expres-sion true or false.

GRADE 8 - Students completed learning about real and rational numbers, their properties, order of operations, and exponent operations. They learned about Pythagore-an’s Theorem and how it can be applied to solving real world triangle related problems. We’ve just started a more detailed study of the algebraic concepts learned last year which will include; solving multi-step, absolute-value, and literal equations.

PRE-K

Pre-K is busy getting ready for the holiday season.

The classroom has been decorated with trees, gar-

land, lights and festive decorations. We are making

ornaments, advent candle window art, and stockings

to decorate our “fireplace.” Our new Elf, Paul, has

joined the classroom, making sure we all stay on our

best behavior. We are also learning about Jesus and

his birth by coloring the parts of a manger we will

put together.

GRADE 1

The First Grade class has been studying about Native Americans and the First Thanksgiving. The children were introduced to many interesting facts of how Native Americans once lived. As part of this study the focus was on the Wampanoag Tribe and how they helped the Pilgrims adjust to their new life in Plymouth. The children also learned a Navajo Prayer chant, some Cherokee words, and many Native American customs. They made Seminole headdresses, beaded necklaces, weavings, a Cher-okee rock math game, and a totem pole (assisted by their 5th Grade buddy class). They also learned that not all Native Americans lived in teepees. Some lived in different types of homes including a wetu, a longhouse, a chickee, a mud house, and an igloo. The study ended with a Corn and Cranberry celebration while listening to Native American music.

MUSIC

We have been preparing for our Christmas Concert on

December 13th. The band will play, along with our new-

est members, the chorus will sing, and all classes will

perform songs about all the people who came to Bethle-

hem on that night so long ago. As an added treat, we

will have some guest performers!