Curriculum Corner

ESY (Kitchen/Garden) & Theater Arts

THEATER ARTS Will Todisco & Angela Harris

In 5th grade Theater we are performing Reader's Theater for our classes. Everyone has the same script, a selection from this trimester's ELA book, Esperanza Rising. The groups of students started by utilizing each other as resources to assist in defining the academic English words and working on Spanish pronunciations as they rehearsed their lines. Reader's Theater is focused on using facial expressions, tone of voice, and pronunciation while reading from a script in a group. Next we will start covering actor's positions and areas of the stage by using math to assist in plotting a stage floor plan. 6th graders have already completed much classwork from creating an original realistic fictional character outline to inventing their own astrological myth. This week the classes discussed the importance of theme and mood in a work of art and are working on their own original A/B dialogue scenes. The goal is to encourage the students to continue on their scene work and furthermore work collaboratively towards creating original one-act plays that the class could work towards creating an outline of a production team's artistic vision.

ESY (Kitchen & Gardening) Mimi Bonetti & Nickey Bennett-Reed

There's been some exciting stuff happening in ESY lately.
In Gardening we moved and replanted raised beds, remodeled our Worm Shack (they are much happier now), learned about the migration of Monarch butterflies and began the construction of our natural wildlife habitat by sowing butterfly friendly wildflower seeds.

It’s been a busy trimester in the Kitchen Classroom too. You can see some of the fruits of our labor at the upcoming Harvest Festival. We will be selling a cookbook including salad dressing recipes from our students which they turned in for our assignment, How To Write A Recipe. We are also selling pickled items we are making during our next unit on preserving. You can also see samples of our Recipe Project at the Winter Breakfast on December 13th here at Selma, as well as sample Winter Squash Waffles made by our students for you.

Thanks to all of the parents who have donated cans of pumpkin as well as the parents who have helped kick-off our campus beautification! Don't forget to support the ESY program by getting your tickets to the Harvest Festival that's on Dec 9th at the Fairfax Campus!!!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break!

Spanish & P.E. in November

SPANISH Miguel Alvarez
In 5th Grade Spanish students have learned how to greet each other and say their goodbyes to end a conversation properly. It brought me great joy to see my students engage in conversational Spanish at such an early stage in our program. Students even know how to differentiate their conversations formally and informally. Students are also able to tell you every letter in the Spanish alphabet plus the ch, ll, and rr. Students also know their colors in Spanish and numbers 0-19. They can even sing you a few songs to teach you greetings, colors, and numbers. I am looking forward to our Día de los Muertos lesson in a few days. It is truly one of my favorite parts of teaching Spanish.

In 6th Grade Spanish students have added numerous questions and answers to improve their conversational Spanish. They have learned how to ask for each other's name, ask how old a family member is, ask who is missing in a picture or event, describe how someone is, describe one another and ask why they are that certain way, ask how much something costs, and for our wild animals unit ask what is in a zoo or a certain location. Students are able to describe opposites, know numbers 0-100 in Spanish, and name various wild animals in Spanish. I am looking forward to our upcoming project were students will create their own zoo in Spanish!

PHYSICAL EDUCATION Keith Harris
This past month we wrapped our first venture into fitness testing. Students were working to test their strength, muscle endurance and speed. However, due to weather changes our fitness testing ceased and the students were able to enjoy PE inside of the auditorium. To much of their enjoyment our auditorium was transformed into a dodgeball arena where students had to articulate teamwork and sportsman-like conduct. With fitness testing at its completion our next unit of kickball should be a blast, where students will be given the opportunity to illustrate the teamwork characteristics we are developing.

Click here to listen to student Hugo Owens talk about Coach Keith's team building activity.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risk will accomplish nothing in life” -Muhammad Ali

6th Grade Math and History

MATH Jen Dowty & Candice Allen

"We've been learning so many amazing things in math, like algebra and graphing, that I myself use after school and to make puns, like how I'm Xe and then there's Yla. But I also use it to evaluate situations and to understand things mathematically. It's super fun, no lie" - Exie

"We have been learning about graphs and how it relates to our life. For example, we did a project called On Your Own where you have to do math to buy furniture under a budget. We have also been learning about algebraic concepts and how they relate to patterns. We have been learning through CPM3 with a wide variety of different problems. We practice what we learned in class with homework but also review what we have learned in the past. It is very fun what we are learning but informative at the same time. I am learning a lot of information even in a short period of time." - Beckett

“In math, we are doing negative and positive numbers. We’re doing Cecil’s tightrope challenge where we’re creating a routine for Cecil the tightrope walker. He has to cross the halfway point of the rope five times to complete the challenge.” -Danny

“We are learning about how to find part of a part by multiplying fractions and mixed numbers.” - Zak

HISTORY Candice Allen & Lorena Orlosky

"In history we are learning about Ancient History. We do our work in workbooks and we read in text books. We started off with cave art. After we finished learning about cave art, we go to write an essay about it and make our own cave art. Then, we learned about hominids and wrote hominid songs. Next, we learned about farming and hunting/gathering. Finally, we are currently learning about Ancient Mesopotamia. I love history and learning about it in a fun way." - Kayla

"In Candice's history class we are studying ancient civilizations. Candice makes it better because she adds in various different projects and things that differ from other history classes. She makes it more fun and more entertaining. I give 4.6 stars." - Baron

“In Jen’s history class, we’re learning about ancient Mesopotamia and how people lived and inventions that they created. We’re also learning about how they had kings, such as Hammurabi, how their social system worked, and that they fought over resources like water. Another thing that is interesting about the Mesopotamians is that they were the first civilization with a written language.” -Jenny B.

“In history we are learning about the characteristics of civ and how they were portrayed through ancient Mesopotamia.” - Mae

“We’re also doing this rap that teaches us that they were the first civilization with a written language.“ Cansu

“We have been examining different Mesopotamian artifacts to see if they match different characteristics of civilization. We’re not in our books the whole time -- it’s very interactive.” -Alekos

“When we wrote a poem about The Big Bang or the “Pale Blue Dot” speech we got to express our opinions about how the universe was created.” –Naziah

“We used inferential skills and knowledge about the world around us to channel our understanding into a poem.” – Ray W

“We learned about Paleolithic People and Neolithic people in a fun way. The Mesopotamia Rap helped us memorize accurate facts in a fun way.” – Jasmine

“The Mesopotamia Rap is like a whole chapter in the textbook that was fun way of learning about what happened way back in history.” – Sammy

“Everything is art, when you think about it. The study of “Why did humans create art?” connects us to each other and to the past.” –Sophie S

“In our Socratic Seminar, we discussed how we could change our community one person at a time. I felt that my peers who might not usually talk, had a lot to say in the discussion about our “Pale Blue Dot” of a planet.” - Noah

“Learning about the Big Bang kick-started something in my brain about all the things that humans create on our planet and how we are connected to humans from a long time ago.” –Cody

“Our style of learning allows us to use our creativity and research to show our understanding of a topic. For example, we make comic books or art to explain parts of history.” –Rayhan