Important Dates:
- July 5: School
opens
- July 7: Juggling Performance by "Just
Foolin' Around" featuring Rick Simpson and Jeff Peden
followed by Juggling Workshop for students and faculty. Rick and
Jeff demonstrate how juggler's use focus, technique, practice and
team work.
Activity
Photos | Class Photos
Class Summaries: Week 1
5th
Library: Candice Lucas, Stacey Ehrig
Our first week flew by as we
learned to use cooperation and communication to solve problems. Students
practiced verbal and non-verbal communication techniques while solving
problems. Famous people were uncovered when students interviewed
other members of the group. Our next challenge was to arrange the group
in birthday order -- silently!! Mrs. Ehrig and Mrs. Lucas tied us
in knots. When we untangled ourselves, we demonstrated kindness,
trust, cooperation, teamwork and persistence. We also learned
about relative mapping - we'll never be lost next year.
5th
English: Judy Adair, Stephanie Perlet
Our 5th (almost 6th!!!)
graders are off to a great start! In
the first two days of Summer Prep, the students have already been
working on our listening, speaking, and writing skills.
They had to listen when their partners described themselves, and
then they had to orally present their partners to the whole group.
For the next activity, each student wrote brief phrases that
described his or her life, interests, or likes and dislikes.
The kids were very active listeners (standing up and sitting
down) when they heard about their classmates’ interests and discovered
that they shared many in common. The students then transformed their
individual descriptive phrases into dynamic, expanded, and complete
sentences. Our students are
extremely enthusiastic and creative!
5th
Learning Skills:
Andy Morrow, Jennifer Soloman
Our students spent this
abbreviated week focusing on organization and personal expression.
Students reviewed the reasons for maintaining an organized
notebook and locker in 6th Grade and set up their own
notebook for the Summer Academy. Students
also completed a “ME” Banner. This
is a colorful collage of pictures and words that visually expresses
their interests and activities. A
key component of each student’s banner is a poem that shares his or
her accomplishments, strengths, and goals for the future. Next week we look forward to touring the school in
preparation for 6th grade and focusing on organization and
reading skills.
5th
Math: Raina Debboli, Heather Kitchen
Day 1:
The 5th graders began the summer program by getting in
groups of 3 or 4 and discovering the similarities they shared.
In order to do this they needed to generate a list of qualities
or interests that all members shared in common.
For example, if 2 out of the 4 members did not share this quality
they could not add it to their list.
After brainstorming for a few minutes they created and then
presented a collage of drawings, words, and symbols that represented
their shared interests. They
finished the first day by collecting data for a graph called “Number
of Students from Pittsford Elementary Schools”.
Day 2:
We started off by engaging in a discussion about how the activity
and the graph related to mathematics.
The students arrived at the conclusion that many math skills were
used such as equality, majority, percents, decimals, and fractions.
We guided this discussion to further investigate how many ways
fractions can be used in both the collage activity and the graph
activity. Together the
students shared various ways fractions are used in their everyday lives
as we compiled it onto our easel.
Students then practiced writing
fractions in several different ways such as written form, fraction form
and pictures. They did a
terrific job of working in groups and volunteering great ideas
throughout the week. We
look forward to working with this group of students next week as we
explore fractions through a variety if activities.
6
– 8 Upper School
English: Pamina
Abkowitz, Jill Wahl
“It was a hot, sticky day.
I was sitting by the pool and I heard a noise…” That is the
kernel that served as inspiration for a creative writing assignment in
6-8 English classes. Incorporating
adjectives, the class developed a story chain.
In a story chain, each student molds the beginning of a story
from the given starter statement. Then
each passes his/her paper to someone else to develop the plot further.
Finally, a third or fourth student concludes the piece.
We are all eager to share the end products on Monday!
One of our goals for this summer
program is to teach kids how to write complete sentences more
consistently. We began this
endeavor by reviewing some key parts of speech that included subjects,
verbs, pronouns, and adjectives. The
musical video Grammar Rock provided the backdrop for engaging several of
the multiple intelligences used for learning.
Ask your child to sing you a verse of “The Tale of Mr.
Morton” or “Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla”.
They should also be able to spout off at least three powerful
adjectives to describe anything! These
concepts will be vital to improving writing skills in the next few weeks
and beyond.
Technology: Brian
Holliday, Terry VanDerLinden
The 6th grade
students are starting out with a hands-on activity (water rockets.) The
water rocket activity will cover several of the Math, Science and
Technology standards. Through
making water rockets students apply the principles of aerodynamics,
Newton’s laws of motion and skills in measuring.
The 7th grade
students are starting out with a hand on activity (model rockets.) The model rocket activity will cover several of the
Math, Science and Technology standards.
Through making water rockets students apply the principles of
aerodynamics, Newton’s laws of motion and skills in measuring.
The 8th grade
students will be working on their English skills through creating their
own personal web page. Students have been introduced to web page design
software and are currently exploring web sites for clip art and other
material and that can be placed on their web page.
Learning Skills:
MaryLynn
Gleason, Dave Providence, Brett Provenzano
The 6th, 7th,and
8th grade study skills this week has been all about learning how to make
transitions and how to organize one’s self to get from point A to
point B. Each group defined
what organization means and how each person can make it work. We
brainstormed what kinds of simple skills we already know and then we
worked on developing an overview of the Summer Prep course, which took
those very simple skills into the more complex and abstract tasks which
will be confronted more and more as the students approach high school.
In addition, we started working on our learning logs, which help
students to reflect upon what they have done in a given day.
Why should the teachers do all evaluations?
Each student is being encouraged to evaluate themselves and how
they viewed the daily activities. And,
how about those “To Do” lists?
We each have tasks we must do and those we want to do—but they
need to be balanced!
Next week we are going to be
looking at how the brain works! Why?
Because we really want to get those long-term memory skills
working and the kids need to understand how the brain handles
information so that they can know how to manage all the information they
are asked to process during any given day.
Wow! That’s a big
agenda… however; just wait until next week when we get into working on
“document-based essays.” Parents,
ask your kids about the DBQ’s because they know all about them.
Math: Jeremy
Duntley, Kim Mrva
The first two days of
instruction in math have enabled all 6th, 7th, and
8th graders to become acquainted with the basic functions of
the Geometer’s Sketchpad software.
Students have reinforced their Geometry knowledge as they create,
name, and measure line segments and angles.
These practice days have allowed students to become comfortable
with the tools and menus in Geometer’s Sketchpad before we proceed to
more complicated applications.
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