Date to Mark

Time Events

10/27 1pm Halloween parties

10/30 and 10/31

Parent teacher conferences

11/1-11/3 PD no school for students

11/7 8:00am Class picture day and retake day

The Academy Advisory Board

Meets every second Tuesday of each month at 3:30 at Academy in the office with exception of June, July and August.

All welcome to attend.

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NEWSLETTER Principal: Barbara Gerard Phone 907-746-2358 Assistant Principal: Peter Olson Fax 907-746-2368 Website http://matsuk12.us/acc

October 27, 2017

Dear Families,

A HUGE thank you to our amazing teaching staff and the parents who joined in to help make the Intensives such awesome learning opportunities for our middle school students! We recognize the extra time and effort that goes into making these weeklong hands-on learning intensives so fantastic!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Please remember to bring your student with you to your conference appointment time. This process of joining together, parent, student and teacher, helps to cement the fact that it is a team effort and every person in the team is critical to making it a success!

Professional Development Days

We are excited to have the opportunity to work together “learning as a staff”. Two of the three days of professional development will be dedicated to increasing teacher knowledge and the use of technology to improve student-learning opportunities. Teachers will also learn to maximize some the districtwide technology tools to help with use of student assessment data to adjust instruction to personalize learning. This will include using the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) data, using the GOOGLE slide program in the classroom, and other cutting edge programs. The final day will be dedicated to HAPPY GO TEACH and implementing some of the strategies and techniques from this training.

Open door policy!

If you ever have any questions, concerns, or just want to stop in to visit, we have an open door policy! WE CARE!

Barbara and Pete

Thank you to ALL our fantastic parents that help us each and every day! We cannot do it without you!!!!

http://matsuk12.us/acc

Classroom News

First-Grade Facts . . . Betsy.Mayer@matsuk12.us The hardest bit this week has been slowing the students down to enter words into their Spalding books properly as well as with counting on in math (yes, they can add or do mental math but can they start with the big number and count on?). The only reason it proved to need more diligence in instruction was because of all the other learning fun that happened this week …. pumpkin exploration to introduce adjectives, voting on pumpkin carving, trifold monster book to write the beginning, middle and end of “Leonardo the Terrible Monster,” sequencing the life cycle of a pumpkin and of course pumpkin math investigations! Oh, and we also learned a doubles math song and did a booklet.

Pumpkin waffles and the Halloween parties are always fun ... thank you to all of you who helped out!!!

I look forward to the conferences next week! Mrs. Mayer

Our theme for the week was pumpkins. We enjoyed stories, poems and activities around the theme. Thank you for all the help and thoughtfulness that went in to your helping us with all of it. You ROCK!

In math we reviewed shapes and did some pumpkin math. Again, thank you for all the families that helped by coming in or sending pumpkins.

One more thank you goes out to the Pratt family for bringing in Rosy the sheep for our class to visit. The students loved it.

Have a great week off and I look forward to meeting with all of you at conferences:-).

Second Grade News Michelle.Booth@matsuk12.us We had a great week finishing our work for conferences. Hopefully everyone has their times for conferences. If not, please contact the office to check in. You can also e-mail me to check times too. :O) The kids had their class reward party. It was a good time. Thank you to our room moms for getting our Halloween party together. Have a good break! Mrs. Booth Holler for Learning!

Hello Families,

It was a great week in the 2nd grade! The students enjoyed mixing up our groups and participating in pumpkin activities. Thank you to Mrs. Booth, Miss Fawn, and Mrs. Manley who helped out with my classes this week so that I could teach the Watercolor Intensive with Mrs. Ramirez!

mailto:Michelle.Booth@matsuk12.us

Classroom News 3rd 4th and 5th grades

Kile’s Kiddos tamela.kile@matsuk12.us

This week in Language Arts, I decided not to do a spelling test because so many students will not be here Friday because they will be traveling. A new list will go home upon their return. Instead, we worked on nouns, synonyms, and antonyms. We also completed all missing work.

In math, we began division. Students were excited to learn the concepts involved. When we return from the break, we will dive into division and multiplication. Please have your child begin to use multiplication flash cards at home (0, 1, and 2s). This will help your child with fluency.

I am looking forward to meeting with each parent and child to review the progress made so far in this school year. Have a great week off.

Third Grade News Naomi.Weetman@matsuk12.us Thank you to all that helped contribute to our Halloween party. The class had a wonderful time. Please remember, conferences are on Monday and Tuesday of next week. If you do not remember, your time or you need to reschedule please contact the office. No school for students on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I am moving this week’s spelling test to November 10th. We will continue with the same words so hang on to those lists.

This week we started our spelling list and then focused on two of our Core Knowledge Idioms. Ask your 3rd grader what it means to beat around the bush. We also reviewed alphabetical order and worked on synonyms. Next week we will continue with the same spelling list.

During math, we looked at how division and subtraction are related as well as how division and multiplication are related. We will continue to focus on these skills after the break. We also had our tryouts for the 3rd grade Thanksgiving play. Keep your calendars open for Wednesday, November 22. We will have two showings of the play that day and then stay for our family feast. You won’t’ want to miss it.

Mrs. Weetman

The Real Report

Thank you, to everyone who made our Halloween Party AWESOME! L/A: This week students read a short novella, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Students explored vocabulary, grammar, literary devices, and art. It was an informative and fun learning opportunity.

MATH: This week we learned about the distributive property of multiplication. Students multiplied using a variety of ways (creating boxes, using parenthesis, stacking the numbers). Then we reviewed some of the earlier material from chapter 2: factorization, prime/composite, exponential numbers, AND rounding/estimating.

Since it is essential to have multiplication facts mastered for the coming chapters and work, we also continued practicing multiplication facts. Please continue to practice at home. PLEASE LOG INTO ALEKS EVERYDAY during the break. It will really help!

Have a great weekend!- Mrs. Real.

P.S. See you at P/T CONFERENCES!

mailto:tamela.kile@matsuk12.usmailto:Naomi.Weetman@matsuk12.us

Reports from our Labs

The Kindergarten class learned about land forms. They practiced using mountains, rivers, and lakes on a map. The first graders also worked on land forms. They designed and created theirs. Next lab we will design our map with the 6 different land forms. The second graders worked on parts of a map. They designed a map with a key. ****5th graders…Don’t forget to keep studying your state information. Our first quiz in November 15th.

Holler for Art!

Some BIG things happened in art this week! The first and second graders created wide mouth fish and extra large hamburger sculptures. The Kindergarten students built a slice of pumpkin pie out of paper tessera and tissue paper. Ask a K,1, or 2 student to share some of their fantastic artwork with you!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs. Holler

Writing Lab

This week the kindergarten wrapped up their Fall color word books. Our main focus in lab right now is pencil grip and letter formation. If you are wondering how you can help check out these suggestions.

-Cut out designs and shapes.

-Practice writing letters in the powder of jello or pudding. This is fun because they lick their fingers as they go and then you can make dessert when you are finished.

-Practice picking large marshmallows up with cooking tongs and then work towards picking up tiny objects like beads with tweezers.

As muscles strengthen students will be better able to control their pencil and write for longer periods of time.

First and second graders completed their monster design and then wrote sentences to describe the monster. We worked on making sure our sentences start with different words.

Mrs. Weetman

6th, 7th and 8th Grades

Science of Gaming:

We were all about games this week! We played a variety of strategy games, including Catan, Carcassone, Ticket to Ride and Forbidden Island/Desert. We also played some large-setting strategy games and then broke them down into various components. We used those components to examine Never Alone, an Inupiaq video game develops by E-Line media and CITI. We Skyped with both a CFO/vice president of CITI and a game developer of E-Line media about video game development. And finally, we created our own games to share with our peers on Friday. It's an ongoing process - lots more testing needed for those who want to continue - but we had a good overview of the story and science of gaming! MANY thanks to Josh Hobert for his help with GameMaker Pro! And thanks to

CITC CFO/VP Amy Fredeen and Alan Gershenfeld

with E-Line Media for their Skype interviews about

Never Alone.

Real’s English 1 Dear English 1 Parents:

What a wonderful, if not fast first quarter. In 32 hours of instruction, we have accomplished quite a bit.

First, after assessments, introductions , and syllabus quizzes, we jumped into the elements of fiction by making note cards, practing concepts in novel ways, and testing. Additionally, students analyzed several short stories., including, “Eleven” by Sharon Cisneros.

Next, we read excerpts from the classic adventure tale, The Odyssey. Since it is an epic poem, we read it aloud in class. Students took detailed notes and wrote chapter summaries. They used those notes to complete an on line Hero’s Journey map and to write a final response essay. Our culminating event was, of course, the Greek Mythology Trading Cards and character presentations. They were fantastic!

Finally, our next quarter has already begun. Each student should be working on an independent book response (DUE 11/6) and has chosen a poem to memorize for POETRY OUT LOUD recitation (DUE 11/6). For the bulk of the 2nd quarter students will be summarizing and dissecting several poems, and will be studying the elements of poetry in a variety of ways. Additionally, they will be reading Poe, Steinbeck, and Rand and will continue to apply what they have learned about the elements of fiction. We will be writing compare contrast essays, as well as short stories, and will recite their 2nd poem (again, a lot to accomplish in 26 days).

Since I am in 5th grade parent/teacher conferences, I have printed a copy of your student’s progress report for E1 and have their (beginning) work file for you to peruse. Please leave their original work in the file, and at the end of the year we will have a portfolio for them to take home. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. And as always check my website.

Sincerely yours,

Julie Real

All Creatures Great and Small

Our fantasic intensive was an action packed week of hands on learning, field trips to animal filled locations, and most importantly students became certified volunteers with the Matsu Animal Shelter.

Thank you Sue Fujimoto, Officer Flavin, Dr. Katrina, and Kirsten Vesel for helping us to become certified volunteers. Thank you, Jeff from TLC- bird treatment for introducing us to Flame, thank you to Mark and April Rogers for teaching us about veterinary technology, and finally, thank you to all of our WONDERFUL PARENT VOLUNTEERS for driving all over- including Alaska Wildlife Park in Portage.

WATERCOLOR ART

This week in the Puzzles, Mysteries and Breakouts! Intensive we explored ciphers, code breaking and cryptic messages. This awesome group of super sleuths proved that they couldn’t resist a good puzzle or mystery. During our field trip to Alaska Escape Rooms, they collaborated in order to find clues to the crack codes necessary to escape. The students were successful in this mission with only seconds remaining! It was a great week as the students learned to trust others with different thought processes, as well as trust their own intuition. They were able to tap into all of these skills during fast-paced critical thinking games while racing against the clock. Thank you to our parent drivers and to such a great group of students for making this week such a success.

Unsung Hero’s Students in Señorita Caterina's intensive learned how to save a drowning victim, protect their homes from fire or find a

traveler lost in the wilderness. They learned about what their jobs entail, took part in fundamental training exercises and heard inspiring stories

of heroism. They met emergency first responders, police officers, elite search, and rescue teams. They had the opportunity to receive training in

first aid, mountain and water rescue and police procedures at Anchorage Police Academy. I am proud of them for being willing to physically

exert themselves, step outside of their comfort zone and take direction from a variety of team leaders. Many thanks to Bonita Aderman for her

comprehensive CPR and First Aid training and the many, many community heroes that donated their time and expertise to our students.

CAKE DECORATING!

Classroom NewsClassroom News3rd 4th and 5th gradesReports from our Labs