Language Arts

What are we learning?

• Students will understand that contributing, listening, and responding are equally important roles in a conversation. 
• Students will understand that connecting with people over books can change the way you feel about reading.
• Students will understand that fiction writers draw from real experiences to increase believability and relatability. 
• Students will understand that in fiction, the relationship between conflict and resolution communicates the deeper meaning of the piece.

Home/School Connection

• What’s worth talking about?
• What is the relationship between groups (class/race/economic status/culture/religion) and power and opportunity? 
• How can I help readers see themselves in the past? 
• How do we reveal human struggles within a historical context?

Math

What are we learning?

• The students are learning to solve one-step linear inequalities in one variable, and graph the solution on a number line.
• The students are learning to simplify expressions using the order of operations.

Home/School Connection

• Ask your student what an open and closed circle mean when graphing an inequality.
• Ask your student to explain G.E.M.D.A.S.

Social Studies

What are we learning?

• The students are learning how people’s beliefs and values shape how a government is formed?
• The students are learning that the ideas and actions of people and groups have consequences and can shape events.

Home/School Connection

• Ask your student to explain why it was necessary to discard The Articles of Confederation and develop The Constitution.
• Ask your student to explain the connections between liberty and slavery in the ideas and lives of the Framers of the Constitution.

AAP

Math:

• Unit 6: Triangles & Quadrilaterals

During this unit students continue to explore the concept of proportionality in relation to shapes. They learn that for figures to be similar they must have corresponding angles which are congruent and corresponding sides which are proportional. Students will utilize proportional reasoning strategies they have honed during other units to solve problems (including practical problems) involving similar quadrilaterals and triangles.

Language Arts:

• Current PBL: Causes of War, Conflict & Power

Driving Question: How can you tell the story of conflict between England and the colonies that led to the Revolutionary War, and how a person or people (throughout history or today) are impacted by similar conflicts of power? 

Social Studies:

• A New Nation: Systematic Change in America

Students will be tasked with analyzing the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, tracking the road to the Constitution and the challenges the Framers faced, as well as identifying the major accomplishments of America's first five presidents and how it impacted the creation of the United States.

Science:

• Examining Changes in Water Usage & Water Quality

In the H2O science unit, students evaluate their own water consumption and analyze practical methods of conservation. Students expand upon their understanding of the properties of water resulting from its chemical composition and relate water chemistry to the essential nature of water and water quality. Students describe sources of freshwater, wastewater, and stormwater in Fairfax County, VA and citizen responsibilities related to water as a renewable natural resource. It is important for students to understand that their present actions will impact the future state of water in their local community, as well as the global one.

Table Talk:

• How does my learning community change over time?
• How does my learning about the changes in the past help me understand the present?
• How do organisms, including humans, change the environment they live in?
• How do personal experiences, relationships, and beliefs inspire people to make changes in their community?
• What causes positive, neutral and negative changes in society?

Click here to see what students are learning in Specials!