Hello Families,
Here’s the weekly update from the MSBG Adolescent Classroom! Below you’ll find important upcoming dates, followed by highlights from our work together this week.
In the Classroom:
History
This week, we are forming groups for our World Zone Cafe. One group will create a menu centered around “Old World” ingredients, one around “New World” ingredients, and one using a mix. We will also be digging into comparing and contrasting land-based empires with maritime empires.
Literature
We will be having our first classroom discussion about Copper Sun on Tuesday. I will once again encourage any parents with access to read the book alongside the students, as it is a powerful book. The students may wish to talk about it at home.
Science
In Diversity of Life, we will continue our work with modeling heredity, focusing on the cellular structures that contain and pass genetic material.
Due to some unforeseen delays this past week, our Weather and Water lessons will be what we anticipated for last week. We will be using our knowledge of air pressure, density, and humidity to learn how warm fronts and cold fronts interact. This material is fundamental to their understanding of how weather happens and being able to predict it.
Writing
The My Own Museum writing project is nearing its first deadline. The students should have a rough draft of their paper ready for submission before leaving for Thanksgiving Break. This work will be our primary focus for all students this week.
Microeconomy
Mustang Cafe: We continue to run strong. Our baked goods have been a hit, too! We are willing to accept donations from parents for baked goods to sell or the ingredients to make something specific. Our baking time is limited to Tuesday afternoons, so keep that in mind when thinking about what we are making ourselves.
A Quality Dozen: The quail are hatching! As of this writing, we have 17 birds thriving. The indoor brooders are doing their thing, and the outdoor galvanized run has been built to protect the quail from our rather aggressive hawk population.
Shirts?: The surprise of the quail hatching a couple of days early forced us to work together on that project. So, NOW we are finalizing our business proposal to submit for approval, deciding on our first designs, and filling out our purchase requests for our sample shirt supplies. Things are heating up!
Updates for all three projects should be expected in each upcoming news report.
Parent Ed
Our next parent education night is December 4th: Curriculum Night. Parents can sign up for one of two time slots (to avoid overcrowding): 6:00 – 6:40 pm or 6:50 – 7:30 pm. A signup sheet will be on the classroom door before Thanksgiving. This event gives parents the opportunity to receive a classroom lesson from the student. They will prepare a lesson or two that parents will receive, then be given a chance to participate in follow-ups or activities.
Mark Your Calendars
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November 26-29: Thanksgiving Break
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December 1: Extra-Curriculars begin (Middle School led)
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December 4: Curriculum Night
That’s it for this week! As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to Jeremy or Kayla at middle@montessorischoolbg.org. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.