Hill MS Walk-In Registration Information

HILL WALK-IN REGISTRATION

Hill walk-in registration for 2014 / 2015 will be:

Monday, May 12, 2014

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

From 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.

All incoming 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade students must be registered for the upcoming school year. By now you should have received an information letter regarding the verification and registration process. Please note that this process involves an online verification step which should be completed before you come in for the walk-in process.

5B Activities for the Week of April 28th, 2014

Hello Parents and Students!

Jump Rope for Heart will take place Monday morning.  Come ready to jump!!!

Our last Interim Assessment will take place this Wednesday.

Here's what's going on in 5B this week! 

Word Study/Spelling:  We will be doing the second part to lesson 25. We are still studying Latin and Greek roots.  In fact, this will be our focus for the remainder of the school year.  This week, we are learning about the root (-man/-manu).  The words have been posted to the blog.  The test will be on Friday and it will be the same format as last week's test.

Math Accel:  We started Unit 8 last week.  We have studied rates, unit rates and rate tables.  We are currently working on proportions.  This week, we will continue with proportions and then begin studying caloric use and using nutritional information.  Please bring in one or two food labels!  

English Language Arts (ELA):  We will continue our study of the book, Red Kayak.  We will be finishing up our trifold activity this week and will be doing a character analysis.  (We ran out of time last week to do this.)  We will also be completing our Fortunately books.  They will be due on Wednesday.  We will also fit in a Time For Kids issue this week.  The topic will be Mind Games/Video  Games.

Social Studies:  We have a lot going on in SS currently.  In fact, some of our ELA time will be used for SS work.  I backtracked a little bit last week and discussed the Westward Movement, the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark.  We will have a couple of activities to complete on these topics this week and then we will move onto the War of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner.  We will be completing a mini project on the War of 1812/Star Spangled Banner which will include a close read, history, facts, vocabulary, and a couple of extra credit opportunities.

That's it for this week!

Have a great week everyone!

~Mrs. Bennick

Information on the Book Exchange

　

Donated books may be hardcover or paperback, should be in very good condi-tion, and appropriate for K-5 students. Students will re-ceive a credit for each book donated (up to 5) and can use the credit to "buy" books that someone else has donated.

A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are en-riched threefold. – Henry Miller.
May Watts’ 6th Annual
Book Exchange

Hello Parents and Students,

I hope that you are all enjoying this beautiful weekend!

There's a lot going on this week so here goes.....

First, we have a field trip to WVHS Planetarium THIS Monday.  We will leave Watts at approximately 10:00 and return to Watts at around 12:00.  We will eat our lunch at normal time.

Next, Interim Assessments begin this week.  We will be testing on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week and finish up next Wednesday.

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, will be appearing at Anderson's Bookshop on Saturday, April 26th, at 7:00pm.  He will be promoting his new book, Grandfather Gandhi, at that time.  If you'd like to pre-order the book, please ask your child to ask me for a form.  (Some students already asked for the form.)

Here's what's going on in the curricular areas this week:

Word Study/Spelling:  We are on Lesson 25 this week.  Our focus continues to be on Latin and Greek roots.  This week, we will study the root, -ject.  The words have been posted to the blog.

Math Acceleration:  We finished up our Unit 6 test last week.  This week, we will be doing some problem solving and will also begin our next unit of study, Unit 8...Rates and Ratios.  (There is no Unit 7.)

English Language Arts (ELA):  First, we will be finishing our Fortunately/Unfortunately books this week.  They are looking great!  We will continue to read Red Kayak.  We completed a review for chapters 1-7 last week.  This week, we will be completing a trifold comprehension activity that goes along with the book.  We will be having a figurative language quiz on Wednesday.  We have discussed similes, hyperboles, alliteration, metaphors, personification, oxymorons and onomatopoeia. We have written our own examples of these and also found examples of them in the text.  We will also be working on a Time For Kids magazine activity.  Busy, busy, busy!!!

Science:  We are finishing up our Space unit this week.  We will be drawing, with colored chalk, one of the types of galaxies we've been discussing in class.  We will also be viewing a couple of informative videos at Discovery Education that go along with our galaxy topic.

Social Studies:   SS is back!  We will begin at about year 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine and move through about 1838 with the Trail of Tears.  We will be comparing and contrasting Andrew Jackson and James Monroe.

It's going to be a very busy week!

If you have any questions, please email me.

Thank you!

Delissa Bennick

5B Activities for the Week of April 14th, 2014

Hello Parents and Students!

Here's what's going on in 5B this week:

Just a reminder that there is no school this Friday, April 18th.  Enjoy the day off!

Also, please return the permission form for our upcoming field trip to WVHS Planetarium ASAP.  We will be visiting the planetarium next Monday, April 21st.

Many of you have returned your proof of residency forms.  Thank you!  However, if you have not, please also return those ASAP.

Word Study/Spelling:  We will begin Lesson 24 this week!  Our focus will continue to be on Latin and Greek roots.  This week we will be studying the root, -port.  The words have been posted to the blog.

Math Accel:  We will finish Unit 6 on Monday.  Our last lesson will be on order of operations.  We will discuss PEMDAS (parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction).  Tuesday will be a review day.  The Unit 6 test will be on Wednesday and will continue into Thursday, if needed.

English Language Arts (ELA):  We have a lot going on in ELA for the next few weeks.  There will be a lot of activities pertaining to our current read aloud book, Red Kayak.  We have read through about chapter 7 at this point.  This week, we will be viewing a power point which includes some higher level vocabulary words from the book with visuals.  Also, we will be participating in a "find somebody" activity that will utilize some of these new words.  We will discuss what a protagonist is and do inquiry circles for review of chapters 1-3 and 4-7.  We will also be completing a character analysis chart.
Also, specific thought-provoking questions will be asked and students will answer these in their Reading Response Journals.  We will be using some Kagan strategies to share these entries with others.

Science:  We will be finishing up our Space unit at the end of this week or early next week.  We will continue our discussion of the Sun by completing a close read and utilizing some informational books that we have in our class.  A light year, astronomical unit and parsec will be discussed along with various other vocabulary words this week.  Star birth and death will be introduced and we will end the week discussing the different types of galaxies.  Students will be creating their own galaxies with black construction paper and colored chalk.  These always turn out really nice!  They will be on display in our room along with our Play Dough models of the layers of the Sun.

That is it for this week.

Please email me with any questions.

Thank you!

~Mrs. Bennick :-)

5B Activities for the Week of April 7th, 2014

Hello Parents and Students!

Welcome Back!  I hope that you all enjoyed a wonderful Spring Break!

Here's what's going on in 5B this week:

Word Study/Spelling:  We are on Lesson 23 this week.  For the next few weeks we will be focusing on Latin and Greek Roots.  This week the two roots will be "press" and "scribe" words.  We will also be reviewing the six syllable types this week.  The test will be on Friday and will include spelling of words, diagramming and some definitions.  We will discuss the test format further in class.

Math Accel:  We will be reviewing multiplying and dividing fractions.  Then, we will be moving onto adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers and order of operations.  We may not get to order of operations this week, but will definitely get to it early next week.  Also, order of operations is the last lesson in Unit 6.  The Unit 6 test will be late next week.

English Language Arts (ELA):  We will begin a new writing activity based on a book entitled, Fortunately, by Remy Charlip.  What a great prompt this book is for creative writing!  The students will be writing their own Fortunately/Unfortunately books. The students will be introduced to this activity Monday or Tuesday.  Our new read-aloud book will be Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings which will make us laugh and cry and will lead to some great discussions about deception and suspense.  We will also be using some of this time to review our six syllable types for word study and our TFK focus will be on women leaders.

Science: We will begin our unit on Space this week.  We will be heading to the WVHS Planetarium the week of April 21st.  Our topics of discussion over the next few weeks will be Space, Sun, Star Sizes & Distances, Classification of Stars, Colors of Stars, Star Birth & Death and Galaxies.  There is a lot of vocabulary in these lessons.  We will be taking a lot of notes, drawing visuals and watching some informative videos over the next few weeks.

That's it for now.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Bennick