The end of the year is approaching quickly. During the last two months of school, we will have many activities and events for the students to participate in. Keep an eye on the calendar.

MAST - Window 3 has begun and will close May 1st. 3rd - 7th will be testing their end of year math standards and ELA standards. Watch the calendar for what days each grade is testing for math. ELA Testing is April 24th, No K-2nd on this day. Score reports are ready about 2 weeks following the test. Remember to use the parent portal to access the results.

Calendar Update / End of Year Field Trip: Our end of year field trip has been scheduled for Friday, June 6th. Due to needing to hold it on a Friday, there will be no school the previous Friday on May 30th. Those two Friday's will flip flop. This year we will be having a tour of the Libby Dam and visiting the Heritage Museum. This will be a great experience for our students to see and learn about how dams and turbines work to create electricity. Most grade levels have at one point this year learned about dams or electricity generation. The Heritage Museum will teach our students about some of our local history.

Parents if you would like to attend, you will need photo identification to join the dam tour.

End of Year Celebration: Mark your calendars for Thursday, June 12th at 6pm. We will have our spring concert, awards, Kindergarten graduation and refreshments.

Box Tops: Thank you for scanning your receipts! Our fundraising is up from $291.10 to 297.60.

We are excited to introduce the Montana CARES app – a 24/7 support system.

The Montana CARES app empowers every member of our school community to seek assistance whenever they need it, while remaining completely anonymous!

Whether it's a student battling bullying, a family in need of food or shelter, or anyone facing a personal challenge – Montana CARES is here to support us.

The Montana CARES app provides three ways for our school community to ask for and receive help:

· GET RESOURCES is a safe space for users to explore essential needs and wellness resources at their own pace. It provides a confidential way to connect with local resources, ensuring privacy and dignity for those seeking assistance.

· CRISIS TEXT LINE provides users with immediate mental health support. With a network of 27,000+ trained crisis counselors, users can text with a counselor (day or night), making sure no one feels isolated in their time of need. Counselors are available 24/7, 365 days of the year.

· ASK FOR HELP is an anonymous communication channel between users and designated school personnel. It allows users to request help directly from their school without the pressure of disclosing their identity. Users may also request help for a friend or family member.

We kindly urge all parents to download the app. Montana CARES is not only a support system for your children, but also for YOU.

Getting Started with Montana CARES:

1. Download the app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

2. Select your school from the dropdown menu or enter the code provided by the school.

3. Accept the Terms & Conditions.

As part of Montana Cares, we can now offer General Education Counseling through E-Therapy. If your student could benefit from receiving counseling services, please reach out to Miss Sheets to enroll your child.

Fliers on both of these two new programs are coming home tonight (4/8) in student folders or reach out to Miss Sheets.

Learning about our local history.

Learning about landscapes and finding our artwork in the children's show.

Creating landscapes at Mrs. Sheets' house while looking out at the mountains.

Parents please share photos for the yearbook or copy any of your students that you wish to save. Above is a link to our shared Google Drive folder. Please don't delete any photos.

Check the calendar for specific dates for specific grades

Join us for a spring ice cream social with egg hunting, bingo, and crafts.

Miss Sheets will be in class all day. Mr. Kron will be here filling in for the day.

All students will be helping clean the earth. We will start in the parking lot and take a short trash hunting walk from 2:15-3:30.

We will be testing in the morning. Following lunch, we will continue our Earth Day Clean-Up project.

Anchor Test for 3rd-7th grade in the morning.

Afternoon, Miss Sheets and 7th grade will head to West Valley School for Band Festival. Concert time is 5:30 pm at West Valley School.

Mrs. Sheets will stay with 3rd and 4th grade.

All grade participate in end of year testing.

Mrs. Kathy from Glacier Art Museum will be here all day teaching the students about our local tribes through art and games.

No School

This is our typical Friday exchange for a Monday holiday, however due to our end of year field trip we will be flip flopping this day with next Friday.

Libby Dam and Heritage Museum

Normal, full day of school

End of Year event starts at 6:00 pm

What are we learning in reading is listed following the individual grade levels by their program colors. If you do not know which color your student is in, please ask Miss Sheets.

Math

Unit 5: Numbers 11−100: Teen Numbers, and Counting by 1s and 10s

Science

Topic 6 - Environments

How do plants and animals change their environment?

Social Studies

Topic 5 - Time and Chronology

How do we track time?

Arts

In art, we are starting our colored pencil city themed unit while continuing our clay unit. The final project for colored pencils is a traffic light. Projects for clay will be a surprise. Many students wish to share them for Mother's Day or Father's day.

In music, we are working on our end of year songs.

Math

Finishing Unit 4: Length: Measurement, Addition and Subtraction, and Line Plots

Starting on April 17th - Unit 5: Shapes and Arrays: Partitioning and Tiling Shapes, Arrays, Evens and Odds

Science

Topic 6 - Habitats

How do habitats support living things?

Social Studies

Topic 5 - Making a Difference

What makes someone a hero?

Arts

In art, we are starting our colored pencil city themed unit while continuing our clay unit. The final project for colored pencils is a street light at night. Projects for clay will be a surprise. Many students wish to share them for Mother's Day or Father's day.

In music, we are working on our end of year songs.

Math

Unit 5: Measurement: Time, Liquid Volume, and Mass

Science

Topic 6 - Adaptations and Survival

What happens to living things when their environments change?

Social Studies

Topic 6 - A Growing Nation

How does life change throughout history?

Arts

In art, we are starting our colored pencil city themed unit while continuing our clay unit. The final project for colored pencils is a street light at night or a city block. Projects for clay will be a surprise. Many students wish to share them for Mother's Day or Father's day.

In music, we are working on our end of year songs.

Math

Unit 4: Fractions, Decimals, and Measurement: Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication

Science

Topic 7 - Structures and Functions

How do plant and animal structures support growth and survival?

Social Studies - Montana: A History of Our Home

Unit 5 - Montana's Government and Tribal Nations

Essential Questions:

• What are the things all Montanans should know about Montana Indians?
• What does it mean to be sovereign?

Arts

In art, we are starting our colored pencil city themed unit while continuing our clay unit. The final project for colored pencils is a city block. Projects for clay will be a surprise. Many students wish to share them for Mother's Day or Father's day.

In music, we have completed all the levels. We are working on refining our skills and learning our end of year music. On independent study days, they are starting to learn songs on the ukulele.

Math

Finishing Unit 6: Geometry: Solids, Triangles, and Angles

Starting on April 21 - Unit 7: Probability: Theoretical Probability, Experimental Probability, and Compound Events

Reading - Middle School ELA

Finishing 7D: Poetry & Poe

Starting on April 22 - 7F: The Gold Rush Collection

When Sam Brannan, savvy shopkeeper and the first gold rush millionaire, proclaimed “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” he sparked a migration of some 300,000 people. The promise of instant fortune drew people from all over the world and from all walks of life. San Francisco grew from a tiny community of about 200 in 1846 to a bustling town of nearly 36,000 in 1852. Roads were laid, railroads were built, and the California legislature was formed. The state was thriving but most of the miners were not. They struggled with harsh living conditions, disease, and crime. Most of the fortune seekers did not strike it rich; instead, they left the gold fields poorer than when they arrived. And for Native Americans, the gold rush was a disaster. Their populations dropped from an estimated 150,000 in 1845 to approximately 30,000 in 1870. In this unit, students explore primary and secondary source documents and conduct independent research to better understand the complex story of the California gold rush.

In the lessons on information literacy that begin the unit, students learn how to tell the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources; determine if a source is reliable; and understand ethical uses of information. Having practiced these skills, students are ready to develop and sharpen their sourcing abilities in the next lessons in which they construct their own research questions and explore the Internet for answers.

In subsequent lessons, students will conduct research to learn about the wide diversity of people who took part in the California gold rush. They will use the information they gather to write narrative accounts from the point of view of a specific person living through this complex and dynamic era. This lesson informs the next sub-unit, a Socratic Seminar in which students rely on their research to examine the complicated issues inherent in the gold rush story.

As students reach the end of the unit, they synthesize all of the skills they’ve developed to tackle a culminating research assignment—part-essay, part-media project.

Texts

• California Gold Rush Collection
• EXTRA: “A Letter from Gold Mountain,” from Good Fortune: My Journey to Gold Mountain by Li Keng Wong
• EXTRA: Excerpt from Murphy, Gold Rush Dog by Alison Heart
• EXTRA: Excerpt from A History of US 5: Liberty For All 1820–1860 by Joy Hakim

Skills and Content

Topic & Theme: The characters and conditions of the California Gold Rush

Reading: The hopes vs. the realities of the gold rush for a diverse group of people
Writing: Develop a question, conduct research, and create a multimedia project
Activity Highlights: Research one of the key groups in the gold rush and write a gold rush diary

Science - Middle School Course 2

Finishing Topic 8 - Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation

Essential Question: What are the properties of mechanical and electromagnetic waves?

Starting on April 16 Topic 9 - Electricity and Magnetism

Essential Question: What factors affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces?

Social Studies - Middle School American History

Finishing Topic 13 - Prosperity and Depression (1919-1939)

Essential Question: What should governments do?

Starting on April 15 - Topic 14 - World War II (1935-1945)

Essential Question: When is war justified?

Starting on April 24 - Topic 15 - Postwar America (1945-1975)

Essential Question: What is America's role in the world?

Arts

In art, we are starting our colored pencil city themed unit while continuing our clay unit. The final project for colored pencils are urban homes or tower bridge landscapes. Projects for clay will be a surprise. Many students wish to share them for Mother's Day or Father's day.

In music, we are continuing to rehearse the music for festival on May 16th. Independent study day he will continue to focus on learning the guitar and music theory.

Skills 8:

In this unit, students will be introduced to fourteen new double-letter spellings for consonant sounds and four new high-frequency Tricky Words.

Double-letter Spellings for Consonant Sounds

These are the double-letter spellings in this unit:

• ‘mm’ for /m/ as in drumming
• ‘nn’ for /n/ as in running
• ‘pp’ for /p/ as in puppets
• ‘bb’ for /b/ as in rabbit
• ‘tt’ for /t/ as in mitt
• ‘dd’ for /d/ as in sledding
• ‘cc’ and ‘ck’ for /k/ as in hiccup and clock
• ‘gg’ for /g/ as in egg
• ‘ff’ for /f/ as in muffin
• ‘ss’ for /s/ as in dress
• ‘zz’ for /z/ as in jazz
• ‘ll’ for /l/ as in shell
• ‘rr’ for /r/ as in ferret

These double-letter spellings most frequently occur after a short-vowel sound.

In this unit, bold print is used to signal the new graphemes. The student Reader contains bold print letters within words to signal letter teams working as single spelling units.

The double-letter spellings for consonant sounds should not cause difficulty for students when they are reading. However, they may cause some confusion when students are spelling. A student writing the word egg has to choose between two possible spellings for /g/—‘g’ and ‘gg’. Some students will need a lot of exposure to print before they are able to discern when to write a consonant sound with a single-letter spelling and when to write it with a double-letter spelling. At this point, you should accept any spelling that is a plausible representation of the sounds in the word. Accept black, blac, and blak; fell and fel; buzz and buz; etc.

Some of the double-letter spellings introduced in this unit are widely used in one-syllable words [e.g., ‘ff’ (stuff, puff), ‘ll’ (hill, bell), ‘ss’ (dress, miss), and ‘ck’ (rock, black)]. At this point in the program, students are generally asked to read one-syllable words. However, it is necessary to make an exception for spellings like ‘mm’, ‘tt’, and ‘cc’, which do not occur frequently in one-syllable words. These spellings are presented in the lessons with two-syllable example words, like swimming, however, two-syllable words are not included in the Reader or Activity Book.

Tricky Words: funny, all, was, and from

Knowledge 9: Columbus and the Pilgrims

This domain will introduce students to two important topics in the history of the United States: the first voyage of Columbus and the voyage of the Pilgrims more than 100 years later. The progression of American history moves naturally from the land and its first inhabitants to Columbus and the Pilgrims, so it is recommended that the Native Americans domain be taught prior to Columbus and the Pilgrims.

Skills 5:

This unit is devoted to introducing spelling alternatives for vowel sounds. Vowel sounds and their spellings are the most challenging part of the English writing system. There are only two vowel sounds that are almost always spelled just one way (/a/ and /ar/). The other sixteen vowel sounds have at least one significant spelling alternative. Several of them have many spelling alternatives.

The sounds and spellings taught in this unit are:

• /u/ spelled ‘u’ (but), ‘o’ (son), ‘ou’ (touch), ‘o_e’ (come)
• /ə/ (also called the schwa sound) spelled ‘a’ (about), ‘e’ (debate)

In addition to the above sounds and spellings, two sound combinations and their spellings are also taught in this unit. They are:

• /ə/ + /l/ spelled ‘al’ (animal), ‘il’ (pencil), ‘el’ (travel), ‘le’ (apple)
• /sh/ + /ə/ + /n/ spelled ‘tion’ (action)

Knowledge 9: The U.S. Civil War

This domain will introduce students to an important period in the history of the United States. Students will learn about the controversy over slavery between the North and the South, which eventually led to the U.S. Civil War. They will learn about this war and how the end of the war also meant the end of slavery. “Enslaved Africans” is the term used to describe Africans and the descendants of those Africans taken from Africa against their will and forced into slavery in the United States through the conclusion of the Civil War. The communities of people enslaved in the South established a new culture that combined the homeland of their ancestors and the Americas. Although slave trade was abolished in the United States in January 1808, and at the time of the Civil War very few enslaved Africans had actually been born in Africa, the term “enslaved Africans” is used in place of “slaves” to honor the history of the enslaved people. Students will also learn about some women and men who were significant during this time, including Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant.

Starting April 21 - Knowledge 10: The Human Body: Building Blocks and Nutrition

This domain covers a number of topics regarding the human body. This domain first covers concepts regarding cells and how cells form the building blocks of life on Earth. Students are then taught how collections of cells form tissues, and tissues form organs, and finally how organs work within the various body systems. In addition, students are taught about Anton van Leeuwenhoek and his work with the microscope and his discovery of the tiny one-celled bacteria.

Students will then hear about the digestive and excretory systems. They will learn the fundamental parts and functions of these two body systems. The narrator of these Read-Alouds is a nutritionist named Nick Nutri, who reinforces basic facts that students will be learning.

The remainder of this domain focuses on the importance of good nutrition and how to make good choices in order to eat a well-balanced diet. Students will be taught five keys to good health—eat well, exercise, sleep, keep clean, and have regular checkups.

Unit 7 - Astronomy: Our Solar System and Beyond

This unit will build upon what students have already learned about astronomy and introduces them to new information about this science. Through reading and listening to Read-Alouds, students will learn more about our solar system, our galaxy, other galaxies, and the universe. Students will be introduced to the concept of gravity and its effects on Earth and in other places in space. A foundation of knowledge will be laid for more in-depth study in later grades of topics such as matter, light-years, and black holes. Students will learn about the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, and dive into the Big Bang theory of how the universe may have originated. Students will also hear about key people and events involved in the study and exploration of outer space.

Students will be introduced to this content through an informational text that takes the students on a journey through the universe, beginning with our own planet, Earth. The journey continues to the sun, the inner and outer planets, and then to other objects that exist in our solar system. From there, the trip takes us to our galaxy, other galaxies, and billions and billions of stars in the universe. They’ll find out why the planets stay in orbit and why we don’t go flying off the earth into space!

Skills:

Spelling

During this unit’s spelling exercises, students will review words with spelling patterns /j/, /n/, /ae/, /k/, and /s/. In Lessons 1–5, students will review words with spelling patterns of /j/ spelled ‘g’, ‘j’, ‘ge’, ‘dge’, and ‘dg’. For Lessons 6–10, students will review words with spelling patterns of /n/ spelled ‘n’, ‘nn’, ‘kn’, and ‘gn’. Finally, in Lessons 11–15, students will review words with spelling patterns of /ae/, /k/, /s/, /j/, and /n/. Students will have two or three Challenge Words and one Content word added to each spelling list.

Grammar

In grammar, students will review the conjunctions and and because and be introduced to the conjunctions so and or. Students will continue their study of cause and effect, understanding that the conjunction because announces the cause and the conjunction so announces the effect. Students will also recognize that the conjunctions and and or are opposites, as the conjunction and includes topics, ideas, or things in sentences, whereas the conjunction or excludes topics, ideas, or things in sentences. They will be introduced to the correct punctuation needed for presenting items in a series in a sentence and will review the use of quotation marks in dialogue. Students will be introduced to singular and plural possessive nouns.

Morphology

During the morphology portion of the lessons, students will study the common suffixes –ful and –less. Students will also review the suffixes –ous, –ive, and –ly.

Unit 7: The American Revolution

The Big Idea of this unit is that disagreements about principles of government led colonists in North America to seek independence from Great Britain. The causes, major figures, and consequences of the American Revolution provide a framework for understanding what caused the 13 colonies to break away and become an independent nation, and what significant ideas and values were at the heart of the American Revolution.

There are two spelling lists during this unit. List one on April 14th with a test on April 21. List two on April 22 with a test on April 30.

There will be other occasional homework pages throughout this unit. Please check homework folder.

Email: teacher@pvsmt.org
Website: pvsmt.org
Location: 7975 Pleasant Valley Rd, Marion, MT 59925, USA
Phone: 406-858-2343