Weekly Update 4/14-18

IMPORTANT REMINDERS/EVENTS:

Report Cards will be going home on April 23rd.

8th Grade Eng-of-Year Activities:
Friday, May 23—Schlitterbahn and Activity Fest
Wednesday, May 28—Academic Celebration
Thursday, May 29—Promotion Ceremony at Butler Field House

Chaperones for the Schlitterbahn trip and volunteers to help set up/decorate/chaperone other events are needed. If you are an HISD approved volunteer and are interested in chaperoning, please let any of us know and we will pass on your offer to the appropriate people. If you are not an HISD approved volunteer but want to become one, please email Ms. Deitra Kendrick a dkendric@houstonisd.org or call her at 713-295-6500 x 326 for detail.

From PTO:


PIN OAK IDOL:
We are having our third & final meeting for "Pin Oak Idol". I would like to get everyone together for this final planning secession. We need your help & guidance with this event. I'm hopeful that some of you have worked this event in the past & have ideas, knowledge or suggestions that we can use to make this a successful project. The event is currently scheduled for Friday May 16th. Auditions will be held on April 9th & 10th at 4:00 - 5:15 at the school.


English:

We will be working on “Laying the Foundations” activities. The Laying the Foundations assessment is in May; exact date, TBA. Soon, we will begin reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros in class. No purchase of the book will be necessary.

All work for Cycle 5 was due by Wed. 4/9.

Important Dates for Independent Reading Unit 4: FREE CHOICE
Book Checks-M/T 3/31-4/1 (Parent Approval forms due)
Literature Circle # 1 (over the first half of the book)-Friday, April 18
Literature Circle #2 (over the second half of the book)-Friday, May 9
Projects Due MAY 12-13

*No assignments related to this unit will be accepted without a parent approval form on file.

History:
The students have study guides for the chapters on the Civil War (Chapters 15 and 16) which must be completed by Monday/Tuesday. In addition, the map of the battles is due on the same days.The test over the Civil War will be in another week.
We are covering some TAKS review during the discussion over this material. Intensive TAKS review will begin later next week. All the students have a packet now on the objectives TAKS covers; they need to know the terms and be able to answer questions relating to these objectives.
Several of our Dissertation teams have been invited to present their community service projects at the Global Issues Conference at Texas A&M on April 17. During various breakout sessions the students will be leading discussions on their projects and participating in sessions on other significant global issues presented by other students.
We still parent/adult volunteers to help chaperone the students going Schlitterbahn in May.

Science:
All Classes
I have started preparations for the end of course exams, including the IPC Final, the Laying the Foundations Pre-AP exam and the TAKS. Our children have been given study guides that cover every thing they should have learned since 6th grade. This guide is very comprehensive and I have put a great deal of effort to assure that what is in the packet meets all of the state and national standards our kids will be tested over. I have built into my curriculum opportunities for us to work with these guides during the course of the next month, and my goal is to have our kids process the material in the packet at least 7 times.One opportunity is to simply go over the packet, and then another is to have the students create a lesson plan to teach the class, so on like that. What I will be asking from you is to let your child teach you two lessons a week; these will be 5 minute explanations of the lessons covered in class. I will also ask you to sign a log verifying that your child taught you the weekly lesson and I will take this for a weekly grade.

DUE DATES FOR WORK
This week you should be taught by your child the second two lessons in the series;Lesson # 3 Food webs, weather, and earth systems. Lesson # 4 Metric measurements, Life science and Genetics. Have you signed the log stating that you have been taught the lessons? This is a major grade for your kids.

I have also given the students a home work packet that is separated by objectives and each Friday another objective is due. Next Friday the sheets from the homework packet relating to objective #2 and3 are due for a major grade. I am also here every Tuesday after school for tutorials, so if your child is struggling through a lesson please have them stay for help. I can also stay other days if given advance notice.

Thanks so much for all you support this year, let’s all pull together and make for one last real effort to push our kids to the greatest heights.
Jamie Scott

Math:
Email Ms. Qureshi for info about Math

Foreign Language Department BLOG: See link below

http://pomsfl.wordpress.com/