Pleasant Hill Intermediate School
1204 E. 163rd Street
Pleasant Hill, MO 64080
816-540-3156
February 2012
Important DatesFeb. 3-Mid-Term Feb. 15-IS Musical Matinee Feb. 16-18-IS Musical Feb. 20-No School-President’s Day Feb. 21- No School-Professional Development Feb. 23-Band Instrument Night for next year's 6th graders, 6:30-8:30pm Feb. 29-MS Musical Matinee March 2-3 Hr. Early Release-Professional Development March 8-End of Quarter March 9-3 Hr. Early Release-Teacher Workday March 11-Daylight Savings Time March 13-6th Grade Enrollment for Middle School Important Dates, ContinuedMarch 15-Spring Pictures Mar. 16-IS Band Performance, at PAC, 6:30-7:30pm March 21 -High School Band Preforms 8:15am March 22-5th Grade Elective Enrollment Sent Home. April 6-10-Spring Break | 5B TEAM NEWSLETTERFun and Games at the Winter Program  |
Rooster Time for January: In Mrs. Lucht’s class, we are doing a literature circle with the story Ben and Me. It is a story about Ben Franklin and we are doing witty wordsearcher, lively leader, illustrious illustrator, checker, and decorative describer. The students are doing a great job.
In Mrs. Murray’s class, we are finishing up our group books and will begin a class set and be working on literature circle activities.
In Mr. Haight’s class, we are reading our literature set books. We will continue doing so.
Planners: Planners are a great organizational tool for students and a great communication tool for parents. Students are expected to fill out their planner in each core class daily (listing assignments, due dates etc.) and take them home daily. Teachers will sign planners for each class and sometimes may write an important note. We will do periodic planner checks throughout the year spot checking to see if planners are being utilized in this manner. Students may receive a small reward for having a filled out and signed planner (signed by the teacher). Parents are not required to sign planners.
AR/AM Students will need 10 AR points for the quarter and 5 AM tests. To help your student pace these out, we suggest 1-2 points a week and 1 AM test a week to get the points at an even pace, instead of rushing at the very end of the quarter. This helps promote good planning ahead skills. The students may do AM practice at home at the Renaissance Learning website. If you still need more information about this, contact Mrs. Murray. She is heading up this information.
Science-Social Studies--Mr. Haight
Social Studies -- In social studies, Monday, February 6 we will be taking our chapter 9 test over the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. We will then be studying the Revolutionary war, paying particular attention to the key battles of Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown. We will also be looking at important people of the Revolutionary War.
Science- In science we will be taking a test over chapter 13 over Motions and Forces, on Thursday, February 2nd. We will be starting a project of designing an amusement park ride illustrating the forces and motions we have learned in chapter 13. Mr. Haight will provide materials for that.
Math--Mrs. Lucht
In math, the students will be working on graphing and data. We are learning mean, median, mode, and range. The students created a circle graph of how they spent their 24 hour day. We also created a double bar graph comparing boys and girls and their favorite blizzards from DQ. Just a reminder that the students need 5 AM tests this quarter and we are somewhat behind. We are doing AM and going over homework in Math Club on Tuesdays and Wednesdays mornings at 7:25 a.m. There is also homework club on Thursdays after school at 3:30-4:30. If you want to do AM practices at home, you may contact Mrs. Murray and we will help you be able to do that. Please contact me about any concerns or questions. Thank you for all your support. Mrs. Lucht
Communication Arts--Mrs. Murray
In communication arts, we are finishing up the week on Author’s purpose. The students just learned a new strategy called the 4 R’s of reflective thinking and Generating Hypothesis while predicting. They loved this! We are still working very hard on before, during and after reading skills! The next few weeks we will continue to work on various types of pronouns. The students should continue to bring their AR books to class. Also, it may be the time of the year to replenish pencils and pens, as we are writing TONS in class.
Ms. Love’s News--
Communication Arts:
Students are working on discovering universal themes in literature. They are analyzing the writing and making connection to their own experiences. Students are also practicing writing conventions. They are working capitalization, subject/verb agreement, and verb tense.
Math:
Students are working very hard, preforming all operations with fractions, decimals, and percents. They will begin discovering Ratios, Rates, Proportions, and Percents. They will learn to how it applies to the real world in the form of interest, discounts, and taxes.
Mrs. Meyer’s News--
We are currently working on a big project in Communication Arts. We are researching and taking notes on famous people who have or were believed to have disabilities. Students will write a report about their person and make a Glogster (a computer created poster) about their person. These will be shared with the class in an oral presentation. We are halfway through the quarter so it is time to check the AR points and the AM tests to be sure we are on track.
In math we have been working on fractions, decimals, multiplication, division, geometry, and graphing. We will be focusing on word problems and analyzing data in the near future.
