Biomes
Students have been learning about biomes. A biome is a group of ecosystems that have the same climate and similar communities. This month, students will be researching and presenting on different biomes that exist. They are required to include information regarding the climate, the wildlife, the plants, and the geographic location. They are excited about being able to use their creativity but also nervous about presenting. I’m also excited to see what they will come up with. Their posters are usually very colorful and show their individual personalities.
Cultural Explosion!
We enjoyed a week of cultural exposure. We saw different costumes and traditional dress, tasted exotic foods from far away lands and learned about traditions. We also had new students place pins in our world map located on the first floor as people enter our building. This map represents all the countries our students come from – over 73 countries!
See “Galleries” for pictures
Living a life for God
Students have been learning how to live a Christian life effectively, through lessons dealing with the inspiration of the Bible and the authority of the Bible.
Algebra
We have started preparing for June’s Integrated regents by working on our explanation skills. Not only are we trying to simplify our algebraic expressions and solve our algebraic equations, but we are also working on communicating, using correct vocabulary, and finding solutions.
A Race To The Top!
We had an exciting week of campaigning. From singing in the cafe, to passing out candy, to amazing speeches; our student body is an incredible group of students to work with. They all worked so hard and presented a great campaign. We look forward to our elected candidates getting to work on student body issues. Congratulations to all who ran and through student government there will be many great ideas implemented. In a close race, this years’ president and vice president are Peter Rezkalla and Josaiah Bonifas, our secretary is Becky Wong and our treasurer is Angie Arroyo. We are looking forward to a great year!
Lab
For Living Environment Lab, we have analyzed prepared slides under the microscope. We have also dissected earth worms and discovered the organs and anatomy of this type of worm. Another lab we have completed is a Regents lab called Making Connections. In this lab, we checked our pulse before and after exercise, to show the connection between exercise and the functions of our body.
Ted Dekker
The ninth grade began a new novel last week. Ted Dekker’s A Blink of an Eye. Students rave about the novel and get excited to have class discussions about the characters and events in the story. The ninth graders are very creative and ask to write stories. They bring in original artwork and consistently impress me with their insights into the novel.
The Big Apple of His Eye
Welcome back! We are excited to have many new international students this year. We talked about all the different cities we came from and learned expressions to describe a place. We also worked on putting together a bulletin board with words to describe NYC. The title of our board is The Big Apple of His Eye, and we have words such as busy, friendly, fantastic, and multicultural! We’re doing a lot of speaking practice, and I look forward to seeing improvement throughout the year!
Miss Park
Let’s Get Organized
Resource Room is in full swing as we continue to teach the students writing and study management skills helpful toward success. The students are learning how to use Edline printouts of their classes to evaluate how they are performing in each class. They also use it to track late homework that either needs to be turned in or finished. International week provided a wonderful platform from which to use graphic organizers. Both middle school and high school had so much to offer that we could make three-circle Venn diagrams. These diagrams were at first intimidating, but, working together, the students learned how easy it was to use them to compare and contrast different countries that were studied. In the end, we learned that we are united in Christ. Our hallway bulletin board will soon read not only, Be confident… in Christ but also Be unified… in Christ.
The Far East
After studying the Ancient Near East, we moved into the Far East with Ancient India and China. Students learned how to compare and contrast by making Venn diagrams of Hinduism and Buddhism and different Indian rulers. We talked about the differences between eastern and western culture and what formative events and people could have caused those differences. Now the students are working in groups to tell the culture of the four ancient Chinese dynasties: Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han.
Miss Schutz