Lab Safety & Saving Fred

All students should have brought home a one-page double-sided Safety Agreement for the Science Laboratory sheet.  Please sign & date it, have your child do the same, and send it back to me with your child ASAP.  I am assigning this an academic grade.

By now, all students should have written paragraph(s) in their lab notebooks on How to Save Fred.  This work is described on pg. A-6 of the textbook, in Procedure 3 at the top.

On Monday we will begin Activity 2 of the text.

WE SAVED FRED TODAY! & LAB SAFETY AGREEMENTS

Your child might be very excited about today's Science class because s/he probably saved Fred the gummy worm.  Information about this Activity, Activity 1 in the Isssues & Life Science textbook, begins on page A-4 of the text.   Almost all teams of two saved Fred today.  HOMEWORK is to write a first draft of procedures about how Fred was saved.  The work should be done on page 2 of the lab notebook.  Students should work for no more than 30 min. on this.  Students with IEPs that have writing goals should work for no more than 15 min.  504 students with challenges in writing or attention to work can follow this guideline, too.  This should be student work.  IEP writing goals students and 504 students may type their work or have a family member scribe for them while they narrate.  Typed work from IEP and 504 students may be sent to me as a word document or PDF attached to an email if printing is an issue at home.

A word on LAB SAFETY AGREEMENTS: Parents of period 2, 5, & 6 students, please sign them and get them in!  Period 1 and 5 students will bring theirs home for signatures tomorrow.  Thanks!

Welcome to 6th grade life science!

Please review the syllabus found as a link to my name in the staff directory.  We have spent a few days in "getting-to-know-you", figuring out some aspects of Hosford and how to open a locker, eat lunch here, and get from place to place in 3 minutes passing time.  In science, there has been an orientation to Outdoor School, which 6th graders will go to in November.  We've also studied lab safety, and all students should bring home a lab safety agreement by tomorrow for parents to sign. We will begin our first science investigation, figuring out how to "Save Fred", tomorrow.  It's so exciting to work with your children!

Outdoor School Forms, this past week

Outdoor School forms were due Fri., Sept. 27.  I will drive to the Outdoor School office to drop off forms after work on Mon., Sept.30.  If I don't have your child's forms with me, then you will need to take them to the office yourself.
This past week, we organized lab notebooks, creating a table of contents and taping loose papers into their places on Wed. Students also took a Notebook Quiz on Wed., to emphasize the need to keep the notebook up-to-date and organized.  In all classes except period 1, the homework for this weekend is Analysis Question 4 of ACTIVITY Testing Medicines: A Clinical Trial. 

Outdoor School letter sent home on Sept. 23, 2013

This is the text of the letter going home today about Outdoor School:

I sent home a packet of Outdoor School forms last week.  I apologize for omitting this letter.  At Outdoor School, students study environmental science outdoors in a camp setting in the Columbia Gorge area.  They live in cabins with other sixth graders and with high school student leaders, eat family style in the dining hall, and attend recreation activities and campfire.

Outdoor School is a required part of the sixth grade curriculum.  For many, many students, it becomes a highlight of their school career, as they make friends from all over the region.

There are two papers that need to be signed.  The four-part white health history form requires your signature in two places.  If you want your child to take medication at Outdoor School, there are one or two other signatures required.

The salmon-colored paper is printed on both sides.  It has a publicity release agreement.  If you do not want to allow your child’s photograph to be used, there is a place for you to check off, sign and date.   There are rules for behavior and rules for safety.  These require a parent/ guardian signature AND a student signature.  There is also a search and seizure policy.

Your child should bring a small handful of soil from a special place to school in a baggie between now and the day we leave for Outdoor School.  This soil will be combined with other students’ soil to plant a special tree at the site.  The tree represents the community of sixth graders who attended Outdoor School that week.

Please work with your child to pack the appropriate clothing and to leave the prohibited items at home.  Your child should dress in layers at Outdoor School – a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater, and a waterproof layer (raincoat, mountain parka) is an example.  Pack plenty of socks and include a warm hat.  If your child doesn’t own some of the items, please try to borrow them or buy used.  I have some pairs of boots I can loan out.  As this past weekend’s weather has shown us, it will likely rain while we are at Outdoor School, and students will be outdoors, rain or shine.

Please follow these directions for medications, including self-administered inhalers:

DO NOT PACK medications in the luggage.  Put all medications in a ziplock plastic bag labeled with the child’s name, Hosford, and the name of the teacher who is going with the class to Outdoor School.  You will give this bag to the teacher, who will log it in.  She will give the meds. directly to the nurse upon arriving at Outdoor School.

The schedule of classes attending Outdoor School and the bus information for them follows.  PLEASE KEEP THIS UNTIL YOUR CHILD RETURNS FROM OUTDOOR SCHOOL:

Per 2, going with Mrs. Baber to Arrah Wanna

Per 7, going with Ms. Pinegar to Howard

Arrive at the Hosford bus zone at 2:20 pm on Sunday, Oct. 27, to begin loading buses.  Buses leave at 3:00 pm. Please ask your child to go to the bathroom before coming to school.  The building will not be open on Sunday afternoon.

Students return on the buses at 7:30 pm on Tues., Oct. 29.  Parents/ Guardians should be waiting for their childrens’ buses to arrive then.

Per 1, going with Ms. Pinegar to Howard

Per 3, going with Ms. Morse to Arrah Wanna

Per 5, going with Mrs. Baber to Sandy River

Arrive at the Hosford bus zone at 8:45 am on Wednesday, Oct. 30, to begin loading buses.  Buses leave at 9:30 am.  Students do not attend classes that day.

Students return on the buses at 1:30 pm on Fri., Nov. 1.  Parents/ Guardians should be waiting for their children’s buses to arrive then. Children will go HOME, not to afternoon classes, on Nov. 1.

PPS’s finance department is sending out letters about payment for Outdoor School.  Please send the payment to the address provided in the letter.

Thank you for your attention to these directions.  I will send a notice out about a week before we leave for Outdoor School.  For many sixth graders, this will be the school experience they count as most memorable when they are high school seniors. Please contact me with questions/ concerns. (cpinegar@pps.net OR leave a message at 503 916-5640).

FOSSIL TIME CARDS & GEOLOGIC TIME CARDS, ACTIVITY 92

fossil time cards A-CFOSSIL TIME CARDS A-C
fossil time cards D-FFOSSIL TIME CARDS D-F
geologic time cards G-LGEOLOGIC TIME CARDS G-L

SCIENCE TEAM'S STANDARDS-BASED GRADING SYSTEM

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SCIENCE TEAM’S STANDARDS-BASED GRADING SYSTEM

 

 There have been two major changes in Science at Hosford this year, changes that can be a lot for parents to take in, especially those among you who are sending their first sixth grader to us.  We have a new adoption (textbook and curriculum materials) in PPS and the Science team has changed the grading system to a standards-based proficiency system.  The new grading system aligns well with the new adoption, and also with PPS and Common Core standards for Science.

  

Since the new grading system is used in all three grades for Science, understanding it now will also help parents as their children progress through 7^th and 8^th grades.  The scores that are displayed in EdBox are grades, using the standards-based system; they have meaning.  As an example, if a student earns a “PR” or “progressing” for an assignment, that child demonstrates a good understanding of the material covered by the standard that the assignment covers.  The child is working at 6^th grade level and has the necessary 6^th grade background to succeed in high school Biology.  A “PR” score is up to and including 100% proficiency.

Also, I’d like to put in a word on behalf of students who may not be earning PR on a regular basis at this time.  The high school graduation requirements for science and math are the same—three credits or three years. However, very few students in PPS have a daily science time in their classes in elementary school. Students study math daily from the time they are in kindergarten.  Unlike math, if a child earns a PR on a 6^th grade science assignment, s/he is doing so with little background knowledge from school.

  --> All of us know what it is like to begin learning a new skill.  Understanding science, especially science in the inquiry format as it is now taught in PPS middle schools, is a challenge, especially at the beginning of the year.  I ask you to think back to the last time you had to learn a new skill with little to no background to help you.  Then I think you can appreciate what middle school science students are coping with.  More proficiency will come as the school year goes on, though there will be new content every few weeks.  The skills of thinking and working like a scientist can be applied to all content, though, so science should get easier for your child as the year progresses.

  

As always, please feel free to email me at cpinegar@pps.net with your questions and concerns.