ACA II Middle School Newsletter 1-13-20

Announcements:

Gradelink is the best place to check your student’s progress and performance in middle school.  Please login to Gradelink.  You can view each class to see what work is missing (noted with MIS) and the scores students receive on graded assignments.  Blanks indicate that the teacher has not yet graded an assignment.  You can also see upcoming assignments.

Calendar Reminders:

  • Wednesday, January 15 – Pizza form with payment due by NOON (order form attached)
  • Friday, January 17 – Pizza Lunch
  • Monday, January 20 – NO SCHOOL
  • Thursday, January 30 – Instrumental Music Concert 7:00 at John Muir Elementary
  • Thursday and Friday, January 30-31 – Minimum Day dismissal at NOON

Alliance to Save Energy Contest

Our school has decided to participate in a free energy education program called emPowered Schools, provided by Energy Upgrade California and the Alliance to Save Energy. The aim of emPowered Schools is to educate students, their families, and their communities about what we can all do to help California meet it’s 100% renewable energy target. The program launched this spring  in California and the response from students was fantastic.

  1. At home, use a phone, computer, or tablet and go to euc.empoweredschools.org/pledge.
  2. In the teacher’s name section use the grade chart to identify which teacher you will select. Elementary parents make sure to make your selection based on your child’s grade not which teacher’s group they are in.
  • 8th: Hagan
  • 7th: McCutcheon
  • 6th: Albertoni
  • 5th: Gonzales
  • 4th: Dubitsky
  • 3rd: Fank
  • 2nd: Mariappan
  • 1st: Berkich
  • Primary: Peacock
  1. Complete questions about lighting, heating, air conditioning, and appliances.
  2. If you don’t know the answer to a question, ask a parent or guardian.
  3. Gather all members of your family together to review and sign the pledge.
  4. Hit submit.
  5. If you have children in more than one grade level submit a separate pledge for each child, they can be the exact same answers.

The class with the most will win either a doughnut party or a pizza party.  If you have any questions let your teacher know!

Middle School SPA Update:

Hello parents and students of ACA II,

The Middle School 1st Trimester Environment SPA group has finally concluded their project and would like to sincerely thank all of the gracious parents and students alike that bought our t-shirts and metal straws. You all rock! Altogether, with everyone’s courteous donations, we were able to pull together a final profit of $120.00 to donate to the Nature Conservancy, a charitable environmental organization that has protected more than 119,000,000 acres of land and thousands of miles of rivers worldwide. You can learn more about their extreme noble cause over at https://www.nature.org/en-us/.

National School Choice Spirit Week!

To celebrate the choice families are able to make in where to have their children attend school, students may choose to dress up for Spirit Week January 27 to 31!

Monday, 1/27 is Pajama and stuffed animal day

Tuesday, 1/28 is Meme Day

Wednesday, 1/29 is Mix-Match Day

Thursday, 1/30 is Video Game Day

Friday 1/31 is Crazy Hair Day

Homework:

Reading:

  • Book Talk/Review schedule for trimester #2:
  •  1/30, 3/5

Alliance to Save Energy (Monday):

Mr. Hagan is leaving these instructions up for anyone who hasn’t completed the pledge yet.

7th graders can now use the link for the pledge (be sure to select McCutcheon as your teacher). 8th graders can also still sign the pledge if they haven’t already (select Hagan).

Our school has decided to participate in a free energy education program called emPowered Schools, provided by Energy Upgrade California and the Alliance to Save Energy. The aim of emPowered Schools is to educate students, their families, and their communities about what we can all do to help California meet it’s 100% renewable energy target. The program launched this spring  in California and the response from students was fantastic. The middle school is going to begin the program by doing the following as an optional assignment this week:

  1. At home, use a phone, computer, or tablet and go to euc.empoweredschools.org/pledge.
  2. In the teacher name section use Hagan if you are an 8th grader and McCutcheon if you are a 7th grader.
  3. Complete questions about lighting, heating, air conditioning, and appliances.
  4. If you don’t know the answer to a question, ask a parent or guardian.
  5. Gather all members of your family together to review and sign the pledge.
  6. Hit submit.

The class with the most will win either a doughnut party or a pizza party.  If you have any questions let Mr. Hagan know!

Article of the Week (A.O.W.) (Monday):
AOW #6 Revenge

Each week students will receive an article of the week (AOW) to read. Students are required to:

  1. Read the article
  2. Discuss the article with one of their parents or guardians (whoever discusses the article should also read it)
  3. Respond in writing to the questions in the google classroom assignment.

The article for this week can be found here and in the Language Arts google class.  It is also attached as a handout.

Due Thursday

Persuasive Essay (Tuesday-Thursday):

Essay prompt: Write a letter to Princess Charlotte arguing which real knight from the middle ages is the greatest knight in history.

The completed essay is due Thursday

Essay presentations will be on Tuesday the 28th.  The instructions are attached.

Mobymax (10 minutes a day): 

Students will login to MobyMax here. They will click on the “Language” button and practice for 40 minutes.

Social Studies:

Study for your test on Medieval Europe

Test is Thursday

Notes on the chapter are also due Thursday

Knights Challenge:

Suggestion for this week: Focus on completing the 4th squires challenges, you should be constructing your castle.

Math:

Please see the attached calendars for this week’s classwork, homework, and assessments.  Your student will also be given a paper version of the calendar.  Or, login to gradelink to see all math assignments.

Science:

Biodiversity reading response due this week.

SPA:

Group ecotourism brochure and commercial script/outline due Thursday

Music:

Practice everyday!

Winter Instrumental Music Concert coming up this month, Mrs. Vela  is encouraging students to prepare & parents to attend.  It is on Thursday, January 30 at 7:00 pm. in the multi-use room of John Muir School in Antioch.  If you have any questions please feel free in contacting Mrs. Vela.

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***Helpful email addresses
If you need to reach Middle School or any of the teachers, please use the following email addresses:
aca2middle@antiochcharteracademy.org – absence notes, responses to the newsletter, general questions, contacting Mrs. Ave
emccutcheon@antiochcharteracademy.org – Mrs. McCutcheon, science or math questions
mhagan@antiochcharteracademy.org – Mr. Hagan, language arts or social studies questions

Online Resources:

School Website: www.AntiochCharterAcademy.org

http://cpm.org – resource pages, tool kits, extra practice and tech resources – Student homework help is available ALSO – Parent resource page has tutorials so you can better help your student!!

learnersdictionary.com – great website for vocabulary

www.khanacademy.org – Search ANY math topic to watch a short video tutorial, practice activities to get better at skills.