The planning guide meeting for school year 2014-2015 for parents of rising sixth grade students that was scheduled for Tuesday, January 21 has been rescheduled to Thursday, January 30 at 5 p.m. in the PMS auditorium. This will be an informational meeting to discuss the course paths for core classes and long term goals. This session is for parents of new or returning Hawks. After that meeting, the Curriculum Carnival for students and parents will go on as scheduled. This is where you and your child will have an opportunity to meet all of the teachers, staff, and coaches. This is a drop in event, and will run from 5:30-7:30 with an inclement weather date of Thursday, Feb. 6.
Nlist has been set up for spring conferences. If your child is doing well, I do not need to meet with you unless you feel there is an area of concern you would like to discuss. If you would like to meet with Mr. Driscoll, please contact him directly through email ( jpdriscoll@ henrico.k12.va.us ) and he will set up an appointment time with you. The nlist will be up through Friday of this week.
Spring Picture Day is going to be Tues. Feb. 18. If you would like a class picture, this requires payment on picture day. Individual pictures will be taken and sent home for optional purchase. If you would like to purchase a class picture, please wait and send money on the day of pictures.
Our school is a very safe place for students and staff. Our staff is always vigilant about making sure that anyone who enters the building signs into the main office. This helps us to make sure that we know who is in the building and helps for accountability during fire drills. Throughout the year we remind students that if they see someone who does not look familiar to them or who does not have a white visitor sticker on they should alert a staff member immediately. We also remind them that they should never open any of the doors to the outside of the school to anyone. Please reinforce these concepts with your child at home. While our school is already extremely safe, these things will only help us to be even safer.
This week in Math, we will be wrapping up our study of variables, expressions, and equations. Your child has "played" with Hands On Equations for a few days and should have the hang of solving equations with manipulatives. We will be working on solving algebraically tomorrow and Thursday. I am sending home a tic-tac-toe choice project for the students to complete by Friday. We went over all of the options in class today and hopefully they have an idea of what they are interested in doing. The test will be on Friday. With the threat of snow in the forecast, however, if we miss any school, the test will be next week.
In science we are finishing up our study of cells, I really liked the projects the students created on Friday. They did an excellent job. We will be moving on to classification systems of living things as the week progresses.
In writing, we are going to be working on a writing prompt. I haven't taken one in a while and I am excited to see how their writing has improved.