Happy Holidays!

Capturing one of those great Kansas sunsets

From my family to yours come wishes for a blessed and relaxing break, filled with family time spent making memories to cherish for always!

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Several grades posted this week:

• The Unit 4 tests taken today have been graded and will be returned to students before the holiday break. These need to be in the pronged folders, signed & dated by a parent/guardian, by January 5. Overall, students did well mastering the topics of passive transport (diffusion, osmosis with different solutions, & facilitated diffusion with channel proteins) and active transport (exocytosis & endocytosis). The class average (with 45 kids having taken the test) was 86.5, with three kids earning a perfect score.
• Notebooks were checked for Unit 3 organization, which I meant to do last week. I apologize for the delay. The rubric for this assessment will be attached to yesterday's test paper.
• Class preparation points have been posted. These are points earned for coming to class with all required materials. Those who come to class unprepared (including those who go to lockers to retrieve forgotten items) do not earn daily points. It's an easy way to earn points!
• If you participated in the PlayDoh bonus opportunity, I just posted those points as well.

Extra Credit Opportunity: You must sign up to participate in this extra credit opportunity. Keep reading for details. ** In order to participate, you must sign up and bring the needed item - on a first come, first served basis. Click here for the link to signupgenius.com where I've posted the details and the sign up list. (To find the sign up sheet, you need to know my email address which is mharris@wcsks.com. All sign ups are at the given link, so please do NOT email me to sign up.) Once the spots are filled, my need has been met and only those who are first to sign up can earn the points. (Don't worry! We will have more needs as the year progresses!)

Week of December 15

We have finished all notes for the upcoming test. Our test is Wednesday, December 17.

It covers passive transport (diffusion, osmosis & facilitated diffusion) and active transport (endocytosis & exocytosis). With osmosis, there are the three different types of solutions.

I will be available for tutorials on Tuesday, if your child would like some test studying help.

Week of December 8

What a busy week we had in science!

This was Microscope Week, starting with an introduction to microscope anatomy and ending with creating a wet mount slide to view.

Kids should have flash cards of parts and functions, which they hopefully are flipping through to learn. This week we will add more to the stack as we learn about processes cells undergo when taking in nutrients and getting rid of wastes.

We are starting our study of Cells In Action. This will cover the processes of diffusion and osmosis as well as endocytosis and exocytosis. We will continue to use flash cards to facilitate learning facts. We will also use diagramming with illustrations and we will build and/or use models of these processes as well.

For those who plan ahead, the test over Unit 4 is scheduled for Wednesday, December 17.

Extra Credit Opportunity: You must sign up to participate in this extra credit opportunity. Keep reading for details. ** In order to participate, you must sign up and bring the needed item - on a first come, first served basis. Click here for the link to signupgenius.com where I've posted the details and the sign up list. (To find the sign up sheet, you need to know my email address which is mharris@wcsks.com and the password is Spartans. All sign ups are at the given link, so please do NOT email me to sign up.) Once the spots are filled, my need has been met and only those who are first to sign up can earn the points. (Don't worry! We will have more needs as the year progresses!)