Team Wildcat News
Jan Tylicki, Team Leader & Science Teacher
Rob Merhar, Math Teacher
Jennifer Vinson, Language Arts Teacher
Toni Donze, Social Studies Teacher
What makes Goofy, the Disney character, anthropomorphic, while Pluto is, well, just a good, ol’ dog? Ask your son or daughter to explain this literary device plus personification and analogy. Then, give us a few weeks, and ask about simile, metaphor, connotation, denotation, and more, as literary devices capture our attention in Language Arts. (Locate the grammatical appositive in the first sentence for a bonus point! Jerry Spinelli’s, Crash, will give us a chance to explore character development, plot, conflict, and theme in the novel. After the contemporary Spinelli, we’ll journey back in time to read short stories by Washington Irving and O. Henry, adding to a repertoire that began with Rudyard Kipling. In December, this great company will be joined by Charles Dickens, as we read an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Along the way, we’ll visit the Media Center, where Mrs. Safran will present a book talk on the genre of mystery. Grammatical and usage puzzlers and reading minutes start our class periods, and the stalwart Word Wisdom continues to fortify our yearning for vocabulary building.
Mr. Merhar’s math classes continue the study of “Connected Math” in the unit called “Stretching and Shrinking.” This book is to help students understand similarity. This includes enlarging and shrinking shapes, and the study of similar figures and scale factors, using Wumps: Mug Wump, Zug, Lug, Bug and Glug. Students learn how to transform one character into an other using scaled models. The study of ratios is then applied to similar triangles, rectangles, and polygons.
Science classes with Mrs. Tylicki welcomed a student from Hiram College, Ms. Twining. She is participating in a field experience/ observation. Students have covered the organization of ecosystems the first couple months of school. Now they are applying that knowledge to learn more about the biomes around the world. In November, they will research the six land biomes, and create a poster project, including climates, habitat, adaptations, and symbiotic relationships, to name a few. In December students will learn about how organisms are classified.
Government is the focus in social studies for November and December. Mrs. Donze’s classes are studying Greek City States. From Greece, students travel to Rome, and discover the Roman Empire and the Roman Forum. Students will
enjoy learning about the Roman Forum by creating a video game that deals with the historic Roman Forum. Students will compare and contrast the ancient government of Greece and Rome and apply those ideas to our present United States government.
Team Wildcat teachers want to thank you for your support thus far in the year. We also appreciate your support through your PTSA membership and our magazine sales. Conferences are scheduled Thursdays, November 6th and 13th. Please schedule an appointment if you need to talk with us about your student. There are also personal conferences planned before and after school for your convenience. Please call the office to schedule at 330-467-0584.
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