Hello Athlos families!

Thank you for your patience as I had to take some unexpected days off at the end of last week. Here is what you can expect for your student this week:

 

We will take our wordly wise quiz on Monday for week 3 (it would have been on Friday). There will be no wordly wise words for this week.

 

Since our new unit is all about heritage and culture, students will be creating a Coat of Arms to celebrate their unique heritage and culture! Your student might be asking you some questions related to heritage/ culture to help them with this project :)

 

This is a fun way for them to get to personally connect to our new unit! 

 

As always, if you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out. I hope you enjoy your break!

 

Warmly,

Mrs. Zaldivar

Good morning Athlos families! 

 

Mrs. DM is officially on maternity leave with her baby girl! Mr. G will be hosting Q and A sessions from 12:10-12:30. 

 

Here is the link for those sessions:

https://zoom.us/j/97523485769

The password is the same as all other zoom meetings!

If you have questions, please let me know!

Mrs. Zaldivar

Hello Athlos Families!

 

I hope you all enjoyed the first little snowfall this past weekend as much as I did!

 

Here is what you can expect for this week:

 

We will continue doing our wordly wise vocabulary words study. Your students have done great on the past two quizzes. They have also been very active participants in the various activities we do in class to practice using these words!

 

We are going to be starting our new unit this week! This unit is about embracing heritage. In this unit we will be using a lot more non-fiction texts. I did, however, pair a class read aloud novel with this unit. We will be reading, as a class, the book Esperanza Rising. It will go well with our topic of embracing heritage. It also pairs really well with a lot of non-fiction passages that relate to the unit topic.

 

The primary non-fiction skill we will be focusing on this week is determining the main idea of a passage and finding the supporting details within that passage that support that main idea. We will be reading a variety of passages to practice this.

 

I am really looking forward to starting a new unit this week, and I cannot wait to see what your students can do with the non-fiction work we will be practicing!

 

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know.

Warmly,

Mrs. Zaldivar 

Hello Athlos Families!

 

I hope you all are doing well! Here is what you can anticipate for your student in language arts this week:

 

We will continue doing our vocabulary work using the curriculum wordly wise. Many students did awesome on their first quiz last week. 

 

Students will also be finishing their book club projects this week. They will have Monday and Tuesday to work on them. In total they will have had 4 class days to work on their final project. On Wednesday is when they will be submitting their projects and sharing them.

 

Later in the week, for students who scored a "C" or below on their response to literature assessment, they will have the opportunity to retake this assignment. The retake will be slightly different than the original. 

 

At the end of the week, I will be introducing the new unit! Students will also be given the new book we will be reading together in class, Esperanza Rising. I am so excited to be starting our new unit which will discuss embracing the different heritages and cultures that we all come from. In this unit, students will also be looking at some more non-fiction text and working on the different skills that are necessary to adequately understand and analyze non-fiction reading.

 

Student scores for their original response to literature and their first wordly wise quiz will be entered in infinite campus and schoology by the end of the week.

 

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me by phone or e-mail. Thank you!

 

Mrs. Zaldivar

Athlos Families,

The United States Department of Agriculture is allowing schools to provide meals for the 2021-2022 school year through a provision of the National School Lunch Program called the Seamless Summer Option (SSO). A waiver has been issued in order to support access to nutritious meals while minimizing potential exposure to COVID-19. Our school has chosen to use this waiver and operate the SSO which enables us to provide meals free of charge for all students. No application is required to receive this free meal benefit.

However, your child(ren) may qualify for additional benefits such as reduced fees or the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) which is a federal temporary emergency nutrition benefit that is loaded onto electronic cards for families to purchase food. At public schools, your application also helps the school qualify for education funds and discounts. 

 

How to Submit a Meal Application:

#1 - Recommended: Complete the application through your Parent Portal Account by clicking here.

     * Visit the School Meals page on the website or click here for instructions on completing the application via the Parent Portal.

     * Have an account and need login support? Click on the support links on the login screen.

     * Still need assistance? Email [email protected] and someone will be happy to assist you.

     * Families that are new to Athlos Leadership Academy; instructions and account activation codes will be emailed in the coming weeks.

 

#2 - Download and print the application PDF by clicking here.

 

#3 - Pick up a copy from the school office or black drop box located at the front of the school building.

Hello Athlos Families!

 

I hope you all enjoyed some time off for MEA! 

 

It was such a pleasure getting to meet with some of you during conferences on Wednesday. Thank you for all that you are doing to support your student at home!

 

This week we will be working on writing a "response to literature". This is a written analysis that students will be creating. We will be working on important skills such as creating a topic sentence, explaining our textual evidence, and writing concluding sentences.

 

The format we will be discussing in literacy will really help students as they progress in school. It gives them a great layout to follow any time they are writing any sort of essay- which there will be many they will write as they get older and continue their schooling :)

 

On Friday, students will begin working on their book reports for their book clubs with their groups! I'm excited to see the creative ways they come up with to show their analysis of the book they have been using in class.

 

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know! 

 

Mrs.Zaldivar

Hello Athlos families!

 

This week is a short one so this post will also be short :) 

 

Students who need it will be taking a language arts retake test on Monday. This is an opportunity for them to improve their score if they were not as successful on our first assessment. Students will also be given time to complete any missing work during class.

 

Students who are not needing to take a retake, and don't have any missing work, will be given a creative writing packet to work on. They will be creating stories that include all of the elements that we have discussed in language arts class so far (like character development, theme, plot, setting, etc.).

 

Students will also be given some time with their book club groups to determine a project option for book reports on their book club books.

 

As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out!

 

Warmly,

Mrs. Zaldivar

Hello Athlos families!

 

Your students worked SO hard on their mid unit assessment and I am really proud of all of the grit they showed while doing their work!

 

This week we will be taking character analysis even deeper. We will be considering why a character acts the way that they do. We will also be taking a look at how a character changes throughout the story. Students will be learning about how they need to be flexible thinkers when considering characters. A skill that they can bring into the real world too!

 

Along with tracking character development, we will also be looking at the theme of the story. Students will be learning about how themes are life lessons that anyone can learn. We will be discussing how author's desire for us to learn something from their stories and apply it to our own lives! 

 

We will end the week by analyzing the character development and possible themes from our book club books. Your student should be nearly done with their book by the end of the week!

 

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or concerns you might have. Enjoy your week!

 

Mrs. Zaldivar

Hello Athlos Families!

 

I hope you all are doing well! Here is what you can expect for language arts this week:

 

At the beginning of the week we will go over writing effective summaries on our reading. We will be talking about how to include only the important information and events in our summaries. Students will also give each other peer feedback on their summaries.

 

Later in the week we will have our first language arts assessment. This is a longer assessment and will take two days. Near the end of the week you can expect your students to only have book club reading to complete for homework! 

 

I know that they have been working really hard and I am excited to see all of their thinking shown on the assessment! They will also be receiving their current language arts scores. This includes their daily work scores (which is not recorded on infinite campus yet). I have highlighted any missing assignments for students so that they can get those turned in! 

 

As a reminder, students may not retake assessments if they are missing any work :)

 

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

 

Warmly, 

Mrs. Zaldivar

Hello Athlos families!

 

I hope you all are enjoying the cooler weather! Here is what you can expect for your student this week:

 

We will be digging into discussing plot and conflict within stories. Students will be taking notes on these two literary elements. They will be practicing determining things like the exposition and rising action of a story. They will also be practicing identifying the conflict of a story, along with the type of conflict (for example person vs. self).

 

Normally at the beginning of the week, we start with some shorter passages to practice this work. As the week progresses we work on applying these skills with more complex passages that require students to gather more evidence to support their thinking!

 

The students first book club meeting on the 24th went great. It was so fun seeing them work with one another to analyze their chapter books and discuss their reading. I have even had some students tell me that they haven't wanted to stop reading their books which has been so fun to hear!

 

This week in their book clubs they will continue analyzing characters and setting, but will also start looking at the conflicts their characters face throughout the story. 

 

It is going to be a great week! As always, if you have any questions or concerns for me, please feel free to call or e-mail anytime!

 

Mrs. Zaldivar

Hello Athlos Families!

 

I hope you all are starting to feel much more settled into the school routine now. I know mornings for me are still sometimes a little tough, but we are getting there! :)

 

Here is what you can expect in Language Arts this week for your student:

 

We will be discussing analyzing setting. We will be moving beyond just where and when a story takes place, to also analyzing the mood and environmental factors that impact a story.

 

Another exciting thing that will be happening this week is that students will be starting book clubs! Your student will be reading one of three books:

 

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2. James and the Giant Peach

3. Peter Pan

 

They will be given a book club calendar that will show them what pages they need to read at home each night. Students are responsible for their book and will be expected to replace their book if they lose it. Students are also responsible for bringing their book to and from school each day and being prepared for their book club meeting that will be happening on Fridays! If they are not prepared and have not completed the reading they will not be able to participate. 

 

The book clubs will be an exciting and interactive way for the students to be practicing the skills we are learning in literacy by applying them to a novel. This will require a higher level of thinking for them and I am so excited to watch their hard work!

 

As always if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!

 

Mrs. Zaldivar

Hello Athlos Families!

 

I hope that you and your student enjoyed the first week back. It has been so refreshing to have a classroom full of students this year!

 

In language arts this week we will be looking at a few different stories from Roald Dahl's childhood. We will also be practicing some specific reading strategies as we dive into these stories.

 

This week your student will be practicing taking Cornell notes on their reading. This helps to build comprehension and helps students to really focus on what is important and relevant in their reading.

 

They will also be learning a lot about characterization. They will be determining character traits by looking at the character's appearance, their words, their thoughts, and their actions. We will really focus on using strong evidence to support our thinking and building our analytic skills as readers.

 

I look forward to this week with your students! As always, please feel free to reach out to me by phone or email if you have any questions for me.

 

Warmly,

Mrs. Zaldivar