Last Days of School and Study Guide Update

Dear Parents,


Thank you all for the gifts, cards and mementos you sent with your students for teacher appreciation week. They were very sweet, especially the peanut butter cups! :-) I have to say, I have really enjoyed this year of teaching; if I could afford it, I would do it for free. It is a privilege to be allowed to gift my students with knowledge to help them make their way in the word.

Once again, please remember that all students do need to be in attendance on Monday and Tuesday of this coming week in order to take their final tests. I said previously that math and history tests are Monday, but I was misinformed. MATH and LITERATURE tests are on MONDAY, and history and science are on Tuesday.

Wednesday is going to be more of a fun day. We don't have any more classes or tests, but we will spend some time signing yearbooks, packing up, and saying goodbyes. We also have an all school assembly in which various students will be recognized for the virtues they've shown throughout the year. Attendance for Wednesday will not affect students' grades, but we would love to have them all so we can give them a proper send off for the summer.

PLEASE make sure your students bring BACKPACKS ON WEDNESDAY! They will need them to pack up their lockers and desks.

As you go through the Friday folders today, please be sure to look for any “Try Again” assignments and have your students complete them promptly. They will (obviously) need to be return by Wednesday for students to receive credit for their redo. Also, last night’s math assignment was composed of problems similar to those that will be on the test (It was a six problem worksheet on simplifying fractions, finding any fraction equivalent to a given fraction, and finding a fraction equivalent to a given fraction when the denominator of the answer is given. Please go over it with your students to find what they need to focus on when studying for the math test. If it’s not there it means they haven’t turned it in to me yet.

I did title this post "Study Guide Update" and I have updated the copy of the science study guide that I emailed you on Wednesday. changed some things in numbers 5 and 6 and I have added a completely paragraph, number 12. Please use this updated copying when helping your student study for science.


These are all the notes I have for you this week. As always, please feel free to email me if you need anything.

Sincerely,


Miss Wycklendt

UPDATED Water Cycle Study Guide

1.       The atmosphere is made out of a mixture of gasses. We call this mixture of gasses “air.” There is NO DIFFERENCE between the words “air” and “the mixture of gasses that makes up the atmosphere.” They are two ways of saying the same thing.

2.       Pressure literally means “pressing.” It is a kind of force.

3.       Atmospheric pressure refers to the atoms of air/gas that make up the atmosphere pressing down towards earth.

4.       The higher you are, the less atmospheric pressure there is. The lower you are the more atmospheric pressure there is. This is because an object that is high in the air has some atoms of air/gas above it pressing down on it, but it also has some atoms of air/gas beneath it. An object that is on earth has all the atoms of air/gas in the atmosphere pressing down on it because all the atoms are above it and none of them are beneath it. Therefore, the object on the earth experiences more atmospheric pressure than one in the air because there are more atoms pressing down on it. (Students should be able to use this information to correctly identify which of two objects experiences more atmospheric pressure and why. For instance, if a bird is flying in the air and a dog is walking on the ground, which one experiences more atmospheric pressure and why?)

5.       The water cycle refers to the way water is renewed on earth.

6.       There are four main steps to the water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection.

7.       Evaporation: When the sun heats liquid water on earth, the water becomes an invisible gas called water vapor and rises into the air.

8.       Condensation: As water vapor rises it gets colder because the air around it gets colder. When the water vapor gets too cold to be a gas it changes back into drops of liquid. These liquid water droplets make clouds.

9.       Precipitation: When clouds get too heavy and full of condensed water droplets, they release rain, snow, or hail.

10.   Collection: The water comes back to earth in the form of rain, snow, or hail and gathers in puddles, snow drifts, or hail drifts.

11.   The fifth step of the water cycle: The cycle starts all over again with evaporation!

12.   Myth: Jars and glasses of ice water “sweat” in the summer when it gets hot out. Fact: Water vapor (that is water gas) in the air around the jar touches the cold outside of the jar and the cold causes the water vapor to condense back into liquid water on the outside of the jar.