Hi MS families! It was a shorter week this week--I hope everyone plans to enjoy the long weekend! I'll mention this here instead of at the bottom: tomorrow evening (5:00–7:00 PM) is ASA's open house! Volunteers from our class are encouraged to come as ambassadors to show visitors around. Even if your student can't make it, please be sure to mention it to anyone you know who might be interested (full or part-time) in our school! Also, as some of you know, we have an exciting opportunity specifically for our middle school students starting this quarter! We have a volunteer who is willing to donate time and materials to come in an run some advanced math along with Lego robotics and programming about every other week, starting next week. (We'll have him in during our math and/or science periods on Thursdays.) He is a senior engineer at Apple, based out of their local offices, and so would also be a great resource for students to learn about careers in programming or tech. If your student would be interested in a preview of what we're doing, have them come be an ambassador at the open house--he'll be there with some of the Lego materials!
Faith and Literature
This week in Faith, we discussed the first few chapters of Exodus. We saw how the Israelites' sojourn in Egypt turned sour, the birth of Moses, and God's revelation to Moses in the burning bush. We discussed some parallels between the story of Moses and Christ, and considered the burning bush both as a prefigurement of the Theotokos and as an example of God working through created matter. We also attended Liturgy for the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and all the Bodiless Powers, where our students were blessed to be able to serve in the altar or the chant stand. In Literature, we considered some Chinese mythology. We compared the gods, heroes, and stories we encountered from ancient China to those we've already seen in Mesopotamia and Egypt, while also learning about ancient Chinese culture.
Composition
This week in Composition was heavy on grammar. I introduced several new things recently, including possessive nouns, prepositions and prepositional phrases, and subject, possessive, and object pronouns. We spent some time analyzing sentences with these elements and identifying them.
History and Geography
In Geography this week, we considered southeast Asia and China, including especially the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers as the river valleys around which ancient Chinese civilization grew. In History, we took a test over Sargon, Hammurabi, the Indus Valley, and China, which also included paragraph structure and inference from sources.
Logic
In Logic this week, we continued discussing the ad hominem abusive fallacy, including thinking through a couple examples.
Latin
This week in Latin, we took a test over the reading and material we've been doing for the past few weeks. This especially includes the use of the genitive case to show possession.
Science
This week in science, we took a test over the astronomy content we've covered the last couple weeks. This included making a scale model of the solar system, graphing data, the difference between mass and weight in relation to gravity, what makes a planet habitable, the life cycle of stars, and the classification of galaxies.
Mathematics
In Math this week, I found a challenging set of multi-step problems for the students to practice. I wanted to see if this would be challenging for them (it was), so that moving forward, I can include more challenging conceptual work, and make sure that students are taking their facility with math to even deeper levels. Students were also able to enjoy a fall-themed math quest, which practices several computational and reasoning skills.
Specials and Other Notes
In this short week, students unfortunately were not able to meet with Mrs. Perussi for Art or Ms. Karafotias for Greek, since those periods happen on Thursday and Friday. However, they had a full week with Mrs. Northend for PE and Music, and Father Matthew came in this afternoon to share some stories of the Angels, Angelic visions in Scripture (such as in the Prophet Isaiah) and the Liturgy, and a saint's life (students picked St. Porphyrios this week). Tomorrow and Friday are off, although as I mentioned at the beginning, don't forget the open house if your student is able to come! Happy Veterans Day!
Agia Sophia Academy. All rights reserved.