TLC Charter Chatter
A weekly newsletter written to parents of the TLC
Virginia Stewart
Aug. 16, 2019
We are off to a fantastic start to the school year. I am so pleased with the responses we are receiving from students at each level. They are happy and are cooperating with our expectations. They are adjusting to changes and they are settling in for a very successful year.
Last week, I had a chance to read to our Phase Two students in P1. They told me about the grown-up changes they had after moving from Phase One and how they liked their new schedule. I read them a book about how important our voices are. We need to express ourselves to bring out change, to be grateful or to heal. They gave me some very good examples of ways they could improve their world with their voices.
This week, I enjoyed seeing all of you who attended Back to School Nights for the high school and for Discovery. We love seeing parents at those nights. It does not matter if it is your first year or your last year in that school, we change things and there is always something new to learn.
Thank you for your great cooperation in the car lines. I know it starts out slow, but the time it takes gets shorter each day when you follow our directions. We believe it is essential for us to protect your child with our “wrap-around approach”. We want to be responsible in a safe and caring way from the time your child leaves you until your child is picked up at the end of the day.
We are off to a fantastic start to the school year. I am so pleased with the responses we are receiving from students at each level. They are happy and are cooperating with our expectations. They are adjusting to changes and they are settling in for a very successful year.
Lunch Menu for this week…. YUM!
Lunch Menu – Week Aug. 19 – 23
Mon. – Pizza
Tues – Chicken Corn Dog
Wed – Bean or Bean Soft Taco
Thurs – Beef Lasagna
Fri –Beef or Veggie Burger
New
Lunch Debts
Students in PCS or DCS who have more than negative $20 in their lunch account will be given cheese/crackers and water for lunch. Please pay these negative accounts immediately so your student will be served the posted lunch menu.
Lunch Drop Offs
Please remember to communicate to your child if you are planning on dropping off his/her lunches, we need to keep classroom calls and disruptions to a minimum. Please label anything dropped off in the office.
Personal Days for Next School Year 2019/2020
VERY IMPORTANT CHANGE for our upcoming 2019/2020 school year Beginning August 5, 2019, we are reducing personal/family days for students from 10 days down to 7 days. Allowing 7 days is still much higher than what the district schools allow and we feel 7 days is more beneficial for the school and for each students’ education.
NOW HIRING: Athletic Coaches
Interested in taking on the rewards and challenges of coaching a high school athletic team? Millennium Athletics is currently creating a coaching pool for all sports and levels, as the life of a coach is ever-changing. If you’re interested in becoming a part of our TEAM for any sport, apply here: https://www.edjoin.org/Home/DistrictJobPosting/1143376
Upcoming Picture Days
PreK, PCS and DCS – Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019. Flyers coming home week before.
TK
This week in TK we learned all about ourselves and how to treat others.
We began our week by learning about our feelings and how to react to them. We worked on a feelings book that stated when we felt a certain way. Students learned all about using their manners, especially please and thank you. The teachers and friends learned all about each with our All About Me posters we created in class.
Our friends created family trees and had a lot of fun with adding lots of apples. During our centers, we focused on fine motor skills, such as cutting, tracing, pencil and glue holding. Look for the awesome work in their green folders today!
We are all excited to start focusing on our letters, numbers and sight words next week!
Initial Phase
At Tracy Learning Center we believe that teaching focused on student needs is the most effective method for student growth and success. It is important to the teachers that our curriculum is tailored to each individual student’s learning goals. We do our best to ensure that our curriculum is always challenging without being frustrating. We are so impressed with our students and are very excited to dive further into our curriculum next week!
Don’t forget to sell raffle tickets to our cruise fundraiser! Send us an email if you need more tickets!
Phase One:
This week was our first full week of centers. The students and teachers are getting into the swing of the new year beautifully. The teachers continued to assess the students this week and we will begin curriculum next! In your child’s red folder this week you will find information about our technology programs we will be using this year. These programs are a great way to continue practicing the concepts taught in class at home.
Here we have some students enjoying some of the interactive centers we have been doing this week.
Do you know the difference between our green and red folders? Red folders are handed out every Monday and have your child’s Parent-Student Work. This is something that you can help your child with throughout the week. It will contain sight words, spelling words and the grammar focus for the week. Red folders are due every Friday. Green folders contain all your child’s work from the week and their behavior calendar. Green folders are due every Monday. When checking your child’s green folder please make sure that you completely empty it and sign their behavior calendar so that we know you have looked at it.
Phase Two:
This week our phase 2 students got back to work with our math and language arts curriculum. All of our students are working on place value in math…while it may be review for some, it is a very important foundational math concept. A strong number sense and confidence with large numbers and their values will help your child progress in math for years to come. Practice reading, writing, and rounding numbers at home. We are also using the math website play.prodigygame.com in class and you can also access it at home!
We are loving our elective classes so far! Our 3rd and 4th graders are learning a fun game called “rhythm poison” in music. It’s a great listening game! They are writing numbers in Spanish class and creating cave drawings in art. Our students are so lucky to have these daily enrichment classes!
Mr. Martin teaching rhythms in P8.P1 hard at work with cave drawings.
Discovery Middle School 5-6
Upcoming ⅚ Dates:
September 3rd: Picture Day
October 8th: Picture Day Retakes
August 12th-23rd: DCS Cruise Fundraiser
Now – August 30th: Spirit Wear can be purchased at https://www.selectspiritwear.com/shop4/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=1173
A Note from Mrs. Prescott:
WOW!!! What an amazing turn out we had for Back to School Night on Wednesday! I don’t know if or when we’re ever had so many DCS parents and students come to this event. Thank you parents for your support and interest in your child’s education. Teaching and raising a child takes a village, as the saying goes, and your attendance meant a lot to all of us. If you missed it because of other engagements or responsibilities, we completely understand. Look below to find some highlights of the general school information we shared.
And just like that, we’re already 2 weeks into the new school year! I walk the halls and go into classrooms seeing enthusiastic teachers and engaged students everywhere I turn. No time is being wasted. Please be sure to reach out to your child’s teachers if you have any questions for them.
And again, please feel free to contact me, Mrs. Prescott (kprescott@tracylc.net), if you have any additional questions. I’m always here to help!
Mrs. Zuniga/Mrs. Bengson’s Math:
Note for all classes: Parents if you would like to know what your children are working on each day or if there are any tests or quizzes coming up please refer to the math calendar in their binders. Test and quiz dates will be written on that calendar as soon as dates are set for each test or quiz.
Varsity: Our class has finished up comparing and ordering whole numbers. We will now be learning to round whole numbers before we begin reviewing for our first quiz on Tuesday.
Scholastic: Our class has finished rounding decimal numbers then we will begin to add and subtract decimal numbers. Our first quiz will be coming soon and I will send out that info with students as soon as a date is set.
Honors: Our class has finished up their first quiz of Unit 1. We will continue through the unit moving onto exponents then squares and cubes.
Ms. Rodieck’s Language Arts and Humanities
We finished week 2!! – This week we started getting into the curriculum. Students in all three classes had their first weekly quiz and homework assignments. Varsity does their work in reinforcement lab. If you would like to do work at home, they have a book club book to read and spelling words to study. We also started reading Love That Dog. In writing, we closely read articles about pet ownership and wrote summaries of the articles.
Next week, we will start learning music theory in Humanities. We will be learning terms used in music theory so we have a common vocabulary for listening to and talking about Musical Pieces as related to the Pentathlon theme Health and Wellness.
We will also write our first essay – an expository piece about pet ownership. We will continue reading our novel, weekly spelling and vocabulary, and grammar basics.
Social Studies with Mr. Bird & Mr. McCarthy
This week our Falcon historians are developing their map skills. They learned how to identify the different parts of a map, identify cardinal directions, as well as understand how to read the map grid and measuring scale. We applied our map skills by using a map from Fortnite, a popular video game, to identify various locations (see pictures below).
Next week we will begin our unit on prehistory and early humans. We are doing a cave-like simulation for one of our activities next week. Students will be asked to bring in a flashlight from home. Please do not go out and purchase flashlights if you do not have one.
Science with Ms. Diaz:
Happy 2nd week of school future scientists! It has been a great week so far, with us asking questions such as “what is science?” and “what is data?”. In groups, we did a brainstorming activity and then presented our thoughts and opinions to the class. We also practiced some lab skills, taking measurements of length and the volume of liquids using metric units. Now we are experts at adeptly transferring liquids from one container to another with a high degree of precision. We also completed our first lab activity, investigating “how do you know when you have enough data?” by calculating the proportions of different skittle colors in a bag as groups and then comparing them within the class. This enabled us to learn to collect and record data like good scientists. We will ultimately use this data to create a bar graph to show information and give comparisons.
Next week….get ready for forces and motion!
Awesomely, interesting announcements:
- Saturday, September 21st– Expanding Your Horizons event for 6-12th grade girls at the University of the Pacific https://www.sjeyh.org
- This is a great event that I attended as a 6th grader, and for a small fee, you get workshops, lunch, a t-shirt and SWAG. If interested, register asap as spaces are limited
- Mission to Mars DCS science trip, April 13-16, 2020. Come attend the parent info night if you are interested in your child joining. The meeting is at 6pm, Thursday, August 22nd in room D5 of the DCS building. I will go over trip information and the trip coordinator will be available via Skype to help answer any questions.
Stay curious & keep exploring!!!
Art with Ms. Losen:
This week in Art class we learned about Van Gogh and created our own versions of Starry Night, using a layer of glue first for texture and then going over that layer with oil pastels. We discussed Van Gogh’s life and contributions to art and spent time contemplating the trend of famous artists being unrecognized during their lifetime as well as the role self-doubt plays in creative success.
Discovery Middle School 7-8
Upcoming Dates:
- Picture Day is Sept. 3rd
- DCS Cruise Fundraiser will begin August 12 and continues until August 23rd
- Spirit Wear can be purchased now until Aug 30th at https://www.selectspiritwear.com/shop4/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=1173
Math with Mr. Dhillon
varsity :- doing unit 1 ,finished with lesson 1 place value , lesson 2 place value in decimals and lesson 3 power of 10 and will start with lesson 4 compare and order
scholastic :- doing unit 1, review for algebra basics finished till evaluating expressions and doing review for quiz 2 and doing combining like terms
honours :- finished unit 1 geometry basics will do constructions review for quiz 3 and unit test 1
Math with Mrs. Rapp
Picture of my proud home room with all their certificates on Tuesday
Back to School Night
This Wednesday 7th and 8th grade had their Back to School Night event! We had a great turnout from both parents and students! (Pictured below: PE staff giving their presentation)
Nest Certificates and Top Nest Earners:
(Pictured below: Top 5 Nest earners for Week 1)
Language Arts with Mrs. Cerezo
This week students worked hard on developing their writing. I met with each student to conference with them about their introduction paragraphs. As a pair we read their work and discussed possible improvements they could make for their next written assignment.
During our Creative Teaching Day this week each class played Literary Device Bingo to practice their understanding of literary elements such as personification, simile, plot, and more.
Each class will have their second test of the year on Friday.
Language Arts with Ms. Greene:
This week in Language Arts, we are focusing on our essay introduction revisions. Conferences will be one on one with my advice to revise and edit their introductions, this will be held Wednesday, August 14th.
For our creative teaching day, Tuesday the 13th, we played literary device Bingo and “I have, who has” which helps build their literary vocabulary. In all classes they will be presenting their Soundbites, a summary of a news article that they have read in class.
In Honors, we have only just began reading and we are focusing on the plot and the conflict. In Scholastic, the students have started to identify the rising action of the plot and are making connections and predictions of what they believe might happen. In Varsity, they have started to identify the plot and different types of figure of speech.
Students will have a test on Friday, focusing on the vocab and the literary devices that we have reviewed throughout the week. The test will also include questions about Fever 1793 which we have continued to read in class.
Social Studies with Ms. Zaca:
Students started the week by finishing their presentations on the medical traditions for Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India. Students analyzed their different traditions and grouped them based off of natural and divine. To help connect the ancient world with our modern world, students were given one of eight parts of the Hippocratic Oath. With their two or three group members, they discussed the meaning of their part and rewrote it in their own words, simplifying the complex version that current doctors learned during medical school! Students wrote the new, simpler version on poster paper and stapled them to our classroom walls. Each student walked around the room, writing down the rest of the parts in their notebook. With this activity, students learned how the ancient Greeks did not believe in cutting open the body to diagnose ailments, but that learning about the patient as a whole through observations and questioning was the key to solving any ailment.
A Note from Mrs. King (Math Supervisor)
Welcome to the 2019 – 2020 school year. My name is Leslie King and I am the Math Supervisor for DCS and MHS.
This is an exciting year for math in both schools. We are rolling out all-new math curriculums. It is our goal to have a consistent curriculum in all classes with the same titles. The geometry taught at DCS is the same geometry taught at MHS. Our goal is to be guaranteed that any student who completes and passes a class with 78% will be ready to take on the challenges of the next level.
In the past, classes have not completed curriculum because there was too much time spent remediating what should have been learned the year before. This was true not just for Millennium, but Discovery as well. If a student does not have the foundations needed to build a solid math career, then they will fail. We are hoping to correct that starting this year.
At DCS we have the multi-age classroom. This allows a student to see an entire year’s worth of a course and maybe not master everything. No worries, they always have the second year. Parents should not expect every child to move to the next level of math every year. They will move when they have mastered what they need to be successful at the next level.
At both DCS and MHS, we are requiring all students to have a math binder. This holds both the teachers and the students accountable for work before and after it is graded and returned. At DCS we have a grade graph as the first page of the binder. All scored work for a unit will be placed on the graph. This is an up to date visual of how the student is doing. The “grade” lines and the passing line are drawn on the graph to illustrate to students and parents how the student is doing. There will be periodic binder checks to make sure students are keeping their notes and work as required.
At the end of each unit, the teacher will be collecting the students’ grade graphs, notes, and unit test. These will be kept in a folder for each student. When the time comes for the Final, the notes and tests will be returned to the students to use as study guides for the final exam. All this in hopes to make them more successful!
I am looking forward to a very productive year. I feel we have the staff to accomplish this task. If there are any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at lking@tracylc.net. I am not on campus full time, but I will get back to you as soon as possible if I receive and correspondence.
Thank you. Have a wonderful year!
Music Exploration with Mr. Dougherty
Music exploration is off to a great start. It has been a pleasure getting to know new students and getting reacquainted with returning students. We started off the trimester with a musical me presentation, students also created a beat on GarageBand and then wrote a rap to perform to their beats. This is going to be great semester!
Spanish with Mrs. Polo
This week and next week in Spanish class we will be going over rules, regulations, giving out school supplies and beginning with Spanish name and translations as well as accent marks and spelling. We will also go over the 4 questions that have to be asked in Spanish
Ex: Can I go to the bathroom?
We will also begin an alphabet review and reading letters A & B
Art with Ms. Losen
This week in Art class we learned about Van Gogh and created our own versions of Starry Night, using a layer of glue first for texture and then going over that layer with oil pastels. We discussed Van Gogh’s life and contributions to art and spent time contemplating the trend of famous artists being unrecognized during their lifetime as well as the role self-doubt plays in creative success.
Science with Ms. Dominguez
This week in 7/8 Science, students will have their very first Google Classroom Quiz. For Honors and Scholastic, this quiz will be completed on their own at home. Students will receive a study guide in class on Friday, and we will review that together while students are given time in class to fill in the guide with the information they will need for the quiz. Varsity will complete the quiz during class time on Friday with assistance from the learning guides and me.
PLEASE NOTE: Next week, we will start discussing this year’s Academic Pentathlon topic of Health and Wellness: The Science and Biology of Cancer. I understand from my own personal experiences that this topic can be very difficult and complicated for students of this age group. If there are any reservations regarding your student’s exposure to this content, please feel free to contact me via email at gdominguez@tracylc.net.
Millennium High School
A big thank you this week goes out to our students for being so prompt and attentive during our picture day. The staff at Lifetouch had some wonderful compliments with regards to our students. That means a lot and you should all be very proud. Also, thank you to all the parents who attended Back to School Night. We had a wonderful time speaking with you and look forward to being part of a team that will make this year a great success!
MHS English Charter Chatter
English I
Our Freshmen are finding out how things work in high school. We have started the year strong with grammar, non fiction articles, and beginning our first novel Orphan Train. Students already have their first Language Arts quiz under their belts as well as their first essay assignment. We will continue to work on writing beginning with introductory paragraphs.
English I is a big transition for students- they have 7 classes with 7 individual teachers which can seem overwhelming at first. This year, students seem to have taken to the new schedule and responsibilities remarkably well and it is shaping up to be a fantastic year!
English Two– English Two is rolling right along! This week we’ve taken a Diagramming Assessment, started our diagramming work. and continue to work on the non-fiction article we started last week, “Afghan Boys Are Prized, So Girls Live The Part”. The students enjoy learning about Afghanistan and are making observations and predicting what impact the history of the country will have on our characters in the novel, “The Kite Runner”. We are also working on writing Introductions and are learning a lot about writing through peer review.
English Three– English Three hasn’t missed a step! We are reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and analyzing Steinbeck’s use of the natural world at the beginning of each chapter. We are examining the themes of Loyalty, Friendship, and Discrimination throughout the novel and identifying how these themes are prevalent in today’s literature as well. We are working on Expository Essays and integrating citations into our essay.
The Senior class has embarked upon the most important year of their lives. It has been a great start, and they have set an outstanding example for all MHS students. From the way they line up at Unity, to the standards they set in the classroom, we expect these seniors to make us proud all year long. In English class, we have begun reading The Things they Carried, a book that explores both the tangible and intangible weight that American soldiers struggled with then and continue to struggle with today. The high school has renewed their focus on producing strong rhetorical writers, who communicate on the page just as well as they do in person at the front of the class. At MHS, we strive to prepare our students for their future, and the English department has their eye on the metaphorical prize.
Delta College classes for Fall semester will be starting soon! All students who were approved for College Early Start for Fall should have registered during the month of July. Classes begin the week of August 26th. If your student needs help with their Delta College schedule, please have them speak with Mr. Gomar in the counseling office.
Senior Class of 2020 – Welcome to the final year of high school! An information packet will be mailed at the end of the month to all parents/guardians of 12th grade students regarding important dates, deadlines, activities, college information. We encourage all parents to add themselves to the MHS Class of 2020 remind app using code: ad2378 – this will solely be the remind for the MHS Counseling Office.
Athletics
Football, Cross Country and Girls Volleyball are well underway as teams begin to finalize their rosters! Stay tuned for weekly game updates. Saturday, 8/17, football will have their first scrimmage out at Big Valley Christian in Modesto with all of our CCAA teams.
Girls volleyball will have their first scrimmage on 8/22 out at Mountain House.
Interested in donating to the Athletics program? Here are 2 great opportunities! If you would like to help us purchase new equipment for the weight room we hope to have open by winter, you may donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/falcons-weight-room
For donations towards Millennium Athletics in general, you can go here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=JV4bGcCRYeBxsAoeIm9378Hq0cPdQ5v5cVuYxrIDCxod5qM0FM8eQcBKQ-YhqrA_hGj2tG&fromUL=true&country.x=US&locale.x=en_US
We appreciate your continued support! FALCON PRIDE!!
Millennium High School – Homework Support
Homework support has returned for Millennium High School students who need help with their homework. Please see below for the current schedule.
Millennium High School – Tutors Needed
We are looking for high school students that are interested in tutoring various subjects including math, history, science, and spanish. Paid opportunities are also available. If interested, please visit the Millennium High School counseling office to pick up a tutor application.