TLC Charter Chatter

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Virginia Stewart

 Oct. 25, 2019

7 Things Children Wish Their Teachers and Parents Knew

By Eileen Carr

October 22, 2019

 

I spend a large portion of my waking hours in the company of 9- and 10-year- olds. I’m a 4th grade teacher, and I’m often surprised by grownups’ perceptions of childhood.

“What I wouldn’t give to be a kid again … “

“Kids have it so easy, they just play all day!”

“It must be so nice being around kids all day; they don’t have any problems or issues.”

I’ve spent the past year teaching my students to initiate conversations with one another and with buddies they made across the Pacific through video chats. When I talked with them about the experience, a theme emerged: They said they wished that adults knew more about their lives and experiences. Here’s some of what I heard from them:

 

1. Kids want you to know how hard they’re trying.

“Practice makes perfect.”

“If you put your mind to it, you can fill in the blank.” (Insert: play the piano, do well in school, understand math, speak up in class, manage your emotions, etc.)

These are some of the things children hear from adults. My students told me that they really are trying, but some things are genuinely difficult. For example, Mo has been learning to read, write, speak, and comprehend English for the past three years. He told me, “English is hard! When I speak, it’s hard.” Aicha added, “I wish my mom would understand that even though I pay attention during math, it doesn’t always mean I understand when I get home.”

Ty reminded me how easy it is to forget the challenges that come with not having mastered a skill, a topic, or a language. “They expect that I can control my anger, but sometimes I can’t,” he said. Kids are humans, and humans are works in progress. Sometimes—no, most of the time—we need to summon the benefit of the doubt and support one another’s best efforts.

 

2. Kids want grownups to be happy.

Children notice your mood. They pick up on facial expressions, gestures, states of mind. According to Ty, “Grownups are so grumpy all the time!” From the looks on our faces, how could he think otherwise? Ella told me, “When our parents get really stressed, I want them to know that we really love them and care about them.” They see us, they read us, and they want the best for us. You don’t always have to be happy, but you should know that you’re more of an open book to the kids in your life than you might realize.

 

3. Kids want to be believed.

Something spills, somebody’s crying, something breaks: A kid must have done it. Why weren’t they being more careful? Where was the oldest child? It’s easy to jump to “blame the kid,” but as Dustin said, “They think they know what happens, and we get in trouble for it.” It’s important for us to take that deep breath, ask what happened, and truly listen to children’s accounts. Zen put it poignantly: “I wish they could trust us more. If we say we didn’t do something, I wish they would trust us.”

 

 

4. Kids want grownups to be more honest.

Kids aren’t the only ones with an ardent desire to be believed, whether they’re telling the truth or not. If you’re going to be late, or you’re not going to make it at all, tell the truth. A child could spend the next hour craning her neck, looking for you, waiting to see your face through the crowd. Sometimes the honest conversation is harder and more prolonged, but children deeply appreciate when you acknowledge the truth. They want to know what’s going on in their lives.

 

 

5.        Kids want electronics just as much as grownups do.

As grownups, we just need to acknowledge that sometimes we are hypocrites. Unfortunately, our kids know this. They notice our every swipe and screen binge. When adults overdose on screen time, we reckon privately with ourselves. But when we do so with kids around, we need to think about the message we’re sending. If medium doses are okay and even necessary for us grownups, then maybe we need to make similar allowances for kids. Braden pleaded, “We have to play electronics. It doesn’t have to be for a long time.”

 

6. Kids want a break from over-scheduling.

Self-care isn’t just for grownups. Kids get drained, too, but they’re not often in control of their own schedules. There are the weekday activities. Trevor explained, “I have something else to do every day! Homework, Math Olympiad, swimming, tutoring, karate, Japanese school … ” Then there’s the homework, every day, and sometimes even on weekends. Finally, the chores! Ramona lamented, “They think you have all this time to do all these things they want you to do, even when you don’t have time.” Grownups need down time to recharge, “me time” when they’re the only ones calling the shots, blissfully unscheduled chunks of time to be filled with anything or nothing. Kids do, too.

 

7. Kids want grownups to love them just as they are.

Social media can make the most well-adjusted adult feel insecure: You need to work out more, be more beautiful, wear better clothes, eat healthier foods, take wilder vacations, buy a bigger house. Those voices aren’t just getting to us grownups—they’re also getting to the kids. And they’re coming from us.

Emma said, “Sometimes they compare me to someone else.” Nicky added: “Sometimes, adults just expect too much from us. For instance, I’m not a genius but my mom expects me to be.” We may think that we’re expressing support and encouragement, but our children are hearing disappointment and regret. Jack struggled to find the words, then blurted, “They want me to be the best me I can be, so let me be me!”

 

Offering children a safe space to bond with peers across the world revealed so much to me about how similar they are, whether they’re in Honolulu or San Francisco. In a classroom, students vastly outnumber grownups, which can pose management challenges for teachers. But they have so much to say, and they want us to listen. It’s worth the trouble to help kids find their voices, share their messages, and experience the joy of being heard.

 

 

 

Next School Holiday

Monday, Nov. 11, 2019

Nov. 25 – Nov. 29 Holiday Week – Thanksgiving

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Lunch Menu Week of Oct. 28 – Nov. 1

Mon – Pizza

Tues – Chicken Enchiladas

Wed – Chicken Wrap

Thurs – Cheese Raviolis

Fri – Beef or Veggie Burger

 

 

 

See official rules here.

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Scan your receipt on the Box Tops app for a chance to win 5,000 Bonus Box Tops for your school.

Sweepstakes begins 10/01/19 and ends 11/03/19.

entry, visit: https://www.boxtops4education.com/earn/sweepstakes/2019/Monsters/official-rules.

**If you have clipped box tops, please send them in by 10-25-19 to be counted in the first deadline.  

 

 

 

                 

 Initial Phase

We want to thank all of the P2 families that donated supplies to our class this week! We are so incredibly thankful for your willingness to donate and help enrich our students learning experiences at school. We have lots of fun activities planned!

On Halloween, students can come to school wearing their costumes WITH regular clothes underneath. Parents are welcome for our annual Halloween parade and performance. The parade will begin at 8:30. Students will march around the main building and end at the playground for their performance that they have been working so hard to learn at PE. After this we will be heading inside so that the next grade level can do their parade. Students will participate in other fun Halloween activities throughout the day!

 

Phase One:

This week the students learned more about the American flag; who created it, why the colors are red, white and blue and why it has 13 stripes and 50 stars. They also learned some patriotic songs and reviewed the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance and why we say it. Ask your child who created the first flag!

We have an exciting week coming up; it is Red Ribbon Week and each day is a special dress up day. Please look for a note in Green folders with all of the dress up days. The theme is “Prepare for Success” and we will spend the week discussing how they can prepare for success by taking care of their body and mind.

Thursday is Halloween and the students will be participating in our annual Halloween parade. Our parade will start at 9:00 in our playground area. Following the parade the students will perform a dance they have been learning in PE. In Monday’s Red folders there will be a note with costume guidelines. Please review this before sending your child to school.

Phase Two:

Thank you to everyone who sold and picked up pies…it was a successful fundraiser!  We will be sending home a See’s Candy fundraiser next month!  Be on the lookout.

Next week is Red Ribbon Week…all PCS students will receive a red bracelet with our theme “Prepare for Success.”  We will discuss why it’s important to take care of your mind and body so you can be successful in life.  We will also have dress up days next week!

Monday:  “Dress for Success/Career Day”  wear something that represents what you want to be when you grow up

Tuesday:  “A Bright Future”  Wear neon/bright colors!

Wednesday:  “A Healthy Heart”  Wear red

Thursday:  Halloween! (See attached times for parade and costume guidelines)

Friday:  “Soaring into Success”  Wear your PCS blue and gold

 

 

 

 

 

Discovery Middle School 5-6

Upcoming ⅚ Dates:

October 28th: DARE Celebration (for 3 classes who will have completed the program)

October 29th: ⅚ Fall/Halloween Dance 4-5pm

A Note From Leadership Club:

This coming week we have our 5/6 dance on Tuesday, October 29th from 4-5 pm. Permission slips were due this last Friday, but we are still accepting them until Monday, October 28th!! Any parent who would like to donate snacks, cookies, or donuts may do so by turning them into the Front Office on either Monday or Tuesday of this week.

Thank you!!!

Mrs. Zuniga/Mrs. Bengson’s Math:

Varsity: Our class is working on multiplying 3 digit by 2 digit whole numbers. Students are beginning to grasp the concept, but constant practice is pertinent.

Scholastic: Our class has begun order of operations. Students will be practicing this concept constantly as students will always get an answer.

Honors: Students finished their second quiz for Unit 2. They have learned about the exponent rules for monomials.

Mrs. Nijjar’s Math:

My Honors, Scholastic, and Varsity students spent the week reviewing the math concepts they have learned in the previous weeks. Students worked on assignments aligned with Common Core standards. These assignments introduced them to the vocabulary and format required to achieve Common Core standards for each grade level. In the coming weeks, we will be working hard to complete the current Math Units and will gear up for the upcoming finals.

Ms. Rodieck’s Language Arts and Humanities

Ms. Rodieck’s Language Arts and Humanities

Finals season is upon us.  This week the students had their Unit One Final in Humanities.   On Monday, we had fun playing a Quizlet Game to review (as seen in the pictures).  Next we will learn what Art Crtitics do and the basic of Art so we can become Art Critics ourselves.

Next week, we will have our Language Arts final.  On Monday and Tuesday, we will review in class.  If students would like to start reviewing before, they can be looking at their Language Arts Notebooks.  

Thursday will be the final writing assignment for the trimester.  If your son or daughter will not be at school that day for religious reasons, ease have them see me on Wednesday for an alternate assignment.

Language Arts with Mr. Harding

Social Studies with Mr. Bird and Mr. McCarthy

Our scholars in social studies have finished their lesson on the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs focusing on the pharaohs Khufu, Senusret I, Hatshepsut, and Ramses II. They took a “tour” of the Nile River and visited different monuments along the way that were built for each of these pharaohs. Afterward, students wrote a “postcard” to a friend or relative that shared information about their visit to the monument and the pharaoh. They also participated in various activities throughout this lesson, such as working in pairs to write a list of items they can identify in a carving from Hatshepsut’s temple. Then, random students were selected to come to the whiteboard to write their list of items and share them with the entire class for a brief discussion about what the ancient Egyptians possibly used the items for (see picture below).

To end the lesson of the Egyptian pharaohs, students wrote a letter on Google Docs to a friend or relative about their tour of Egypt. They had to highlight two of the monuments they visited, the pharaohs, and include pictures. These turned out so great and the students enjoyed working on Chromebooks to type their letter (see picture below).

Honors/Scholastic ended this week with a quiz on the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Varsity will take their quiz on Monday. Students in all classes will begin a new lesson next week on daily life in ancient Egypt! To make history come alive, students will participate in a series of act-it-outs for each social class in ancient Egypt! Students will be allowed to bring props to class on the day of their act-it-out, but it is not required.

Science with Ms. Diaz:

Greetings scientists! This week students started learning about the similarities and differences between mixtures and solutions. Tuesday was a designated SWO work day as the Personal Awareness SWO guidelines were handed out. Students will be given time during science and social studies each week to work on their SWO. Last Friday we had our STEM career day. Various speakers from research, tech and teaching shared their STEM experience and explained what first piqued their STEM interest. We even had Aristotle visit! Yes, you read correctly…Aristotle! It took him a VERY long time to get to DCS, but he made it and showed the students what the very first scientist was really like. Thank you so much to all our speakers! You help light the path to the future. Now, for the long awaited names of the winning group from the Rube Goldberg tryouts…..*drum roll*…….Elyas Jawanshir, Jillian Credo, Manvir Sra, and Justin Martinez from my 9th period Varsity 1 class! Congratulations and a hearty job well done to all the groups that tried out. It was no easy feat as groups had 35 minutes to create an apparatus that put a piece of candy into a pumpkin bucket. Groups had the same items from which to build and were only given the task during their tryout. The winning group will join 12 others on Dec. 13th, vying for the DCS title and the chance to represent the school at the national competition Spring of 2020.

Check out the pictures below of our STEM career day, another Rube Goldberg tryout, and the team photo of the “Science Gods”, our intramural soccer team entry:

Next week we continue learning about mixtures and solutions, and different ways to separate mixtures!

Last but not least, come one and come all to check out the DCS science blog site at: www.tlcdiscoverychannel.weebly.com. Read all about Gorillas (Isaiah Guevara). Prepare to be SCIENCED!

Awesomely, interesting announcements:

  • The Trimester 1 Final has been moved to Thursday, Oct. 31st.
  • Please don’t forget to check Google classroom and/or the science class website regularly with your student.
    Google Classroom Hon/Scholastic code→ jp9wlua
    Google Classroom Varsity code→ 8d4s9b
    Science class website:
     https://diazdoesscience.weebly.com 

Stay curious & keep exploring!!!

Discovery Middle School 7-8

  • 7th/8th Halloween Dance is on Oct. 30th!
  • SWO 1 is due Nov. 1st
  • Community Service hours are due Oct. 31st!

Week 10 Top 5 Nest Earners!

Soccer Intramurals

DCS began their Soccer Intramural games this last week! Students and their self-made teams competed against rivals on Wednesday and Friday. Semi-finals will take place on Monday and Finals will take place Wednesday of this coming week. The winner of 1st lunch will compete against the winner of 2nd lunch on Friday, October 26th. The winning team will receive a trophy and their picture will hang in our new trophy case in our hallway.

Wall Decorating Challenge for September:

September has come and gone and with it another round of wall decorating! September’s theme for our Discovery wall decorating was “Homecoming Heroes”. Students were assigned one wall to decorate according to the theme and connect it with the curriculum in their classroom. This month’s wall winners were Ms. Diaz’s wall and Ms. Dominguez’s wall (decorated by Mr. Harding and Mrs. Cerezo’s homerooms, respectively). Check out the video of students describing their wall and how it connects to their classrooms.

7/8 wall:

https://youtu.be/rwZ4tDg6rJw

5/6 wall:

https://youtu.be/8scBgnn135o

 

 

 

October/November Wall Decorations:

Last week, DCS students decorated their walls for the months of October and November. The theme for these months were Fall Harvest and students had to connect the theme back to their curriculum in their classroom. Check back next week to see who our luck winners are for 5/6 and 7/8!

 

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Leadership:

This coming week we have our 7/8 Dance on Wednesday, October 30th from 4-5:30 pm.  Permission slips were due this last Friday, but we are still accepting them until Monday, October 28th!! Any parent who would like to donate snacks, cookies, or donuts may do so by turning them into the Front Office on either Monday or Tuesday of this week.

DISCOVERY ATHLETICS

6th Grade Girls basketball defeated Monte Vista with the score 20-8. The girls improve to 2-0 on the season. They will play at Art Freiler next week at 3:30pm.

7th/8th Grade Girls basketball defeated North with the score of 22-6. The girls are currently 1-1 for the season. They will play Art Freiler next week at 5pm.

A Note from Mrs. Cerezo:

In 7th and 8th we have decided to make some changes to our weekly Charter Chatter! In an attempt to be more efficient and to get the most relevant and important information disseminated to all, we have decided to feature a content area/class each week! We will follow this same pattern each week, beginning with this week. Our first week with this new format will feature our ⅞ Language Arts department. Language Arts will share all relevant information for upcoming dates and information for the class.

Math in Mrs. Rapp’s

This last week Varsity we spent a few days review concepts from Units 1 and 2. This review will consist of common core problems that will not only deepen their understanding, but help better prepare them for the state test. As we start Unit 3, we will be diving into the introduction to algebra with powers and exponents. This unit is the foundation for Algebra and will be crucial. In this unit we will have multiple quizzes and a unit test all before the trimester ends. Varsity will take their first trimester final the week of November 4th.

Scholastic has finished unit 2 with a class average of 87%! We have moved into Unit 3: Parent Functions and Relations. For the first time we are working with domain and range and this group is doing wonderful. There are so many fun activities to go with this unit and this class loves to be able to review in an interactive way. Here are some photos from the latest activity, it was a multi-step tic tac toe review game that they loved and were very serious about.

Honors is now in unit 4: Congruent Triangles. Triangles tends to be one of the more favorable shapes in geometry. We have started with classifying angles and sides of triangles. This is a shorter unit, so we will be spending a lot of time reviewing before moving on. There will be a variety of activities we do throughout the unit. They get so excited when they get to pair up and work out of their seats, below are a few photos from their classifying scavenger hunt we did in class.

Geometry will test for this unit the week of November 4th.

Important Dates and Reminders:

-SWO is happening in all math classes and will be due on November 1st

-Parent Teacher Conferences for Mrs. Rapp will be on November 13th.

Math with Mr. Dhillon

Varsity :- currently doing unit 3 ( Introduction to Algebra and function.)  

                completed till lesson 6 properties and will do lesson 7 arithmetic sequences and lesson 8 Equations and Functions then we will have review and a unit test 3 and then we will do data analysis of unit 3 and once we are done with everything we will start with unit 4 Integers Graphing and Functions

Scholastic :- Currently doing unit 3(Parent Function and Transformation). Completed will 3.5 function notation and will be doing 3.6 zeros of functions and then quiz 2 and will continue with the unit 3, 3.7 Arithmetic Sequences and then review of unit 3 and then unit test 3 and we will do data analysis of the unit 3 and the next day will start with unit 4 Linear equation

Honors :-  we are doing activities and review on unit 4 and then unit test 4(Congruent Triangles) and then data analysis of unit 4 and once we are done we will start with unit 5 Relationship in Triangles

 

 

 

 

 

 


Millennium High School

Congratulations to all of the Millennium students who earned 4.0’s for first quarter!

This morning we celebrated these students at Unity.  All students who earned a 4.0 for first quarter were entered into a drawing for either a $10 Barista’s gift card or a $15 T4 gift card.  Our lucky winners are pictured below.

Back: Omeid Nadery, 11th, Jeremy Adams, 11th, Vivek Cherian, 9th

Front: Mackenzie Ardenyi, 12th; Zeenat Enterar, 11th

ACTIVITIES

Speech and Debate 

It was a long, challenging Saturday on October 12th for the Falcon Speech and Debate team this weekend, with 430 students from 16 schools competing. At the end of the day, here are the TLC students who placed in the top ten at our most difficult tournament of the year so far.

  • Grace Bhatia, 9th, Varsity National Extemporaneous
  • Anthony Rhead, 9th, Varsity Impromptu
  • Anthony Rhead, 8th, Varsity Congressional Debate
  • Alondra Camarena, 7th,* Novice Impromptu
  • Scott Malsack, 7th,*  Novice Impromptu
  • Anton Souza, 7th,* Novice Impromptu
  • Grace Bhatia, 6th, Varsity Impromptu
  • Giovanna Chukwuma, 6th, JV Original Advocacy
  • Karina Linarez, 6th, JV Original Oratory
  • Shika Acolatse, 5th, Open Original Prose and Poetry
  • Shika Acolatse, 5th, Open Thematic Interpretation
  • Nicolas Osborn, 5th,* JV Impromptu
  • Logan Malsack, 5th,* JV Impromptu
  • Bianca Villaflor, 5th,* JV Impromptu
  • Lucy Lamanna, 4th,* JV Original Advocacy
  • Lilliana Zapien, 4th,* JV Original Advocacy
  • Nicole Engen, 4th, Open National Extemporaneous
  • A’Ni Clepper, 3rd, JV Original Advocacy
  • Christian Silva, 3rd, Varsity Congressional Debate
  • Lucy Lamanna & Anton Souza, 2nd,* JV Parliamentary Debate
  • Summer Summons & Lilliana Zapien, 2nd,* JV Parliamentary Debate
  • Grace Bhatia, 2nd, Varsity Lincoln-Douglas Debate
  • Alondra Camarena & Logan Malsack, 1st, JV Parliamentary Debate
  • Crysuel Cunanan, 1st, JV Original Advocacy
  • Nicole Engen, 1st, Varsity Big Questions Debate
  • Danica Knowlden, 1st, JV Dramatic Interpretation
  • Anahi Rodriguez, 1st, JV Impromptu
  • Summer Simmons, 1st, JV Humorous Interpretation

*tie

At 31 top 10 and 22 top 5 wins, this was the most winning tournament in our five-year span! It has put us in the top 5 in our district, which has 25 active schools (large and small alike, all one league) and goes from Lodi to the north, Atwater to the south, Sonora to the east, and Mountain House to the west.

We also have 8 students who have rocketed into the top 100 students in our district (out of ~700 active competitors in our district). They are:

  • 98th Anton Souza
  • 93rd Lucy Lamanna
  • 85th Hannah Reyes
  • 57th Anthony Rhead
  • 30th Christian Silva
  • 12th Shika Acolatse
  • 9th Grace Bhatia
  • 7th Nicole Engen

If you would like to see our Falcon winners blow you away as they move further up into the top 10, we have several upcoming tournaments we could use judges and assistance with!

  • Our next regular league tournament is 11/9 in Buhach Colony. Judges get free coffee, food, and entertainment all day. We are obligated to bring 1 judge for every 6 entries we have, and, as you can see, we have a lot of entries. TLC community support would be welcome!
  • We have a Girls’ Only tournament in Mountain House on 11/16. We would love to see some moms, aunties, and best friends out there judging.
  • We have a league tournament 12/7 at Modesto High in Modesto. We can use help with judges throughout the day!
  • Contact Miss Lamanna, blamanna@tracylc.net, if you are able to help! : )

YEARBOOK ORDERS and SENIOR DEDICATION AD ORDERS NOW OPEN!

Yearbook sales have opened! Yearbooks are $75. Now is the perfect time to order a 2019-20 yearbook for your student. We look forward to yearbook delivery day, May 15th. Orders are open through April 11th. Click HERE to go to our convenient online order center! Or you may go to yearbookordercenter.com and enter code 21362. You may also pay by cash, check, or card in the front office or by contacting Miss Lamanna, blamanna@tracylc.net

Senior Dedication ads in the yearbook are available and can include photos alongside a personal message to your son, daughter, or teammate. There are a limited number of pages available, so act quickly. The deadline to place an ad is 3/15/20. Credit cards accepted! If you have any questions, please direct them to blamanna@tracylc.net.

Athletics

Interested in donating to the Athletics program?  Here are 2 great opportunities!  If you would like to help us purchase the padded flooring for the weight room we hope to have open by winter, you may donate here (We are just about $10,000 shy of FULL completion!!):  https://www.gofundme.com/f/falcons-weight-room

Weekly Schedule (Girls Volleyball, Cross Country and Football): 

11/2- Football @ Stone Ridge Christian (7pm kick-off, played at Castle Field in Atwater)

Sports Scores from 10/19-10/25/19:

Varsity Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 1, Venture 3

JV Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 1, Venture 2

Frosh Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 0, Linden 2

Varsity Football:  Falcons 6, Miramonte 48

Falcons , Immanuel

JV Football:  Falcons , Miramonte

XC:  League Championship:

Meet The Coaches!

  My name is Coach KV and I am in my 11th year coaching here at MHS! I coached girls basketball for two, helped out with softball for 3 and am currently in my 9th year coaching with the boys basketball program. I choose to coach basketball because I love the sport and I love the kids. My goals as a coach are to not only develop the players individual sport specific skills, but to develop responsible young men. To teach them the importance of being a student first, athlete second. I hope to instill the values of dedication, commitment, integrity and the importance of being punctual.

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

Follow Millennium Athletics on Social Media:  

-Instagram- @Millennium_Athletics

-Twitter- @MHS_Falcons

-Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/BalsamoPE

We appreciate your continued support!  FALCON PRIDE!!

Upcoming Fundraisers for Athletics:

-Pancake Breakfast (Hosted by Girls Soccer) November 2, 2019

-Daddy Daughter Dance: December 14th, 2019

-Mother Son Dance: February 8th, 2020

COUNSELING NEWS!

It’s been quite a busy week in the counseling office! It’s definitely college application season during the months of October and November. Thank you to students and parents who attended our Senior Financial Aid Info Night  this week. Our guest speaker was Jonathan Miranda from the Delta College Financial Aid Office. The deadline to apply for Financial Aid is March 2, 2020. Throughout the community, there will be various locations where students and parents can get assistance on how to complete and submit their application. The counseling office staff have already submitted 7 applications so far! Our goal is to reach 100% submission this year. If you have a 12th grade student, help us achieve that goal by visiting www.fafsa.ed.gov 

We had our CSU Application workshop on how to apply. Katherine Wood was our

guest from CSU Stanislaus who shared the overview of the CSU application and helped seniors with their questions. Deadline to apply to all CSU campuses is November 30th. We encourage ALL CSU applicants to meet with us to review their college applications before submitting. Our office holds an “open lab” every Monday during 5th lunch (12pm-1pm) for seniors who would like help with their application.

This Monday, October 28th there will be a UC Merced rep on campus during 5th lunch (12pm – 1pm) to hold a UC Application Workshop. Any seniors interested in applying to the University of California campuses is encouraged to attend.

 

Spring College Early Start:  The process is under way!  The counselors held Delta application workshops for College Early Start students on Monday, October 21st.  Any student who has not yet applied to Delta must apply as soon as possible, and a Social Security Number is needed to complete this step.  Students taking a class in the spring should attend a group advising session on Thursday, October 31 at 1:15 in Room 102, or 1:15 in Room 105.  At this meeting, students can select a class to include on their College Early Start form to turn in.  Our deadline for College Early Start forms is Monday, November 4th.  Students who do not complete all steps before then, OR do not submit their forms by 11/4, will not be permitted to take a Delta class this spring.  Please see our website for more details:  http://www.tracylearningcenter.com/counseling/college-and-carrer-planning/

PSAT (Preliminary SAT) Test is this Wednesday, October 30th! Registration is officially closed. We have 104 students signed up and ready to take an important step in their preparation for college readiness.  

TEST DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 2019

TEST LOCATION: Tracy Learning Center Gymnasium

Test will begin promptly at 8:00am – Students need to arrive no later than 7:45am and report directly to the Gym. No entrance into the exam after 8:00am. Pencils will be provided. Optional: Students can bring an approved scientific calculator

Make a Difference Week:  CSF held their Sabotage Coin Drive for Make a Difference Week!  All proceeds will benefit McHenry House Family Shelter.  Results of the nest competition will be reported next week!

In honor of Tracy’s Make a Difference Week – There are some great Community Service Opportunities available this weekend, please see the flyers below. All of these events are approved events where students can help volunteer and make a difference in our community!

TLC Charter Chatter

TLC Charter Chatter

tlc-logo 

Virginia Stewart

In an article I enjoyed reading recently, I found great tips for good parenting that seem worth sharing.  I hope you find some of the tips helpful.

 

1. Identify your child’s strengths. You can use them to build your child’s self-esteem, helping to provide the confidence he or she needs to tackle whatever seems difficult. Children will be more willing to listen and understand how to correct adverse behaviors if their dignity is intact.

2. Punishing a child is not as effective as using praise and rewards. Rather than focusing on weaknesses, find ways to assist your child in developing to his or her full potential. When encouraged, children will acquire talents to compensate for any deficiencies.

3. Avoid negative emotional reactions, such as anger, sarcasm, and ridicule. If your child has problems with control, negativity will only make him or her feel worse. Use short and mild suggestions to remind your child to focus, like “P.A.” for “pay attention.”

4. Don’t compare siblings. If a child thinks his or her brother or sister is favored, it can create a rivalry that may last the rest of their lives and cause problems in your family. Make sure your kids know that they are loved equally.

5. Get support if you need it. Life with children is a roller coaster ride. Understanding that there will be negative aspects to child-rearing and getting some professional advice when necessary will help you maintain your sanity and enjoy the experience.

6. Children need positive attention. If they do not receive positive attention from family, they may choose to seek out negative attention. This is because negative attention is still attention, and any attention is better than being ignored. Remember to communicate with your child. Love and care are the greatest healers.

7. Monitor your child’s use of the internet. The stuff kids can access in cyberspace can be dangerous. Get a program that will let you see the web sites they visit and monitor their chats.

8. Accept that life changes when you have a child. Lazy Saturday mornings in bed are replaced by soccer games and recitals. Remember, you still need to make time for each other–date nights and weekend getaways are important for your relationship.

9. Parent by example. Think of your kids as little bipedal copy machines who will mimic everything you do. If you behave badly, you are giving them permission to act in the same ways. Check in with yourself, and don’t lose it in front of the children.

10. Don’t give up on your child, ever! All of your child’s problems can be worked through with humor, goodwill, and perseverance. With proper parental support, even the most troublesome teens can become amazing people.

The mystery of what your children will be and how you can affect that outcome is what family life is all about. Give all you can, keep your cool, and stay in the game. The results and your own joy will surprise and reward you

 

 

Next School Holiday

Monday, Nov. 11, 2019

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Lunch Menu Week of Oct. 21 – 25

Mon – Pizza

Tues – Beef or Bean Burrito

Wed – Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Thurs – Chicken Strips

Fri – Beef Hot Dog

 

 

See official rules here.

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Scan your receipt on the Box Tops app for a chance to win 5,000 Bonus Box Tops for your school.

Sweepstakes begins 10/01/19 and ends 11/03/19.

entry, visit: https://www.boxtops4education.com/earn/sweepstakes/2019/Monsters/official-rules.

**If you have clipped box tops, please send them in by 10-25-19 to be counted in the first deadline.  

                 

 

 

TK

 

This week in TK we learned all about sink and float!

We started off the week learning about all what causes something to sink or float.  The students were able to see some items sink or float, such as a rock, pencil, feather, penny, and a paper clip.

Next, the students were able to test which fruits sank or float.  Boy, were we surprised when the lemon floated and the blueberry sank.  Wow!

What a treat, the students tested which cookies sank or floated in milk.  Yummy!

The treats keep coming!  They tested which Halloween candies sank or floated.

 Initial Phase

We started our week off with a very fun surprise visit from Mr. Knaus who is a Lieutenant at the Oakland Fire Department. He taught us all about fire safety. We learned what number to call in case of an emergency, why we have smoke alarms, what to do if there is a fire, what firemen wear, and how to stop, drop, and roll. We played fun games and learned a lot! We are so grateful for this experience! Look in your green folder for some information booklets, a scholastic magazine, and a fun firetruck activity. We encouraged P2 students to find smoke alarms in their house and talk to their family about what to do in case of a fire in your home.

Phase One:

Thank you to all the families that participated in the pie fundraiser. Pies will be delivered and ready for pick up on November 25th from 3-5 by the front office.

This week the students in Phase One learned about various US symbols like the bald eagle, Statue of Liberty, American flag and Liberty Bell. Ask your child some facts they learned about those US symbols.

Phase Two:

Thank you to everyone who participated in the pie fundraiser.  Remember, the pie pick up day is NOVEMBER 25th from 3-5 PM.  Pies can be picked up right by the front office.  

Did you know Senora Wharton, our wonderful Spanish teacher, is going to hold our first Spanish spelling bee?!  She is really focusing on writing and spelling Spanish words correctly this year.  A list of words has gone home.  The spelling bee is not mandatory.  We are glad to see that some of our students are really becoming strong in this second language!

Phase 2 students have AR goals that are due in just 2 weeks.  Has your child been reading every night?  Please make sure you sign their AR chart and discuss their progress!  

Discovery Middle School 5-6

Upcoming ⅚ Dates:

October 18th: Haunted High in the gym, 5-6:30pm (kid-friendly) 6:30-10pm (scary), $7

October 28th: DARE Celebration (for 3 classes who will have completed the program)

October 29th: ⅚ Fall/Halloween Dance 4-5pm (permission forms coming soon)

Our Top 5 Nest Point Earners for the week! Way to go Falcons!!!

Peregrine’s Top 5:

Kestrel’s Top 5:

Saker’s Top 5:

Amur’s Top 5:

Mrs. Zuniga/Mrs. Bengson’s Math:

Varsity: Our class has now begun working on Unit 2. Students have been practicing their multiplication facts with on the computer with Quizalize as well as playing war in the classroom. Students will focus on multi-digit multiplication next week.

Scholastic: Our class reviewed using Quizalize on the computers and had fun for unit 2. They finished Unit 2 test and students are now ready to dive into Unit 3. We will be starting off with powers and exponents then focusing on squares and square roots.

Honors: Students finished their first quiz for Unit 2 and did very well. They reviewed using Quizalize on the computers and had fun. We are now looking into exponent rules and operations of monomials.

Mrs. Nijjar’s Math:

Varsity:

In this week, students worked on multi-digit division problems. Students also played games like Multiplication Squares, Connect-4, Kahoot, and Around-the-world to review multiplication and division facts. Students worked on multiplication and division word problems by solving puzzles for a given Hotel Scenario. In addition, students put their best efforts to take the second quiz for Unit-2.

Scholastic:

This week students learned Long division to solve division problems having single-digit divisors. Students learned to estimate quotients for division problems involving multi-digit divisors and multi-digit dividends. Learning “Estimating Quotients” strategy later worked as a trick for solving multi-digit division problems.

Honors:

In this week, students learned to solve Word problems by translating the algebraic terms to equations and solving them. Moreover, this week students reviewed the strategies to solve the Literal equations, Absolute Value equations, algebraic terms, and word problems. Moreover, students are prepared and looking forward to take the second quiz of Unit -2 on Monday.

Ms. Rodieck’s Language Arts and Humanities

The main highlight from this week was the D.A.R.E. Idol competition with the Varsity Group during Language Arts.  Here are the two winning presentations.  They will be performing this at the D.A.R.E. Celebration.

Other important news involves FINALS.

The Unit One Final for Humanities will be Tuesday, October 22nd.  

The Language Arts Final will be Wednesday, October 30th.

Humanities counts for 15% of the total Language Arts and Humanities Grade.  We have not done very many gradable assignments in Humanities in the first Trimester so it is important that students do well on this test.  We have completed a Study Guide and spent time in class studying.  But it helps to review and quiz yourself at home, also.

The Language Arts Final counts for 15% of the overall Grade, also.  We will be studying in class for this test.  I will also be giving the students their quizzes to review and a partial list of all the words they have had this trimester.  These are the things they can use to review at home.

Language Arts with Mr. Harding

We are booking and cooking in ELA 5/6! We have started our new novel unit, Fever, 1793, and the learners are intrinsically interested in the book.  Our activities, including just reading the text, have been met with great enthusiasm. In addition, we are still working on our Greek and Latin roots to expand our lexicon, improving grammar, and learning about total wellness through study of the humanities.

I have created a Google classroom to give all learners and invested partners access to materials and more periodic and detailed updates. Each student has been given and demonstrated access to the Google classroom via their school email. I am confident this tool will help bridge class study and home study.

Social Studies with Mr. Bird and Mr. McCarthy

Our scholars started their third unit this past week and it is on Ancient Egypt! We started our unit by learning about the geography of Egypt. We labeled and colored a map of ancient Egypt after a brief class reading about the land. Please see the picture below of a few fantastic maps from students!

Honors and Scholastic students started learning about the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and their accomplishments. We first learned about the pharaoh Khufu and the Great Pyramid at Giza! After we learn about each pharaoh, students are writing a postcard to a friend or relative to tell them about their visit. The postcards are images in their reading notes packet (which they keep in the social studies folders).

To learn about the White Chapel and pharaoh Senusret I’s accomplishments, students reassembled broken pieces of a carving at the White Chapel. They worked together with their table partners and hypothesized what is depicted in the image (pictured below).

Varsity students are continuing to learn about the two lands of ancient Egypt. They completed an annotated reading, created a timeline of important events, and are learning new power words. They ended the week by learning about the social structure of ancient Egypt.

There will be a quiz next week, which we will announce on Google Classroom. For Honors/Scholastic, it will be on the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs lesson (what were their accomplishments and how did they do it?). For Varsity, it will be on power words, the two lands of Egypt, social structure, and influential pharaohs.

Science with Ms. Diaz:

Greetings scientists! This week students played detective and were able to find items in the classroom that are conductors of electricity. Prior to this, they took a bag of objects and sorted them into which ones are conductors and which ones aren’t. They learned all about materials that make good conductors and materials that make good insulators and then tested each object to see if it allowed their lightbulb circuit to work. They also learned about safety with electricity and why insulation is important. Our last experiment with this section was to figure out how to create an electromagnet using an insulated wire, a steel nail, a D-cell and paperclips. Of course all the savvy scientists were able to figure it out! Furthermore, we had the tryouts to enter the 5/6th Rube Goldberg competition in December. The winning students will be announced in the next Charter Chatter.

Check out the pictures below of a group’s Rube Goldberg apparatus, students making an electromagnet, and the art wall for science courtesy of the 10th period Varsity 2 students:

Here is a link to watch a video of the amazing apparatus that a tryout group created:

http://bit.ly/tryoutvid

Next week we will venture into the wonderful world of chemistry!

Last but not least, come one and come all to check out the DCS science blog site at: www.tlcdiscoverychannel.weebly.com. Read all about Poison Dart Frogs (Sophie McCrary), Top 5 Cutest Animals (Chloe Pham), and Top 8 Most Dangerous Scorpions (Brian Mora). Prepare to be SCIENCED!

Awesomely, interesting announcements:

  • The study guide for Test #3 (Magnets and Electricity), which is on Oct. 24th, was passed out this week.
  • The trimester 1 final which will cover material from tests #1-3 will be on Friday, Nov. 1st.
  • Please don’t forget to check Google classroom and/or the science class website regularly with your student.
    Google Classroom Hon/Scholastic code→ jp9wlua
    Google Classroom Varsity code→ 8d4s9b
    Science class website:
     https://diazdoesscience.weebly.com 

Stay curious & keep exploring!!!

Discovery Middle School 7-8

  • Pie Fundraiser begins Oct 7th and ends Oct. 17th! Students should have brought home fundraiser packets! Pies will be distributed on the 25th.
  • Haunted High is on Oct. 18 4:30-10:00pm
  • 7th/8th Halloween Dance is on Oct. 30th!
  • SWO 1 is due Nov. 1st
  • Community Service hours are due Oct. 31st!

Week 10 Top 5 Nest Earners!

Soccer Intramurals

DCS began their Soccer Intramural games this last week! Students and their self-made teams competed against rivals on Wednesday and Friday. Semi-finals will take place on Monday and Finals will take place Wednesday of this coming week. The winner of 1st lunch will compete against the winner of 2nd lunch on Friday, October 26th. The winning team will receive a trophy and their picture will hang in our new trophy case in our hallway.

Wall Decorating Challenge for September:

September has come and gone and with it another round of wall decorating! September’s theme for our Discovery wall decorating was “Homecoming Heroes”. Students were assigned one wall to decorate according to the theme and connect it with the curriculum in their classroom. This month’s wall winners were Ms. Diaz’s wall and Ms. Dominguez’s wall (decorated by Mr. Harding and Mrs. Cerezo’s homerooms, respectively). Check out the video of students describing their wall and how it connects to their classrooms.

7/8 wall:

https://youtu.be/rwZ4tDg6rJw

5/6 wall:

https://youtu.be/8scBgnn135o

Music Exploration:

The Story of Us!  – Discovery Music has been busy composing their own musical. Each story came up with a basic plot outline then created lyrics to add to songs to make the songs specific to their story. Each class then had the opportunity to record their songs using Garageband. I have included a sample of a song from one of my classes. This song is about a group of Cheetahs that are too chubby to hunt because they like to lie around eating junk food and play video games.

 

A Note from Mrs. Cerezo:

In 7th and 8th we have decided to make some changes to our weekly Charter Chatter! In an attempt to be more efficient and to get the most relevant and important information disseminated to all, we have decided to feature a content area/class each week! We will follow this same pattern each week, beginning with this week. Our first week with this new format will feature our ⅞ Language Arts department. Language Arts will share all relevant information for upcoming dates and information for the class.

Language Arts with Ms. Greene

This week in our class we have finally finished reading our first novel Fever 1793. In all classes we have discovered the theme of the book, based on family and health and the students are able to show the relationship between our Pentathlon theme of Health and Wellness and the novel.

        We have started a new unit on poetry and exploring figurative language in different poems. On Thursday, we did a Poetry escape room where students had to use their knowledge of figurative language and decoding to solve the different tasks.

        To prepare the students for the upcoming final we have started to review. This week we reviewed all of the Humanities notes that we have covered so far in class, this includes health, music genres and different elements of music.

        This week we will hopefully start our new novel Frankenstien.

Final 10/30

Parent Teacher Conferences 11/12

Reminder: Study vocabulary weekly!!

Language Arts with Mrs. Cerezo

This week and month in Language Arts will be dedicated to Frankenstein, our second class novel. This week students completed their presentations to close out our work with Fever 1793 and we began our introduction to Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.

Along with that each class has reviewed figurative language and learned some new poetic devices. We read and analyzed two poems and located myriad examples of figurative examples within. A discussion ensued to explain how poets use poetic devices to get their point across.

This week also our classes used our knew knowledge of poetic devices to work their way through a series of clues to complete an Escape Room–poetry style. This activity proved to be a lot of fun! (Pictured below).

Looking forward students will take their first trimester final on Oct. 30th! Students must also finish their own books by Oct. 24th in order to complete a book report activity that will be presented to the class.

Parent Teacher Conferences are the week of November 11th.

Campus Beautification

The next Campus Beautification Day will take place on October 26th! Be sure that students who wish to attend/participate turn in their permission slips.


Millennium High School

Congratulations to all of the Millennium students who earned 4.0’s for first quarter!

This morning we celebrated these students at Unity.  All students who earned a 4.0 for first quarter were entered into a drawing for either a $10 Barista’s gift card or a $15 T4 gift card.  Our lucky winners are pictured below.

Back: Omeid Nadery, 11th, Jeremy Adams, 11th, Vivek Cherian, 9th

Front: Mackenzie Ardenyi, 12th; Zeenat Enterar, 11th

ACTIVITIES

Speech and Debate 

It was a long, challenging Saturday on October 12th for the Falcon Speech and Debate team this weekend, with 430 students from 16 schools competing. At the end of the day, here are the TLC students who placed in the top ten at our most difficult tournament of the year so far.

  • Grace Bhatia, 9th, Varsity National Extemporaneous
  • Anthony Rhead, 9th, Varsity Impromptu
  • Anthony Rhead, 8th, Varsity Congressional Debate
  • Alondra Camarena, 7th,* Novice Impromptu
  • Scott Malsack, 7th,*  Novice Impromptu
  • Anton Souza, 7th,* Novice Impromptu
  • Grace Bhatia, 6th, Varsity Impromptu
  • Giovanna Chukwuma, 6th, JV Original Advocacy
  • Karina Linarez, 6th, JV Original Oratory
  • Shika Acolatse, 5th, Open Original Prose and Poetry
  • Shika Acolatse, 5th, Open Thematic Interpretation
  • Nicolas Osborn, 5th,* JV Impromptu
  • Logan Malsack, 5th,* JV Impromptu
  • Bianca Villaflor, 5th,* JV Impromptu
  • Lucy Lamanna, 4th,* JV Original Advocacy
  • Lilliana Zapien, 4th,* JV Original Advocacy
  • Nicole Engen, 4th, Open National Extemporaneous
  • A’Ni Clepper, 3rd, JV Original Advocacy
  • Christian Silva, 3rd, Varsity Congressional Debate
  • Lucy Lamanna & Anton Souza, 2nd,* JV Parliamentary Debate
  • Summer Summons & Lilliana Zapien, 2nd,* JV Parliamentary Debate
  • Grace Bhatia, 2nd, Varsity Lincoln-Douglas Debate
  • Alondra Camarena & Logan Malsack, 1st, JV Parliamentary Debate
  • Crysuel Cunanan, 1st, JV Original Advocacy
  • Nicole Engen, 1st, Varsity Big Questions Debate
  • Danica Knowlden, 1st, JV Dramatic Interpretation
  • Anahi Rodriguez, 1st, JV Impromptu
  • Summer Simmons, 1st, JV Humorous Interpretation

*tie

At 31 top 10 and 22 top 5 wins, this was the most winning tournament in our five-year span! It has put us in the top 5 in our district, which has 25 active schools (large and small alike, all one league) and goes from Lodi to the north, Atwater to the south, Sonora to the east, and Mountain House to the west.

We also have 8 students who have rocketed into the top 100 students in our district (out of ~700 active competitors in our district). They are:

  • 98th Anton Souza
  • 93rd Lucy Lamanna
  • 85th Hannah Reyes
  • 57th Anthony Rhead
  • 30th Christian Silva
  • 12th Shika Acolatse
  • 9th Grace Bhatia
  • 7th Nicole Engen

If you would like to see our Falcon winners blow you away as they move further up into the top 10, we have several upcoming tournaments we could use judges and assistance with!

  • Our next regular league tournament is 11/9 in Buhach Colony. Judges get free coffee, food, and entertainment all day. We are obligated to bring 1 judge for every 6 entries we have, and, as you can see, we have a lot of entries. TLC community support would be welcome!
  • We have a Girls’ Only tournament in Mountain House on 11/16. We would love to see some moms, aunties, and best friends out there judging.
  • We have a league tournament 12/7 at Modesto High in Modesto. We can use help with judges throughout the day!
  • Contact Miss Lamanna, blamanna@tracylc.net, if you are able to help! : )

FALCONS STUDY ABROAD MEETING

Current travelers and parents, we have a trip meeting Wednesday, October 23rd, at 6:30PM in Mr. Young’s room, 304. Please plan to attend! This meeting is for travelers on the current trip (Spring 2020) only.

YEARBOOK ORDERS and SENIOR DEDICATION AD ORDERS NOW OPEN!

Yearbook sales have opened! Yearbooks are $75. Now is the perfect time to order a 2019-20 yearbook for your student. We look forward to yearbook delivery day, May 15th. Orders are open through April 11th. Click HERE to go to our convenient online order center! Or you may go to yearbookordercenter.com and enter code 21362. You may also pay by cash, check, or card in the front office or by contacting Miss Lamanna, blamanna@tracylc.net

Senior Dedication ads in the yearbook are available and can include photos alongside a personal message to your son, daughter, or teammate. There are a limited number of pages available, so act quickly. The deadline to place an ad is 3/15/20. Credit cards accepted! If you have any questions, please direct them to blamanna@tracylc.net.

Athletics

Interested in donating to the Athletics program?  Here are 2 great opportunities!  If you would like to help us purchase the padded flooring for the weight room we hope to have open by winter, you may donate here (We are just about $10,000 shy of FULL completion!!):  https://www.gofundme.com/f/falcons-weight-room

Weekly Schedule (Girls Volleyball, Cross Country and Football): 

Saturday 10/19- Football (JV/V) at West High vs Miramonte (5/7:30pm)

Tuesday 10/22- Girls Volleyball (F) vs Linden and (JV/V) vs Venture Academy at West High (4/5/6pm)… SENIOR NIGHT!

Thursday 10/24- XC at Eagal Lakes, CCAA League Championship, 4pm

Friday 10/25- V Football vs Immanuel at Tracy High, 7pm SENIOR NIGHT

Sports Scores from 10/10-10/16/19:

Varsity Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 3, Brookside Christian 0

Falcons 0, Stone Ridge Christian 3

Falcons 0, Big Valley Christian 3

JV Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 1, Stone Ridge Christian 2

Falcons 2, Big Valley Christian 0

Varsity Football:  Falcons 7, Big Valley Christian 55

JV Football:  Falcons 14, Big Valley Christian 14

Meet The Coaches!

  My name is Coach KV and I am in my 11th year coaching here at MHS! I coached girls basketball for two, helped out with softball for 3 and am currently in my 9th year coaching with the boys basketball program. I choose to coach basketball because I love the sport and I love the kids. My goals as a coach are to not only develop the players individual sport specific skills, but to develop responsible young men. To teach them the importance of being a student first, athlete second. I hope to instill the values of dedication, commitment, integrity and the importance of being punctual.

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

Follow Millennium Athletics on Social Media:  

-Instagram- @Millennium_Athletics

-Twitter- @MHS_Falcons

-Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/BalsamoPE

We appreciate your continued support!  FALCON PRIDE!!

Upcoming Fundraisers for Athletics:

-Pancake Breakfast (Hosted by Girls Soccer) November 2, 2019

-Daddy Daughter Dance: December 14th, 2019

-Mother Son Dance: February 8th, 2020

COUNSELING NEWS!

 

Spring College Early Start:  The process has begun!  College Early Start Info meetings were held on Thursday – we had a great turnout including three parents!  Next Steps:  Counselors are holding Delta application workshops for College Early Start students on Monday, October 21st – 12:15 in Room 102, and 1:15 in Room 105.  Students should bring their Social Security Number.  Later in the week, students should check their email to look for a Temporary User ID and Password in order to log into their Delta account and retrieve their Delta ID number.  Please see our website for more details:  http://www.tracylearningcenter.com/counseling/college-and-carrer-planning/

Our deadline for College Early Start forms is Monday, November 4th.  Students who do not complete all steps before then, OR do not submit their forms by 11/4, will not be permitted to take a Delta class this spring.

Next Week is Make a Difference Week!:  From October 21st to the 25th, our California Scholarship Federation chapter (CSF) will be hosting a Sabotage Coin Drive to benefit McHenry House.  Our four nests will compete with each other by placing change in one of the four jars to gain the highest score…pennies will add to a nest’s score, and silver change and bills will subtract from a nest’s score.  Whichever nest has the most points at the end of the week will receive a set amount of nest points!  It is a friendly competition for a great cause – all funds raised will go to McHenry House.  So Falcons, please start gathering your pennies!

 

FOCUS ON MHS SOCIAL STUDIES!

Economics: Since the last charter chatter Economic students have taken a very important test on Market Structures. The results were great! We have since moved on to a unit on business organizations and the students are busy working on a project where they are given examples of clients that are seeking advice on what type of business organization to form given their specific set of circumstances. The students go through a checklist and make recommendations for each of the clients and list the pros and cons of each business model as it pertains to the individual circumstances. The unit on Business organizations should conclude next week with a unit test on all of the information from this section of the curriculum.

Government: Students discuss the importance and need for a judiciary. They outline the US court system and the roles of each court, as well as the purpose of having a separate judiciary and separate levels within it. Discussions in the classroom center around the need for separation of powers, and how Montesquieu’s influence can be seen in our framework of our government today.

U.S. History students are in the middle of their study of the Civil War. This week the student’s put together group presentations on specific battles of the war. They included specific individuals who were vital to each battle, maps of the battle and the terrain, a description of the battle with winners and losers and a monument that has since been created to commemorate that particular battle. Below are some pictures of the students getting ready to present.

Geography

Since the last Charter Chatter the Geography students have been learning about maps, California and are now on to North America. The students have been working on numerous projects during this time, starting with our group “World Map” projects that are now proudly displayed in our classroom. In our California unit students created Google Slide Presentation for our “Trip Around California” project. Students planned a 5 stop vacation around the state and described where they went and what they saw on their trip. We are currently learning about North America and will be starting our “North America in a Bag” project this week.

World History

In World History we have been discovering the Ancient Greeks, Romans and are now on to the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment eras. During our unit on Rome the students worked with a partner to create a Google Slide Presentation on various Ancient Rome topics, such as The Colosseum, women of Rome, Roman cuisine and slavery. The students then presented those to the class to help reinforce our learning of Ancient Rome.  We are now on to our Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment unit.

Career Education

Students are in the last stages of completing their business projects.  Students will present their projects and commercials at the end of next week!  In addition, we have had multiple universities, colleges, and military branches speak to students about the opportunities offered by these institutions.  

TLC Charter Chatter

TLC Charter Chatter

tlc-logo 

A weekly newsletter written to parents of the TLC

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Bullying is a serious matter that cannot be taken lightly.  Continuous bullying behavior can often leave long-term effects such as loss of self-esteem, increased anxiety, and depression for those who are victims.  There are many ways to help eradicate bullying in a school setting. First and foremost is helping all students realize the importance of respect. Often it is helping students realize that things they say can be hurtful and why. Teachers need to be watchful and listen during recess and playtime. Students need to feel empowered to speak up ( not by tattling) but why calmly and strongly stating when something is bothering them.  Teachers can facilitate this and bring the concern to a resolution before it is out of hand.

Often at the end of the day when a child is riding home with a parent, the child can share things that may not have gone well with the day.  It is important to notice patterns. If a student continually talks about a student who is bothering him or her, the parent should contact the teacher to bring some resolution to the issue.  We have several of these kinds of meetings during the school year and they do help. We want to be known as a safe school. We want children to feel happy here and safe. Learning is best accomplished when schools provide a circle of safety for everyone. 

I applaud the student, Celina Lopez, who hung up posters on classroom doors suggesting ways we can help make others feel good.  They listed several ideas in a tear-off fringe at the end of the poster. Students are encouraged to take one and put it into action.  

The opposite of bullying is building up others.  We can all do that. 

Capture
Celina got the idea through applying for a scholarship through DoSomething.org:  https://www.dosomething.org/us/campaigns/cancel-bullying?source=ds_scholarship  The idea behind the flyer is that it takes five positive comments to cancel out a negative one in our minds.  The flyer includes positive messages that students can tear off and give to each other in order to promote a greater sense of belonging and appreciation at school.

Fall has…fallen.  When temps are in the low 80’s, the Fall weather is here.  To ring in the season, TLC is bringing back our Haunted High carnival.   We hope to see you Friday October 18th from 4:30 to 10:00pm to celebrate the season.  After a 3 year hiatus, Mr Snyder and our MHS students are excited to bring back ‘Haunted High’.  5:00 – 6:30 is the PG version and after 7:00pm things get REALLY SCARY.    For those who are not into the scary stuff, we will have games and treats that everyone can enjoy.   It is always nice to have students and parents on campus after academic hours – TLC is more than just a school – we hope to see you there!

 

big kid flyer

 

Hearing Van

The hearing van will be testing hearing the morning of October 17, 2019. Students who will be tested are  all K, 1st, 2nd, 5th,  8th and 10th grade students.

Next School Holiday

Monday, Nov. 11, 2019

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.

Lunch Menu Week of Oct. 14 – 18

Mon – Pizza

Tues – Chili or Cheese Nachos

Wed – Teriyaki Meatballs

Thurs – Beef Lasagne

Fri – Beef or Veggie Burger   

See official rules here.

.

 

Scan your receipt on the Box Tops app for a chance to win 5,000 Bonus Box Tops for your school.

Sweepstakes begins 10/01/19 and ends 11/03/19.

entry, visit: https://www.boxtops4education.com/earn/sweepstakes/2019/Monsters/official-rules.

**If you have clipped box tops, please send them in by 10-25-19 to be counted in the first deadline.  

                   

TK

This week in TK we learned all about sink and float!

We started off the week learning about all what causes something to sink or float.  The students were able to see some items sink or float, such as a rock, pencil, feather, penny, and a paper clip.

Next the students were able to test which fruits sank or float.  Boy, were we surprised when the lemon floated and the blueberry sank.  Wow!

What a treat, the students tested which cookies sank or floated in milk.  Yummy!

The treats keep coming!  They tested which Halloween candies sank or floated.

 

Initial Phase

Our pie fundraiser (sent home on Monday) is running through next Thursday, October 17th. Orders will be due on the 17th. Pies will be available for pick up on Friday, October 25th from 3:00-5:00 next to the office. All proceeds will benefit our TLC preschool program.

We are collecting Box Tops For Education! It is now so easy to earn money for our school! Just download the APP, add our school and start scanning!

Next week we will be learning all about fire safety and will even have a presentation from a surprise visitor!

Phase One:

Please support our TLC preschool program by participating in our current pie fundraiser. Information and packets were sent home on Monday. This fundraiser will run until Thursday, October 17th. Pies will be delivered and ready for pick up on Friday, October 25th from 3:00-5:00 next to the front office.

Our school is also collecting Box Tops For Education. There is a flyer in today’s Green folders. No need to cut them out, just download the app, add our school and scan your box tops. This is a very easy way to help earn our school some money!

This week the Phase One students learned about our great state of California! The students learned about where California is located on a map and several state symbols. Ask your student to tell you something they learned about California.

Phase Two:

This week we continued our animal and life science unit.  Some of our classes have even dissected an owl pellet!  We have talked about producers and consumers and adaptations.  In art our classes made beautiful mandalas with tissue paper.  This project required a lot of focus and cutting.  They look amazing! Please make sure you are signing your child’s agenda and AR chart every Friday.  

Discovery Middle School 5-6

Upcoming ⅚ Dates:

October 7th-17th: Pie Fundraiser

October 18th: Haunted High in the gym, 5-6:30pm, $7

October 28th: DARE Celebration (for 3 classes who will have completed the program)

October 29th: ⅚ Fall/Halloween Dance 4-5pm (permission forms soon)

Our Top 5 Nest Point Earners for the week! Way to go Falcons!!!

Peregrine’s Top 5:

Kestrel’s Top 5:

Saker’s Top 5:

Amur’s Top 5:

Mrs. Zuniga/Mrs. Bengson’s Math:.

Varsity: Our class was finishing up Unit 1 this week. Our test was Friday and the class will be finding the average on Monday. Our next unit is multiplying and dividing which we have begun activities to check for multiplication facts. Students will also fill in their own multiplication chart in class that they will use in class throughout the unit.

Scholastic: Our class is on the cusp of finishing Unit 2 and had a quiz Friday with review set for next week. Our unit test will be on Thursday.

Honors: Students have blossomed in unit 2 and loved working with the vocabulary for Algebra. They are almost ready for their first quiz of the unit. We have just finished factoring expressions and we will review for our quiz next week before moving into the next lesson.

Mrs. Nijjar’s Math:

Varsity:

We started this week with division. Students learned to divide multi-digit numbers by a single-digit divisor. Students reviewed multiplication facts by playing games like “Kaboom” and “Multiplication Squares”.  In the coming weeks, students will be working on multi-digit multiplication and division problems along with reviewing the multiplication/division facts.

Scholastic:

This week students learned about multiplying decimals and checking the answer by estimating the product. Students also learned long-division along with solving multi-digit division problems. In the coming weeks, students will be learning to estimate the quotient for multi-digit problems. Students enjoyed playing Kahoot while reviewing the concepts of multiplying and dividing by powers of 10.

Honors:

In this week, students learned to solve Absolute Value equations and Literal equations. Students reviewed solving multi-step equations by playing Kahoot. For creative learning day, student learned solving Literal equations by playing Connect 4. In the coming weeks, students will be learning to solve word problems involving algebraic expressions.

Ms. Rodieck’s Language Arts and Humanities

This week we focused on writing the body paragraphs of an essay.  Scholastic and Honors are answering the question “What is Real Music?”  Varsity is writing their report for D.A.R.E.  Next week, we will work on other elements of their essays including revising and editing.  Below are some of our class generated notes and student work.

In Humanities, students will have a Unit test for Music in the near future.  To help them study for it, they will be working on a study guide both in class and as homework.

Language Arts with Mr. Harding

We have begun our new novel unit and the learners are excited. They enjoy learning about the era, how people lived without daily showers, and new/archaic words. The author has fantastic command of verbs that drive the story. We will certainly take some of the tools from her writing box and place them in ours.

I am still grading essays.  Bear with me as quality feedback takes time.  Student effort is worth more than simply completing the rubric and assigning a grade. So far, I have been impressed with the natural gifts of the writers, and the overwhelming amount of polish and elbow grease previous teachers have poured into their education. I look forward to handing them back and starting the next set of essays.

Social Studies with Mr. Bird and Mr. McCarthy

During the past week in social studies, students have been finishing their lessons on early civilizations and preparing for their second unit test on Friday, 10/11.

Honors finished their group project and gallery walk activity on ancient Sumer. Please see the pictures below of some of their fantastic posters! After they read all about their assigned topic, students had to work together to write a list of facts, draw pictures, and write how their topic relates to civilization.

Scholastic and Varsity students completed their digital brochures on Mesopotamia and they look fantastic! You are able to view your child’s brochure on Google Classroom (have them show you where they submitted the brochure and you are able to view the assignment there – let me know if you have issues). Here are a few printed brochures:

Students in all classes then participated in a fun and engaging lesson all about cuneiform. After a brief lecture about cuneiform, students created their own alphabet with different symbols and wrote a phrase about Mesopotamia using their alphabet. Then, using play-doh, students created clay tablets and etched their phrases into the tablet for other students to attempt to decipher. See pictures below of some students working on translating clay tablets!

We are starting our next unit on Monday, October 14th – we’re off to Ancient Egypt!

Scholastic students will no longer be using interactive notebooks and will be utilizing folders to organize their materials. Folders will be supplied to all students, but they may use their own if they wish.

Science with Ms. Diaz:

Greetings scientists! Students did shockingly well with making their very first simple circuit. This week the savvy scientists learned about D-cells, parts of an incandescent bulb, and what wires are for. Ask them to make you a circuit PLEASE, because I guarantee they’ll know. In fact, look at the picture below of a circuit that scientist Hayden Compton made. It was fantastic! On Thursday, students had a pop quiz on the principles of circuits. Lastly, many students had to retake the last test on Friday because there were issues with the Chromebooks, so hopefully, by next week the grades will be out and the answers reviewed.

Next week we will learn about conductors and insulators.

Last but not least, come one and come all to check out the DCS science blog site at: www.tlcdiscoverychannel.weebly.com. Read all about Mammatus Clouds (Cameron Jimenez), Top 14 Best Mods in Minecraft (Alex Castro), and Are There Aliens on Mars? (Madyson Humphrey). Prepare to be SCIENCED!

Awesomely, interesting announcements:

  • The Rube Goldberg competition tryouts are open for next week, October 14-17th. Inventors have been requested to sign their group up for a time slot. Only groups that signed up for a time slot will be allowed to compete.
  • Please don’t forget to check Google classroom regularly with your student.
    Hon/Scholastic code→ jp9wlua
    Varsity code→ 8d4s9b
  • I, Ms. Diaz, have also created my own class website https://diazdoesscience.weebly.com . In addition to Google classroom, this site will also contain class information and is easily accessed, as a student login is not required. Both Google Classroom and the website will be updated, so check one or both to find out details about the class and what we’ve done on a daily basis.

Stay curious & keep exploring!!!

Discovery Middle School 7-8

  • Pie Fundraiser begins Oct 7th and ends Oct. 17th! Students should have brought home fundraiser packets! Pies will be distributed on the 25th.

Week 9 Top 5 Nest Earners!

Friday Homeroom Games Challenge:

Every Friday, one student from each homeroom participates in a game at Unity! Here is a look at last week’s game:

Wall Decorating Challenge for September:

September has come and gone and with it another round of wall decorating! September’s theme for our Discovery wall decorating was “Homecoming Heroes”. Students were assigned one wall to decorate according to the theme and connect it with the curriculum in their classroom. This month’s wall winners were Ms. Diaz’s wall and Ms. Dominguez’s wall (decorated by Mr. Harding and Mrs. Cerezo’s homerooms, respectively). Check out the video of students describing their wall and how it connects to their classrooms.

7/8 wall:

https://youtu.be/rwZ4tDg6rJw

5/6 wall:

https://youtu.be/8scBgnn135o

Language Arts with Ms. Greene

                We are moving right along and are now in the double digit count for our weeks. Time flies when you’re having fun!

This week in all classes the goal is to finish our book Fever 1793. Along with the book the students on Thursday and Friday will be presenting their research projects that focus on a specific epidemic. The students are also reviewing the elements of music for the pentathlon.

In Honors, they won for the most donations given for the CJSF McHenrey house donation drive and will receive a pizza party and free day on Friday! Great job class.

In Varsity, they have been working diligently to complete their projects and are setting a goal for the class to get a higher percentage on their test scores in the weeks to come.

Scholastic has also been working on the project and are working towards finishing the book before the other classes.

Reminder: Study vocabulary weekly!!

Language Arts with Mrs. Cerezo

Each class finished reading Fever 1793 this week! This week has been a week of catching up and reviewing. We have worked toward completing some notes for Humanities Music Terms and practiced the key terms we learned on Quizlet!

Furthermore, all classes continued work on their final projects for our novel (to be presented on Friday) and continued with our diagramming and vocabulary practice.

Congrats to our three winners of this weeks Vocabulary Competition:

Jackie Chukwuma

Josh Zulueta

Stephen Garcia

Math with Mr. Dhillon

Varsity :- unit 2 completed and will start with unit 3 ( Introduction to Algebra and function.)

Scholastic :-  unit 2  completed and started with unit 3 (Parent Function and Transformation).

Honors :-  unit 3 completed  and will start with unit 4 (Congruent Triangles)

Science with Ms. Dominguez:

This week in 7/8 Science, we are exploring the links between obesity and cancer. As part of Academic Pentathlon’s curriculum, we have been discussing the various risk factors that exist for cancer, and how some are completely out of our control and others, we can exercise some control over in order to reduce our risk. Obesity, which includes an element of diet, is one of the risk factors that can be reduced by the types of nutrients and foods we put in our bodies.

Students are currently watching clips from a documentary called The Game Changers which features professional athletes that follow a plant-based diet, and tracks how this change in food choices has affected their overall health and athletic performance. As a class, we discuss the pro’s and con’s of this kind of diet with the students questioning how this can align with what we have always learned about having a balanced diet that features all of the food groups (food pyramid).

All classes (with some variation for varsity) will be getting a project assignment tomorrow. They will be asked to track their food choices for all of their meals and snacks on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We will discuss their food journals on Monday, and then discuss what kind of changes they would have to make in order to go either vegetarian or vegan, and if they think that would be a healthy choice for them.

Campus Beautification

The next Campus Beautification Day will take place on October 26th! Be sure that students who wish to attend/participate turn in their permission slips.

Art with Ms. Losen

This week in art…fifth & sixth are in pre-production for their very own short films. Students have split into groups to focus on sets/location scouting, props, lighting & sound, screenwriting, and advanced cinematography. 7/8 honors are midway through a unit on improvisation and 7/8 varsity are beginning a unit on storytelling and mixed media.

Physical Education:

With the “New School Year” well underway and the 1st Trimester of School already over, students are having a blast in PE playing Eclipse Ball, Disc Golf, Ultimate Kan-Jam! Please be on the lookout in “Aeries” for a “Skills Test” for 5/6 & a “Written Test” for 7/8 this Friday, as this is the 7th/8th Graders 2nd Test Grade for The Year!  Study Guides & Videos will be provided on our teacher website: http://www.discoverype.weebly.com/ for students to refer to as Study Guides HAVE BEEN/WILL BE also printed out and given for Coach Penirian, Coach Levand and Coach Williams!

Also, as a friendly reminder, please remind students that they should be bringing a warm clothes for PE, extra socks/shoes and still applying “Deodorants/Antiperspirants/Baby Powder or Sanitary Wipes” in the morning before they are coming to school and showering daily; Even though it is starting to get cold out as they still do sweat during the day even though they don’t think they do!!! LOL ;))


Millennium High School

ACTIVITIES

Speech and Debate 

Our first speech and debate tournament of the year was last weekend at Bear Creek High School. 350 students competed from 15 schools across 3 counties, and our Millennium team members gave outstanding performances.

Our complete Falcon wins were:

Kyle Fisher, 6th, Congressional Debate

Giovanna Chukwuma, 5th, Original Advocacy (tied with A. Clepper)

A’Ni Clepper, 5th, Original Advocacy (tied with G. Chukwuma)

Alondra Camarena, 5th, Impromptu

Eli Galvez, 5th, Original Advocacy

Summer Simmons, 4th, Humorous Interpretation

Lilliana Zapien, 4th, Original Advocacy

Shika Acolatse, 4th, Program Oral Interpretation

Christian Silva, 3rd, Congressional Debate

Logan Malsack, 3rd, Impromptu

Ariana Billings, 3rd, Original Advocacy

Kyle Carlos, 2nd, Impromptu (tied with A. Souza)

Anton Souza, 2nd, Impromptu (tied with K. Carlos)

Lucy Lamanna, 2nd, Original Advocacy

Crysuel Cunana, 1st, Original Advocacy

Anton Souza and Lucy Lamanna, 1st, Parliamentary Debate

Nicole Engen, 1st, Big Questions Debate

Nicole Engen, 1st, National Extemporaneous

Our next tournament is October 12th at Mountain House High School — we are always looking for judges! Come see what we’re all about and enjoy free food, coffee, water, and entertainment!

 

 

YEARBOOK ORDERS and SENIOR DEDICATION AD ORDERS NOW OPEN!

Yearbook sales have opened! Yearbooks are $75. Now is the perfect time to order a 2019-20 yearbook for your student. We look forward to yearbook delivery day, May 15th. Orders are open through April 11th. Click HERE to go to our convenient online order center! Or you may go to yearbookordercenter.com and enter code 21362. Senior Dedication ads in the yearbook are available and can include photos alongside a personal message to your son or daughter. There are a limited number of pages available, so act quickly. The deadline to place an ad is 3/15/20. Credit cards accepted! If you have any questions, please direct them to blamanna@tracylc.net.

Athletics

Interested in donating to the Athletics program?  Here are 2 great opportunities!  If you would like to help us purchase the padded flooring for the weight room we hope to have open by winter, you may donate here (We are just about $10,000 shy of FULL completion!!):  https://www.gofundme.com/f/falcons-weight-room

Weekly Schedule (Girls Volleyball, Cross Country and Football): 

Friday 10/11- Football (JV/V) at Big Valley Christian at 5 and 7:15pm

Girls Volleyball at Turlock Christian (played at Calvary Baptist) at 6/8pm

Saturday 10/12- Girls Varsity Volleyball at Stockton Classic

Sports Scores from 10/5-10/10/19:

Varsity Girls Volleyball:  Falcons , Brookside Christian

Cross Country:  In the 2nd league meet out at Legion Park, the girls team took 1st and the boys team took 2nd.  Carson Edwards finished 3rd overall and Arianna Billings finished 2nd overall for the girls.  

Meet The Coaches!

  This is my 10th year as Varsity Baseball Coach, and my 15th year as a member of the baseball coaching staff. I have been fortunate enough to coach teams that have won three league championships, in 2012, 2014 and 2019. Our teams have made eight playoff appearances in the last ten years. Our teams continue to play the game the Falcon way, with pride and excellence. 

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

Follow Millennium Athletics on Social Media:  

-Instagram- @Millennium_Athletics

-Twitter- @MHS_Falcons

-Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/BalsamoPE

We appreciate your continued support!  FALCON PRIDE!!

Upcoming Fundraisers for Athletics:

-Pancake Breakfast (Hosted by Girls Soccer) November 2, 2019

-Daddy Daughter Dance: December 14th, 2019

-Mother Son Dance: February 8th, 2020

COUNSELING NEWS!

All 1st quarter progress reports were mailed home this week. If you do not receive a copy in the mail, please contact 209.290-0511 to verify your correct address is on file in the Aeries system. There is also important inserts regarding yearbook orders and other specific information depending on your student’s grade level. Be on the lookout for it!

Spring College Early Start:  The process is starting!  Students interested and/or required to take a Delta College class this spring must attend an informational meeting on Thursday, October 17th during lunch.  12:15 in Room 101, 1:15 in Room 105.  Parents are welcome to attend, just make sure you check in at the Front Office!  This meeting will cover all the requirements and steps needed to register and take advantage of this great program, wherein students who earn an A or B in their college class will have their tuition reimbursed by TLC!

Make a Difference Week:  From October 21st to the 25th, our California Scholarship Federation chapter (CSF) will be hosting a Sabotage Coin Drive to benefit McHenry House.  Our four nests will compete with each other by placing change in one of the four jars to gain the highest score…pennies will add to a nest’s score, and silver change and bills will subtract from a nest’s score.  Whichever nest has the most points at the end of the week will receive a set amount of nest points!  It is a friendly competition for a great cause – all funds raised will go to McHenry House.  So Falcons, please start gathering your pennies!

Attention Seniors! This Monday, October 14th from 10am – 7pm, The Photographic Art Studio located at 44 W. 10th Street will be taking walkins (No appointment necessary) for the basic senior portrait sessions. Any seniors who have not taken or scheduled an appointment should take advantage of this opportunity.

FOCUS ON MHS SCIENCE!

In MHS Physics, we have been studying acceleration, velocity, displacement,  forces, and free-body diagrams. Although taken for granted, we all use Newton’s Three Laws of Motion everyday. Can remember them? Take a look …. https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton.html and ask your physics students to explain.

 

 

Chemistry:  What do Charles, Boyle, Avogadro and Gay-Lussac all have in common?  GAS LAWS!!!  Students have just completed investigating the behavior of gases and how gases can be manipulated.  They have seen first hand how math is the language of science and the importance of controlled investigation.  Next up – ATOMS, ATOMS AND MORE ATOMS

Integrated Science students are applying what they have learned about metric measurement and data collection to the topic energy and related concepts

Environmental Science students were reminded of the importance of temperature regulation in living organisms when they observed the respiration of yeast at various temperatures. This observation led to an introduction to thermodynamics and understanding heat as a energy. Students learned to measure a calorie and used calorimeters to calculate the specific heat of various materials that are commonly used in the structures of homes.

Biology has been studying human impacts in ecosystems and creating a tri-fold vacation brochure to inspire tourists to visit particular biomes, whose advantages are researched and described.

 Forensic Science finished fingerprint analysis and is studying hair as evidence, particularly the morphology and structure of hair. Their assigned project is to create a Tik Tok video relating hair to forensics.

TLC Charter Chatter

TLC Charter Chatter

tlc-logo 

A weekly newsletter written to parents of the TLC

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Bullying is a serious matter that cannot be taken lightly.  Continuous bullying behavior can often leave long-term effects such as loss of self-esteem, increased anxiety, and depression for those who are victims.  There are many ways to help eradicate bullying in a school setting.  First and foremost is helping all students realize the importance of respect.  Often it is helping students realize that things they say can be hurtful and why.  Teachers need to be watchful and listen during recess and playtime.  Students need to feel empowered to speak up ( not by tattling) but why calmly and strongly stating when something is bothering them.  Teachers can facilitate this and bring the concern to a resolution before it is out of hand.

Often at the end of the day when a child is riding home with a parent, the child can share things that may not have gone well with the day.  It is important to notice patterns.  If a student continually talks about a student who is bothering him or her, the parent should contact the teacher to bring some resolution to the issue.  We have several of these kinds of meetings during the school year and they do help.  We want to be known as a safe school.  We want children to feel happy and safe here.  Learning is best accomplished when schools provide a circle of safety for everyone.

I applaud the student, Celina Lopez, who hung up posters on classroom doors suggesting ways we can help make others feel good.  They listed several ideas in a tear-off fringe at the end of the poster.  Students are encouraged to take one and put it into action.  

The opposite of bullying is building up others.  We can all do that.

 PICTURE Retake Day for All Schools

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019

Flyers and order forms are available in the office for those students who were absent on Picture Day or for those students doing retakes (bring previous pictures in if you are doing retakes on Picture Day).        

Hearing Van

The hearing van will be testing hearing the morning of October 17, 2019. Students who will be tested are all K, 1st, 2nd, 5th,  8th and 10th-grade students.

Next School Holiday

Monday, Nov. 11, 2019

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.

Lunch Menu Week of Oct. 7 – 11

Mon – Pizza

Tues – Beef Tostada

Wed – Chicken Corn Dog

Thurs – Beef Gravy and Mashed Potatoes

Fri – Beef Hot Dog     

                       

TK

This week in TK we learned all about our anatomy!

We started off the week learning about all our body parts.  The students danced using all their parts and had a great time.

We continued learning about the heart, lungs, and brain.  They practiced bringing their heart rate up by exercising and then slowing it down.  Whew!!

Next, they learned about bone and muscles.  Flex those muscles!

We tied up the week creating an anatomy diagram showing all of our parts!

Initial Phase

Check out the three different Scholastic Let’s Find Out magazines in your child’s folder! We focused on character building for social studies this week. We talked about what sharing means, how to be a good friend, and revisited school rules. You can login to the website from the informational sheet previously sent home to watch the videos and play the games that go along with each magazine.

Happy first days of fall! It looks like we will have our first bit of cooler weather next week, which means students will be coming to school with sweatshirts. Be sure to write your student’s name in their jacket.

The preschool health fair is this Saturday from 9:00-1:00!

Phase One:

Each classroom had its very first AR party! New AR goals will be sent home in Red folders on Monday. If you have any questions about AR and your child’s goal or reading level please feel free to email the teachers and we would love to help you out. Please encourage your students to read at least 2 books a week and take a quiz on them.

The students were able to share their ancestry projects they completed at home. It was really fun to hear about each students’ family and how they came to America. The pictures were a big HIT and added a personal touch. Great job! We will be starting our new unit in Social Studies next week.

Phase Two:

This week our phase 2 students enjoyed an amazing animal show from Cruzin Critters! We saw mammals like chinchillas and even a giant python! The blue and gold macaw was beautiful and loud! The teachers even got to hold an owl. Thank you to the parents who donated toward this event.

Last month our 4th grade leadership students were very busy making friendship bracelets to sell. After two busy days of sales they raised over $325 to donate to the MHS weight room!!

Great job!

Discovery Middle School 5-6

Upcoming ⅚ Dates:

October 8th: Picture Day Retakes

October 7th-17th: Pie Fundraiser (More info coming soon!)

Our Top 5 Nest Point Earners for the week! Way to go Falcons!!!

Peregrine’s Top 5:

Kestrel’s Top 5:

Saker’s Top 5:

Amur’s Top 5:

Mrs. Zuniga/Mrs. Bengson’s Math:.

Varsity: Our class working on adding/subtracting decimals. Students did an activity of working in a restaurant as well as being customers in class. We had waiters and waitresses taking customer orders and used play money to practice adding/subtracting decimals.

Scholastic: Our class has begun division of decimals this week. Students started off with dividing decimals by whole numbers and now we are moving to dividing whole numbers by decimals. We will be doing a lot of practice with division these next two weeks.

Honors: Students finished up our first unit and have begun unit 2. They are learning math vocabulary at the moment especially for the four operations. Students are learning all the different ways equations can be expressed in words and translating them to numbers and variables.

Mrs. Nijjar’s Math:

Varsity: In this week students reviewed multiplication strategies by playing games like “Kaboom” and “I have..Who has?”. Students took the quiz for the second unit and performed at the class average of 87%. In the coming weeks, students will be reviewing their division facts and learning more about the magic of dividing and multiplying the numbers by multiples of 10.

Multiplication: The students should be practicing multiplication facts at home whenever possible. I have provided each student with a multiplication chart.

Scholastic: In this week students learned to solve word problems by drawing visual models. In addition, they also learned about estimating products for whole numbers and decimal numbers along with getting introduced to the strategy of multiplying decimals by using a 10×10 grid. In the coming weeks, students will be learning about different strategies to divide whole numbers and decimal numbers.

Multiplication: The students should be practicing multiplication facts at home whenever possible.

Honors:  In this week students learned about solving multi-step equation using the Distributive property, proportions, properties of equality, and isolating the variables. The students took the first quiz of the second unit. In the coming weeks, students will be learning to solve algebraic expressions involving absolute values.

Ms. Rodieck’s Language Arts and Humanities

Last week, Varsity finished up Love That Dog.  This week, they started their Fever 1793 Unit.  We will be learning context clues and how to use them.  We will also be looking closely at the main character and how she survives the fever.

Scholastic and Honors are moving along with both the novel and Diagramming.  Below are some pictures of diagramming at the board.  For Humanities, they will be working on an essay answering the question What is real Music?  They will also be studying for the first unit test in Humanities.

Language Arts with Mr. Harding

We are finished with our first whole class novel, Love That Dog.  We will begin a new reading unit, based on the book, Fever, 1793. We will focus on increasing our reading automaticity through rigorous practice. The novel will present many opportunities to write as well. Based on the reaction from 7th and 8th grade, our 5th and 6th graders should love it.

We will work on improving our writing skills through shorter, more focused responses. We will continue analyzing sentences by diagraming, but we will also spend time with syntax and other ways of breaking down and constructing meaning. The writing was good at the beginning of the year (thank you parents and teachers), but I am further encouraged by the improvements that have already been made. I look forward to a great year of improving all of our skills, while we read some pretty good stories and articles.

Social Studies with Mr. Bird and Mr. McCarthy

This past week in social studies, students in Honors finished their lesson on the rise of Sumerian city-states. They learned about the different geographic challenges the Sumerians faced and the solutions they used to solve these problems. Students created a real estate advertisements to attract people to their own city-state – see pictures below of some fantastic examples:

Students then started their new lesson on ancient Sumer. They started this lesson by identifying the different characteristics that make up a civilization. Students worked together to complete a spoke diagram with these characteristics. We then had students engaged in the lesson by having random students come up to the whiteboard to list and share with the class one of these characteristics of civilizations – see picture below of students working together on this activity!

For ancient Sumer, students are working on a group poster project to then do a Gallery Walk activity on Friday. This activity will allow students to work in pairs, or independently, to discover if Sumer should be classified as a civilization.

Scholastic and Varsity students are continuing work in their interactive notebooks. They are also learning about Sumerian city-states. This week, students in Scholastic and Varsity are creating digital brochures on Mesopotamia. These brochures are on Google Classroom and a few students shared theirs with the class. We have been very impressed with their creativity and knowledge of Mesopotamia!

Next week, all classes will have a unit test on Mesopotamia. We are planning for the unit test to be on Thursday, October 10, but may be moved to Friday, the 11th. We will post updates on Google Classroom. All students are taking home their notebooks or folders to study. We will have a study guide and play review games early next week to prepare for the unit test.

Science with Ms. Diaz:

Greetings scientists! 

A job well done to all students as they’ve just completed the rigors of test #2. This week we’ve all put our heads together to think about what electricity is and how we use it in our everyday lives. Groups made posters showing a scene where electricity is used and will present them to the class next week. I’m sure the presentations will be quite en”light”ening. Please don’t forget to check Google classroom regularly with your student. In addition to announcements, assignments and PDFs of class handouts, I have started posting the daily agendas, so if your student is absent, you may see what they missed.

Google classroom:

Hon/Scholastic code→ jp9wlua

Varsity code→ 8d4s9b

Next week we’ll learn how to light a bulb by experimenting with circuits.

Last but not least, come one and come all to check out the DCS science blog site at: www.tlcdiscoverychannel.weebly.com. Read all about Ferrofluid (Jia Camacho) and The Most Dangerous Spider in the World (Katelyn Hellman). Prepare to be SCIENCED!

Awesomely, interesting announcements:

  • Mission to Mars—> registrations have been made and deposits paid…we launch for our Mission in t-minus 6 months. The date for the next parent meeting will be posted soon.
  • The Rube Goldberg competition tryouts have been postponed, but students have submitted their group entry information and new dates will be given next week. If you have never heard of a Rube Goldberg Machine, check this out and prepare to be amused: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lz8_aaKNXA

Stay curious & keep exploring!!!

Discovery Middle School 7-8

  • Picture Retakes October 8th
  • Pie Fundraiser begins Oct 7th (more info to come!)

Week 8 Top 5 Nest Earners!

Friday Homeroom Games Challenge:

Every Friday one student from each homeroom participates in a game at Unity! Here is a look at last week’s game:

Language Arts with Ms. Greene

                This week we are quickly coming to the climax of the story of Fever 1793. In all classes, students learned about the 12 Stages of a Hero’s Journey. In Varsity and Scholastic, they identified Matilda’s stages of her heroic journey and made timelines. In Honors, the students read the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” and identified the stages throughout the story. The students learned that most Disney heroes follow these stages in the movies.

        The students have been assigned the project focused on the book, the students will be researching an epidemic of their choice and will be creating a poster, powerpoint or display of their choice to present the epidemic. Students will be given time in class to do their project.

        In Honors, students are steadily moving along with writing the introduction and body paragraphs and we are focused on creating hooks and smooth transitioning bridges. In Varsity and Scholastic, their goal for this essay is to create an essay without saying “I” and to include a quote as their hook with a smooth transitioning sentence to introduce the book.

        There is a heavy focus among the students to study for vocabulary for both week 8 and 9, and to be able to diagram a sentence with a prepositional phrase; Honors it is to diagram a sentence with a direct object and a coordinating conjunction.

Reminder: Essay due 10/9  

Reminder: Study vocabulary weekly!!

Language Arts with Mrs. Cerezo

All classes are getting closer to finishing our first in class novel! We have begun to chart the protagonist’s journey throughout the novel and how she has ungone changes both physically and in her character to become the hero of the story. Each class took a look at what it means to be a ‘hero’ in a story and learned that there are 12 steps to a Heroes Journey.

Furthermore, classes have been assigned another essay assignment (introduction and first body paragraph only) where they will compare and contrast the differences between a teenager in the late 1700’s and today. This essay is due next week when we will continue to meet with students to discuss potential improvements.

Finally, all classes have been assigned a project related to the book where they will research and design a presentation to describe an epidemic in history! We will be working on this in class and it will be homework for the Honors and Scholastic classes.

Math with Mr. Dhillon

Varsity :- unit 2 completed( lesson 1 to lesson 15) doing review for all the lesson and then unit test 2.

Scholastic :-  unit 2  completed doing review and will do unit 2 test.

honors :-  unit 3 completed  . (parallel and perpendicular lines) doing quiz 3.3 and then review of unit 3 and unit 3 test

Math with Mrs. Rapp

Varsity will be wrapping up unit 2 and end the week with a unit test. Last week we explored division using a variety of models and activities.

Scholastic will finish the last section of unit 2 and be taking a quiz. Continuing with a variety of review activities to get us ready for unit 3.

In Honors we will be unit 3 testing early in the week and then start unit 4.

All 7th and 8th graders will be assigned their first semester SWO this week. As well as doing one round of state interim testing to get ready for state testing.

Campus Beautification

Mr. Hepner, Ms. Zaca, and all of Discovery staff want to thank each and every one of the 22 students who showed up last Saturday for our very first Discovery Campus Beautification! Students spent the three hours cleaning the eating tables in Discovery and Primary, cleared the baseball and softball field of debris and trash, pulled out any weeds, and helped Mr. Hepner prune the trees and bushes on campus. We are ever so grateful for the dedication our students show towards maintaining our campus and want to thank each and every parent for supporting that drive and motivation in their students. Our next beautification will take place in the end of October (date will be released early in the month).

Music Exploration with Mr. Dougherty:

DCS Music Exploration is in the middle of a pop opera project. This means that each class will

  1. Create, compose, and perform the music and story for a class pop opera.
  2. Decide on a setting, theme, and plot for the pop opera.
  3. Complete the lyrics and melody for five partially written pop opera songs.
  4. Decide on singers, movements, and staging for each song.
  5. Create or find props, costumes, and scenery for the show.
  6. Perform the pop opera in front of a live audience.

So far each class has come up with a very entertaining storyline. We are having a blast. Stay tuned to find out what happens in each of the sagas.

Art with Ms. Losen

This week in art students pitched their movie ideas, showcasing  original loglines, plot summaries, and storyboards. They determined who their target audience was and who their ideal cast would be. Classes voted on their favorite project and began forming crews and planning shoots for the short film version.

Spanish with Ms. Polo

Finishing up oral testing for absent students

Translating Spanish Bee

Reviewing for test #2 next week. Test is on A Abuja, B ballena and Spanish Bee commands 1-25


Millennium High School

MHS PICTURE RETAKES ARE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8TH.

ACTIVITIES

Speech and Debate 

Our first speech and debate tournament of the year was last weekend at Bear Creek High School. 350 students competed from 15 schools across 3 counties, and our Millennium team members gave outstanding performances.

Our complete Falcon wins were:

Kyle Fisher, 6th, Congressional Debate

Giovanna Chukwuma, 5th, Original Advocacy (tied with A. Clepper)

A’Ni Clepper, 5th, Original Advocacy (tied with G. Chukwuma)

Alondra Camarena, 5th, Impromptu

Eli Galvez, 5th, Original Advocacy

Summer Simmons, 4th, Humorous Interpretation

Lilliana Zapien, 4th, Original Advocacy

Shika Acolatse, 4th, Program Oral Interpretation

Christian Silva, 3rd, Congressional Debate

Logan Malsack, 3rd, Impromptu

Ariana Billings, 3rd, Original Advocacy

Kyle Carlos, 2nd, Impromptu (tied with A. Souza)

Anton Souza, 2nd, Impromptu (tied with K. Carlos)

Lucy Lamanna, 2nd, Original Advocacy

Crysuel Cunana, 1st, Original Advocacy

Anton Souza and Lucy Lamanna, 1st, Parliamentary Debate

Nicole Engen, 1st, Big Questions Debate

Nicole Engen, 1st, National Extemporaneous

Our next tournament is October 12th at Mountain House High School — we are always looking for judges! Come see what we’re all about and enjoy free food, coffee, water, and entertainment!

YEARBOOK ORDERS and SENIOR DEDICATION AD ORDERS NOW OPEN!

Yearbook sales have opened! Yearbooks are $75. Now is the perfect time to order a 2019-20 yearbook for your student. We look forward to yearbook delivery day, May 15th. Orders are open through April 11th. Click HERE to go to our convenient online order center! Or you may go to yearbookordercenter.com and enter code 21362. Senior Dedication ads in the yearbook are available and can include photos alongside a personal message to your son or daughter. There are a limited number of pages available, so act quickly. The deadline to place an ad is 3/15/20. Credit cards accepted! If you have any questions, please direct them to blamanna@tracylc.net.

Athletics

Interested in donating to the Athletics program?  Here are 2 great opportunities!  If you would like to help us purchase the padded flooring for the weight room we hope to have open by winter, you may donate here (We are just about $10,000 shy of FULL completion!!):  https://www.gofundme.com/f/falcons-weight-room

Weekly Schedule (Girls Volleyball, Cross Country and Football): 

Saturday 10/5- XC at Frog Town Invitational

Frosh Girls Volleyball @ Orestimba Tournament

Monday 10/7- XC at MVL Meet (Groveland)

Thursday 10/10- Varsity Girls Volleyball vs Brookside Christian (6pm at West High)

Friday 10/11- Football (JV/V) at Big Valley Christian at 5 and 7:15pm

Girls Volleyball at Turlock Christian (played at Calvary Baptist) at 6/8pm

Saturday 10/12- Girls Varsity Volleyball at Stockton Classic

Sports Scores from 9/27-10/3/19:

Varsity Football:  Falcons 45, Delta Charter 10

JV Football:  Falcons 14, Delta Charter 8

Varsity Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 0, Big Valley Christian 3

Falcons 3, Turlock Christian 1

Falcons 3, Elliot Christian 1

JV Girls Volleyball:  Falcons 2, Big Valley Christian 1

Falcons 2, Turlock Christian 1

Cross Country:  In the 2nd league meet out at Legion Park, the girls team took 1st and the boys team took 2nd.  Carson Edwards finished 3rd overall and Arianna Billings finished 2nd overall for the girls.  

Meet The Coaches!

  Millennium would like to welcome Coach Darlha Canas to the team as we start our first ever JV Boys Soccer team for the upcoming season!   I have coached TYSL for the last 9 years with TYSL. I currently coach competitive U15 soccer girls in which the season will take a break for high school soccer.

I, myself have played soccer since I was eight, at age 10 years old I went into competitive soccer, and then played in JV and Varsity High school, along with College soccer.

I wanted to become a soccer coach for Millennium High School to help grow every player into becoming the best soccer player they can be while having a fun time creating great memories as a team.

Cool Fact: My family went to go see Messi and Ronaldo play against each other in Spain.

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

Follow Millennium Athletics on Social Media:  

-Instagram- @Millennium_Athletics

-Twitter- @MHS_Falcons

-Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/BalsamoPE

We appreciate your continued support!  FALCON PRIDE!!

Upcoming Fundraisers for Athletics:

-Pancake Breakfast (Hosted by Girls Soccer) November 2, 2019

-Daddy Daughter Dance: December 14th, 2019

-Mother Son Dance: February 8th, 2020

COUNSELING NEWS!

Last week, counselors visited all senior English 4 classes to discuss current and post high school plans. Important dates and deadlines were covered. Below is the Powerpoint presentation – our goal is stressing the importance of the last and final year in high school.

Below is the link directly to the presentation: http://www.tracylearningcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Senior-Presentation-Part-1-2019-2020.pdf

The MHS Interact Club visited T-K last week in honor of Literacy and Reading month with the Rotary International. Here are some pics of our cabinet and a few members in action:

Volunteers Show the Falcon Spirit

Millennium High School students showed the true Falcon Spirit of giving back to the community by volunteering to help at the Tracy City Association Downtown Pumpkin Patch this Wednesday.