All About Academics
October Updates from Academic Curriculum Coordinators
Welcome to our first installment of All About Academics for the 2024-2025 school year! We have included information about English Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, Science, FLES, World Language, ELL, Arts, and Library Media Services. Enjoy!
English Language Arts
Students have been working hard in the following units and will continue to do so through the end of October.
- Reading: We are Readers: Emergent Reading
- Writing: Launching Writers Workshop Unit 1 Reading and Writing Home Letter
- Fundations: (through December) Letter & sound recognition (a-z/short vowels), letter formation, phonemic awareness (beginning and ending sounds), print/word awareness, rhyming
- Home Letter: Fundations Unit 1 Letter
- Heggerty: Home Letters: Heggerty Intro Letter & Heggerty Week 1-4 & Heggerty Week 5-8
- Reading: Building Good Reading Habits: Accuracy, Fluency and Comprehension
- Writing: Narrative: Small Moments Unit 1 Reading and Writing Home Letter
- Fundations: Review of letters and sounds (a-z) & digraphs (wh, ch, sh, th, ck) reading and spelling 3 sound words, Home Letters: Fundations Unit 1 Letter, Fundations Unit 2 Letter, Fundations Unit 3 Letter
- Heggerty: Home Letters: Heggerty Intro Letter & Heggerty Week 1-2 & Heggerty Week 3-4 & Heggerty Week 5-7
- Reading: Becoming a Big Kid Reader: Accuracy, Fluency and Comprehension
- Writing: Narrative: Making Small Moments Big Unit 1 Reading and Writing Home Letter
- Fundations: Review of letters and sounds (consonants, vowels, digraphs, double letters, glued sounds, suffixes)
- Home Letters: Fundations Unit 1 Letter & Fundations Unit 2 Letter & Fundations Unit 3 Letter
- Reading: Building a Reading Life: Fiction
- Writing: Narrative: Crafting True Stories
- Fundations: Review of blends, digraphs, closed syllables, plurals, suffixes, spelling rules and VCe syllables; lowercase cursive letter formation Fundations Unit 1 Home Letter, Fundations Unit 2 Home Letter, Fundations Unit 3 Home Letter
- Reading: Fiction: Interpreting Characters
- Writing: Narrative: Realistic Fiction
- Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop: Defining words, work with synonyms and antonyms, sentence completion, word associations, work with Latin/Greek roots, words in context
- Sadlier Grammar Workshop: Parts of Speech, compound and complex sentences, commas, quotations, subjects and predicates
- Reading: Analyzing Theme
- Writing: Narrative Craft
- Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop: Defining words, work with synonyms and antonyms, sentence completion, word associations, work with Latin/Greek roots, words in context
- Sadlier Grammar Workshop: Parts of Speech, compound and simple sentences, commas, quotations, subjects and predicates, I and me, we and us
Elementary ALP English
- Students in Elementary ALP English are working in their first unit, Interacting with Text. Students are introduced to, or review, the foundational skills needed to engage with text at a deeper level, interpreting the author's messages in order to make meaning and support their thinking with text evidence. Students are introduced to, or will review, applying this kind of higher-level thinking in writing about reading. In addition, they work through the writing process with support from peers, teachers, and the use of technology to turn their ideas into narratives. Alongside all of this work, students also participate in meaningful conversations about literature and their writing experiences.
Students have been working hard in the following units and will continue to do so through the end of the marking period in Early November
- Reading: Launching Deep Study of Character
- Writing: Personal Narrative: Crafting Powerful Life Stories
- Reading: Investigating Characterization
- Writing: Narrative: Launching and Realistic Fiction
- Reading: Launching & Exploring Nonfiction: Information
- Writing: Narrative Writing
Middle School Advanced English
- The students in English 6A, 7A, and 8A participate in the same units as students in English 6, 7, and 8 with augmented lessons and instructional materials to bolster the advanced teaching and learning experience. Additional skills, activities, and resources are used to enrich the advanced curricular materials.
Want to learn more about what your child is learning in English Language Arts?
Our Social Studies curriculum has been updated to match the newest K-12 Social Studies Standards for Connecticut. Parents can learn more about these shifts by reviewing our K-8 Curriculum Page on the GPS website. Social Studies learning standards help students to effectively study and critically think about how people process and document the human experience. Students then garner a capacity for communication, empathy, and citizenship through critical thinking, reflection, and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
GPS students study contemporary and historical writers and thinkers to develop their abilities to critically read, write, speak, and think, ultimately preparing them to excel in today’s global society. Together, these areas of study prepare students for success in college and career while also ensuring students are informed, engaged participants in civic life. In addition, students study other writers and thinkers, contemporary and historical, to develop their abilities to read, write, speak, and think critically and globally.
In the grades listed below, students first units include learning and projects on topics related to:
- Kindergarten: Roles and Responsibilities in a Community
- Grade 1: Contributing in a Democratic Society
- Grade 2: Working Together as a Community
- Grade 3: State Constitution and Government
- Grade 4: Understanding Regions
- Grade 5: Migration and Settlement
- Grade 6: East Asia (China, Japan, North, and South Korea)
- Grade 7: Middle East & North Africa
- Grade 8: Revolutionary America
Want to learn more about what your child is learning in Elementary Social Studies? Contact Tara Fogel: email@example.com. Want to learn more about what your child is learning in Middle School Social Studies? Contact Thomas Healy: firstname.lastname@example.org, head to our website, or click on the banner above.
At this point, students are well into their grade level curriculum which is delivered primarily through the Big Ideas Math Program. Big Ideas has both digital and paper/pencil components. Please look for the Family Letter that comes home before each chapter. These letters provide you with context, learning targets, and success criteria for the chapter.
- Kindergarten: Count and write numbers between 6 -10
- Grade 1: Addition and subtraction situations
- Grade 2: Addition strategies within 100 and fluently add within 100
- Grade 3: Multiplication/Division facts and strategies
- Grade 4: Multiply by one and two-digit numbers
- Grade 5: Add/subtract decimals and Multiply whole numbers
Elementary ALP Math
- The ALP Math curriculum compacts a year and a half of the curriculum into a single year. In addition, additional supplemental enrichment opportunities are used to meet the various needs of ALP students.
Middle schoolers are typically enrolled in one of the following seven courses:
- Math 6: Numerical expressions and factors and fractions and decimals
- Math 6 Advanced: Integers, Number Lines, Coordinate Plane and Add/Subtract Rational Numbers
- Math 7: Add/Subtract/Multiply/Divide Rational Numbers
- Pre-Algebra 6 & 7: Equations, Inequalities and Transformations
- Pre-Algebra 8: Equations and Transformations
- Algebra: Solving Linear Equations and Inequalities
- Geometry: Reasoning and Proofs
Want to learn more about what your child is doing in math? You can find video tutorials and IXL support resources on our K-8 Curriculum webpage.
Contact Mike Reid: email@example.com
Before long, our students' science notebooks K-5 will be full of models, data, evidence, and discovery. Soon, students in the K-5 classroom will transition from social studies units to science units! During the first unit of the school year students engage in scientific explanations based on evidence, grapple with novel phenomena, and make their thinking visible!
In the grades listed below, students first units of science include learning and projects on topics related to:
- Kindergarten: Weather
- Grade 1: Notebook Launch and Survival
- Grade 2: Light and Sound
- Grade 3: Climate, Weather and Hazards
- Grade 4: Force and Motion
- Grade 5: Natural Resources
Elementary ALP Science:
The students in Elementary ALP Science participate in the same units as students in grades 3, 4 and 5 Science with extension activities and performance expectations.
Be sure to ask your child: How have you used your science notebook to keep track of your wonderings, evidence and discoveries this week?
Phenomena, modeling, and projects! Oh my! You may have heard your students talking about models or projects in class. Each unit in middle school science allows students to make their thinking visible, grapple with real-world phenomena, and engage in individual and team projects. Currently, students in the middle school classroom are on their fist unit of the school year. Students engage in scientific explanations based on evidence.
- Grade 6: Movement and Energy Transfer
- Grade 7: Chemical Reactions
- Grade 8: Forces and Motion
Advanced Learning Program
Grade 2 CoGAT Coming Up!
The assessment will be given between October 14 and November 1. Scores will be made available to parents on or before November 8. More information regarding the CoGAT Assessment is available at https://riversideinsights.com/cognitive_abilities_test.
Grade 2 Information Sessions
Save the date! The ALP Leadership Team is hosting a virtual Q&A to answer questions about the placement process for Grade 2 Enrichment on Monday, November 11, 2024. To accommodate parent schedules, morning and afternoon sessions are being held. Parents are invited to attend either session.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Upcoming 2024-2025 Information Sessions
Grade 5 Middle School Transition: Middle School Counselors, Middle School Principals, and Curriculum Coordinators will go live on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 to answer questions about what goes on in the spring and summer to help prepare students for the next school level. During this session, parents may also ask questions regarding the placement process for Advanced Studies in Grades 6-8. To accommodate parent schedules, morning and afternoon sessions are being held. Parents are invited to attend either session, 9:30 am or 7:00 pm. Zoom links will be shared in December.
Elementary ALP Information Save the date! The ALP Leadership Team is hosting a virtual Q&A to answer questions about the placement process for Advanced Studies for Elementary ALP for the 25-26 School Year on Tuesday, March 11 2025. To accommodate parent schedules, morning and afternoon sessions are being held. Parents are invited to attend either session, 9:30 am or 7:00 pm. Zoom links will be shared in February,
K-8 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages)
We are happy to welcome approximately 80 new students in K-8 to our district. Some of the languages spoken by our new arrivals include Gujarati, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Ukrainian. While we are still screening newly enrolled multilingual learners, our students and their teachers are off to a wonderful start.
At the elementary level, we reinforce good reading habits while exploring survival vocabulary for our newcomers and autumn-themed vocabulary for our intermediate and advanced multilingual speakers. With the support of Lexia, students are working on reading skills such as summarizing and using cognates to help acquire and understand key character traits. ESOL specialists have been supporting the acquisition of academic vocabulary in content areas such as science and social studies, particularly in the upper elementary grade levels.
At the middle school level, newcomers are getting to know each other and learning how to describe themselves orally and in writing. Our intermediate and advanced multilingual learners are navigating non-fiction texts, more specifically identifying text structures, using context clues, identifying main ideas, and using evidence to support them.
Want to learn more about what your child is learning in English for Speakers of Other Languages?
FLES & World Languages
In grades K-2 FLES, students are learning how to identify themselves, how they feel, likes and dislikes, and colors in the target language.
In grades 3-5 FLES, students are actively engaged in describing themselves, what they like to do, and what they do during a typical day, while they continue to use the target language to introduce themselves and get to know each other.
In grades 3-5 Native Spanish Language Arts, students are learning how to make predictions when reading literature, to write short narratives, and to understand the purpose of a text.
In middle school, both Spanish and French students are beginning with preliminary units of study, students continue to reinforce and improve their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in the context of the thematic units such as school life, describing self and family, recreational activities, and health.
Our middle school Spanish Native Language Arts students are building on their previously developed foundational oral and literacy skills in order to explore themes associated with Hispanic Heritage month, travel, and legends.
Want to learn more about what your child is learning in World Language?
Contact Geoffrey Schenker firstname.lastname@example.org, head to our World Language Program websites, or click on the banner above.
K-8 Arts: Visual Arts & Music
Our Arts classrooms at GPS are celebrating creativity and individual student expression. Amazing students and faculty are creating wonderful works of art and incredible music that will be shared with school communities across GPS in the coming months.
Visual Arts: Mondrian inspired art, animal still life sketches, and Calavera skulls are just a few of the engaging and authentic projects seen throughout the district in the month of September. Students are experimenting with paints, pastels, and color palettes as they explore the Elements of Art. Line and Shape are two essential skills that students in our elementary schools frequently incorporate and focus on when creating their artwork at this time of year. We have some examples of our talented young artists at North Street School as they created art for their open house, along with the outline of a kindergarten Mondrian lesson at New Lebanon School. You will also find an example of a Calavera skull project at Hamilton Avenue School, celebrating this Mexican art form.
Middle school students are setting up their art portfolios, working with paints, color palettes, and lines as they begin portraits and/or work with 2D mixed media projects. Students are learning about composition, pattern and value as they add depth and texture to their life-like artwork. We have an example how one of our middle school teachers uses a grid to help guide students to create an accurate drawing by starting with outline, shapes, and position. Students will continue to add more detail as the unit progresses and they develop their skilled techniques.
Music: Hispanic Heritage Month was evident in our classrooms as students were doing movement and steady beat practice to Tito Puente, playing circle games to "Bate Bate Chocolate," and exploring songs from Latin America. Students are working on internalizing steady beat, decoding rhythms in duple and triple meters, and continue to develop their ‘head voice’ as they accurately perform melodic passages in echo and as a group. Some of our youngest students might be trying out a ‘solo’ sing for the very first time. Core music teachers sometimes use puppets or stuffed animals to have the student make ‘the voice of our friend’ as they focus on echoing back and responding to the cue from our incredible faculty. This allows our youngest learners to be comfortable with their own voice and leads to great exchange between students in older grades. Our 6-8 learners are analyzing music and its foundational elements, starting to explore different musical genres, beginning some piano/keyboard lessons, and continuing to sing and work on music literacy.
Instrumental music students grade 3-5 are making first sounds, establishing proper playing techniques, and learning what it means to be in an ensemble. Teachers are focusing on music literacy to ensure that our young musicians develop the skills that foster independent musicianship by learning how to read music and decode familiar and unfamiliar rhythms. Our 6-8 learners are refining their practices as they focus on increasingly complex ensemble music that necessitates a variety of individual instrument techniques. Our teachers take time to model examples and give individualized feedback to students. This time of growth is amazing to watch as student progress from sixth grade up through eigth and their esprit de corps grow with their peers as they tackle new challenges!
Concert performances are also popping up around our schools, so please keep an eye out for your building newsletters regarding any events or performances that our music team has put together.
You can find the most current list of district musical performances online in our 2024-25 Arts Performance Calendar
Want to learn more about what your child is learning in Art & Music? Contact James Antonucci email@example.com
Physical Education K-8
K-8 Physical Education and Health
K-8 PE & Health is off to a great start. Your child's teachers are focusing on building connections and fostering a collaborative environment for all. The picture shown is one of many exciting activities that is helping students collaborate while focusing on a positive environment.
Want to learn more about what your child is learning in K-8 Physical Education and Health?
Contact Peter Georgiou at firstname.lastname@example.org
Library Media Services
Starting the New School Year with Joy!
In each building, the library media specialist (LMS) strives to create an environment with a wide range of reading and other educational/instructional materials and resources. We maintain a library collection at our school sites, use library resources to develop and deliver age-appropriate, curriculum-based programs for our students, staff, and the school community as needed. We collaborate with teaching and administrative staff, optimizing teaching and learning experiences within the curriculum and encouraging exploration of interests appropriate to the level of the school. We support a shared vision for empowered learning with and through technology integration. We are also the managers and the facilitators of the library spaces and resources.
To that end, we start each year with renewed energy and enthusiasm for building learning communities through literature, digital wellness, and use of our Makerspaces to ignite curiosity and passion for learning. This month, we are welcoming our students with back-to-school read alouds and connected activities, celebrating International Dot Day on September 15ish, introducing brand new databases for research projects, immersing into digital wellness, and overall, reinvigorating the reader and the creator in every student.
Middle School Media
In our Middle Schools, students have kicked off their year with a focus on finding their individual identities as readers and are participating in grade-level reading incentives, famous first lines trivia and celebrating Banned Books Week!
During their Digital Literacy classes, students have set the stage for a successful year across their core classes by focusing on learning and enhancing their skills with digital tools such as Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Forms... Each tool communicates information in a different way and with a different purpose, and knowing which one to use when is key!
Academic Curriculum Coordinators
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