PTS OV News Page 1 Language Arts & Creative Writing

Language Arts

Page 7 PTS OV News

Hi Everyone!

October has been a very

busy month for 6th Grade

Social Studies. As you can

see in the picture, 6th graders

wrote skits and used Clayma-

tion to demonstrate their

knowledge of the Ancient

Hebrews. In November the

6th graders will be writing

and acting in plays about

Ancient Greece. Tutoring

and make-up for 6th Grade

Social Studies, was also

changed from Wednesday to

Tuesday, after school.

So far this year, the 8th Grade Spanish students have learned to use a Spanish calendar, spell words using the

Spanish alphabet, and discuss classroom topics in Spanish. On November 1st , Spanish students are going on a

field trip to La Raza Galeria Posada, in downtown Sacramento. They will visit the Dia de los Muertos Celebra-

tion and eat dinner at the Chipotle Mexican Grill. Spanish make-up and tutoring is on Monday, after school.

California Junior Scholarship Federation has changed its meeting day to Wednesday, elected officers and had

a great fundraiser this month. They made, sold and delivered Boo-Grams, which contained candy and a secret

message, to students for Halloween. Their next project is to host a toy drive for homeless children at the end of

November.

Finally, Spanish Club also elected officers and planned their cooking, arts & crafts, music and games projects

for the year. The first cooking project is scheduled for Friday, November 5th. Students will be learning to

make Salsa and Guacamole Dips. In November they also plan to play UNO in Spanish, make a balloon pi-

ñata, and learn the Spanish words for several holiday songs.

Social Studies & Spanish

6th Grade Social Studies & CJSF Honor Society-Ms. Fells

Language Arts

The Language Arts department is ex-

cited for students to begin writ- ing

letters to the service members who

are currently deployed just in time for Veteran’s Day on No-

vember 11th. We will begin the assignment this week and stu-

dents will work in class and at home as needed. We are sure

that our positive messages will bring a smile to someone’s

face!

We are also continuing to learn new spelling words and liter-

ary terms each week as well as work on various writing as-

signments.

Parent teacher conferences went smoothly; we want to thank

all the parents who spent the time to come and chat with us!

As language arts teachers, we encourage all students to read

at home! If you are in need of a good book and don’t know

where to start, there are wonderful reading lists on-line for

middle school students. Please also feel free to ask one of the

language arts teachers to recommend an author or book!

Have a happy November!

Inside this issue:

Language Arts 1

Social Studies 3

Foreign Language 4

Computer Science & PE 5

Mathematics 6

Science 8

2010 November

Dear PTS Parents/Guardians,

Back to School Night was held on Friday, October 8th, 2010 with over 100 parent/guardians in

attendance. The Bake Sale held that night raised over $400 for our school. Thank you to all those

who attended and made Back to School Night a success.

Parent/Teacher conferences were conducted over 3-days beginning on October 27, 28 & 29 with

176 conferences conducted over a three day period. Thank you for taking time out of your busy

schedules to meet with your child’s teachers.

We had our first informal coffee talk this past Saturday with over 25 parents/guardians in atten-

dance. Come join us the from 7:30—8:30 AM the first Saturday of each month in Room 14. Coffee

and breakfast treats are provided, so bring your mug. Please join us for our next Coffee Talk on

Saturday, December 4th in Room 14.

On October 29th

our students celebrated Halloween by dressing up in costumes and sending Boo-grams full of candy

with a message. Their day ended with students voting for Best, Scariest, Funniest & Creative cos-

tumes in an award ceremony. Pizza was had by all who attended school that day (see above).

Pacific Technology School Orangevale has been conducting Open Houses for the past three Satur-

days. We have had nearly 50 families come to these events. Please continue to get the word out

about Pacific Technology School. We are accepting applications for the 2010-2011 School Year.

Our next Open House is this Saturday, November 6th, from 11AM—1 PM in Room 15. Postcards

are available in the office.

The California Department of Education, Charter School Division visited our school on October 21 –

22 during which time they conducted group interviews with our faculty, staff, students and teachers

(see below).

Principal’s Address

Pts Ov News

Pacific Technology School OV 6550 Filbert Ave. Orangevale CA 95662

ov.ptscharter.org

Mr. Taymaz: Life Science and Physical Science

Dear Parents,

We are in the third month of the first semester and time is passing too fast.

We started from the fundamental concepts in science both in 7th and 8th

grades took a way through interesting subjects.

In 7th grades, we are now at the 3rd chapter, and students have

learned about what happens inside the cell, what are the functions

of the organelles of the different types of cells, cellular

respiration, importance of photosynthesis, cell division, mitosis,

meiosis, and plant reproduction. They have made 3 projects while

learning those concepts: They created a cell model, they conduct

an experiment about alcohol fermentation, and also made

observations about the effects of light on photosynthesis.

In 8th grades, we started with basic concepts in motion: velocity,

acceleration, displacement, reference point etc. Then we went

through the Forces at 2nd chapter. Students learned different types

of forces, how do force affect motion, and Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Lastly, they learned about density, pressure, and buoyant force at

Chapter 3.

Last week, we made an announcement about the science fair, and gave students a packet about

how to prepare a science project. Hope, our students will show up with outstanding projects.

Thank you

Science Page 8

Upcoming Events

November

11/5 Award Assembly

11/11 Veteran’s Day—No School

11/12 No School—Staff Devel-

opment Day

11/19 Minimum Day & Talent

Show – School out @ 11:55

11/22—11/26 Thanksgiving

Break—No School

December

12/4 Informal Coffee Talk

12/7 2nd Progress Report

12/17 Minimum Day—School out

at @ 11:55

12/20—12/31 Winter Break—

No School

PTS OV News Page 6 Mathematics

PTS OV News Page 3

Social Studies

This is a great opportunity to reach all of you and let you know what’s

going on in our Math, Earth Science, and Geometry classes. I have

completed my e-mail lists for all 6th grades and I have e-mailed most

of the parents, letting them know about changes in schedule, home-

work, upcoming events. If you did not receive an e-mail, it is because

either your e-mail address is not in our data base, or the e-mail I have

is incorrect. I do know for a fact that 4 e-mail addresses are incor-

rect, because the system is rejecting them, so I had to delete them… If

your child is in my 6-A, or 6-C, and you have not received an e-mail

from me this week, please, send me an e-mal and I will add you to my

lists.

I am asking all 6th graders’ parents for your support. You can help in

several ways:

If you plan to send your child to Math tutoring, please pack an ex-

tra snack for your child, or send some snacks that we could share.

The first thing kids want to know when they walk in my room is

―what snack is they have for the day‖… Usually they have a car-

ton of milk and a granola bar or some crackers that I purchased.

Buying snacks all the time is beyond my means…

Each Friday I give the kids who gained all the points for the week,

some small prizes. I bought all of these myself, and I had a $20

donation from a generous parent. If you could, please, send over

some little gifts from the dollar store that would be great!

The 7th graders at PTS

have been studying the

empires of West Africa.

They have been learning

about the continents ge-

ography and climate, cul-

tures, politics, and religion.

Students have been work-

ing together in coopera-

tive groups to teach the

class about Ghana, Mali,

and the Songhai empires.

In November, 7th graders

will begin learning about

the dynasties of China.

The eight graders have

been studying the

United States Constitu-

tion and have been

asked to create a class

Bill of Rights. Learning

about the separation

of powers and what all

three branches of gov-

ernment do, students are

seeing firsthand how each

branch keeps the others in

check. PTS students will con-

tinue to research how this

new nation was formed.

7th graders perform West African skits!

We the People of Pacific Technology School….

Pac i f i c Te chno logy s choo l

World and US History Student Council Club

Officers

President-Jacob Clark

Vice President-Morgan

White

Treasurer– Kaylee Moore

Secretary– Alisha Galuza

Coming Soon:

Run Around Orangevale Club

PTS run club has given several students the

opportunity to run around the local community.

Every Monday students have been running

anywhere from 4 to 6 miles! miles while enjoy-

ing the

landscape

and scenery

of beautiful

Orange-

vale.

PTS OV News Page 4 Foreign Language PTS OV News Page 5 Computer Science & Phys. Education

Computer Science & AMSP CS

Hello everybody,

So far, the Computer Science department focus is on Microsoft Office Word,

Power Point and Excel with all grades, and Picasa and Microsoft Movie Maker

with 8th graders. They edit images with Picasa and then make movies with

Movie Maker. It was fun and educational.

As AMSP Computer Science Club, we’re done with Scratch and after Thanks-

giving we’ve inter state competition including Scratch. Our students make super

games, animations and games with Scratch. After competition we’ll start C++.

Scratch was smooth transition for us and

we’re ready for real computer programming language C++ now.

Thank you again.

Have a great month.

Pacific Technology School Computer Science Department

Physical Education & Clubs

The Physical Education department has received

it’s full shipment of equipment and is in full swing.

We started our softball unit and have begun

game play for all classes. We have also com-

pleted several run days spanning from 1-2 miles

per run and recording our scores. Just to update all parents

and students, my curriculum maps are correct, but about 1 month

off because we started softball late. From this point going for-

ward the Physical Education curriculum maps are current and ac-

curate. Please feel free to visit the office to find out whats ac-

tivities are next for PTS physical education department.

Merhaba and Privet from International Club.

Our preparations for the Annual International Language and Per-

forming Arts contest are all speed. Our students are working hard

every Monday and Wednesday.

They are dancing folk dances, sing-

ing songs and preparing dialogues.

The contest will be held in March 5

-6, 2011 in Los Angeles.

We are not practicing only at

school. There will be a second

sleepover this week where students

will practice dance and songs also.

They have already

made their first per-

formance for the site

visit from California De-

partment of Education.

On Tuesdays, we work

with our Music club. Stu-

dents play music using

different instruments

such as drums, flute and

piano.