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.