10/27/23
Upcoming Dates:
11/22-11/24- No School
11/28- Early Release
12/19- Early Release
12/22-1/7- Winter Break
Congratulations!
Each month, Twin Groves will be recognizing students who are model citizens of our Colts Community!
The Twin Groves Staff would like to recognize the following students who consistently demonstrate that they are Responsible, Respectful, and Safe. In addition to the 3 Traits, we are also recognizing students for being leaders, role models, supportive peers, brave, and positive.
Montil Bhattacharjee
Daisy Chen
Layla Ganas
Haochen He
Brian Hu
Landon Kessel
Sofiia Kril
Natalie Leonardo
Pranay Pulla
Caden Radulescu
Mihir Thakrar
Trimester 1 Assembly and Spirit Week Continues
Today we had our first All School Spirit Assembly! It was energetic, entertaining, and a ton of fun!
The last two days of our spirit week will continue next week.
October 30th- Mismatch Day- Wear a mismatched outfit.
October 31st- Halloween Costumes!
Halloween Costumes should follow the D96 Dress Code.
No masks or full face paint will be allowed at school.
No weapons or other props.
Students should be able to sit comfortably in their costumes during the school day.
What’s Happening at Twin Groves?
6th Grade
Pre-Algebra Survey: Pre-Algebra Survey classes are in the middle of their unit on rational numbers. The students are working with adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing positive and negative integers, fractions, and decimals, which can be a lot to take in! We are doing a lot of practice in class and the students are working hard to master these fundamentals. Last month we talked about modeling with mathematics and being able to show work in different ways. The students were very successful in this! This month, please encourage your child to look for structure and use this to help them solve new problems. For example, can the numbers in this problem be manipulated to look more like something we’ve seen before? For this, great note-taking skills are a must, which includes lining up work in students’ notebooks and iPads carefully.
The students have access to these apps that they should be using regularly:
Math Facts Ninja - For students who need extra practice with their math facts.
Edia - This app covers topics in line with the Common Core Curriculum which the students are covering this year. This program is designed to develop critical thinking skills.
Pre-Algebra: Pre-Algebra classes are in the middle of their unit on rational numbers. The students are working with adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing positive and negative integers, fractions, and decimals, which can be a lot to take in! We are doing a lot of practice in class and the students are working hard to master these fundamentals. Last month we talked about modeling with mathematics and being able to show work in different ways. The students were very successful in this! This month, please encourage your child to look for structure and use this to help them solve new problems. For example, can the numbers in this problem be manipulated to look more like something we’ve seen before? For this, great note-taking skills are a must, which includes lining up work in students’ notebooks and iPads carefully.
The students have access to these apps that they should be using regularly:
Math Facts Ninja - For students who need extra practice with their math facts.
Edia - This app covers topics in line with the Common Core Curriculum which the students are covering this year. This program is designed to develop critical thinking skills.
Language Art: Students have been working on identifying the central idea of a piece of informational text. Shortly, we will be reading whole-class novels and answering the question, What is a community? In Advanced we will be reading Lois Lowry’s Newbery Award-winning classic The Giver, about a perfect community – until the reader becomes uneasily aware that all is not well. In LA we will read Seedfolks, which will show us how people of all different backgrounds can come together as one to make a positive change in the community.
Science: Scientists have moved to our next unit on Thermal Energy. Guiding our work is the question: “How can containers keep stuff from warming up or cooling down?” Students will partake in a number of hands-on activities from testing various materials and how their temperature changes to how light affects temperature changes. STEM challenges have included building towers and working with a limited set of materials. Things certainly have started to HEAT up!
SS: As we have worked on our migration unit, the students have begun to develop an understanding of how humans populated the world. After learning about the big ideas of how and why people migrated, we will now be focusing on some specific examples of this process. We will be learning about groups and individuals from different time periods, and exploring how the presence or absence of water and other resources has impacted our ability to live where we want.
7th Grade
Pre Algebra - Students are right in the middle of our unit on ratios and proportions. This includes, calculating and comparing unit rates, calculating markups and discounts, calculating percent change and and calculating tip and sales tax. Students will also learn how to find equivalent fractions, decimals and percents. We will end the unit with some practice using mental math in everyday situations regarding percents.
Bridge to Algebra 1- We have just begun our unit on Linear Functions. Students will be exposed to two different forms of equations that are used to represent linear functions. They will be learning how to write equations and graph them in each form. First, concepts such as slope, rate of change and x intercepts and y intercepts will be introduced and studied.
Algebra 1- Unit 3 has us learning how to use our calculators to find lines of best fit (trend lines) of data. The students have done wonderfully learning how to do this since the use of the graphing calculator is new to them. There are many steps they need to remember for the calculation and data that needs to be entered. The need for precision is very high. The students will also be learning how to calculate residuals and how to analyze those residuals. We use residuals to determine if a linear model is the best fit for the data.
Language Arts - We are currently wrapping up reading and analyzing The Giver. The kids have done a great job using the mood, characterization and imagery details to analyze the community, characters and the choices they make. After finishing The Giver, we will quickly transition into reading dystopian book club novels. Your child should still be bringing home a novel to read each night. We will also wrap up this trimester by studying different non-fiction text structures and how those structures affect our understanding of an article.
Advanced Language Arts - The students are just now finishing up their book club novels. We have also been using class time to study non-fiction text structures and how those structures affect our understanding of the text. We will continue to work on text structure for the last few weeks of the trimester and begin writing our final narrative of the trimester. The students will get to show off their detailed writing skills by creating a spooky narrative.
Science- In our second unit, students are investigating how we can heat up food or a drink when we don’t have the typical methods available. Our end project will be to design and build a device that uses household chemicals to heat up water through chemical reactions. Students are studying exothermic and endothermic reactions and analyzing experimental data from class lab activities to create the best flameless heater possible. Students are continuing to build our robots and will be building and testing a wind powered car for our engineering targets.
SS: The inquiry model of teaching and learning about history and social studies is not the kind of learning you probably experienced years ago as a student in history or social studies classes! Now, students are challenged to investigate and develop questions to drive and focus our work and discussions. Essential questions are those questions, which do not have one easy defined answer. They are arguable, debatable, with many points of view. Focusing questions relate to, and help answer, essential questions. Focusing questions are more narrow and easily defined or answered with a variety of facts, definitions, or figures. How fun is it to think about historical themes and events and then determine your own point of view! We are currently examining the effects of the French and Indian War, which directly leads to a series of many events that will produce the causes of the Revolutionary War including one of our most treasured historical documents… the Declaration of Independence. Soon, we will be exploring the challenges of our new nation coming out of the Revolutionary War.
8th Grade
Bridge to Algebra 1: We are in the middle of Unit 3: Linear Functions. This unit is essential for students to master and build a solid foundation for their future math classes. Students will be learning about rate of change, finding slope, and writing equations in slope-intercept form, point-slope form, and standard form. Homework completion will be crucial to help students practice and prepare for assessments.
Algebra 1: In Algebra 1 we just completed Unit 2: Graphing and Writing Linear Equations. We will have started Unit 3 on Statistical Models. This unit contained brand new material for students and they learned how to use their TI-84 Graphing calculator to create scatter plots and calculate linear regression models. Students should be bringing their graphing calculator to class with them every day! All units from here on out will be very critical for students to demonstrate mastery of and are essential for building a solid algebra foundation.
Geometry: Unit 4: Introduction to Proofs is where we will start to see less Algebra 1 review concepts and more Geometry. Students will have to really push themselves with their thinking. Students will have to take given information, come to conclusions, and provide detailed reasonings. If your child feels that Algebra 1 concepts are making Geometry more difficult, please encourage them to utilize Edia outside of class and reach out for extra practice!
Language Arts: In ELA we will be moving into our first book club unit. It is the identity book club unit. Each of the books has the similarity of being a coming-of-age book meaning each of the characters go through some events that force them to mature or become more adult-like. As our 8th graders are approaching high school, we will be exploring how our own obstacles / challenge us to change and grow and how we push through them. How it is natural for our identity to evolve as we get older. It's a theme I hope will resonate with our students and allow for rich discussions about personal growth, self-discovery, and the transition to adulthood.
Science: In Science class, we are finishing up our Natural Selection and Common Ancestry unit. We have been exploring how things living today (e.g. modern penguins) are connected to things that lived long ago (e.g. ancient penguins). We have also been learning about how organisms change or adapt to their environment over time by doing a simulated natural selection activity in which students collect and analyze data. After we complete our unit assessment, we will finish the trimester with a STEM bridges lab. Provided with a list of criteria and constraints, students will design and build a bridge that is capable of holding the maximum amount of weight without breaking.
SS: In Social studies, students are learning about the 1930s. Students investigated the economic changes that occurred in the country that caused the drastic Boom to Bust Era, and its impact on the rest of the world. As the U.S. economy was struggling, dictators came to power in Europe. Students are currently practicing their DBQ strategies to prove which World War II dictator was most powerful. From there students will return to the United States to discover the strategies that President Roosevelt would institute in hopes of ending the Great Depression in the United States.
A Message from Officer Zuk, Buffalo Grove Resource Officer
Twin Groves’ Parents,
My name is Officer Edyta Zuk from the Buffalo Grove Police Department. For those who don't know, I am the school resource officer for School District 96. Some of you have noticed my presence during the morning drop-off. The purpose of this note is to ask for your help in maintaining a safe and orderly drop-off for our students. On multiple occasions, drivers have disobeyed our directions and the safety of police officers and others has been compromised.
Please read the following Illinois traffic law for disobeying our directions:
Illinois Vehicle Code, 625 ILCS 5/11-203
Disobeying police officer, fireman, or uniformed adult school crossing guard
No person shall wilfully fail or refuse to comply with any lawful order or direction of any police officer, fireman, person authorized by a local authority to direct traffic, or school crossing guard invested by law with authority to direct, control, or regulate traffic.
The Buffalo Grove Police Department will issue citations for this offense. A citation for this offense requires a mandatory court appearance.
Our recommendations for quick drop-offs are as follows:
Allow yourself plenty of time in the morning to bring your student to school and have patience with other vehicles.
Make sure your student is prepared to exit the vehicle quickly and safely.
Be prepared to continue out of the parking lot so the drop-off can be quick and others can access the space after you.
Please help everyone access our school as safely as possible and not risk harming others with vehicles. I ask for more patience and safety on the roadways, in our school parking lots, and driveways.
Thank you.
Officer Edyta Zuk
Buffalo Grove Police Department
LightSpeed Systems Weekly Student Online Activity Report (REPEAT)
Dear Parents and Guardians,
As a part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring a safe and secure online environment for our students, we are excited to announce that we will be offering the Lightspeed Systems Weekly Student Online Activity Report to all parents and guardians of our school community.
You will receive an email from District 96 that will enable you to register for the Weekly Student Online Activity Report. Once you receive the email from our school district you will have the ability to register. Simply choose to register and follow the prompts to sign up for the Weekly Student Online Activity Report.
The Lightspeed Systems Weekly Student Online Activity Report is a valuable tool that will allow you to gain insights into your child's web history while using the school's iPad. This report will provide an overview of the websites visited by your child while using the iPad. The report is designed to promote transparency and communication between parents and the school, fostering a safer digital learning experience for our students.
The weekly activity report is only accessible to parents and guardians registered for this service. It will not be shared with any external parties, and the data collected will be used solely for the purpose of improving the online safety measures at our school. Parents/guardians will not start to begin receiving weekly reports until their child has at least a week's worth of browsing data.
Lightspeed Parent/Student Enrollment Email Schedule: Families will begin to receive LightSpeed Parent report emails from Lightspeed. This email correspondence will allow you to enroll and begin receiving your child’s reports from Lightspeed for the following grades on or near the dates below.
October 23, 2023 (8th Grade)
October 30, 2023 (7th Grade)
November 6, 2023 (6th Grade)
November 13, 2023 (5th Grade)
November 20, 2023 (4th Grade)
November 27, 2023 (3rd Grade)
December 4, 2023 (2nd Grade, 1st Grade, Kindergarten)
Please note that while we encourage parents to use this tool to stay involved in their child's online journey, it is essential to have open conversations with your child about their internet use. Establishing trust and communication around digital practices will enhance the overall safety and well-being of our students.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the Weekly Student Online Activity Report or need assistance with the registration process, please feel free to reach out to the IT department at [email protected].
Thank you for your continued support in creating a secure and nurturing learning environment for our students.
Daily Announcements
Please see the Twin Groves website for up-to-date school announcements. The announcements let you know what exciting activities and clubs are going on at Twin Groves. Please click HERE to access the Daily Announcements.
Twin Groves Athletics
Please click HERE to access the Twin Groves Athletics site.
This site will be updated frequently.