The Rally by Alexandria

This week May 15 to 19 we had a rally and Spirit week here at Leading Edge. We have rally weeks once every trimester and the rally was this week on Monday May 15, 2017. it was themed on castles and medieval times. I really think it was fun - taiko got to play and the soccer teams, basketball teams, etc talked about their accomplishments. I also liked the activity where the knights killed the dragon and rescued the princess. I really like rally weeks because you can support lots of things or you can wear different colors to represent the day like we did this week for our Rainbow Spirit Week theme. The 3rd Trimester’s rally was really fun, everybody joined in on it and cheered. I personally think they are just plain inspiring and fun. Planning the rally is done by the Leadership group, and they plan most of the events and dances. Each rally has a creative theme or activity.

Haitian Pen Pals

Pen pals from Sonlight Academy in Port-de-Paix, Haiti and The Leading Edge Academy at Natomas Charter School in Sacramento, California get to know one another by exchanging questions, letters, and T-shirts.

The students in Haiti are taught by Sarah Allen who was an alumni of Leading Edge who was in Ms. Meindl's Core class when she was in the sixth grade. What will this year's sixth graders grow up to do? We can't wait to see in the future!

Testing Week by Harsimrat

May 2nd to May 5th was testing week at Leading Edge. We took tests called the CAASP test. On
Wednesday and Friday we went to all of our classes like it was a regular. On Tuesday and Thursday we stayed in our core class the whole day. Everyday we had a test but after lunch we would listen to 8th graders portfolio’s. The 8th graders did very good jobs on their portfolio's. When we first started on Tuesday I loved it because after we were done with a test we could draw or read. I chose to draw a funny cat but I crumbled it up and threw it away. During the tests backpacks had to be against the wall and we had to put our device in our backpack. After we sat down our teacher would check how much we rode our bikes for May is “Bike Month”. The sad thing was when we had a power outage on Wednesday the chromebooks stopped charging. When we went in the morning and started testing some students’ chromebooks died. We had to go to another class and ask for chromebooks. We had like around 6 chromebooks or more that died during the test.

On Thursday we had to spend our whole day in core but I enjoyed it because a little after or before lunch we play this game where we had to act out a mystery and guess who is guilty of the crime. I was the guilty one named Trevor in my skit, but there was another character named Jason. After that we got dismissed but I stayed after school to finish my homework. On Friday we took the math test and I got the hard questions first then I got the easy questions. Out of 10 points for the math test, I rate it 10

Leading Edge Goes Green! by Avery

Recently Leading Edge has decided to go green by installing new water bottle filling stations. In class we had been learning about the impacts of using plastic bottles on the environment. For example if plastic gets into a landfill it can take over 1000 years to decompose into the soil. Another example is when plastic gets into the ocean it breaks up into tiny pieces called microplastics; the sea creatures then eat the microplastics and end up dying. These are just some of the many negative impacts of plastic water bottles.

The installation of the new water bottle refilling stations is a step towards helping with this dilemma. Now students can easily refill their reusable water bottles whenever they need to. This reduces the size of litter and waste around the world. As temperatures rise hydration is key; these new fountains encourage students to drink more water. Also students’ parents can save a few dollars by not having to buy disposable water bottles. Cha-Ching!

Our 3rd Trimester Math project by Mateo B.

In the third trimester, we have covered a lot of things in math. We cover things like percents or geometry. This week we just started our first 3rd trimester project in math. The project that we will do has to include either a project on which project is a better buy in a real life situation. The other project is creating a math slideshow including a math game that is played in a different country. You have to type up many slides that include facts about this game, like the country of origin. You have the option to present the math game project at the coming up open house. You will present your slideshow with the materials used to play the game, explaining how to play the game and then you will play the game with the person you are presenting to. This is an extra credit opportunity and their is another extra credit opportunity where you complete both of the projects. The best buy project is due next Friday. You have to include five different types of one product. Let’s say there were 5 different bags of chips. These chips were all the same type of chip but had a different price and a different size bag. Your job would be to find which bag had the best price per ounces in the bag.

 My group is going to complete both of the projects for extra credit. Our game for the slideshow is Skat. The game of Skat originated in Germany and is a card game. The majority of our class chose a card game but we had about one group chose the best buy project. The game of skat includes three people. The game of Skat is pretty complicated but you have to play with 32 card. I asked another group about their game and they said they were creating their slideshow about dominoes. The claimed that the game of dominoes originated in Germany. In the game of dominoes there is a lot of counting into playing the game of dominoes which is math related. These two math projects are the first 3rd trimester project in math so far.