Naaktgeboren's Class Blog

Greetings Families, I know this email is a little late to provide any assistance tonight, but I wanted to let you know about a new resource I've added to my blog to support your child's study of history at home. At the end of our first year as a school, we were lucky enough to find someone willing to sell us the Pearson Core Knowledge history textbooks, which are no longer in print. Sadly, we only have 30 copies of this book and thus share across the grade level. It also complicates the fact that we cannot send them home for students to use to study. To correct that need, I have scanned the the book and have placed Google Docs up on my blog. You can find it under the resource tab or at  http://naakarete.blogspot.com/p/history.html . It is not required that students use this resource, but it may prove helpful if a student is absent one day or if he or she just fails to understand a topic discussed in class. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, I have two things to address with you about work you will be receiving tomorrow. Weekly Participation Report Tomorrow, your child, if present Friday, should be coming home with their first weekly participation report. This is first filled out by the student and then adjusted by me if necessary. Some students are a little easy on themselves, while most are a little too harsh. You can tell my notes as they are darker in the photocopies I am sending home. I have also given some students comments or goals, which can be found in the box at the bottom. There are two areas of which I would like to address with you before you receive these. If your child received poor marks, there are six weeks left for them to bring their grades up in the participation category. The students know my expectation as we discuss these regularly, but they may not have realized how important they are to their grades. This is a way for them to have that reality set it. In addition, if a ...

Greetings Families, I hope you are enjoying your weekend. It is hard to believe the first three weeks of school have come and gone. Yesterday, I sent out my first group of invites for math tutoring after school. If you did not receive an email regarding this, your child at current is not invited to attend. If your child is struggling through math concepts at home, please let me know. I can work with your child before school or during first recess. Here are the lessons for the week. Lessons History : This week in history students will continue their study of the countries of Europe. They will look more closely at the early Middle Ages with a study of the split of the Catholic Church and the effect that this had. They will learn about the contributions of monks and nuns, and how books were written. The week ends with a study on Charlemagne. Science : Having successfully completed the unit on chemistry, students will review their notes, and the class will have one final discuss...

Archway Classical Academy Arete Grandparents Day As a grandparent of an Archway Arete student, we hope you can join us for our first annual Grandparents Day Event! Coffee and refreshments will be served in our new library with the headmaster at 8am. An assembly begins at 8:30am where you can enjoy a song and poem recitation by our students. Virtue awards will also be presented. After the assembly you will have the chance to sign up for our special "Heritage Society" and have a tour of our campus. We hope you can join us for this special event! Reserved parking in the front of the building will begin at 8am and please sign in at the front office desk before proceeding to the library or assembly. Overflow parking will be available at "The Falls" event center just East of our campus on Baseline Road. Date: 09/09/2016 (Fri.) Time: 8:00am - 10:00am MST Location: Archway Classical Academy, Arete 4525 E. Baseline Road, Gilbert, AZ 85234 To register, please cl...

Greetings Families, Thank you so much for taking the time to come hear me ramble on to long and for suffering though my tangent stories that are meant to explain something, but likely only confuse you more.  The fact is, what I wanted to convey tonight was simply far to wonderful for 40 minutes, at least for me. Much of what I discussed was not all that significant, like when to be at school, consequences for late homework, and so on. What I really wanted to convey tonight is that I love your child and, though to a lesser degree and in a different way, what we teach, in regard to subjects and virtue. (Here goes another one of those tangent stories.) As I was departing tonight, I ended up having about a thirty minute conversation with one of our new assistants. He asked me how tonight went, and I said it was great in regard to your kindness towards me. I went on to say how I wanted to communicate to you my desire for your children to really love, and not a superficial lo...

Greetings Families, The second week has come to an end the a period of rest has been given. I wanted to let you know that I am very pleased with the progress the class is making. They are still a little chatty, but overall the behavior has been good and we are working out some of the chattiness. I just emailed you a little bit ago, and though it was a lengthy email, I do ask that you read through it. It will hopefully calm some of the fears you are having and will given bette focus to the work we have before us as the year progress. You can find a copy of the email here .  The virtue of the month is responsibility, which works out well as many students loose some of their "school" responsibility over the summer. One area I would like to see improvement in next week is homework being completed on time and all school items returned daily. Please ask your child if they have completed their homework and if they've put all of their items back in their backpack. I...

Greetings Families, Last week we were happy to introduce the fall 2016 schedule for clubs via the school newsletter. This week we would like to introduce the new portal for club registration and payment. This is a significant change from last year, as we are transitioning away from Wufoo to a Great Hearts wide platform, Configio. To view available clubs, go to ArchwayArete.Configio.com . This will also be linked on the ArchwayArete.org site under “Announcements” in the left-hand column. When you arrive at Archway Arete’s Configio page, you will find the eleven clubs being offered by Archway Arete staff. At the present, Friday, August 19, the clubs are available to be seen, but you cannot currently register or make payment. Clubs will open for registration and payment on Saturday, August 20, at 8:00 a.m. We have provided this delay to give everyone an equal opportunity to register. Every club has a maximum number of spots and spots are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. To regi...

Greetings Families, We took, graded, and returned the history quiz we took today. Many students did very well on this. Some need to practice better monitoring of their learning. Please don't be alarmed if your child did poorly. These are new and higher expectations than they are use to observing. They will get the hang of it, through we may need to help them figure it out. Please have your child review the quizzes along with the study guide for tomorrow's test. Students may find it helpful to make note cards from the quizzes. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, If you have seen the blog about the lesson for this week, you will have noticed that we have a math quiz coming up on Friday. We will be reviewing rounding again tomorrow in class, but you might still notice your child still struggling. If that is the case, let me refer you to a collection of Khan Academy videos your child might find helpful. The videos do not go up into the millions like your child will be expected to do on Friday, but the principle is the same. Hopefully most of the kinks will be worked out tomorrow before the assessment, but this may prove helpful to some of you. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, I have returned two quizzes to the students today. The first was a history quiz they took Friday and the science quiz is from today. I wanted to give you a little data so you can evaluate your child's learning. In history the grades are as follows: A = 23 A- = 1 B+ = 1     B = 1 B- = 2 C+ = 1 In science the grades are as follows: A = 13 B- = 13 D- = 3 If you child's grades are lower than you like, don't be alarmed. We will be taking many quizzes throughout the year and if they apply themselves it will not be hard for them to raise their grades. Going forward, what I would like to see student do is take these quizzes and turn them into notecards. For example, on todays quiz, they might put the word "matter" on the front, and on the back they might put, "everything around you; its the material of the universe." They can then take these notecards and study them regularly. I will talk about using notecards during the ...

Greetings Families, It was great getting to see many of you at the social. If I missed you, I apologize. I ended up spending all of my time inside where it was cool and then as I left I found that I had not seen some of you. The first week was a great week and I am excited to see what we will accomplish as we pursue intellectual and moral virtue together. As we begin week two, students can expect things to start to ramp up quickly. Fourth grade is a new and wonderful challenge, with many changes from third grade. The greatest different is the expectation of individual responsibility. That works out well as responsibility is the virtue of the month. The greatest challenge students can expect to face is being expected to always pay attention well, as we will have quizzes (low stakes assessments) that do not have study guides. They are planned and will be announced in advance to the students. For example, in science, students can expect a quiz every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unles...

Greetings Families, It has been a joy having your child in my class for the first two days. Yesterday seemed a little sluggish as we were largely focusing on procedures and rules, but today we actually got to do some learning and it was a joy. I especially enjoyed having the opportunity to read to them at the end of the day. Speaking of reading to them, a number of the students did not have their copy of The Princess and the Goblin . If you are choosing not to purchase that book, please let me know. They are free to keep the school copy for as long as they need. If we have already talked about the book, don't feel like you need to send me another email. I also wanted to pass along some exciting news, at least I think it is exciting. Last night they had to write two sentences about maps from prior knowledge. The answers they gave where impressive and I am happy to see the stuff we taught last year has stuck. Furthermore, today, every single student turned in their homework. I ...

Dear Parents, You are cordially invited to our Curriculum Night events, taking place on Wednesday, August 17th (grades K-2) and Wednesday, August 24th (grades 3-5). The event starts at 6:00 p.m. in the Arete gymnasium, with opening remarks from Mr. Gillingham, Ms. Pantalena, and Mrs. Mason. The purpose of this event is to acquaint you with the school's curriculum and individual classroom procedures across all grade levels. Teachers will give parents an opportunity to ask questions. (Please note, this is a parent only event.) We look forward to seeing you there! Dates K-2 Curriculum Night: Wednesday, August 17th 3-5 Curriculum Night: Wednesday, August 24th Curriculum Night Schedule 6:00-6:25 Welcome and opening remarks in gym (Mr. Gillingham, Ms. Pantalena, and Mrs. Mason) A-L M-Z 6:30-7:10 Homeroom Specials in MPR 7:15-...

Greetings Families, It was my pleasure to meet you on Thursday at “Meet the Teacher Night!” I was thrilled to introduce myself to you and to see the excitement in your child’s eyes. I think most of them are ready to return to school and I’m excited to be their teacher. This email/blog post is a little lengthy, but please read to the end. The Princess and the Goblin Please be sure your child brings The Princess and the Goblin to school on Monday. E-MAIL If there are any additional emails that you would like added to the general class email or specific to your child, please reply with that information. BLOG If you haven’t done so already, please go to naakarete.blogspot.com. On the right side there is a section that says, “Follow by Email.” Please enter your email address, and any other important ones, in that box and hit submit. You will receive a confirmation e-mail. Click the link and you will be subscribed. The blog is the primary way in which I will communicate w...

Greetings Families, It has come to my attention that my last blog update may have caused some confusion for many of you. Though I wish my class size could swell to well over thirty, most of my third grade families have been separated from me. If you are still subscribed to this blog, you may have received an email this morning from Blogger welcoming your child to 4B even though your child may be in a different section. My 4th grade families received the following email from my Archway Arete email: Greetings Families,   It is my pleasure to introduce Ms. Maguire and myself as your child's fourth grade teachers for the 2016/2017 academic year. We look forward to meeting you tonight at "Meet the Teacher Night." In addition to greeting one another, there is also a good deal of paperwork to be addressed tonight and your child has his or her first assignment to complete. If you would like to get a head start on a few things, that would be great.  First, if you haven't...

2016/2017 Academic Year Dear Families, Welcome to the 2016/2017 academic year at Archway Classical Academy Arete. My name is Michael Naaktgeboren and I feel honored to introduce myself as your child’s fourth grade teacher. Below is some information about me. I was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I moved to a small town in middle Tennessee when I was three. My middle and high schools years were spent mostly in Iowa and Ohio. When I was a senior in high school my family made the decision to return to Tennessee where I graduated from high school in 2001. I left for basic training a few months after high school as a member of the Tennessee Army National Guard. I started my college studies at a small community college, but was postponed when the 278 th Armored Cavalry Regiment was deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom III. Upon my return from duty I moved to Kentucky to continue my pursuit towards a bachelor’s degree. I attended Boyce College and in 2010 obtained ...