Band
Mr. Patrick Wroge |
[email protected]
Grade 6-8: Bravo on a great Unity Concert!! The kids all worked hard and played beautifully! Going forward, we will put our current music on the back burner and begin some new literature in preparation for our May concert. We will also continue our improvisation studies using the Bb Blues scale.
String Orchestra
Brittany Phillips |
[email protected]
The 6th Grade Orchestra did a phenomenal job in the Unity Concert on January 31st. For most, this was their debut concert of the school year. Students worked through managing their nerves and gave it their all in our performance of “RAUC On.” I am proud of each student who put in dedicated practice time in preparation for this concert. We will use this great energy and dive right into our new music. The spring semester will be full of new learning experiences, new techniques to master, and new opportunities to build confidence as students continue to develop their musical skills.
The 7th grade orchestra & 8th grade orchestra did an awesome job in the Unity Concert on January 31st. We set out to play challenging repertoire, and students truly gave it their all. It has been a great first semester of strengthening our note reading skills, mastering advanced left hand techniques and trying out new genres of music. I am very proud of the students’ performance of “Thriller” and “African Adventure,” and am looking forward to pushing them even more as we look forward to spring. We have a lot of new music to learn, and we can’t wait to begin the process all over again.
Chorus
Joshua DeWitte, Grades 6-8 |
[email protected]
6th Grade: Excellent work on an inspiring performance. Singers will begin working on group projects to create a musical scene based on a song of their choice. Students are acting, directing, and choreographing their scenes. Groups are using a mix of existing songs and original work. While working on projects, we will begin working on the concept and music for our May concert.
7th Grade: After an inspiring performance at their concert, singers are working in groups on arranging and performing an acapella song. Students break down the song into its various instrumental and vocal parts and decide how to best imitate the instrumental parts vocally. While working on projects, we will begin working on the concept and music for our May concert. We will also focus on music literacy.
8th Grade: After an inspiring performance at their concert, singers are working on their 8th grade recital pieces. In the tradition of vocal studios in high school and college, students will perform a solo or small ensemble piece. The recital will be held over 2 class periods in late February. This is an opportunity for all singers to demonstrate the progress they have made over the past 3 years.
7th & 8th Urban Legends
Congratulations on a fantastic performance. This is the best Urban Legends has sounded. We will continue to build rudiments and work on more challenging music.
Music Studio
Mr. Fairbanks |
[email protected]
6th/8th Grade: Both 6th and 7th grade are continuing their journey of playing the ukulele! They got to experience what it’s like to play in duets and are currently improving their ability to read chord charts and tablature (or tabs) that will serve as the building blocks for the songs the students will choose and learn. Through patience and perseverance we will continue building strength in our hands while developing our sense of rhythm.
7th Grade: After completing our unit on ukulele, 7th grade will begin to explore the different kinds of music that exists all over the world, starting with music from Latin America. Salsa, tango, bachata, and merengue are some examples. We will listen and piece together what makes these styles similar and different.
Physical Education
Mr. Chris Moore |
[email protected]
Grade 6: Students are in the early stage of their invasion game unit. The unit is designed for students to develop and demonstrate competency in a variety of movement patterns, apply knowledge of concepts, principles, and tactics. Specifically, Grade 6 has began by focusing on developing their ability to kick a pass to a moving target through soccer skill analysis activities and small sided game play. As the unit progresses, new skills and concepts will be introduced and practiced weekly.
Grades 7 & 8: Students are in the early stage of their Invasion Games Unit. This unit is designed for students to develop and demonstrate competency in a variety of movement patterns as well as apply knowledge of concepts, principles, tactics, and strategies common to invasion games and invasion sports. Specifically, Grade 7 has began by focusing on developing their ability to pass to a moving target in succession with an accurate basketball shot. They are achieving this through skill analisis activities and other small sided game play. As the unit progresses and the sport or activity switches, we will discuss the transfer skills across the different invasion game activities. For 8th grade, this will leading into a Sport Ed model, where students get roles and practice the appropriate etiquette for their specific role.
Health
Mr. Justin McNulty |
[email protected]
Grade 6: We will be ending our Mental/Emotional Health unit in the next few weeks. Students will be learning about SMART Goals, how set and achieve an emotional goal, and how to make healthy decisions by weighing rewards versus consequences.
Grade 7: We are in the middle of Let’s Get Real Unit. Students will be learning about what consists as sexual harassment and the effects of it. They will also be learning about how to respond to conflict and in a positive way, depression, self-harm and how to identify if someone may be self harming or depressed.
Grade 8: We are close to finishing our Get Real Unit. We will be learning about STI/HIV transmission, sexual identity and goal/decision making skills.
Spanish
Mr. Nick Paras |
[email protected]
Grade 6: In class we will finish up weather by making a poster of the weathers in each season. We will then be moving on to AR verbs and how to conjugate them. What is an infinitive? What is a subject pronoun? What are the verb ending in the present tense? These are just a few parts of learning about verbs. Students will also go on to how to write sentences using present tense AR verbs. We will talk about the differences between the tú for and the usted form as well as the differences between the vosotros form and the ustedes forms. Students will be given sheets where they have to fill in the correct form of the verb and then find out what the sentences mean so they can understand how to write simple sentences. Students will be presented with a paragraph in which they will have to underline all the AR verbs. We will then discuss the meaning and why the author of the paragraph used the particular form of the verb. We will then go over subject pronouns and have students point to someone or some people to show they understand the subject pronoun. What if there are two possible subject pronouns?
We will then practice by someone saying a subject pronouns and other students writing the form of the verb that goes with the subject pronouns. Children in Spanish will then start writing basic sentences using the correct forms of the verbs given. Finally teacher will give students a list of AR verbs, about 15-20 of them. Students will then choose 10 of the verbs, write a basic sentence and find a picture that goes with the verb. This should be done on google docs so they can share it with the teacher.
Grade 7: In grade 7, continued from our last lesson, we will finish talking about indefinite and definite articles. Students will create their own sentences where others will have to fill in the correct form of the verb. They will turn these in and I will create a quiz using the students sentences. We will then create a personal venn diagram where the 3 areas will be yo, a friends name using él or ella and nosotros or nosotras. Students will choose at least 15 verbs and put the verb in the section of who does that activity. When this is done, students will create 10 questions to ask another classmate. They must put the questions in the tú form and the partner will answer in the yo form. Once this is completed, students will make a joint collage of what they do or what they don’t do. They will write a sentence in Spanish for things in the collage. Lastly we will be learning about prepositions and how to describe the locations of things in the classroom. This will go with learning the verb estar. Estar is used to describe the location of things. Teacher will ask questions about the location of various things and the students will answer them in complete sentences using the verb estar plus location words. The final thing we will be doing is learning how to make articles and nouns plural.
Grade 8: We will finish up describing our rooms. In this, we will learn opposite words to use such messy and neat, colorful or dull, etc. We will then use these words to describe the bedrooms we use to explain. Students will then create a wordsearch using descriptive opposite words. We will be using the website puzzlemaker.com to do this sheets. After the wordsearch is completed, students will create a concentration game using opposite words and then play with at least 3 different people. When they choose a card with a word on it, they will have to say what the word means. Students will then review colors. Students will research a Spanish speaking country and describe the fact and other important things from that country. They will describe the colors of the objects they chose in Spanish. They will then create their own personal flags and write a description of it making sure they mention the colors they used. We will read about the meaning of different colors and then decide which color we associate with the most and why we associate with that color. Students will then move onto making comparisons and using superlatives. Finally, we will move onto stem-changing verbs and how they are conjugated and used in sentences. If there is time, in class, we will move onto the differences between ser and estar.
French & Spanish
Mr. Pischner |
[email protected]
6th, French: Students will continue working with our T’es Branché textbook by navigating our “Métro” stations circuit, where students rotate through a series of tasks involving listening, reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary games, and reflection/self-assessment. Our new learning targets get students (1) distinguishing and using informal vs. formal language when greeting someone; (2) inviting someone to go somewhere; and (3) accepting or refusing an invitation. We will also reinforce class expectations once in our new dedicated classroom, 214.
7th, French: Students will continue working with our T’es Branché textbook by navigating our “Métro” stations circuit, where students rotate through a series of tasks involving listening, reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary games, and reflection/self-assessment. Our new learning target gets students to build on saying what they like to do by adding how much they like to do certain activities. Students will draw on the new vocabulary they have been practicing, involving sports/activities using verbal expression of “jouer à,” “jouer de,” and “faire de,” along with words as infinitive verbs. Students will also continue to practice conjugating regular -er verbs in the present simple tense. Last, we will reinforce class expectations once in our new dedicated classroom, 214.
8th, French: Students will continue working with our T’es Branché textbook by navigating our “Métro” stations circuit, where students rotate through a series of tasks involving listening, reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary games, and reflection/self-assessment. Our new learning targets get students (1) asking about and stating preferences; (2) stating if one agrees or disagrees; and (3) identifying masculine and feminine nouns, using definite articles, the verb “préférer,” and “ne(n’)...pas” to make sentences negative. Last, we will reinforce class expectations once in our new dedicated classroom, 214.
8th, Spanish: Students have continued to accelerate an advanced review of working with the present tense. Students will continue to practice conjugating verbs in the present simple tense, adding more irregular verb forms each class. Students will also be able to: (1) talk about locations in one’s community using the verb “ir”; (2) talk about where one goes and with whom; (3) ask questions using interrogative words. Asking questions is a key feature of intermediate speakers, so we give this extra importance. Last, we will reinforce class expectations once in our new dedicated classroom, 214.
Art
Lucia Lee |
[email protected]
Two 6th grade sections will continue to work on an Op Art (short for optical art) project in which they create 3-D spheres on a 2-D surface. The optical illusion effect is achieved by using a checkerboard design and through blending/shading with charcoal. A new section of 6th graders started art this week. We are beginning with some introductory activities such as the Exquisite Corpse drawing activity and creating 2-minute animals/cartoon characters sculptures using found objects. In the following week, students will work on a “police sketch artist” partner drawing exercise.
7th graders have finished with the papier-mâché process and created a cohesive “skin” and smooth surface for painting. After priming their sculptures with gesso, students are now painting the base color of their creatures and refining their work with details, facial features, patterns, embellishments, etc.
8th graders are continuing to use the grid method in drawing as well as various drawing techniques to accurately enlarge a 4x6 image of their choice onto a 12x18 paper. This project is time-consuming, as there are a lot of details involved. It is also designed to help students build confidence in their drawing abilities by visually and physically breaking down a complex image into smaller parts. Students relearn how to draw what they actually see, not what they think they know. Many students are pleasantly surprised at their increased ability to see details and draw
better using the grid method.
Theater Arts
Summar Elguindy |
[email protected]
6th grade: In two sections of 6th grade we are finishing up our unit on building the Actor's Toolbox. Students have been exploring using their body language and facial expressions to tell stories on stage. To wrap up the unit they are creating a playlet using tableau and pantomime to create a performance of a classic fairy tale of their choosing.
One section of 6th grade is brand new to theater arts and we are beginning our journey together building ensemble skills so that we can positively create stories on stage together.
8th grade: This class is beginning the process of blocking A Midsummer Nights Dream that will be performed at the METG festival in April. Students have spent the past few classes interpreting the script and finding meaning in the Shakespearean language. We are now starting to add movement to the scenes and design the costumes and set for the show.
Library Technology
Sam Musher |
[email protected]
7th: In social studies, students have completed a draft of their very first major research paper! After receiving comments, they’ll revise over the course of the week, with the final paper due Friday. Students put a tremendous amount of work into learning research skills: choosing a topic that interests them, finding credible sources, citing those sources in a professional bibliography, taking organized notes, and checking the validity of a quote they found on the internet. Ask your child what they learned from this experience, and ask them to tell you what interests them about the person they researched!