Health & Wellness: Mr. McNulty, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th Grade: Students are finishing up their Social and Emotional Learning Unit, “Second Step”. They will begin to focus on their physical health in the next coming months. These units consist of Personal Hygiene and Physical Activity and Nutrition.
7th Grade: Students have been working hard peeling back the layers of bullying. We have been discussing race, ethnicity, stereotypes and what makes us unique as individuals. The next few weeks will include lessons on gender identity and equality and how to combat gender stereotypes.
8th Grade: The next four weeks students will be learning about “Safe Dates”. This is a program about how to identify dating abuse and what you can do if you find yourself or someone you know in an abusive relationship.
Theater Arts: Summar Elguindy [email protected]
6th graders are working on having a strong healthy voice when speaking in front of an audience or performing. They have learned about techniques to use when speaking on stage including vocal projection and enunciation. They will be working on a short play and performing it as readers theater in front of their classmates.
Physical Education: Michael O’Connell, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th Grade: Students are currently presenting their small-group creative movement performances using jump-bands. Over the last the month, students have worked in groups of 3 or 4 to choreograph and then perform a jump-band routine that demonstrates an understanding of pattern and rhythm.
7th Grade: Students are currently halfway through our Invasion Games 2 Unit. The focus of the unit is to reinforce and apply the skills of dribbling, shooting and passing while using an implement in small-sided game play. Seventh grade is using floor hockey sticks and small-sided floor hockey games to practice these skills.
8th Grade: Students are currently halfway through our Invasion Games 2 Unit. The focus of the unit is for students to demonstrate proper dribbling, passing and defensive techniques used in the games of hockey, soccer and basketball.
Art: Ms. Lee, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th graders have sketched and designed their Leluja paper cutout project in preparation for Spring. Students are developing their patience and paper-cutting skills in cutting out the first draft. They will use the draft to trace their designs onto colored paper and cut out the final draft.
7th graders are using wooden tools and metal tooling repoussé techniques to create raised and indented surfaces on their copper sheets. They have designed their names in bubble letters, transformed objects into their names and arranged letters in a creative and personal way.
8th graders are continuing to use the grid method and techniques on their two-toned high contrast self-portraits. They first used the grid method to draw and enlarge the shapes of their facial features onto a canvas panel, which is a laborious process. When the outline and shapes are accurate, they will then turn their drawings into paintings.
Spanish: Mr. Paras, Grades 6-8, [email protected]; Angela Green, Grade 6, [email protected]
6th Grade: Students will continue to learn about conjugating “AR” verbs in the present tense and how to write sentences using the correct conjugation of the verb being used. In class, students will then be introduced to vocabulary that covers class schedules with ordinal numbers. Students will then make their own class schedules and write about each class in complete sentences using “AR” verbs. We will finish with students writing a paragraph about their favorite and least favorite classes and daily activities.
7th Grade: Students will spend time reviewing regular and irregular verbs in the present tense. We will then move on to foods that students may eat for dinner followed by what students should eat to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In groups, students will make a supermarket flyer which will include healthy foods and they will write sentences about the foods they put in the flyer. Finally, students will keep a 3 day food journal of what they eat and drink. They will then write a summary in Spanish about what they ate and if what they ate was healthy or not. This will be presented to the class.
8th Grade: In grade 8, students will learn a new tense, the present progressive. We will practice conjugations of regular verbs in the present progressive tense. We will start by reviewing the verb estar which is part of the present tense followed by the present participle. Students will then write question and then ask various students the questions and write down the answers which will be shared with the class. For practice, the teacher will put some pictures up and students will write sentences describing what the people are doing using the present progressive tense. Various pictures will be shown to the class on the Eno board and in groups students will write as many sentences as they can in a given amount of time. Each group will then read their sentences to the class and we will go over them as a large group. As an end project, students will make books using only the present progressive tense.
French: Sarah Bilodeau, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th Grade: This month 6th graders will learn school vocabulary and create a promotional video about RAUC to encourage a French exchange student to chose our school! We will learn prepositions, the irregular verbs “avoir” and “etre” to be able to describe people and locations.
7th Grade: This month 7th grade French students will learn about traditional French and Francophone holiday traditions and they will create an invitation for their ideal holiday celebration. They’ll learn to form regular -ir verbs like “choisir” as well as common irregular -ir verbs like vouloir, avoir & offrir in order to talk about what they have, what they want and what they will chose and give as gifts.
8th grade: This month in 8th grade we will continue working on narrating stories in the past, present and future. We will create a mosaic of our school lives until 8th grade and tell about our experiences in the past entitled “mon chemin à l’école”. We will also begin a review unit that will carry us through June. We will do a series of projects to review vocabulary and grammar from 6th-8th grade French and will create a portfolio to represent our learning from middle school French. Future updates will include updates about our portfolio work.
String Orchestra: Brittany Phillips, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th grade orchestra: The 6th grade is making great progress as we continue to study the history and style of blues music. Students learned about famous blues musicians and their famous stage names, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson before creating their very own. We have been learning how to swing our eighth notes and how to play contrasting rhythms precisely so they fit together. We are setting high performance goals each week as we look ahead to our spring concert in May.
The 7th graders are mastering their notes and rhythms found in “Canon Power”, and we are now focusing on adding correct articulation and dynamics to make our performance more exciting and complex. We are continuing to grapple with d minor finger patterns found in our advanced performance piece, “Pirates of the Caribbean.” We will be spending time focusing on the impact that film scores and sound effects have in movies, as we work diligently through each section of this challenging repertoire.
As the 8th grade orchestra looks toward the end of this school year and into their high school paths, I want to encourage all families to consider registering for high school string orchestra. I am impressed with the diligent work students have been putting in this semester, and we are continuing to work towards a high school level of performance. For students, that means shifting into third and fourth position, practicing vibrato exercises, focusing on a good left hand shape, and increasing our comfort with music reading and notation. We are making steady progress with “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and we are beginning a new study of Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me.”
Chorus: Joshua DeWitte, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
Grade 6: Students performed their original scenes from a musical. Their performances were inspiring and full of risk-taking. We are now beginning to learn new repertoire. We will focus on sight singing for the remainder of the year. Students have also started a project that will last for the duration of the year. Working in groups, students will create and manage a record label. They are responsible for performing, recording, and producing at least one song by members of their group that is representative of the vision and story of their label. Students chose jobs within their label; sound engineer, marketing, graphic design, artist, and CEO. Groups will market their label to other students and attempt to “sell” their recordings. Students will gain experience in music business, production, and singing and recording their voices.
Grade 7: Students arranged and performed their acapella pieces. Students were engaged, took creative risks, and supported each other’s performances. We are now beginning to learn new repertoire. Students have also started a project that will last for the duration of the year. Working in groups, students will create and manage a record label. They are responsible for performing, recording, and producing at least one song by members of their group that is representative of the vision and story of their label. Students chose jobs within their label; sound engineer, marketing, graphic design, artist, and CEO. Groups will market their label to other students and attempt to “sell” their recordings. Students will gain experience in music business, production, and singing and recording their voices.
Grade 8: 8th graders performed solos and in small ensembles in an 8th Grade recital. We celebrated the progress they have made over the past 2 ½ years in chorus. I am so proud of their hard work. We are now beginning to learn new repertoire. Students have also started a project that will last for the duration of the year. Working in groups, students will create and manage a record label. They are responsible for performing, recording, and producing at least one song by members of their group that is representative of the vision and story of their label. Students chose jobs within their label; sound engineer, marketing, graphic design, artist, and CEO. Groups will market their label to other students and attempt to “sell” their recordings. Students will gain experience in music business, production, and singing and recording their voices.
Band: Mr. Wroge, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th - 8th graders are currently rehearsing “Bad” by Michael Jackson, which is a fun tune to play together! We are just about ready to start rehearsing “The Chronicles of Narnia”. As always, we continue to reinforce the basics such as music literacy, ensemble playing, posture, breath support, play position, and rest position.
Music: Ms. Giannini, Grades 6-8, [email protected]
6th Graders will venture into the world of folk music, starting with American folk music, as they add harmony-making skills to their growing rhythmic vocabulary. Irish music and African music will highlight the changing role of rhythm in various folk traditions.
7th Graders will continue add to their knowledge of song forms, as they dig deeper into song analysis. They will add texture, tonality, mood, and tempo to their knowledge of form, listening to many examples of this, and begin to formulate ideas for their own song.
8th Graders will explore the functions of music in American society, both past and present, distinguishing between folk, art and popular music. They will continue rhythmic exercises, and be introduced to the keyboard harmonies.
Library Technology: Sam Musher, [email protected]
I have updated the RAUC Library website! Click the “Library” icon on the rindgeavenue.cpsd.us homepage for easy access to online databases, the library catalog, and research resources for specific classes. Stay tuned for a new library/technology blog for families. If you have suggestions about how I can make the library website more useful for you and your family, please let me know.
6th grade science students continue their Scientist Workshop projects, in which they research a topic they’re interested in. By now students have all settled on topics and are using the internet to learn more. Students practice writing effective Google searches, choosing websites from a list of results by considering which sites have a “good reputation,” and taking good notes without plagiarizing.
7th grade science students had a one-day lesson about internet research for their science fair projects. They learned that one way to tell if a source is scientifically trustworthy is to notice whether it quotes expert scientists.