Dear Parents,
We would like to thank the
middle school student activity club members and Ms. Jaya and Ms. Victoria for
organizing the pool party last Friday for our students. Thank you to the following teachers for volunteering
their time to supervise the event: Mr. Ryan, Ms. Trish, Ms. Kanthi, Ms. Surekha,
and Ms. Diane. Thank you to Mr. Scott for taking some great underwater photos!
Stay tuned for the student
activity club’s next event: the Halloween Party on October 25 from 6:00-8:00
pm; it is sure to be a spooky night!
As part of our health education program and ongoing commitment to prevention and wellness, we have invited prevention specialists from FCD Educational Services to join our community from September 18-21. FCD is a non-profit organization that provides substance abuse prevention education for schools. Since 1976, they have taught over a million students of all ages.
The FCD prevention specialist will present a parent workshop on September 19th from 8:45-10:00 am to offer support and guidance in helping your children enjoy a drug-free adolescence. For our students, the focus for FCD will be mainly with our grade 7 and 8 students. For more FCD information see the middle school counselor's blog found through the tab at the top of this page.
The FCD initiative presents a perfect opportunity for discussing alcohol and other drug-related issues with your children. Parental involvement is crucial to our efforts to reduce the risks adolescents face. We want our students to hear from both school and home that we are concerned about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
Grade 8 science students and Ms. Ashley, Mr. Ryan, and Ms. Sue made great use of our PAC atrium space for a hands-on activity which had students exploring the relationship between distance and time using toy cars. Students were introduced to filming the motion of the cars using the Video Physics application on iPads. This iPad application allows students to make graphs of distance vs time and speed vs time from their video. The 8th grade science program is conducting a one-semester iPad pilot to assess the integration of iPads and the affect on enhancing teaching and learning.
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American Education Reaches Out (AERO) Math Consultant, Erma Anderson, has
been meeting with our math teachers this week focusing on a more conceptual
model of teaching math and reviewing the depth of knowledge and rigor in our
program. Below is some more information from Ms. Anderson’s parent presentation
last year:
Ways that you can support your child
through homework challenges:
* by
listening and asking questions
* by allowing
your child to struggle through the process of problem solving
* by discussing
mistakes as learning opportunities
Questions to ask to help your child through
homework challenges:
- What do you need to find out?
- Tell me what you know?
- Show me what you started
- What can you try first?
- Can you make a drawing or picture?
- Will a list or table help?
Some recommended Internet sites www.nctm.org/families, www.amathdictionaryforkids.com, and PTA.org/parentsguides
We have our first Middle School Parent Coffee on September 12th from 8:45-9:45 am in
the Hall of Light (room 3211). This will be a planning meeting to set up the
topics for the MS coffees throughout the year. We will be working in groups to generate a list of possible topic ideas. For example, in the past we have had
sessions on study skills, anger management, MAP assessments, etc. We will take
the ideas we generate and prioritize them and decide which topics will be developed
into subsequent discussions for future coffees. Please come with some topics ideas that are of importance to you. I look
forward to spending this time with you.
Our Big Bad Blue swim
meet is happening on September 7th and 8th. We wish
our Raptors a great swim tournament. Go Raptors! For more information see the
Athletics page of this blog.
Have a joyous weekend.
Ms. Michele