CCCS Middle School Newsletter
Week of May 11, 2020
Messages From Our Leaders
Middle School Parents and Guardians,
Thank you to everyone who sent thank yous to our staff or commented via one of our social media sites to pay tribute to our amazing staff during last week’s “Staff Appreciation Week”.
We want to thank you for your partnership in continuing the educational journey of our children. Although we are unable to meet with scholars in the physical setting, our goal is to provide as much normality as possible during this time. Educators are working diligently to provide academic lessons using the Google Classroom Platform and moral support to all families via daily phone calls. Our goal is to consistently engage with scholars for the duration of the school year.
Please continue to monitor your child’s online activities. Unfortunately, some scholars post a lot of personal information online without considering the long term consequences. Please continue to discuss cyber safety with your children and monitor them as much as you possibly can.
We will communicate ways for scholars to retrieve personal belongings and additional information for the fall in the weeks to come.
We miss everyone very much and look forward to when everyone can be together again. Until then, stay safe and be well! Please let us know any additional ways that we can support you and your family during this time.
Principal Wilson & Principal Patterson
staff appreciation week
Chik-Fil-A
We love our staff!
We appreciate you!
From the desk of Mrs. Burr, director of teaching and learning
Please review the following document outlining Virtual Learning grading policies.
East D Virtual Learning
Jeopardy with Ms. Moody
Taking Ownership
Real-World Connections
Aston Virtual Learning
Tech-Savvy Teachers
Keepin' it rigorous
Purposeful Learning
Teachers as Learners
8th Grade Families: Click the link below for updates on your End-of-Year Events! congrats!
Social Studies
As we come to the end of the 2019-2020 school year in Social Studies, our 7th and 8th grade scholars are learning many different things. The 7th graders are focusing on Ancient China and the many different inventions they created to add to the expanding world. The 8th graders are being introduced to some parts of U.S. History that they will learn about in more detail in high school. We will focus on some specific events that occurred during the Civil War, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War. The Social Studies teachers would like to wish everyone a fun and relaxing summer. And to our graduating 8th graders, we wish them nothing but success in their bright futures!
Science
As we come to the close of this school year, the students will be engaging in many hands-on activities. Seventh grade will be completing many projects including a scale model of geologic time, the levels of biodiversity project, and a colorful food web project. These activities allow the students to apply their own creativity to science!
In eighth grade, we have just finished our unit on speed and acceleration which included the acceleration poster project in which students designed a “track” to analyze speed, time, and acceleration visually. These projects were incredible! We are moving on to forces and machines in the coming months and will be completing many labs to explore concepts such as Newton’s laws, friction, and how simple machines make work easier.
We are excited to keep working hard and helping your scholar explore the wonderful world around them through science!
Math
Hello students and families, this is 7th grade math teacher Mr. Piselli. We hope you are all staying healthy and safe during this time. We have transitioned to virtual learning by setting up our own Google Classroom. It is a great way for students, teachers, and families to stay connected and further our scholars’ education online. Here are a few ways in how we are helping our math scholars learn on a weekly basis.
Every week we work on a different math topic that we covered previously during the school year to keep your skills fresh, and now we have begun teaching new content as well! Each week there is a list of assignments that we are asking our scholars to try and complete. If scholars need help, there are many different options that they have to receive help. They can chat with a teacher or peer on Google Classroom as well as watch videos and complete practice problems on Khan Academy. We also have a live math session Mondays on Google Meet to discuss how last week went, what our topic is for this week, and what type of assignments and activities we will be completing during the week. Our virtual learning process has helped a great deal in keeping our scholars engaged and eager to learn on a daily and weekly basis!
ELA
Despite the many challenges of the new remote learning dynamic, our Language Arts department has come together to help our scholars still get the most out of their education. Live Language Arts class sessions are being hosted every Tuesday at 10 with small group learning happening on an as needed basis throughout the week.
We are keeping writing alive and well with daily journal prompts and we are continuing to challenge our scholars with robust reading materials and targeted skills. In addition to our skills focused Google classroom lessons we are also employing many online digital learning platforms such as IXL, I-Ready, and News ELA which allow us to serve our scholars at the most appropriate, individualized and accessible levels.
We hope all of our families and scholars are staying safe and healthy during this unprecedented time. Please remember your teachers are here to support you and we encourage you to reach out with any questions or concerns you may have.
SOME ENCOURAGING WORDS FROM OUR DEANS
Hello Parents, Guardians and Caregivers,
We just wanted to tell all of our hardworking parents & caregivers “Thank you” for the great job you are doing by making sure that your children are getting on the on-line education that we are providing at this time.
We can speak for all of our staff that we truly miss seeing the students every day! We have spoken to several teachers relating to this and there is no comparison for the feeling of joy that we get having kids learning in our classrooms and buildings. Our entire team is doing everything possible to ensure our kids continue to learn at home and your efforts as parents/guardians are truly amazing during this time.
Please stay safe and remember to abide by the social distance regulations that are recommend by the Governor. This too shall pass!!!
Sincerely,
Mr. Stinson and Mr. Yarbray, Dean of Students – Aston Campus