Howards Grove Middle School
December Parent/Guardian Newsletter IV
IMPORTANT DATES
December 15th, Middle School Music Concerts 6:30 PM 5th/6th, 7:45 PM 7th/8th
December 16th, Student Council Movie Night 3-6 PMDecember 23rd, No School
December 26th - January 2nd, Winter Break
January 5th, Boys Basketball @ HG
January 9th, PTO Meeting
January 9th, Boys Basketball @ HG
January 12th, Boys Basketball @ HG, 8th Grade Only
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
In this month's Newsletter you will read all about the wonderful student learning and engagement here at HGMS. I could not be more proud of the efforts of our students and staff making HGMS a wonderful place. Last week I sent home an email that contained information about our After School Study Program. I am proud to say currently that we have about 20 students participating each night. A special thank you to the High School National Honor Society and Student Council volunteers for helping to support our students. It is a wonderful opportunity to receive help with their current work or it also provides a quiet time to finish their work from the day.
Our library staff has also been working on providing enrichment for our middle school students through Battle of the Books. Students are reading and battling out their knowledge on the books they have read. The competition is fun! Most importantly students are growing their love of reading. Thank you to all who are participating!
Below you will see a message from our PTO. They are looking for a volunteer to help us with our Scholastic Book Fair. The Book Fair does earn money for our students to receive books as well as helping staff to build their libraries. This year all of our students who are participating in an intervention were able to pick out their own book from the proceeds. If you have some extra time we would love for you to be able to help us!
Lastly, thank you parents and guardians for all of the help and support you offer your child. We know that without your support and partnership in learning our efforts would be challenging. If there is anything that we can do to support you, your student(s), or your family please feel free to reach out. We are here as part of our community and it surely takes a village. I wish you all well during the holiday season and look forward to the New Year.
INTERVENTION
Research has shown that students will make the most gains by having 45 minutes of time on task in each subject area(Math & Reading) and passing 2 lessons per subject each week. You can help at home with this by having your student show you the lessons they are working on and what the scores are on the lessons. Students can show you how much time on task they have for the week in each subject.
i-Ready Links:
Fridge Tips for i-Ready Lessons at home
Understanding diagnostic results from i-Ready
https://i-readycentral.com/familycenter/
Next i-Ready diagnostic is January 9-20 testing in Math and Reading. Please make sure your student has earbuds with cords for testing. This would be a great stocking stuffer for Christmas!
Term 1 i-Ready Winners: Working Hard at passing lessons and time on task on i-Ready.
Pizza Hut Book It! For Grades 5 & 6: Read 20 minutes per night and fill in your December Calendar in order to earn a free Pizza Hut pizza!
Battle of the Books:
Let the Games Begin! Battles have started two times a week for grades 5 & 6. Students should keep reading the books and be ready to battle in the library on Tuesdays & Thursdays in December & January.
COUNSELOR'S CORNER
Hello HGMS families!
I cannot believe we are in the final stretch of 2022! This is certainly a busy time of year both in and out of school for many families. This month's Counselor's Corner is really just a heads up on some important and exciting things that will be coming once we return from winter break.
Current 8th grade students and their parents/guardians:
You should have received a letter from the High School Principal and Counselor regarding Freshman Orientation. I know! I can't believe we are already at the point in the year where we are starting to talk about High School! That letter outlines the days and times of orientation once we return from break. Please read that carefully and reach out with any questions. Prior to break, I will be going into the 8th grade classrooms to start talking about what this whole high school process looks like. We will go through some basic information, answer questions, and discuss the timeline for choosing classes.
Parents/Guardians, you should also be on the lookout next week for an email from me through Skyward that includes a link to a Sign-Up Genius page. Once the Orientation nights are completed and you and your child have received their course request packets, I will be meeting with each student and parent(s) in a one-on-one meeting to look at course options for Freshman year, as well as talk a bit about future plans so that we can ensure that your child will be able to fit in any/everything they want. Please feel free to sign up for a meeting as soon as you get that link; you do not need to wait until after orientation to sign up. This is such an exciting time for our students as they start to think about their high school careers!
All community members:
Please mark down a Save the Date for the evening of Tuesday, February 21 for our annual Mental Health Community Night! Those who were able to attend this event last year thought it was a huge success and extremely informative. We are expanding the information even more this year, so keep an eye out for those details coming after the New Year!
STUDENT COUNCIL
In December, the Middle School Student Council started the month off with a Hygiene Donation Drive to collect various personal care, bath and body, and cleaning items for Safe Harbor of Sheboygan County. Homerooms competed against each other to see who could collect the most items. As a middle school we were able to collect over $1000 worth of personal hygiene products to help domestic abuse and sexual violence victims and their families. A huge thank you to all of the families that helped by donating items. These donations will go a long way to help so many families.
This week, the student council members are spreading a little holiday cheer to Howards Grove Middle School. They will be busy decorating and delivering holiday cookies for students and staff members on Wednesday and Thursday. They are also hosting a Holiday Movie Event after school on Friday for any 5th-8th grade students. Students are invited to bring in a comfy blanket and join in with their friends to watch the movie, Elf. Free popcorn and water will be available.
We wish everyone a happy holiday, and we can’t wait to see what the new year brings!
PTO
8TH GRADE
Students have taken a step back in time to learn about the Civil Rights Act of the 1950s. The students gleaned this information through the reading of the novel "Warriors Don't Cry" by Melba Pattillo Beals. Melba Pattillo Beals was one of the Little Rock Nine to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 after the landmark case of Brown vs. the Board of Education was passed in 1954. "Warriors Don't Cry" is a literary nonfiction book, so students used both their narrative and informational reading strategies to analyze the book. Currently, they are working on their final project for this unit, a Museum Walk. Students are crafting their own narrative nonfiction piece of writing about a main event, person or place from the novel. In addition, they will create an artifact (drawing) that correlates with their write up. Once both are completed, they will record their voice and add a QR code to their visual. These visuals with the QR code will be posted in all three district buildings. All you need to do is scan the QR code to hear that student read their write up. We hope you enjoy the 'Museum Walk'.
MATH
Eighth grade math students have been studying relationships and functions. Their math vocabularies have been grown tremendously in the process while learning about new terms such as hypotenuse, leg, rise, run, slope, unit rate, linear equation, continuous graph, and discrete graph. These students now understand that proportional relationships are special types of linear functions, sometimes called direct variations. Students have also been deriving equations of proportional relationships using y=mx.
ALGEBRA
Eighth grade algebra students have been working closely with polynomial expressions. Specifically, these students have been adding and subtracting polynomials, multiplying a polynomial by a monomial, multiplying polynomials, and have also learned how to use the FOIL method when multiplying two binomials. In January, eighth grade algebra students will be faced with a new challenge... factoring! Perseverance will be key as they begin to learn about the many ways of factoring polynomial expressions.
SCIENCE
We just wrapped up our Space Science unit. Students had the opportunity to make their own planets, as well as have our Rocket Launch. All successful launches.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We are studying World War II. We just covered understanding eugenics and how anti-Semitism spread throughout Europe and this time. We are just on understanding the appeasement that was made by the allied powers towards Germany. The analogy that I use for this is a child at a candy store is begging their parent or guardian for a piece of candy. Will the parent or guardian give in to the child and let them have the candy, or stick fast and strong in opposition. It was awesome to see the student's understanding and also what they would have done if they were in the allied leaders shoes.
7TH GRADE
ELA
In 7th grade Language Arts, students have just finished their Author Study Unit where they worked with a partner to read two books by the same author to learn about the author’s writing style and how they create characters in their stories. We ended the unit by creating WeVideos to showcase what they learned about characterization and their author. I was impressed by the creativity and thought that went into their videos. Students presented these to the class and received feedback from their peers.
We just started our new Realistic Fiction Writing Unit where students have been busy brainstorming ideas by using events and experiences from their own lives as inspiration. They have been developing the main character for their story and taking time to really get to know them before they start writing.
For grammar practice, the 7th graders are working on sentence structure and learning about subjects and predicates and how these sentences are important in their writing.
MATH
7th Grade Math students have been extending their knowledge of integers by looking for keywords in Words Problems to determine if the solution is positive or negative. Those keywords help students also determine the appropriate operation to use as well. Students are doing a great job getting a common denominator when working with fractions and lining up the decimal point when decimals are the focal point of the problem. Students have also learned new “tricks” by changing the fraction to a decimal when working with quarters, fifths, etc. The shortcuts are making Math easier!
Ask your son/daughter the equivalency to ¼, ½, ¾, ⅕, ⅖, ⅗, and ⅘.
ALGEBRA
Students are learning how to compute discount, tip, and sales tax. They should be ready to be an informed shopper!!! They are also studying some Chemistry by computing the percent concentration of a solution and what needs to be added to dilute the solution. I love when Algebra is diffused into other classes.
***Continue to encourage your son/daughter to complete lessons on i-Ready. Students have access to the program 24/7. Teachers have seen wonderful progress when students work hard and pass lessons. I have seen students move their skills up in the next grade level. Wow! The program works and the goal is to have most students passing lessons in their current grade level. You can do it, students!!!
SCIENCE
Throughout the year we eb and flow throughout life science: we started the year learning about the “characteristics of life” and since then we have connected those ideas to cells. We literally looked at animal cells, plant cells, and other microorganisms under the microscopes to see their structures. In addition, we discussed how human cells use the food we consume for energy and to make new cell parts… “you are what you eat”. Diving even deeper into cells we are going to explore Deoxyribonucleic Acid (say that 3 times fast) and how genetics plays a role in everything! After break we will begin to explore DNA in plants by growing some in class to see genetic differences.
SOCIAL STUDIES
The tension is building in class because after break we will be learning about the first shots of the American Civil War. We have been talking about the social dynamics occurring in the US at the time (1820-1860) and the displacement of Native Americans throughout Wisconsin at that same time in history. “Reflecting on the past can help to shape the future”, as we begin to understand how mindsets can change with the passing of each prior generation.
This week the students are also reporting on local and global stories to publish as part of the 7th grade news. Hopefully we can share the broadcast with you before winter break.
6TH GRADE
ELA
In writing class, students are learning how to realize what their story is really about and how it will give them ideas for a brand new draft where they can tell the story differently. Students are learning how to use an external-internal story mountain as a tool for planning a new, more meaningful version of their story.
Sixth graders are learning about sentence variety and structure in their Grammar for Writing Program. Students are learning to identify and explain the four types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Students can also recall that each sentence is defined by the use of independent and dependent clauses, conjunctions, and subordinators.
On Fridays, before our weekly vocabulary quiz, students have been participating in a Vocabulary Jam. The Jam is a vocabulary game where teams compete in real-time to see who can answer the most questions correctly. As a class, we take just a few minutes before our quiz to help us review our weekly words and definitions. The Jam gets everyone excited about word learning. Students enjoy this activity so much that they continue to ask to play another round. It's one of the ways that Vocabulary.com has gamified word learning, and it's a great way to engage and motivate students. Overall, the Jam is a fabulous way to bring everyone together for some friendly competition. It's also one of those rare activities that's energizing and highly educational!
BLOCK ONE MATH
Students are learning how to solve multi-step equations and inequalities. Students continue to build upon their previous knowledge of positive and negative integers operations and the distributive property. In addition to finding solutions to inequalities, students are also learning how to graph the solutions.
BLOCK TWO/THREE MATH
Students just finished up a unit on fraction operations, primarily focusing on division. They have now moved into a unit on decimal operations. They also have reviewed place value and rounding which will help with making estimates prior to solving a decimal problem. Students will also practice solving real-world decimal operations problems when ordering food from a restaurant and a bakery. Math can always be applied when working with money.
SCIENCE
In science class, students just finished learning about the 4 main spheres of planet Earth. I hope that you got a glimpse of this on your Christmas tree, as students created an ornament with the 4 spheres on them! Up next in science, we are going to start learning about weathering and erosion, so that way after Christmas break, we can dive into the rock cycle.
SOCIAL STUDIES
In social studies class, we just finished enacting the constitutional convention. This convention, held in Philadelphia, was where our constitution was created. We argued on many important topics, primarily revolving around how states would be represented in the federal government. Next up, we will begin to talk about the amendments of the constitution, the bill of rights, and the branches of government.
5TH GRADE
ELA
In Grammar, we have just finished a small unit on capitalization. The fifth graders have been working on a nonfiction reading unit. They have learned the skills needed to be successful nonfiction readers. We have done a lot of work in the first unit giving them strategies, now they are putting these strategies into play by researching their own interest topics. I have seen students choose athletes, hunting and fishing, sports teams, singers and songwriters, and so many more. I can’t wait to find out what they have learned about their own topics.
MATH
We are multiplying whole numbers and fractions. About the time we are winter break, we will be dividing fractions. There is an attached letter in the Math GC for more detailed information. Any basic multiplication or division fact practice you can do at home will help your child to be more efficient with their work.
SCIENCE
We have begun our MATTER unit. We have already seen very creative slide presentations on the states of matter. We are in the middle of an investigation about changing states of matter and its effects on mass using icy pops! Discovering the differences between chemical and physical changes is next on the horizon. After the break we will focus on particles, elements, atoms, molecules and more.
Students will be making globes in class to demonstrate their understanding of what we have done throughout our Geography unit so far. They have worked on finding coordinates, directions, longitude and latitude, the different oceans and continents, and so much more. We will wrap this unit up before Christmas break and come back to learn about Native Americans and Early Colonization in the U.S.
(SEL) Social Emotional Learning-
Mrs. Luedke has come to help open our thinking to how we see ourselves. If it is compared to how others view us, are we realistic in our thoughts?
We are also working on following directions and respectfully responding to directions in an appropriate way. We hope this information will carry over into every day of the week, making school a more positive place to learn.
HOWARDS GROVE MIDDLE SCHOOL
Email: ahouston@hgsd.k12.wi.us
Website: www.hgtigers.org
Location: 507 Kennedy Avenue, Howards Grove, WI, USA
Phone: (920) 565-4452