Howards Grove Middle School
November Parent/Guardian Newsletter Vol. III
Important Dates
November 21, 7/8 MS Girls Basketball @ Elkhart Lake
November 22, 7/8 MS Girls Basketball @ Cedar Grove
November 23, NO SCHOOLNovember 24, Happy Thanksgiving
November 25, NO SCHOOL
December 12, PTO Meeting @ NV
December 12, School Board Meeting
December 15, MS Winter Concert
December 16, MS Student Council Holiday Movie
Principal's Message
Hello, everyone. It's official, winter is upon us. You could definitely feel the excitement at recess of the first snow fall of the season. Our students grow up fast, but they are surely still young kids at heart.
Thank you to all families who attended our parent/teacher conferences. The collaboration that takes place between home and school for our students academic and emotional success is to be celebrated. As always, if you were unable to attend or have questions for staff, please feel free to reach out to your child's teacher. At conferences, staff did hand out your student report for the iReady assessment given at the beginning of the school year. If you did not receive a copy and would like one, please contact the office.
As parents I am hopeful you can help me enforce a few guidelines. First, student cell phone use. In our school handbook it states that students will have their phone in their locker and it should only be used during the school day for academic purposes. I ask you to have a conversation with your child about this expectation. I have also asked staff to have a conversation with students about the expectation and have asked them to enforce this expectation. In regards to student pick up after school, parent pick up of their child is behind the school, not out front. Increasingly, there are more cars parked in front of school on Kennedy Avenue. With our busing traffic as well as the students who walk, it becomes a safety issue. Please pick up your child in the pick up line behind the school. Lastly, if your child is absent from school or has an appointment during the school day, please contact the office directly.
With the cold and snow upon us, please be sure your student has their warm clothing here at school. Recess is so important for our students to run off all of their energy and interact with their peers. Our makers space is also open for students during this time; however, it has limited capacity; therefore, are not able to go to this space each day.
Thank you for your continued support of your child in school and all that they do. If there is any way that I can be of assistance, please feel free to reach out by phone or email. Enjoy your day!
Angie
Intervention
Students have been working hard on i-Ready personalized instruction during Tiger Time and at home to make gains in reading and math. Ask your student to show you how many lessons they have passed/completed and what they are working on in i-Ready. Research has shown that students will make the most gains by having 45 minutes of time on task in each subject area and passing 1-2 lessons each week.
Some helpful links to help you understand what i-Ready is all about & to help you understand the diagnostic results that you received at conferences or in the mail.
Understanding diagnostic results from i-Ready
https://i-readycentral.com/familycenter/
Don’t forget to set aside time for reading at home.
Holiday Assistance and Support
Hello HG Middle School Families,
It’s hard to believe how quickly the holiday season is approaching! We know that this time of year can be very stressful for families. If your family is struggling financially or experiencing any type of significant hardship, please reach out for support! We are able to offer assistance in the following areas:
Food (Thanksgiving and/or Christmas)
Winter Clothing
Christmas Presents and/or Household Needs
If you need assistance this holiday season, please contact our School Counselor who will help assist you in the process and will keep all information confidential. For planning purposes:
For Thanksgiving needs, we ask that you contact us by no later than this Friday, November 18!
For any Christmas Holiday needs, we ask that you contact us by no later than Wednesday, November 30!
We hope that this approaching holiday season brings peace and joy to you and yours.
Warm Wishes,
Jessica Luecke, School Counselor
(920) 565-4452 ext. 236
Counselor's Corner
Student Council
The Middle School Student Council has definitely been busy bringing some fun and excitement to the middle school and providing service to their community and local families. For Halloween, students got a chance to try out their Halloween costumes before Trick-Or-Treating by dressing up and wearing them during the school day. The Student Council Members hosted a costume contest where teachers voted on the best individual costumes and the best group costume. Prizes were awarded to the winners. There was also a raffle during the day in which all students’ names were entered to win a prize at the end of the day.
In November, Student Council Members had a lot of fun helping out their local community members by raking leaves for various residents after school. Students brought in rakes, split up into groups, and enjoyed an afternoon of volunteering to rake lawns of nearby community members.
Also in November we celebrated Veterans Day at Howards Grove Middle School. We were extremely fortunate to have a number of local veterans, including members from Local Legion Post #149 visit our school for our annual Veterans Day Program. We had the opportunity to hear from First Sgt. Bobbe, and Sgt. Chuck Stelzner during the program. Student Council members had the opportunity to greet many of the veterans as they came in and to spend some time talking with them about what it means to be a veteran and their experiences as a United States Veteran. What an honor for our Student Council Members. They also made and delivered cards to our veterans.
For the Fall Parent-Teacher Conferences, Student Council Members helped out and were involved in many different ways. This year they had a bake sale during conferences, they provided babysitting while parents attended conferences with the teachers, and they made announcements throughout the night to let parents and teachers know when conferences started and ended.
They are gearing up for the winter months by planning a hygiene drive for Safe Harbor, a domestic abuse treatment center in Sheboygan, planning an afternoon school assembly before students leave for Thanksgiving Break, and are looking to host a holiday movie in December. They have also put out suggestion boxes around the school looking for any new ideas and suggestions from the students and teachers on how we can make Howards Grove Middle School an even better place to be. Look for more information on these upcoming events soon.
Music Department Information
WINTER CONCERT
As the temperature dips colder, we are reminded about our upcoming winter concerts. The middle school winter concert will be on Thursday, December 15th at the Howards Grove Center for the Arts. It will begin with the 5th and 6th grade portion of the concert at 6:30pm and then the 7th and 8th grade at 7:45 pm. All 5th and 6th grade students will be participating in the concert while only the students in 7th and 8th grade band and choir are in the second concert. We look forward to a great night of music to help kick off the holiday season.
CONCERT T-SHIRTS
All students in band or choir classes should have received an order and payment form for our concert performance t-shirts. We are moving to the t-shirts to be more uniform and have a greater sense of unity while performing. Shirts are $10 and the form can be sent in to the office. All students in band and choir need to purchase a concert shirt.
FUNDRAISER PICK-UP
Congrats everyone on a great fall fundraiser this year. We received word that between the middle school and the high school we sold over $24,000 worth of product! That is amazing!! Pick up for the sale will be Monday, December 5th from 3:00pm - 5:30pm. ALL ORDERS MUST BE PICKED UP!!! We do not have the space to store orders that are not picked up.
8th Grade
Students have just completed a unit on memoirs. Each student had to reflect on a time in their life that caused them to view themselves or the world differently. Students had to unravel this moment onto paper to provide their reader with a rich and engaging experience. From there, our 8th grade class has launched into a Literary Nonfiction unit, with our common novel being “Warriors Don’t Cry” by Melba Pattillo Beals. To help build background knowledge, students read various articles on events that happened during the 1950s and 1960s. To demonstrate their understanding, students presented their article to small groups of students. As we read our Literary Nonfiction books, students will search for textual evidence that reveals central ideas, social issues, and major themes during the Civil Rights Movement.
MATH
Eighth grade math students recently completed an in-depth study of solving linear equations with rational number coefficients. This included solving equations whose solutions required expanding expressions using the Distributive Property and collecting like terms. They worked through special cases where linear equations may have had no solution or infinitely many solutions. More recently, these students used their newfound talents to write and solve equations in order to find unknown angle measures in triangles. They have just begun learning about the angle-angle criterion for similarity of triangles and will soon begin identifying relationships between angle pairs as either supplementary or congruent through a study of parallel lines cut by a transversal.
Algebra students have now completed their review of Chapters 1-6 and have moved on to studying the remaining chapters of Algebra 1. First up will be a look at exponents and exponential functions. This involves learning about the multiplication and division properties of exponents, working with rational exponents, scientific notation, graphing and identifying exponential functions, solving problems involving exponential growth and decay, compound interest, geometric sequences, and recursive formulas.
SCIENCE
We just finished our unit on Earth's orbit and understood how that causes tides and our seasons. We are now on "Space Exploration", and for an introduction to the unit, students are doing research on one NASA or Space Exploration mission and presenting the background information, as well as the significance of the mission to Space and Science History, before we delve into the unit.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We are currently learning about the Great Depression and the rise of dictatorships and Fascism in Europe to understand better how our next unit on World War II got started.
7th Grade
ELA
The 7th graders have currently been working in partnerships to study an author of their choice to see what makes this particular author so compelling and engaging for readers. Through this study, they have read two different books by their author and have analyzed how their author creates and develops dynamic characters throughout the stories. After completing book one, students designed One-Pagers for their books to showcase their author and what they have learned about characters and perspectives. The 7th graders are just finishing up with book two and are learning about how themes are developed by authors through the characters. To end the unit, partnerships will be using what they have learned and their creativity to produce an author video that spotlights their chosen author and encourages other students to check out some of the books published by this writer. Students are still continuing to strengthen their grammar and vocabulary each week with lessons that are taught alongside the reading and writing units.
MATH
Students are talking about football, money, sea level, yardage as we dive into the Integer unit. Since integers are positive and negative whole numbers, students are relating them to real world examples.
Later in the unit, we will be adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers as we incorporate them into word problems.
Algebra - We began the year studying expressions and now we graduated to equations. This is not new for students, but the Algebra curriculum asks students to write equations from word problems. That is more challenging, but when mastered it will be useful for the remainder of the course and beyond. Students are taking on the challenge and working hard with great attitudes and determination!
SCIENCE
In science the students are learning about cells to better understand how organisms (like humans) function. They have been comparing cells by reading, drawing, and viewing cells under the microscope. In the next couple weeks the students will be preparing their own slides with animal cells and plant cells.
SOCIAL STUDIES
In class we are talking about the major events in America’s history that led up to the American Civil War. We are also researching famous abolitionists (anti-slavery) that fought for the freedom of slaves even before the Civil War began. In addition, the students are also finalizing the research on their “Wonder Questions” about topics related to American history.
6th Grade
As the second quarter is underway, the students in ELA classes are entering their writing unit that leads the middle school writing series. We are learning how to better launch our writing skills. Sixth-grade writing begins with Personal Narrative: Crafting Powerful Life Stories. This unit helps students draw on their lives, learning strategies to generate meaningful story ideas, manage pace, elaborate on important scenes, and deepen insights. This writing unit especially emphasizes the importance of setting goals, practicing strategically, and aiming for high productivity. In the first bend of our writing, I will ask students to generate ideas for personal narratives based on meaningful places, moments, or memories in their lives. Students will practice stretching out key episodes, choosing meaningful details and exact dialogue, and writing from a consistent point of view. Students will be asked to write at least one two-page flash-draft personal narrative each class for practice. Day by day, the quality of their flash-draft narratives will improve as they apply what they are learning.
As for the grammar, students are learning and working on sentence construction. Students are able to find and identify the main subject, the main verb, and the complete thought in order to be able to recognize and identify fragments and run-ons in sentences. These grammar skills will help students become better writers as they are constructing their stories in writing. The sixth graders are learning that good sentence structure is essential to great writing; it adds both clarity and interest. I am looking forward to seeing what creative students we have in sixth grade as they all become narrative writers expressing their emotions and ideas.
MATH
In Block 1 Math, students have been busy working on solving variable equations using inverse operations. While solving equations, students have to remember all that they have learned about negative integer operations when they are applying the distributive property and joining together like terms. Students also will practice solving real-world problems using variable expressions. While the equations have become more complicated, the students have been up to the challenge and working hard!
In Blocks 2 & 3 Math, students just finished up a chapter about the coordinate plane. Many students enjoyed graphing coordinates to create Halloween pictures. Hopefully they shared some of their artwork with you at home. Now we have just started a new chapter about fraction operations. The main focus of the chapter will be division of fractions, whole numbers, and mixed numbers, but all operations will be reviewed. Using a variety of strategies including modeling, students will be able to solve real-world problems involving fractions.
SCIENCE
In November, we are beginning to learn about natural resources. Natural resources can be broken down into two categories, renewable and nonrenewable. Renewable resources are natural resources which are replaced at the same rate that they are consumed by humans. Nonrenewable resources are natural resources that take much longer to be replaced then the rate we are consuming them. Your student should know these definitions already, but if you'd like to have a good science discussion with them, ask them if they think climate change is a real problem or not.
SOCIAL STUDIES
In October, we learned about how America gained its independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. After the war, this new found nation had a lot to figure out! In the next month, we will be learning about America's government(s). Specifically, students will focus on the Articles of Confederation, the Bill of Rights, and key concepts of America's Constitution. Did you know America's first original constitution was made weak on purpose? If you didn't, your student should be able to explain why!
5th Grade
ELA
The fifth graders have been working on complete sentences, sentence fragments, and run on sentences. We are finishing up with this with a short quiz! Our spelling has been going quite smoothly now that we are in a routine. Students have been working on r-influenced vowel sounds. Students have officially finished their first reading unit that focused on theme and author’s craft. They are now working on their Personal Narratives. This has been very fun to watch their ideas come to life on paper! We will be finishing these right before we head off for Thanksgiving Break.
MATH
We have begun Adding and Subtracting Decimals and will continue until we have the full understanding of them so we can compare, read them accurately, understand how decimals relate to money, fractions, and percentage. We plan to wrap up the unit with an assessment by the middle of the month.
SCIENCE
Wrapping up an engineering design unit with a STEM activity, we conducted a boat challenge to understand the design process better. Students found we learn even when we aren’t the first place winner. Moving forward we will be starting to look into MATTER- what it is, some of its basic properties, and how it connects to other inquiries.
SOCIAL STUDIES
The fifth graders have been working on reading maps and using the skills that go along with it. We have completed local geography, and are moving on to the globe. Students will be making globes in class and we can’t wait to see their creativity. In between, we stuck in a mini unit on the government and how everything works. Students are continuing to work on kindness during SEL time on Wednesdays.
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