Jonas Clarke Middle
News and Notes / January 2017
From the Principal
Thanks to all who came out to our winter choral, band and orchestra concerts! I know it is a busy time of year but we are so proud of the hard work of our students and staff all fall. We hope that you can make time to come and see the Wizard of Oz production going on at Clarke January 26th - 28th. It is sure to be a wonderful production and Ms. Brown and the cast have been working so hard. Wait until you see the costumes and set designs. Amazing!
As you can see, our addition is coming along. In September of 2017 we will have a brand new addition with 10 new classrooms giving us the much needed space for our ever expanding population. Next year, we will have 12 teams in the building with four at each grade level. Wow! New classrooms just in time. Currently we are working on finalizing furniture and technology plans and starting to analyze which classrooms will go where. It's a long and complicated process but it will all be worth it in the end. Thank you for your patience with construction, parking and traffic this year.
As a gentle reminder, please do NOT pick up or drop off your child in the rear of the school. There is not enough room for buses, cars and pedestrians and now with the snow arriving, road space is at a premium. Please look out for the safety of our students and neighbors and if you are driving to pick up or drop off your child please do so in the front of the building. In addition, If you are waiting to pick up your child we remind you that it is a NO IDLING zone at Clarke so kindly turn off your engines while you wait. Thank you very much.
Upcoming Dates and Events
PTO Meeting | January 12 - 8:45AM
Early Release Day | January 12
Quarter 2 Grades Close | January 13
Wizard of Oz | January 26 - 28
Get your tickets now at the main office or online here!
Clarke PTO News
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Art 6 at Clarke
Math at Clarke
News from Grade 6
Atlantis
In Ancient Civilizations, students recently completed their Early Humans unit with the Awesome Hominid Research Project. Students worked in groups to complete research on a hominid and then presented their research to the class in the form of a play, musical, or song. The presentations were very informative, creative and quite comical. In the coming weeks, students will be learning about Otzi the "Ice Man" who lived in 3300 B.C.E. Students will learn about how he lived and try to uncover the truth to his mysterious death. The mystery behind Otzi's death has left archeologists puzzled for over two decades. Students will use the skills we have been practicing throughout the year to examine evidence and write an argumentative claim about how and why Otzi died!
“In English on Atlantis we just finished writing argumentative essays. These were challenging! In the essay we had to show that either Bryce or Julie (from Flipped) changed because they were dynamic characters. Now, we are learning poetry. What I've learned in poetry is that you can write about feelings. My favorite poem so far was “Abandoned Farmhouse” by Ted Kooser. I liked it a lot because it was a mystery. We had to find clues in the poem to solve the mystery of what went wrong on the farm.” - Conor Flaherty
Throughout the last few weeks in math class we have thoroughly covered fractions. We have multiplied, divided, added and subtracted them. We have also made models to show how well we understand them. In addition, we have talked about reciprocals of fractions as well as why we use the reciprocal step when dividing fractions. - Caroline Purdy
Atlantis students of science have completed their examination of the earth as part of our solar system and have moved towards attempting to understand exactly why earth has seasons. We are hoping to dissolve the misconception that distance from the sun is the most important factor. Soon we will begin discussion of our changing climate.
Atlantis’ Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions
Former Atlantis students have passed along New Year’s Resolutions as advice for our current Atlantians to try and put into practice in 2017. This list represents many of their suggestions:
- I resolve to do better in school by doing all of my homework right when I get home before I do anything else.
- I resolve to do better in school by paying more attention in class.
- I resolve to read questions more carefully, so I don't get answers wrong.
- I resolve to do better on tests by studying more and checking my answers.
- I resolve to be nice to my siblings by listening to them instead of ignoring them.
- I resolve to get up on time in the morning by cutting down on my screen time, so I get to bed earlier.
- I resolve to make new friends by joining clubs and teams and by being friendlier.
- I resolve to be more athletic by signing up for sports and stretching every day.
- I resolve to get to classes on time by not talking so much in the hallways.
- I resolve to never give up by always believing in myself and trying my hardest.
BONUS - I resolve to be a better Bruins / Patriots fan by watching more of the games.
Columbia
During the second quarter, Columbia students have been reading Tuck Everlasting in English, exploring human evolution in Ancient Civilizations, practicing fractions in math, and studying the weather in science. During the weather unit, students designed a Class Dojo to help set goals for the unit. Now that they completed Tuck Everlasting, students started analyzing the way characters develop throughout the novel. Finally, to show their knowledge of human evolution, students wrote and performed a song. In this song, students argued which human adaptation was most important for survival. All of the performances were outstanding! Students worked really hard researching information to include in their lyrics. A photo from the performance can be seen below. I am in the process of uploading some the videos on our private google classroom. Feel free to check them out. Several Columbia students joined the Model UN club. They will be representing Clarke at a conference in Stow, MA this weekend. Please note that we will be traveling to the Museum of Science as a team on Thursday, January 19th. We are looking forward to the trip. Feel free to check our website for homework and updated happenings.
Quest
Happy New Year! The Quest team had a great time on the field trip to the science museum before the winter break. The students learned about extreme weather - tornadoes, fires, and droughts. They enjoyed watching the movie in the Omni theater. After the movie, we went to the planetarium and a museum staff member gave a presentation about the stars and solar system. The students were able to answer a lot of the questions. They enjoyed the day!
In English, we are finishing up our characterization unit in which we tracked how dynamic character evolved over the course of the novel. During this unit, we started literary analysis writing. This is very challenging, and I applaud the students' efforts. Next, we will begin poetry and focus on author's use of figurative language. Students will even try their hand at writing some of their own poetry!
Quest Math students are wrapping up their third unit, fractions. In this unit (Let’s Be Rational) they explored algorithms for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions and modeled these operations visually. In working through the textbook investigations, students worked collectively to discover where the fraction algorithms originate and why they actually work. Our most recent classroom quote to remember: “The one doing the talking is the one doing the learning!”
Ancient Civ is finishing up our early human unit. We spent time in the IMC researching an early human group. After we finished our research, each group had to create an Early Human Musical. Every group did a great job. Currently we are working on taking our notes and working on writing good sentences. The skills we worked on were sourcing, note taking, analyizing facts, and writing claim statements.
Voyager
Voyager students are eagerly awaiting their first field trip of the school year! Later this month students will have a chance to get up close and personal with the forces of nature when we visit the Museum of Science. A trip to the Omni, followed by a live presentation, and a chance to tour the exhibition halls, makes this learning adventure a team favorite
In Voyager English, students are writing their first long form argumentative essay based on the close analysis of Winnie Foster in our novel Tuck Everlasting. Students are learning how to write a thesis and defend it with multiple argumentative paragraphs. This is a challenging task and the students are showing incredible grit and perseverance! After we wrap up this assignment, we will begin our poetry unit where students will read, create and analyze all different styles of poetry. The unit will culminate with a “Poetry Stroll” of the poetry collections each student will write.
With an understanding of what it takes to be an archaeologists firmly under our belts, Voyager Historians set off on a magical tour of early humans. Members of Team Voyager are now
able to identify the several stages of evolutionary development and the major changes and progress that early humans made throughout the years. Members of Team Voyager sharpened their research paper writing skills as we practiced identifying reliable sources, note-taking, and outlining. With the research diaries nearly complete, the team eagerly awaits the live broadcast of Hominid Idol: Season 6 “Return of the Stone Tool”. The competition will be fierce, but our students are up to the task!
In Voyager science, students have been investigating the science concepts that influence New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world. They developed and presented fantastic arguments, and even had a lot of counter arguments. We are now starting to look at how the sun influence of Sun-Earth connections as we explore the seasons, weather and climate.
In Voyager Math we are about to finish our third unit in CMP3, Let’s Be Rational. The students have worked hard to create models that support algorithms for fractions. The real challenge was to develop the ability to examine a problem situation and determine the correct operations and steps to solve this problem and defend the solution. My favorite quote for this quarter is out of the University of Cambridge, online math challenge website, http://nrich.maths.org, Mathematics is a creative subject. It involves spotting patterns, making connections, finding new ways of looking at things and using what you already know in new contexts. Creative mathematicians play around with examples, draw good pictures, have the courage to experiment and ask good questions.” If you’d like to learn more about helping your child with math, please visit the parent section on https://www.youcubed.org/. There are some wonderful articles about the changing world of math education.