Hickory Creek Newsletter
October 2022
School Goals 2022-2023
- We will continue to provide rigor and opportunity for academic growth to all students in grades 6th - 8th.
Social/Emotional Goal:
- We will support staff and student social and emotional needs and enhance the opportunity for growth in relationships.
Communication Goal:
- We will increase opportunities for family engagement both during the school day and through extra-curricular activities.
Safety Goal:
- We will provide a safe learning environment for staff and students in grades 6th - 8th.
Being Successful at HCMS
- Thank you for your continued effort to get all kids to HCMS by 7:35 each morning so that we can start promptly at 7:45 A.M.
- Students are only allowed to bring water, in bottles that have lids that close, to school. Please do not allow students to bring coffee or open containers of other beverages.
- Students are encouraged to use their assignment notebooks on a daily basis. This is a great way for students and families to stay updated on daily homework and upcoming tests, projects, etc.
Hickory Creek Book Fair
Red Ribbon Week and Anti-Bully Awareness Month
Throughout the month, students will participate in anti-bully activities. They will learn how to advocate for themselves and others who may be in unfortunate situations with bullying.
We will celebrate the awareness of Red Ribbon Week the week of October 24th-28th.
Hickory Creek September Pictures
Important Dates
October 7th - 1/2 Day - SIP Day
October 7th - Fall Fastbridge reports will be sent home
October 10th - No School
October 11th- 14th - FSP Book Fair
October 12th - Band Booster Hot Lunch
October 13th - Picture Retake Day and Sports Picture Day (Golf, Baseball, Softball, Boys Volleyball, Cross Country).
October 19th - FSP Hot Lunch
October 21st - End of Quarter 1
October 24th- 28th - Red Ribbon Week
October 26th - Education Foundation Hot Lunch
October 26th- Quarter 1 grades finalized and ready for viewing online
October 31st - 1/2 Day - SIP Day - Honor Roll Certificates go home.
6th Grade ELA
In ELA Core classes, students will continue to follow the true story of Pennsylvania native, Caitlin and Zimbabwean born, Martin, whose remarkable story shows readers how one person’s kindness can change the lives of others, in the heartfelt memoir, I Will Always Write Back. Students will also learn the elements of an argument, identifying types of evidence, and summarization of main ideas. Our final Outcome Assessment for the quarter will also be in October. Honors classes will begin the sequel, Copyboy, by Vince Vawter, the second, in a two-book series.
6th Grade Math
6th Grade Science
6th Grade Social Studies
7th Grade ELA
As students wrap up our literature unit with The Outsiders, we will begin reading informational text and focusing on developing our ability to determine the central idea of a text.
Honors ELA students are moving forward with our next novel study, Okay for Now. Throughout this novel study students will be analyzing the impacts that are revealed between characters. Reading informational text will be embedded throughout our novel unit that will connected to the text.
At the end of the month, all students will begin the argumentative writing process.
7th Grade Math
7th Grade Science
7th Grade Social Studies
8th Grade ELA
8th Grade Math
Students in Honors Math are finishing their unit on Linear Functions which will be followed by Linear Equations and Inequalities.
8th Grade Science
8th Grade Social Studies
8th Grade Washington D.C. Trip
Megan and team have chosen to travel with WorldStrides because of their exceptional service, their 50 years of experience, their safety record, and their preventive measures that ensure learning occurs in a safe and fun environment. She will chaperone the program with other parents as needed, and throughout the program our group will be guided by a WorldStrides-certified Course Leader.
There will be a trip information meeting to discuss this wonderful opportunity on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at 7:00 PM via Zoom.com Meeting ID: 818 5845 7800 Passcode: 510998. All parents and students are invited to attend this brief 30-minute meeting where I’ll share more information about WorldStrides, review some of the trip highlights, and explain some of the tools available to help pay for the trip.
Spanish
8th Grade Spanish 1 students are currently learning vocabulary and grammar in Capitulo 3A: La Comida (Food). They are learning to talk about what they typically eat and drink for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We will also tie in some cultural foods and drinks of the Spanish-speaking world including maíz, churros, and agua fresca. Students will be assessed on their interpretive listening and communicative speaking skills for this unit.
7th Graders are learning about the Spanish Subject Pronouns. They will use this knowledge as they begin to conjugate the verb “ser” to describe people and things. We will wrap up the quarter with Capitulo 2B: Tu salón de clase (Your Classroom) where they will learn to communicate the location of classroom objects with the verb “estar” and prepositional phrases.
6th Grade Spanish students are finishing Capitulo 1B: ¿Cómo eres tú? (What are you like?) where they are learning to describe their personality. They will be assessed on their communicative speaking skills for this unit. We will wrap up the quarter with Capitulo 2A: Tu dia en la escuela (Your day at school) and learn to talk about their school schedule.
Art
8th Grade Sculpture and Design students are exploring the relationships between shape, color and form as they design and build color scale mobiles.
7th Grade art students are practicing expressing emotion in their work through designing and building mood masks out of clay.
6th Grade art students are investigating functional art by designing and building ceramic coil pots.
Music
First Quarter is going great!!!
Sixth and seventh graders learned how to read, write, and perform rhythms using world instruments and online software. We just started exploring Melody and Harmony playing instruments and using online sites: hcms.sites.noteflight.com and soundtrap.com!
The Eighth grade Instrumental class is continuing to explore music through guitars.
The Eighth Grade Video Production class is hard at work creating video features, graphics, writing scripts, filming, and editing for our weekly Broadcast of Tiger TV.
STEM
8th Grade STEM students have coded their own video games and are putting their skills to use with the robotics unit. They coded their Sphero Bolt robots to compete in various Olympic style events and we will crown gold, silver, and medalists at the end of the games. Looking forward this month, we will build and code our Lego Mindstorms to transform into battle bots and compete in bot style events and tasks.
7th Grade STEM students have completed 2 goals. The second goal was 3D design where they chose their own creation and designed it using the TinkerCad program. They will each get their items 3D printed and sent home by the end of the Quarter. Our next goal will be designing something using the Cricut machine. We can’t wait to see their creations!
6th Grade students have been enjoying our Robotics unit. They have been putting their coding skills to work with the Sphero, Lego Mindstorms, Makey-Makey and Micro-Bit programs. They are getting to be experts! We will finish off the quarter with video production using WeVideo.
PE
- Fitness Room & Heart Rate Monitors
- Frisbee Golf
- Tennis
- Flag Football.
We have also been finishing up our FitnessGram testing and creating fitness goals for this school year. Fitness Fridays are off to a hot start as we had Mayor Keith Ogle of Frankfort came in during a Fitness Friday on September 23rd to move with the kids.
Tiger Time Advisory
Tiger Time
- Monday - Tiger Time TV viewing
- Tuesday - Executive Functioning Skills
- Wednesday - "WIN Day" - What I Need Help With Day
- Thursday - SEL Lessons based on the Second Step Curriculum
- Friday - Team Building
Second Step Social and Emotional Lessons for the month of October
6th Grade Lessons
Lesson: Common Types of Bullying
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will discuss different types of bullying, and increase their awareness that bullying can look and feel different in each situation.
Question
Ask your child if they have experienced bullying or negative jokes recently. Encourage them to tell you how it made them feel and let them know you’re there to support them.
Lesson: Responding to Online Bullying
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will use what they know about in-person bullying to compare it to online bullying. They’ll learn and apply different strategies for responding to online bullying in a safe and healthy way.
Question
Tell your child your thoughts on how social media has changed since you were in school. Ask your child about their thoughts on the benefits and disadvantages of social media in the world today.
Lesson: How to Be an Upstander
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn three “upstander strategies” for responding to bullying. They’ll practice analyzing different bullying situations and choosing an upstander strategy they think would work best for each situation.
Question
Ask your child about the three upstander strategies they learned and which one (or ones) they feel most comfortable with. Let them know they can always come to you if they need someone to talk to.
Lesson: What Emotions Tell You
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to recognize the kind of information their emotions can give them in different situations and how that information can be useful.
Question
Ask your child what type of emotions they felt today. Tell them the emotions you felt. What information did they get from those emotions? What did your emotions tell you?
7th Grade
Lesson: Overcoming Roadblocks
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to use If–Then plans to overcome roadblocks. If–Then Plans help your child anticipate potential roadblocks and come up with plans for addressing them.
Question
Ask your child to explain to you what an If–Then Plan is. Work together to make a plan for how your child can respond positively to a difficult situation they might encounter at home.
Lesson: Overcoming Roadblocks
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will identify a goal they want to work on, anticipate roadblocks, and develop an If–Then Plan for their own goal.
Question
Think of a time you achieved a big goal, such as learning to drive or graduating from school. Tell your child about your big goal and some of the smaller goals you needed to finish in order to achieve it. Ask your child to tell you about a goal they have.
Lesson: What Is Harassment?
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to recognize harassment and tell how it’s different from bullying.
Question
Talk to your child about an example of harassment you heard about, or—if you’re comfortable—something you experienced. Ask your child how this is different from bullying.
Lesson: What Is Sexual Harassment?
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to recognize the difference between sexual harassment and flirting so they can make informed decisions about how to respond.
Question
Remind your child that it's important that they tell you if they experience sexual harassment. If you feel comfortable doing so, share an example of sexual harassment you or another person has experienced and how you or the other person dealt with it.
Lesson: Gender-Based Harassment
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to recognize gender-based harassment. This is when people are bothered, teased, or bullied because of their sex, or because they look, act, or have interests that are different from male and female stereotypes.
Question
Remind your child that it's important that they tell you if they experience gender-based harassment. If you feel comfortable doing so, share an example of gender-based harassment you or another person has experienced and how you or the other person dealt with it.
8th Grade Lessons
Lesson: My Future Self
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will imagine who they want to be in the future.
Question
Ask your child what they want their life to look like in the future. What skills or abilities do they want to have? What qualities or values do they want to develop?
Lesson: Social Factors that Contribute to Bullying
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will consider other people’s attitudes and beliefs about bullying and harassment, as well as their own.
Question
Share your thoughts and feelings around bullying and harassment with your child. Find out where you and your child agree and disagree and have a respectful discussion.
Lesson: Environmental Factors That Contribute to Bullying
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will identify environmental factors (the physical space and rules of an area) that contribute to bullying and harassment, and explore how they contribute to bullying and harassment in their school.
Question
Ask your child what environmental factors are. Share your observations about environmental factors that you’ve witnessed in the world outside of school.
Lesson: Speak Up and Start a Movement
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will explore how two strategies, speaking up and starting a movement, can disrupt the factors that enable bullying and harassment.
Question
Ask your child about these strategies and how they think they can help eliminate bullying and harassment in their school. Expand your discussion to include areas outside of school.
Nurse Updates
From the Desk of Nurse Tammy
October 14th is the due date for all IL Health Exams and Immunizations for all 6th graders & new students. The Health History/parent portion must be completed and signed as well. Please forward these to the nurse's office as soon as possible.
- Students not in compliance will be excluded from school starting on October 17th. All medical forms can be found on the district website.
Reminder, medications cannot be carried at school without proper medical orders from provider on file. If you still need to update forms or health care plans, please call.
Vision and Hearing screening will start in November for all 8th grade students.
Library News
From the Desk of Mrs. Raynes
Our author visit with Dan Gemeinhart is Thursday, November 3rd!
His books are now available for purchase on the district’s website under ONLINE PAYMENTS. Purchase your copy(ies) before October 14th and have them autographed while he’s here! You can find a description and prices of the books on the book sale form available on Mrs. Rayne’s teacher page or in the library.
We have received most of our 2023 Caudill titles thanks to the FSP and students are busy reading them! Read 3 or more titles by February and be qualified to vote for your favorite title. Be a part of choosing the winning title for the state!
Extra Curriculars
Drama Club
Lights! Camera! Action! The HCMS Drama Club is in full swing! Presently, members attend weekly rehearsals, perfecting their chosen scripts. Students work with their coaches and group members on memorization, voice, body and facial expression, stage movement, and characterization. Each practice brings us closer to the IESA State Speech Contest, at Peotone Junior High, on Friday, November 11th.
We have such an amazing group of talented students at HCMS! We cannot wait to see their performances!
Drama Club Coachers: Pam Swierczewski, Rebecca Schumacher, Dave Wonder, and Renee’ Grady
Band and Orchestra
Student Council
Our first big project will be supporting the Lady Tiger Basketball teams in October with the annual Pink Out game. Student Council will be helping to promote the game, work concessions, as well as raising money to support this important cause. Our next meetings will be October 11th (6th grade) and October 18th (7th and 8th grades).
Best Buddies
National Junior Honor Society
Our next meeting will take place on: Friday, October 28th
POZ Squad
Please see our meeting dates for upcoming meetings this year:
Sept. 14
Sept 28
Oct. 12
Oct. 26
Nov. 2
Nov. 9
JV and Varsity Girls' Basketball
We are also excited to announce the return of our Breast Cancer Awareness Pink Out Game on Tuesday October 25 at home starting at 4:00pm. Come cheer on your Tigers are raise money for the advancements in breast cancer research.
6th Grade Girls' Basketball
Cross Country
The Cross Country team participated in the Troy invite on Saturday, Sept. 17th. All races consisted of around 200 kids. The 8th grade girls team finished 1st for their race.
Notable finishers:
- 6th Grade Boys: Jack Doyle - 9th
- 7th Grade Boys: Brendan Hanrahan – 16th
- 7th Grade Girls: Dani Schedin - 18th and Annie Gabey – 19th
- 8th Grade Boys: Nathan Schroers - 6th place
- 8th Grade Girls: Ava Feigl - 4th Emily Creech - 5th Alina Puri - 11th Maddie Valerius - 17th