Ayer Shirley Middle School
November Newsletter
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Principal's Corner
Dear Panther Families,
During the last few weeks we've seen a flurry of activity at the middle school. Teachers and students have built relationships and are deep into the content and skills of their courses. We enjoyed seeing parents at conferences to collaborate on our students' progress. It was also fantastic seeing so many student turning out for the return of our Halloween Event last Friday. Academic milestones, collaborations with families and fun events have made the days fly by!
We are continuing to develop a better understanding of our students needs as the year progresses. Our teachers are discussing how to design lesson plans that support all students. We're also building social emotional resources to ensure mental health and proactively address social emotional needs. As a faculty, we're working to building a learning environment that supports the needs of the whole child.
During the past couple months, we've noticed that many of our kids would benefit from direct conversation about how to be a student. In our enthusiasm to return to practices of a "normal year", we underestimated how that may be a challenge for some. We're working to find way to build shared expectations and habits that are most conducive to learning.
As Thanksgiving approaches, we'd like to express our gratitude to our students and families. You've already demonstrated enormous amount of patience, resilience and generosity. With your support, our students have been able to return to many of the way of life that make middle school so exciting!
Sincerely,
Bryan Oelerich
Important Dates
11/11 - NO SCHOOL (Veteran's Day)
11/15 - 11/19 - Spirit Week
11/24 - 1/2 Day
11/25 - NO SCHOOL (Thanksgiving Break)
11/26 - NO SCHOOL (Thanksgiving Break)
Trimester 1
- Start - 9/1
- Progress Reports Issued - 10/25
- End - 12/3
- Report Cards Issued - 12/13
10/28 & 10/29 Parent Teacher Conferences
Trimester 2
- Start - 12/6
- Progress Reports issued - 2/7/22
- End - 3/8/22
- Report Cards Issued - 3/28/22
Trimester 3
- Start - 3/21/22
- Progress Reports Issued - 5/9/22
- Report Cards Issued - Last Day of School
2/10 & 2/11 Parent Teacher Conferences
November Lunch Menu
ASRMS HONORS OUR VETERANS
Veteran's Breakfast
Halloween Bash
ASPTO Gift Cards Fundraiser
Please check out the information below and in the attachments for an easy way to give back to our schools and get your holiday shopping done at the same time.
Experience the right way to fundraise
Gift card fundraising is a great way to raise money for our schools. Buy gift cards from your favorite brands to earn on all your purchases. No extra money spent. No extra time wasted.
How it works:
Buy gift cards at face value
Earn up to 20% on every gift card you buy
Use gift cards at full value for your everyday purchases
How to get started
Create an account on the RaiseRight app or at ShopWithScrip.com using our organization’s enrollment code: 9B11867L34693
Receive eGift cards immediately with secure online payment from a linked bank account or credit card or use the attached order form to pay by cash/check.
Have questions? Contact: Fran Wilkins – asptoscrip@gmail.com
Ayer Shirley Recreation - Basketball Registration
https://www.ayer.ma.us/parks-recreation/pages/register-pay-online
Winter Sports Registration
Registration for the 2021-22 winter athletic season is now open on FamilyID. User fees ($200 per school year for high school and $100 per school year for middle school) must be paid PRIOR to tryouts. Should your student not make the team, you can request reimbursement. User fees are non-refundable once an athlete makes a team and games begin. Physicals must be up to date and on file with the school to participate.
Register at https://www.familyid.com/programs/ayer-shirley-regional-school-district-winter-athletic-registration-2021-22
Game/meet schedules (some are still unavailable at this time): https://www.arbiterlive.com/Teams?entityId=1066
We offer the following:
Boys and girls high school basketball (grades 9-12)
Boys ice hockey co-op with Lunenburg -- Grades 8-12 (must register here and at Lunenburg's Final Forms)
Girls ice hockey co-op with Leominster (grades 9-12)
Boys and Girls Swimming co-op with Bromfield (must register here and with Bromfield)
Cheerleading (grades 7-12)
Indoor track (grades 8-12)
Middle school boys and girls basketball -- grades 6-8
Competitions will begin at 3:30 or 4 depending on the day and sport. Practices will start no earlier than 2:45, though start times will be staggered throughout the afternoon. Coaches will announce practice schedules soon.
Ski Club
Got Sneakers Fundraiser
Did you know that your gently worn sneakers could help earn funds to support your school?
Well, they can and here’s how: the Ayer-Shirley PTO is participating in a fundraiser where there is nothing to buy or sell; all we need is your support and your gently worn, used, or new sneakers and cleats!
Here’s how you can help:
Start in your family’s closets and gather up all of the sneakers and cleats that you no longer want; maybe you’ve out-grown them, they’re out of style, or out of season. If you and your household have 20 pairs, great! If not, don’t worry. You can ask your neighbors, friends, co-workers, and anyone in your social networks to help out. Every pair counts!
An estimated 600 million pairs of shoes go into America’s landfills every year. 100% of these shoes can be recycled and the majority of these shoes can still be reused. The sneakers that we collect through the GotSneakers program will help us raise much needed funds AND will keep sneakers out of landfills.
Thank you for your support!
The Ayer-Shirley PTO
“Together we can do more”
A Note From the School Nurse
ASMS School Counselors
We can’t believe the school year is going so quickly. It has been great seeing all of the students in person this year and it is a pleasure to work with them and you!
We have started doing career and interest exploration with the students in grades 6 and 7 during their Computer class time with Mrs. Dyer. The students are using the MA CIS/MassHIre website to idenitfy career clusters based on thier interests. The students will then learn about the amount of education they need, the salary and working conditions for jobs within that career cluster. Ask them to see the career profile they created and what they learned about themselves! We will repeat this for students who have computer class in the spring.
In Advisory, students have been working on goal setting and learning about healthy relationships and navigating problems with relationships. Students will also be learning about appropriate use of social media and safety online. As we begin thinking about grade 8 students and their transition to high school, we will soon begin working on Naviance, a college and career exploration platform used in many schools to assist students in planning through high school and beyond.
There are still many challenges with this school year and we are attempting to support students and families in every way we can. Our partnership with the BRYT Program gives us the opportunity to make additional resources available to families. Please see this FLYER for Parents Supporting Parents groups. Also, this 90 minute video, Helping your Child Re-engage with School in Another “Not Normal” Year, has useful information to help support students in school this year.
As a reminder, Ms. Brine has students with last names beginning with A-H and some exceptions on her caseload. Ms. Esielionis has students with last names beginning with I-Z and some exceptions on her caseload. We are glad to have Mr. Caissie as our school counseling intern this year!
Grade 6 - Green Team
In Social Studies, students are learning how to study history and think like historians, which includes evaluating sources. Mathematicians are wrapping up their first unit on Ratios and Rates, and will be heading to the second unit at the start of November. Get ready for some fraction and decimal fun! In ELA, students are reading with purpose and are learning to pull evidence from multiple sources to support a claim in their writing. Scientists just learned about seasons, so as we enter into Winter, make sure to ask them to explain to you why it is changing! We look forward to continuing seeing the success and growth of all our sixth graders!
Grade 6/7 - Purple Team
6th Grade: Such an exciting time to be a 6th grader as we are starting to learn how to think, study, and accurately research like a historian. This unit is demonstrating how to synthesize between primary & secondary sources, evaluating and corroborating evidence, while identifying biases and purpose.
7th Grade: Students are actively engaged in our unit on Ancient Greece. In particular, we are studying Helenistic culture and Greek contributions to the modern world. For example, art & architecture, philosophy and literature, government and Athenian democracy.Science
6th grade - students developed and created choice projects to demonstrate their understanding of the lunar cycle and the moon phases.
ELA
6th Grade: Students have been learning about plot structure and the Hero’s Journey through reading Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief along with various myths and also various articles for informative reading.They are also preparing to write their first full essay.
7th Grade: Along with reading and reviewing plot structure through the book,The Outsiders, students worked in groups to put together an informative slide presentation on topics of the 1960’s (in which the book takes place) and presented them to the class.
Math
6th grade: Students worked on ratios and unit rates. We are now transitioning to graphing on the coordinate plane in all 4 quadrants.
Grade 7 - Blue Team
ELA with Mr. Veeder - Currently wrapping our short story unit: In Pursuit.
Next week begins our journey into the first writing benchmark of the year, an essay that explores the question: what does it take to succeed at a mission? Students will be guided through all steps for how to plan, draft, and select key evidence from the text as support.
Math with Mr. Batinsey - Dr. Pataky also hosts a Chess and Games Club after school on Wednesdays. Both Dr. Pataky and myself stay after school to play games with students and they’re welcome to invite friends to play board games, Xbox, Wii, card games, or whatever kind of games they want!
Science with Mrs. Kauppi - Here are some items that you may have at home and we could use in science class:
● Plastic lettuce containers
● Paper towel and toilet paper rolls
● Any seeds that you may have not gotten into your garden this past summer.
We’ve begun our study of Earth’s Changing Surface. Students recently presented a phenomenon that causes Earth’s surface to change. Everyone did a great job!
Social Studies with Dr. Pataky - Next week we will soon be starting a new unit on Ancient Greece. Students will be given two different vocabulary lists (one at the beginning of the unit and one toward the middle of the unit). We will start with Greek geography and move into general history and mythology.
Students took their 1st Greek vocabulary list quiz today (Friday, Oct. 22nd). Students can make up the quiz if they are out with me after school on Mondays or Tuesdays. Please check the Portal for up-to-date grades.
Foreign Language with Mr. Maguire - We are finishing up our excellent French Speaking Country Projects. Students presented individually, and we all learned a lot on an interdisciplinary basis. In our curriculum, we’re working on food and drink. Bon appetit!
Mr. Nessman & Ms. Sergi’s Corner - We have completed our Comma Bootcamp and have begun our Organizational Olympics. In November, we will be taking our second round of Writing and Math Benchmarks.
Grade 8 - Maroon Team
This fall the ELA students are studying spooky short stories and determining how the author creates suspense. So far we’ve read Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl and The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs. They are also working on their informative writing skills but informing on author’s craft and using textual evidence to defend their claims. Students also have an outside reading book of their choice and are completing nightly reading logs!
In science, we have just begun our unit on weather! Students will be learning about the different variables that affect the weather and how weather changes on a daily basis. They will also be tracking the weather of a certain city over a period of time. Students will have the opportunity to be the "meteorologist for the day" where they can earn extra credit points if they present the daily weather to their class.
In Spanish class we are learning how to express the date using numbers, days of the week, and months of the year. This is a segue into the next culture unit on El Día de Los Muertos! Following this unit, students will learn how to express the weather and then take their first chapter test!
In Civics we are wrapping up studying how English ideas of governing influenced America, such as the Magna Carta and English Bill of Rights. We are moving on to the 7 Years War but more importantly how the debt England accrued led to divisions between many colonists and the British government. Meanwhile, we are creating our own classroom government and will soon be holding elections for President of each class. Afterwards, we will begin to hold elections for our class Congress. Once our President, Vice President and Congress is set up, the President will nominate members to the Supreme Court. When confirmed, each class will be able to begin to address issues presented to them or ones they come up with using governmental solutions!
Unified Arts
6th grade enrichment students are weaving drawstring bags. I will gladly accept any yarn donations as we are quickly going through our yarn stash!
8th grade enrichment students will be starting a soap carving activity and a papier-mache activity. Enrichment students should bring in an empty cereal box.
STEM - This week in STEM UA we are discussing Materials and their Properties. Commonly used materials include woods, metals, and plastics, as well as ceramics, fabrics, and glass. We are studying
properties make them good choices to use in certain applications, and what properties would make the material a poor choice to use. We will be creating our concert venue models soon using some of these ideas.
Music - 6th grade
6th graders are currently learning about instruments found in band and orchestra. We will soon be tying in sound waves and how we hear. The next project we will be working on is to build our own instruments - start saving those recyclables to turn into musical instruments! Students have also been learning how to play simple songs on the keyboards. If you have one at home, ask them to show you!
7th graders are writing lyrics to their own blues song. They have learned about the 12 bar blues, and are learning how to play some chords on the keyboard. After the blues, students will learn about jazz music.
8th graders are currently learning about different careers in the music industry. They have also started learning some guitar chords. If anyone has a pair of wire cutters that could be donated to the music room to help change guitar strings, it would be much appreciated!
Band students are hard at work practicing their instruments! We try to play outside as much as possible, but the weather is changing, so that will happen less and less. Just a reminder that as we move indoors, students will need instrument masks and bell covers. We have been using paper masks with a slit cut out for the mouthpiece. Bell covers can be as simple as a double layer of cloth secured over the bell of the instrument. Instrument masks and bell covers are available to purchase through Amazon if anyone would like to purchase one. (a simple search will bring up many options). Please email Mrs Fletcher if you have any questions.
Band
Band Facebook link:
ASRSD Athletics
After School Clubs
Homework Club - Mondays
Art Club - Mondays
Games Club - Wednesdays
Student Council - Wednesdays
Diversity Club - Fridays
Guitar Club - Fridays
District Calendar
2021-2022 COVID Dashboard
Spirit Wear
https://route2apparel.com/ASRSD/shop/products/middle_school?page=1
ASPTO Meeting Schedule 2021-2022
Second Tuesday of each month at 7:15 pm in the Middle School Library
October 12th
November 9th
December 14th
January 11th
February 8th
March 8th
April 12th
May 10th
June 14th
“Together We Can Do More”
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/aspto
ASPTO Monthly Events
November
9 SCRIP gift card orders due for delivery by Thanksgiving
9 PTO meeting - ASRMS Library & via Zoom
- 6:30pm - executive board (open to public)
- 7:00pm - LAW elementary committee
- 7:30pm - Middle school committee
18 MCM pies orders order pickup @ ASRMS (TODAY ONLY)
- NOTE: These are frozen food items. Please pickup on time.
19-24 SCRIP gift card order pickup - orders placed by Nov 9th
Loaves & Fishes
Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry provides food and support to any residents of Ayer, Devens, Groton, Harvard, Littleton and Shirley who need help.
DRIVE-THRU PANTRY SCHEDULE
Open 9:00am to 12:00pm on the following days:
September 1, 8, 10, 15, 18, 22, 24, 29
October 1, 6, 8, 13, 16, 20, 22, 27, 29
November 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 20, *22, 24
December 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 18, *20, 22, 29
*Special Events:
Thanksgiving Dinner Distribution
November 22 – 10am-1pm and 4pm-6pm
Holiday Dinner Distribution
December 20 – 10am-1pm and 4pm-6pm
Weather Related Closings
For weather-related closings, please check for news posts here on the website, follow us on Facebook or call us at 978-772-4627 to listen to a recorded message.
234 Barnum Road Call us or come see us.
Devens, MA 01434 We can help.
(978) 772-4627 x312
Hannaford Helps Schools
Raising money for your school is as easy as 1 2 3 and A B C
1. Shop. Choose from more than 1200 participating products to help earn money for your school!
2. Check Out. Get 3 school dollars for every 4 participating products you purchase.
3. Submit. Deposit your school dollars in the collection tower in the Lunenburg Hannaford store, located at the front of the registers with our school name on it. And / Or you can send them into the Middle School.
***NOTE*** You can still shop at any Hannaford and receive school dollars, but you will need
to bring your receipt into school. The ASRMS is registered at the Lunenburg loaction.
Please click on this link for more information and a full list of participating products: http://www.hannaford.com/assets/hf/assets/pdf/cms/abouthannaford/HHS_Shopping_Companion.pdf
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Terri Rollins at ext. 1202