South Central Middle School
We Have The Right Mental Attitude
News from the JH
ELA 8
In 8th Grade Reading, we are learning about WWII, the Holocaust, and Anne Frank. Students worked on creating a double timeline incorporating Anne's life and the major events of WWII. We just finished Act I of the Anne Frank play and moving on to Act II this week. Students are focusing on plot development, characterization, and conflict as we continue reading the play.
In 8th Grade Advanced ELA, we are reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It is a memoir sharing Elie's life experiences through the Holocaust and WWII. Students watched and discussed an interview with Elie Wiesel walking through Auschwitz explaining his experiences to Oprah Winfrey. We have completed the first two sections of his book.
In 8th Grade English, students are working on a passion or life soundtrack project. For the passion project, students selected something that they wanted to learn more about such as a new skill, language, topic, future careers, etc. Then they are going to write about their progress and learning each day they work on it. In the end, students will write a reflection about their learning and how much they learned. For the life soundtrack project, students will select and summarize 10 major events in their lives. Then find music that connects to each life event. Afterward, they are writing about how that piece of music connects to the event and designing a soundtrack cover. Students will present both projects beginning May 11th.
Finally, I am so proud of all of my students for their hard work on the Reading Ohio State Test!
ELA 7
April 20th and 21st we completed our state testing with students working hard and putting in a lot of effort to do well on the test. In addition, we are finishing up figurative language menu projects.
With testing out of the way we are doing literature circles in reading. Students were able to choose from several novels and then work in small groups reading and taking turns completing “jobs” to further enforce many of the standards that we have covered this year. Students were excited to get to choose from titles such as, Ghost, Hatchet, Walk Two Moons, The Hunger Games, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Great Expectations. Jobs consist of Word Wizard, Discussion Director, Travel Tracker, Connector and Summarizer. They will be doing a Choice Board of final projects that go along with their novels. Some of the projects include creating a playlist of songs that represent their characters, character interviews, Bio poem and Found poems to name a few.
MM/STEM/Tech
Over the past few months students in Mrs. Oney’s 7th & 8th grade Multimedia and Tech classes have been using Adobe Spark, Photoshop, Canva, and WeVideo to create designs and movies for Trojan News Today, our video announcements. Currently students are researching and learning about the history of Cedar Point in preparation for their upcoming field trip on May 21st. Students are also working on the 8th grade Farewell movie which features photos and videos of the 8th grade.
Students in Mrs. Oney’s STEM class are practicing their math and problem-solving skills as they use meter sticks and iPads to write programs for Cue Robots. Students programmed their Cue Robots to sketch designs, travel through mazes, run obstacle courses and even dance to music! Students put together a “gripper kit” made of legos which enabled the robot to pick up items and transport them to different locations. Students will wrap up the robotics unit using accessories that will push or hit objects over long distances. Following the robotics unit will be a unit on drones in which students will be using simulation software to code tello drones. Students will test their code by flying the tello drones through hoops in the gym. It’s been a fun and educational first year in STEM!
7th and 8th Grade Cedar Point Field Trip
On Friday May 21st seventh and eighth grade students will be attending Cedar Point. The purpose of this trip is to let students get hands on experience in the areas of forces such as friction, centrifugal and thrust, strength of materials such as wood and steel, the strongest shapes to build rollercoasters which are arches and triangles, and energy in the form of kinetic and potential. If the weather is bad on the 21st the make up date will be May 28th.
News from the 6th grade
6th graders have been working hard the second half of the year. They have done projects in Science and Math. They graduated from DARE and they are working hard to get ready for the upcoming tests.
Test Dates ahead:
Wednesday May 5th- Math AIRS
Tuesday May 11th- Sci Procore
Thursday May 13th - SS Procore
Tuesday May 18th - Math MAP
Thursday May 20th - ELA MAP
Make sure the students are getting a good night's sleep and are having a good breakfast in the morning on testing days.
Final exams will be the last two weeks of school.
We are planning a small field trip to the Green Witch Suds & Sundaes on May 27th. Students will bring home information about the trip and the permission slip form in the coming weeks.
The 6th graders will be wrapping up their courses this Spring. They will be reading the book “The Crossover” in ELA class. There will be a final project in Math class that they will be working on in class. In Science class they will be doing some experiments.
Be sure to encourage your student and make sure they keep working hard and putting forth their best effort.
Students in Mrs. Oney’s Computers 6 classes have been creating “mystery images” in google sheets. This is known as conditional formatting and involves students writing a formula that will allow the application to fill in a cell with a color based on that formula. Students have had fun creating their own designs for this project. Students are currently reviewing how to be better searchers on the Internet through a series of lessons known as “Google Genius”. These lessons include how to use keywords in a search, how to skim and scan search results, and how to determine if a website is a reliable one to use for research purposes.
Upcoming Dates for May
5/5 Spring Band Concert at 6:30 at the Football Stadium
5/4-5/5 State Math Test
5/6 State Science Test (Grade 5)
5/3-5/7 Teacher Appreciation Week
5/7 8th grade Farewell Gathering at 6:00pm
5/10 Huron County Spelling Bee
5/11 State Science Test (Grade 8)
5/12 Washington DC Parent Meeting for grades 6-7
5/16 Band Banquet (grades 7-12)
5/21 Cedar Point Field Trip
5/28 Last Day of School-Early Release
About us
Email: amckee@south-central.org
Website: south-central.org
Location: 3291 Greenwich Angling Road, Greenwich, OH, USA
Phone: (419) 752-0011
Twitter: @scms_trojans