The Falcon Flash
Return to Face-to-Face
Principal's Message
Happy holiday season! We hope that your most recent holiday break was enjoyable. We are pleased to reiterate the message that was sent to families by our District offices--we will be returning to fully face-to-face beginning on Monday, November, 7. We will always strive to have students in the building experiencing a high quality education in person with fantastic teachers. In order to continue with face-to-face instruction, we all need to play our part. We know that practicing social distancing, wearing masks, and washing hands will create safer interactions amongst people. The better we are at following the advice of the professionals, the more likely it is that our building will remain open for teaching and learning to occur. Thank you for all of your efforts and support.
As we return to face-to-face there are just a few reminders. Breakfast and lunch are being provided by the State this year. Students will continue to sign up for meals while at school. Drop-off and pick-up were beginning to find a groove prior to transitioning to virtual. Please be patient in the morning and afternoon. School officially ends at 2:50PM. Most days, all cars are gone by 2:56PM. This is due to the fact that most people are following the established procedures. Please continue to work as a team. In the morning, students will be allowed into the building beginning at 7:10AM. Once in the building, students should report directly to their homeroom (1st core class). Students will remain in cohorts throughout their school day, identical to pre-virtual learning.
I also want to give a shout-out to our custodial staff who utilized the time that we were virtual to make the building shine like day one. When students return the building will be spotless, creating the optimal environment for learning to occur. Often times it is overlooked. But a clean building is motivating and adds to spaces and incentivizes everyone to have a higher level of performance.
Have a great weekend,
Jason
From the Front Office:
Front Office
Due to the safety of our students and staff, and to keep the integrity of our learning models (face to face, hybrid, and virtual), Fox River and WGSD will not participate in winter sports or after school activities for the 2020-2021 school year. We will reassess spring athletics and activities at that time. This includes: Girls Volleyball, Boys’ Basketball, and Forensics.
We understand that these opportunities are ones that students were looking forward to. Please know that we value activities, clubs, and athletics at Fox River, and wish that students had these experiences through the school this year! We appreciate everyone’s understanding and cooperation as we keep the safety of everyone at the forefront of our decisions.
What's Happening in Class:
8th
In 8th grade Math, the students have been working through an Equations Bootcamp. It’s definitely a little different doing it virtual, than it would have been in person, but most kids are still crushing it. Solving equations is one of the foundational pieces for students going into Algebra as a freshman, and these kids will be ready for it!
In Algebra, the students are just finishing up our unit on solving inequalities. We are solving compound inequalities and absolute value inequalities, along with finding intersection and union of sets. Fun stuff! The kids have been rocking this unit. I am so proud of how diligent they are being about getting to virtual class on time and with their supplies. Students have had nearly perfect attendance every day! They are handling everything I am throwing at them and making great things happen. They are engaged in the lesson and asking appropriate questions. The responsibility they are showing is awesome. We are going to play virtual bingo on Friday to review for our upcoming test, which I know they will ace.
In 8th grade Science, the students have finished the minerals unit! We learned how, why, and where minerals form, as well as their various uses. Ask your child to see if they remember our state mineral!(Galena) Next up, we are going to *rock and roll* with the start of the rock cycle unit. Students will learn about the 3 rock types, how rocks are used and why they’re important, as well as learn that rocks continually change in the neverending rock cycle. An understanding of rocks and the rock cycle helps lay the *bedrock* of understanding for our upcoming units: plate tectonics, earthquakes, and volcanoes. We hope our students don’t take this unit for *granite*. :)
The 8th Grade US History classes have been examining the causes that resulted in a Revolutionary War. Students played the role of detectives in investigating the purpose of a variety of laws passed by the King of England which resulted in various acts of rebellion such as the propaganda of the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Following this investigation, students went through the process of preparing trial arguments representing both the British and colonists. Unfortunately, our switch to virtual learning postponed the process of debating these issues. As we are moving forward, our focus shifts to the actual war for independence. Thank you to all that have stayed engaged through the challenges of the virtual world. We look forward to having your hidden smiling masked faces back in the classroom soon.
The 8th grade ELA classes are in a horror genre unit. Students are learning the literary devices that authors use to create the tension that we all feel in thrillers, mysteries, and horror books. They have been engaging with creepy short stories and reading their own horror genre book throughout the week. In this unit, we created an escape room for the students. Students worked together in teams to test their knowledge of literary devices to determine whether they can “escape” the creepy bed and breakfast from our most recent short story, “The Landlady."
7th
In 7th grade Social Studies, the student have finished up the Holocaust unit by doing a flipgrid “test” telling us what they learned, and then they completed a choice project of interest. Next, we did a short unit on “Project Soapbox” where the kids practiced their speech skills by giving a one minute speech on something they wanted to see changed/improved in their community. This week we jumped into our Asia unit and started with studying China. Next, we will head into India.
In seventh grade ELA class, we completed our Passion Projects and presented them online. The students put their heart and soul into many of these projects. Our next unit of study will be focusing on the anthology. This will be four different writing pieces. One of these writing pieces will be taken to the level of potential publication. We would like to give a big shout out to all of the seventh grade parents and sponsors to help us attain library books into our classrooms through Donorschoose.org.
6th
In 6th grade Math, our students just finished a lesson on multi-digit multiplication with whole numbers and decimals. Our current lesson focuses on long division with both whole numbers and decimals. We are doing lots of great computation in math class!
In 6th grade ELA, writers just completed their narrative unit! Writers put a lot of hard work into including all the skills learned so far this year, into their writing. Congratulations to all 6th grade writers! You have worked very hard, both in the classroom and virtually! Now sixth grade ELA is taking time to fine-tune specific skills and add creativity into our writing.
In 6th grade Social Studies, we are currently in the middle of our disaster unit. Researchers are tasked to be safety engineers, trying to find or create ways to prevent a large amount of damage or loss of life. Throughout this process, students create a plan, draw blueprints, research, and create a physical model of their disaster prevention plan.
Elective Spotlight
Art
The Art Department has been working hard to make their new space feel more like home. Art display boards were recently put up in the art wing. This is a great space for us to showcase our amazingly talented artists at Fox River! Take a look at the photos below of Art 6’s Op Art, Art 7’s Illuminated Letter Zentangles and Silhouette Paintings, and Art 8’s Mandala Color wheels. Our virtual learning experience hasn’t stopped us from getting creative. Art 7 and Art 6 have been learning about one point perspective, and are putting their new skills into practice by creating cityscapes and other scenes. Art 8 let their brains take over in their neurographic art, and are now getting ready to start creating relief sculptures out of cardboard.
FabLab
We are privileged to lead and adopt the FabLab area at Fox River. The level of excitement our students have when they come into the lab is remarkable. So far we have been able to develop some great programming and fabrication opportunities for our students. We are excited for the future and would like to enhance our program offerings in the Fab Lab. We are looking for some specific equipment that would bolster our program offerings and are looking for people willing to help fund these projects. We have projects for attaining LEGO EV3 Robots, LEGO Space Challenge kits, and Tormach CNC Milling Machines. If you, a family member, friend, or company is interested in helping us with funding these projects we would greatly appreciate it.
We have a special space and a program that stands out over others. With the addition of these purchases we can provide our students with more real world experiences that will continue to engage and excite students, staff, and community members.
Any questions or suggestions please feel free to contact us, and check out our website.
Brad Singer - singer@waterford.k12.wi.us
Connor Harris - harris@waterford.k12.wi.us
FRMS Fab Lab/PLTW teachers
Covid-19: District Letter
As COVID-19 cases increase and our county case rate per 100,000 continues to be in the “Critically High/Very High” level, Waterford Graded , Washington Caldwell, Northcape, and Drought School Districts will implement the following procedures immediately to help control the spread of COVID-19. Although our procedures to this point have been mostly effective, these changes will help to reduce risk further for in-person instruction. These guidelines are consistent with the Guidelines for the Prevention, Investigation, and Control of COVID-19 Outbreaks in K-12 Schools in Wisconsin, DHS Chapter 145, Central Racine County Health Department, and Dr. Katie Halyko MD, Waterford Area School Medical Director.
Please click link for criteria:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FEIO9Lmy8WG6ZKdLhdPpnys1eKWveo7Z/view?usp=sharingStudent Services
Community Resources
List of local food pantries available for your family if in need of food assistance.
A great one-stop shop directory for Racine County residents in need of looking for specific resources. Resources include, but are not limited to Child, Adolescent/Family Services, Crisis and Emergency Services, Behavioral Health, Support Groups, etc.
A local resource located in Burlington, WI that can help your family in your time of need. Programs include Christmas help, Winter Warmth Coat program, food pantry, shelter care, meal sights, thrift stores, case management, etc. Please explore the website and reach out to Love Inc. if you have any questions.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Spotlight Skill
The Social Emotional Learning Spotlight skill for the month of November and December is self management. Students will have discussions, conversations, and lessons that incorporate managing emotions, stress management strategies, self-discipline, self-motivation, and goal setting.
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Library Media Center (LMC): What's up!?
Library
Happy December from the WGSD libraries. Here are a few updates from the WGSD libraries. Keep in mind! Whenever school is virtual, we will still continue to circulate books to our students. We believe that there is great value in students having books of choice available to them and so we are offering curbside service during these times. When we are in school, our check-out system for Grades 2-8 is that students will put a book on hold and their request, when available, is checked out and delivered to their classroom. When we are virtual, students will put a book of choice on hold, and the parent and student will be alerted when it is ready for curbside pickup, usually within 24 hours. For these students to put books on hold and see their account information, they access Destiny Discover through Clever.
We have also begun to roll out a new service to our Fox River Students. We have joined the Wisconsin School Digital Library Consortium that provides our middle schoolers with access to a K-12 digital library of over 20,000 e-books and audiobooks. If your student has not been formally introduced to this service through their ELA program, please have them either email me for login information or check out the Getting Started with Sora link on the Fox River Library page, which students can log into through Clever or access at this link: https://search.follettsoftware.com/metasearch/ui/53321
Mrs. Schoepke & Mrs. Cramer email: frlib@waterford.k12.wi.us
Pictures of Some Spaces
Fox River Middle School
Email: BakerL@waterford.k12.wi.us
Website: https://www.waterford.k12.wi.us/o/fox-river-middle
Location: 921 West Main Street, Waterford, WI, USA
Phone: 262-514-8240