Howards Grove Middle School
Parent/Guardian Newsletter Vol. IX
Important Dates
Friday, May 26th, NO SCHOOL
Monday, May 29th, Memorial Day, NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, May 31st, Awards Day
Monday, June 5th, 8th Grade Recognition, 7 PM
Wednesday, June 7th, Last Day of School
Principal's Message
As we finish the school year, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for sharing your students with us. The high energy of a middle school is unlike any other and I thoroughly enjoy it. I appreciate your patience, kindness, and above all the passion in partnering with us in education. I am very proud of our staff and students. Students are finishing up their iReady assessments for the Spring. I am excited to report the current assessments that I see show remarkable growth of our students. This growth should be celebrated, and we will provide an update at the June School Board Meeting. As always please feel free to reach out if I can be of assistance in any way. I wish everyone a wonderful summer.
Angie Houston
Student Council
Middle School Showcase
Thanks to all of the community members that came out to support Howards Grove Middle School learning! Hopefully you got a chance to race hot wheels down the hallway, admire the art, listen to the live entertainment, admire student projects, blast a rocket, make ice cream with the FFA, play with legos, build something out of boxes, watch some Civil War documentaries, hold a chicken, and all the rest of the things. We had over 320 people attend this event. Special thanks to the Schueler family for bringing the live animals to show as part of the Showcase!
LIbrary
The end of the school year is quickly approaching. We need to collect all student Chromebooks.
ALL Chromebooks will need to be turned in on Friday, June 2. If your child will not be here on Friday, June 2, please reach out to your child's teacher to make alternate arrangements for return. Students are expected to return: a working Chromebook in good condition, one charging cord that matches with the barcode on the bottom of their Chromebook, and one Chromebook carrying case.
Please help your child remember to have all of their items with them for check in, so we don't have to spend the last few days of school chasing them down for missing items (or charging fines for them at the end of the year when they're not turned in).
Lost parts and/or intentional damage are not covered by the district's Chromebook Insurance Program.
Here is a list of fees that may be assessed to replace commonly lost parts or to repair intentional damage to Chromebooks:
Removal of HGSD asset tag (barcode on bottom of Chromebook) or addition of personal stickers/graffiti $5.00
Replacement case $20.00
AC Adapter (charging cord) $50.00
Top cover, keyboard, or touchpad$50.00
Screen$100.00
Device (including lost, stolen, or intentional damage) $350.00
Thank you for your help and cooperation in getting all Chromebooks, chargers, and cases returned.
Digital Library & Reading Opportunities
Did you know that your children have 24/7, 365 access to high-quality digital book collections? These collections are available all summer and offer great reading and learning opportunities, especially since it can be challenging to find time to visit the library or bookmobile.
Sora Sweet Reads is a special summer collection of digital e-books and audiobooks available to students now through August 28, 2023. Sweet Reads titles include Minecraft, Star Wars, Marvel, high-interest non-fiction and more. Sweet Reads titles are available through your child's Sora Digital Library account.
The Sora Digital Library collection (soraapp.com or download the free app from your device's app store) provides our students with access to thousands of books! Simply log in to your school digital library account to check out a book and start reading. If you have forgotten how to log in to your child's Sora digital library account, view this tutorial (https://www.loom.com/share/07eb70f42d924435a875fd17c462110e).
If your student prefers to listen to their books, rather than read them, the Sync Audiobook Program is for them! Running April 27 - August 2, 2023 the Sync Audiobook program offers two FREE audiobook downloads a week via Sora, our school's digital library app. Visit audiobooksync.com to get started! These audiobooks are available to ANYONE, but are most appropriate for students (and adults) ages 13+.
The Mead Public Library offers a robust collection of online resources and in-person programming throughout the summer months (and during the school year also) for all ages. Visit www.meadpl.org or https://www.meadpl.org/summer-reading-program to find out more!
If you have any questions about these programs, please contact Jen Henschel, district librarian, at jhenschel@hgtigers.com or 920-565-4457 ext. 146.
8th Grade
ELA
As the school year winds down, we take a moment to get creative in our thinking with a novel in verse. All 8th grade students are reading the book All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg. The novel is told by a young boy named Matt. He lost his family in the midst of the Vietnam War and was taken to the United States as a refugee. The story focuses on his post-war healing and acclimation to the United States. Students will look for themes within the text to write their final piece of writing, a literary essay.
Math
Students in eighth grade math are laser focused and have been moving warp speed ahead. These students are definitely not coasting to the finish line. On the contrary, eighth grade math students are accelerating and expanding their knowledge right up to the very last day of school. These students just completed a unit regarding the Pythagorean Theorem. Next up they'll be learning about the properties of integer exponents and simplifying expressions. They'll use scientific notation to describe very large or small quantities and to compare numbers. Students will also be conducting computations using scientific notation. The final area of study will cover volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres.
Algebra
Eighth grade Algebra students are currently completing a chapter on rational functions and equations. They've been working with inverse variation, finding excluded values of rational functions, simplifying rational expressions, multiplying and dividing rational expressions, dividing polynomials, adding and subtracting rational expressions, working with mixed expressions and complex fractions, and have been solving rational equations. These students will finish the year with a self-paced study of statistic and probability.
Parents, it's been a lot of fun, and sometimes even quite challenging, to get all of your students prepared for the rigors of high school math. I believe they have the tools necessary for success at the next level. Students will simply need to apply themselves, pay good attention in class, and ask questions as soon as something doesn't make sense. I'm confident each student will find some level of success in high school.
Science
We are currently learning in our Unit of Interactions of Matter. In this Unit we are focusing on concepts such as “Chemical Reactions, Organic Chemistry, and Nuclear Reactions”. We are exploring what it takes to convert Nuclear energy into electric energy. We also explored chemical reactions in a lab chemical reactions by taking hydrochloric acid in a test tube with two sheets of aluminum and a piece of metal to see how the acid reacts over time. Students were quite surprised that in 40 minutes the aluminum and metal were either completely dissolved or very much dissolved down to the point of losing mass.
Social Studies
We are just wrapping up our unit on The Vietnam War. Before moving on to our last unit, students had the opportunity to explore any topic that we covered and were not able to cover for a research project. Students explored such topics as key battles, differences between American and Vietnamese food, and the Watergate Scandal. For our last unit, we are going to be focusing on the 1980's,1990’s and the early 2000’s and the key events that shaped American history as we know it today.
7th Grade
ELA
It’s hard to believe that we are in our last few weeks of school! For Readers and Writers, the 7th grade students are ending the year with our Historical Fiction Book Clubs Unit. Each group chose a historical era to study and learn about. With their book clubs, they are reading a historical fiction book that is set in their era and also researching the era to help build context and develop an understanding of what it was like for their characters to live during that time. Students are currently creating historical timelines to help them visualize where their story fits within that historical time period. At the end of the unit, students will get the chance to really put themselves in their characters’ shoes when they take part in a panel discussion and create a newspaper from the viewpoint of their characters.
Math
We are studying our last unit of study in Math! Can that be true? The last unit is a fun one! Students will be picking a topic to be researching, gathering data, manipulating data, and lastly, interpreting data. Students then will be presenting to the class their findings of the survey. This topic teaches students many useful skills like communication, oral and written and interpreting information. I enjoy these presentations because students find similarities and differences of their life to other peers.
Algebra
We are studying Systems of Equations. Students are analyzing graphs of two equations and looking for similarities (coordinates). Next year, this class will be reviewing Algebra chapter 1-6 with Mr. Kalk and then study 7-12. If students have successfully passed the class, these students will register for High School Geometry. Work hard students!
Science
In science, the student teacher Mrs. Krabbe (from Lakeland University) has taken over teaching the students about systems of the body. To help the students learn about the muscular and skeletal systems the students dissected chicken wings to identify the muscles, bones, cartilage, and ligaments. Students have never dissected their food like this before! In addition, the students also got the chance to see how the circulatory system works by touching the chambers of a cow heart. Just before the showcase we were observing egg development in chickens and we had two hatch!
Social Studies
For the Student Showcase the students completed their projects about Reconstruction and the Progressive Era in the USA. These projects turned out great! In the last few weeks of school, we will be producing news stories that summarize some of their favorite things about their school year.
Social Studies Reconstruction to Progressive Era Projects
It was a pleasure working with this class!!!
6th Grade
Sixth-grade writing began with Personal Narrative. This unit helped students draw on their lives, learn about strategies that generated meaningful story ideas, managed pace, elaborated on important scenes, and deepened insights. This unit especially emphasized the importance of setting goals, practicing strategically, and aiming for high productivity. Students primarily wrote about a family tradition that impacted their personal life. Then in our next writing unit, Research-Based Information Writing, students began by exploring the broad topic of teen activism in order to teach their audience about a topic, using increasingly sophisticated ways to draw on and structure information to explain a position or make a call to action. These writing presentation pieces were on display at the Middle School Student Showcase for all to read and enjoy. As for our final writing unit, The Literary Essay, sixth graders are currently learning ways to generate ideas based on close readings of a text and learning strategies essayists use to gather, analyze, and explain evidence from the text to support their claims. As we begin to wrap up the year with our writing piece, sixth graders will find different ways to share and celebrate their completed literary essays with their peers.
Math
Currently in Math, all of the 6th grade students have started a Financial Literacy Unit. This is a great unit because kids are always asking, “When am I going to use this math in real life?” Well, everyone will need to deal with money in real life, so we will be taking many of the math skills that we have learned already this year, and applying them to money related problems. Students will be learning about balancing a budget, saving money, calculating profit, calculating tax and tip, and finding a better deal with coupons. With the help of a program called “Banzai,” which is graciously sponsored by Cleveland State Bank and Kohler Credit Union, the students will also be given several real life scenarios to work through. In addition to money related scenarios, Banzai offers a Digital Citizenship Course that includes lessons on Internet Safety, Cyberbullying, Digital Wellness, and Digital Footprint. This is always a fun, yet eye-opening unit for the students.
Science/Social Studies
Throughout this year, we have learned so much in science and social studies! In science, our main focus was breaking down the four spheres of planet Earth. We specifically discussed the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. We learned a whole bunch about planet Earth, and how it is that unlike other planets, we can live here! Our next and final unit will be weather and climate. In social studies, we focused on U.S. history. We started by discussing the rising tensions between Great Britain and the 13 colonies, which led to the American Revolution. From there, we worked our way all the way to the mid-1800s. We will begin to briefly discuss the Civil War, which they will continue to learn about next year. It's been a great year filled with lots of learning in 6th grade science and social studies (and all other classes, I'm sure!)
5th Grade
ELA
In reading workshop our book clubs are currently wrapping up an argumentative research project. Students have been reading non-fiction books and articles that will support their claim. They have been putting together slideshows that they will present to the class. In the upcoming weeks we are going to end the school year with an argumentative essay. This essay will be incorporated with the book series Harry Potter. The kids and I are excited to get this project underway!
Math
We are wrapping up our year working on geometry and story problem solving. Distinguishing what information is important to consider for setting up the steps to a solution and then determining what operations best fits the situation, is a challenging task.
Science
We are looking at life science. We will get a broad scope of working with cells, tissues, organs in plants and animals. Our big celebration will be to see the different types of animals at the Milwaukee County Zoo and see how classifying animals is helpful.
Social Studies
Students are learning about the building of our country. We are learning about the tensions that build among the colonists and England as the colonists become more self-sufficient. We are understanding
Howards Grove Middle School
Email: ahouston@hgsd.k12.wi.us
Website: www.hgtigers.com
Location: 506 Kennedy Avenue, Howards Grove, WI, USA
Phone: (920) 565-4452