Middletown Middle Newsletter
“Enter to Learn, Strive to Achieve!”
The MISSION of Middletown Middle School is to engage students as 21st century learners who strive to achieve their goals. We support students through rigor and active participation within a culture of cooperation, organization, determination and excellence to prepare our students for college and careers.
“The Vision of Middletown Middle School is to challenge students of all abilities to achieve excellence in a wide range of academic and cultural pursuits. Students are equipped to meet the demands and opportunities of the 21st century by receiving a differentiated, effective, and rigorous curriculum. Staff believe and demonstrate that all students can master the essential 21st century skills. The culture of Middletown Middle will include high expectations for all, frequent monitoring of student progress, multiple opportunities for student learning, high levels of engagement, exceptional communication, and daily purposeful integration of technology. We will make it a priority to recognize the academic and extracurricular achievements of our school community. Middletown Middle School will have highly-motivated professional staff and authentic partnerships between the school and home.”
Value Statements
Teachers actively engage students by interacting, moving around the classroom, and allowing them to own their learning.
Staff will have knowledge of the whole student so that lessons provide challenge and rigor for all abilities.
Teachers facilitate lessons where students are engaged, not merely compliant.
Teachers facilitate lessons that allow for students to lead and take risks.
Staff will make authentic learning opportunities a priority in the classroom.
Staff collaborates to promote 21st century student learning.
Calendar 2021-2022
A Message from Mr. Fer
In the election year of 1920, Warren G Harding was running for President of the United States against James M. Cox of Ohio. Harding won in a landslide victory winning the electoral vote 404 to 127. During his campaign Harding was quoted as saying, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity…” His comments were a direct reflection of the condition of the United States at that time, which was a call to a return to the way things were before World War I, the First Red Scare, and the Spanish flu pandemic. The last of those three large-scale events is one which all of us can relate to as we are returning to a semblance of normalcy and routine following the ups and downs of the 2020-2021 school year. Of course, we are still working our way through this pandemic in that masks are still present and there are a number of procedures and “new normals” that remain as staples for how everyday life is conducted.
Harding’s words struck me because of their applicability to our current state of affairs, but also due to their call for healing, normalcy, restoration, adjustment and serenity. All of those are actions that I believe our return to the 2021-2022 school year has been able to provide for our students, staff and families. The routine of a school year provides stability, comfort, calm and a familiarity that all of us can relate to and, I believe, rely on. We are not in the frame of mind as we were this time last year trying to figure out a brand new way to learn, teach and relate. This year, however, the routine and stability has returned albeit with some caveats and provisos that require our prompt attention and can attempt to derail a “full steam ahead” approach to working our way through the school year. Nevertheless, this school year is something that we all should be excited about and celebrate each day that comes and goes where our students and staff are able to spend six wonderful hours together in the same classrooms, cafeteria and hallways.
Since the first day of school, we have held a PTSA meeting in person, began scheduling Parent/Teacher conferences (with a face-to-face day!), students “shopped” in person at the school store, names have been put to faces (masked that is) and not dots on a screen and we have been ensuring that our students’ needs are being met more thoroughly because we get to be with them everyday! As I mentioned earlier, we have experienced a few roadblocks since day one and, as a staff, we could not be more thankful for your flexibility and understanding as our community continues to work through these using the least disruptive means in which to accomplish them. We will undoubtedly face various challenges throughout this school year, but as each day passes, my confidence grows and is reaffirmed because of the resolve and determination of the Middletown community. This is an extraordinary community and I am very excited to experience with each of you all that this year has to offer. Coretta Scott King said, "The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members." Throughout all we have been through, the success of our students and school community is truly measured by the compassion and empathetic actions of all of you, so thank you and here’s to a great year!
Honored to serve,
Paul Fer, Principal
240-236-4209
Counseling Dept
Counseling Office Secretary/Registrar: Chrissy Farron (240-236-4206)
6th grade School Counselor: Ashley Frushour (240-236-4205)
7th grade School Counselor: Liz Bohan (240-236-4256)
8th grade School Counselor: Rachel Butts (240-236-4220)
Behavior Support Specialist- Matt Butts, (240-236-4204)
MVPHP
Middletown Valley People Helping People (MVPHP)
2021 Holiday Assistance.
Pre-Registration of clients will be from October 1 through November 15 by calling 301-371-3119.
Pickup will be from 3-6 on December 7th at the Middletown Fire Hall Activities Building at 1 Fireman’s Lane.
Anyone wishing to donate may also call 301-371-3119. Donation drop off is also at the same activities building from 3-6 on December 6th.
Salvation Army
PTSA
Our new board for 2021-2022 is:
Yanira Gordon- President,
Sarah Schwartz-Vice President
Hannah Pillow-Treasurer
Chara Embrey- Secretary.
As always- we hope you will join us!
Around the Community
Arts at MiMS-Mrs Pilarcik
It has been a wonderful start to the school year and seeing the incredible talent and creativity of our 7th and 8th grade artists has been so rewarding.
7th graders have been working hard on planning and creating their peace posters. This year’s theme is “We Are All Connected.” Be on the lookout in next month’s newsletter for the winner’s.
8th graders have been working on their value unit. They have been developing and improving their observation skills to notice light and details to create realistic drawings. Below are some of the completed artworks.
Arts at MiMS-Ms Schuckers
6th grade Visual Arts students have been working on their elements of design with their First project - One Word Zentangles. It has been so great to see these students create in the class and design such awesome works of art! And we finally have art out in the hall on display again after a 1 and a half. So excited to see more amazing art coming from these fantastic young artists.
7th Grade Creative Arts students have just finished up their What is Culture/Who are you? Unit and created some beautiful silhouettes to share who they are including symbolic representations of their likes and family interests inside the silhouette. It is great to see the amazing student work brightening the hallway again. They are starting on their Miniature Chinese Watercolor Landscapes - Wait to see the awesome paintings coming soon!
Theatre Arts
All School Musical
The All-School Musical Production is Moana, Jr. Show dates are April 7, 8, and 9th of 2022. We are excited to begin preparations for our production of Disney’s Moana, Jr. If you are interested in being a part of this year’s all-school musical, staff and students alike, auditions will be held in the cafeteria on stage on November 16, 17, and 18th from 3-5 pm. Students only need to attend ONE of the audition days. Students should be prepared to sing an appropriate piece of music (no more than 1 minute) you will sing with a karaoke / instrumental track. You MUST have recorded music on a CD, Phone, iPod, Device, etc. that you will sing with for your audition. Sign ups will be on Ms. Mace’s door of room 124-A beginning mid November.
Theatre Arts Classes: Students have been working on creating mini films and live performances based on Primitive Theatre and the beginning of Theatre. They have been working with the essential question “What happens when Theatre artists use their imaginations and learn Theatre skills while engaging in creative exploration and critical inquiry?” The upcoming weeks will provide students the opportunity to explore various elements of theatre including Greek History, myths, and musical theatre. It is continuing to be another great year in Theatre Arts!
Band/Orchestra
Sept/October(2021):
The band and orchestra classes are off to a great start this fall! Our music classes are working on concert repertoire, small ensemble music, and musical technique. We look forward to performing for you again this Winter on December 6th & 8th at Middletown High School. Please contact Mrs. Blickenstaff at Whitney.Blickenst@fcps.org with any questions about our band or orchestra programs.
Career & Technology Education
Mr. Seiler Pre-Engineering - Grade 8
Students will be finishing up their straw cube this week and will start on the bridge lesson. They will learn about the history, different styles and vocabulary used to define the different parts. Students will then design and build a straw bridge and test for the best efficacy.
CSI - Grade 7
Students will be finishing up designing a web page using CSS. Their next few lessons are about intellectual property, licensing your work and using images on their web page. The next few lessons deal with learning more about web page design and the use of images which do not violate copy write.
Tech Expo - Grade 6
Students will be finishing up the designing of the dream house project with the completion of the landscape. The next area of study will be project design. The first project will be a tower where they will research, design, build and test for efficacy. Students will then star the stick bridge project where they will learn about truss bridges and will design, build and test for efficacy.
Mrs Duvall: Lab 21--We are beginning out theme park project, where students will work in design teams to design new theme park ideas to persuade a "company" that their ideas are the best for their target audiences. In this unit, we are working specifically on teamwork skills and how to communicate well in STEM teams. Additionally, students will be practicing persuasive techniques in a presentation after they complete the designing process of drawing a map while on the computer.
Tech Expo--Students are working on scale drawings in their Tiny House projects, where they are designing a tiny house of their choosing! After sketching their ideas on paper, students will be moving on to CAD type software to electonically design their homes. From there, they will build their tiny house in a scaled down model using cardboard materials.
Mr. Dulberger: 7th grade Invention & Innovation (CTE) - The 7th grade Invention and Innovation students are just wrapping up our Introduction to Technology unit. During this unit we explored the different areas of technology and careers associated with each area. In addition we had written and verbal discussions about the impact technology has on our society, economy, environment, and more. One hot topic we discussed was whether or not our society is ready for fully autonomous vehicles to join us on the roads.
Next we will begin our Engineering Design Process unit (unit #3). Learning about the engineering design process is a critical component of most CTE courses, especially I&I. The students will be given some choice as to how they learn about the design process through a playlist. Ultimately they will put the design process to use through various projects throughout the remainder of the course. Please remember, optional engineering design challenges are always available to students who wish to extend their learning beyond the required work load. These hands-on assignments are designed to teach students the engineering design process as well as critical thinking/ problem solving skills. All engineering design challenges utilize common household materials and minimal tools.
Thank you for continuing to support I&I class!
Mrs. Ledford: Food Science students have been busy learning about the food system and how our food gets from "farm to plate". They have also compared the various types of farming from small family farms, large industrial farms and even urban farming. We have just started our "Food Museum" project and are working with Mrs. Poscover in the media center to do the project research.
6th grade World Language students have been busy learning Latin words and discovering Rome. They are currently constructing Roman structures.
Mrs. Stuart: In 7th and 8th grade Life Skills students practiced cursive and signing their name. They practiced check writing and keeping track of items in their check register. Students also "bought" cars and learned about financing a large purchase. They learned about credit scores and how to build credit and maintain a good credit history. The students also started our food preparation unit starting with sanitation and safety, and will be having their first cooking lab soon.
Language Arts
7th Grade: In 7th grade, students continue to work on analyzing fiction and non fiction texts. Our current focus is analyzing argument to determine the central idea/author's claim.
8th grade ELA: Students are wrapping up discussions on the ending of their selected novels. Students are also preparing for their first literary analysis benchmark by reading, analyzing and reflecting on several literary works, including "The Tell-Tale Heart". Weekly word wizard vocabulary has also started.
Literacy Specialist
Literacy Opportunities
This school year we want to challenge every student to join The MMS 25 Book Challenge. Each grade level will have a 25 Book Challenge Schoology course where students can access the document used for keeping track of the books that they read throughout the school year. Students can include any book (on their reading level) that they finish, including Black-eyed Susan books, literature circle novels, and the books they read for pleasure. The challenge goes all the way through May 18, 2022, so everyone has plenty of time to accomplish this feat! This program is voluntary, but we encourage each student to give it a try.
For more information, see the “Media Center” folder in your LA teacher’s Schoology course.
Parents, if you are looking for some books to recommend to your child, here are a couple of good places to start:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1606.Top_100_Middle_School_Must_Reads
The “A Book and a Hug” website allows students to enter information about their age, reading level and genre preferences. Then, it generates an individualized reading list that includes books that both appeal to your child that are appropriate for their reading level.
Additionally, we will be running our Knight Writers club for the fourth year. Over the last few years, our numbers have grown, as more and more students have joined in this community of
writers. Students are invited to the media center twice a month during ELT to work on their own short stories, poems, cartoons, scripts or screenplays. There are no grades assigned or
requirements to join the Knight Writers, other than to think, imagine, write and refine the works that they are creating. All are welcome!
What's happening in Math?
From the Math Department...
Math Matters...It helps build problem-solving skills.
6th grade math will continue to wrap up the rational numbers unit focusing on decimal and fraction operations. We will then be moving to our whole number fluency unit that consists of whole number concepts.
7th grade is focusing on developing an understanding of operations with rational numbers. Students will view negative numbers in terms of everyday contexts and explain and interpret the rules for adding and subtracting with negative numbers.
7th grade accelerated has been building their knowledge of rational numbers. Students are developing a unified understanding of numbers, recognizing fractions, decimals, and percents as different representations of rational numbers.
8th grade has been working on exponential expressions and performing operations with numbers expressed in scientific notation. Algebra 1 students are wrapping up their unit on solving multi-step equations and inequalities.
Media Specialist
There are SO many great things happening in the media center. I hope your child chooses to be a part of some, if not all, of our offerings.
The ELA teachers have been kind enough to allow the media center to have a folder in their Schoology course. Please look there for more information on the following programs and more.
Also - feel free to contact me with any questions at mary.poscover@fcps.org
I would love it if you follow my Twitter account for updates and information on exciting library activities. @MIMSlibraryFCPS
25 Book Challenge
Our literacy specialist, Mrs. Casey, and the school librarian, Mrs. Poscover are challenging students to read 25 books before May 18th. All books read from the first day of school until the end date count. Have your child sign-up today!
BOOK FAIR!!!!
The library will be holding a digital book fair from November 22 through December 3rd. Mark your calendars and get ready to do some “holiday/birthday/just because my child is awesome” shopping!! More details will be coming in later newsletters.
Digital book sources
Sora - FCPS’s new ebook platform has hundreds of fantastic books and is easy, easy, easy to use. Try this new product today!!
FCPL - Frederick County Public Library’s site. Access to a lot of digital content and ebooks. Students can use the following code to access all materials:
119829 + their 8 digit student ID#
Science
As the term progresses, students will conclude their study of Ecosystems. Students will study how environmental and genetic factors affect the growth of organisms, and investigate solutions to see how biodiversity can be maintained in an ecosystem.
The next unit of study for 6th grade is Water (although it is much more than just water!) Students will explore states of matter, thermal energy, and how energy and gravity drive the water cycle.
Lab opportunities will be present more often as the year progresses. In the next few days students will be bringing home the FCPS Science Safety Rules Agreement. Please review this with your child and return to school ASAP, as students are not permitted to participate in labs without a signed agreement. Please have your child keep the white copy in their notebook for reference, return the pink copy to school, and maintain the yellow copy at home as needed.
7th Grade: Happy Outrageously Fun October!
Ms. Staley & Ms. Martz are enjoying the energy and enthusiasm of our 7th grade students during this Energy Unit. We are discovering interesting details about our excellent Earth, discussing Earth's Processes, studying changes occurring on Earth, examining details about fossils, and so much more. If you have any questions, please contact Ms. Martz or Ms. Staley.
Happy outstanding October to you! Happy Science everyday!!
8th Grade-Students in science class are well into our biotic diversity unit and understanding evolution by natural selection. We are continuing our study of diversity by looking at comparative anatomy (structural similarities among species), embryology and growth and development. Be sure to have students checking grades regularly and asking for tutoring if needed.
Social Studies
7th Grade: Ms. Emerick and Mr. Bittner's classes are off to a great start. Following a review of geography components and the use of primary and secondary sources to study history, students examined Unit One the decline of Rome and the Byzantine Empire. We are beginning our next unit, “The Middle East and North Africa in the Middle Ages” where we will examine the geography, accomplishments, and culture of the region during the times.
8th Grade: Mrs. Kefauver and Mr. Wishner’s American Studies I students began the year with a review of colonial regions. Students examined differences between the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies. Next, they looked at an economic system between the British and their colonies called, “mercantilism.” After learning about the French and Indian War, students will evaluate British policies that eventually led to the Declaration of Independence and fighting of the American Revolution. It has been wonderful seeing students back in the classroom and getting to know them. We are very impressed with your hard work and participation in class. Keep up the good work!World Languages
French 1 students have been learning a lot of vocabulary to begin the year. We have been having basic conversations in French, talking about the date and weather, identifying classroom objects and following directions in French, and we can count to 30. We will soon begin learning how to talk about what we like to do and don't like to do and will be able to respond to invitations affirmatively or negatively.
French 2 students have finished their clothing and food chapters. They can talk about what people are wearing and where you would go to buy different food items in France as well as place an order in a restaurant or market. Our next unit will be talking about your home and designing their ideal house.
Spanish 1 students have been busy as well. They have been learning a lot of vocabulary to begin the year. We have been having basic conversations in Spanish, talking about the date and weather, identifying classroom objects and following directions in Spanish, and we can count to 30. We have just started learning how to talk about what we like to do and don't like to do. Then we will learn to use adjectives appropriately to describe people.