Howards Grove Middle School
Parent/Guardian Newsletter Vol. VI
At Howards Grove Middle School We Believe In:
Respect
Responsibility
Integrity
Appreciation
Important Events
End of the Semester, January 19th
No School, January 22th
No School, February 19th
School Board Meeting, February 19 @ 6 PM
Principal's Message
Hello Parents and Families,
Winter is now upon us! Please be sure your student has warm clothing here at school. Recess is so important for our students to run off all of their energy and interact with their peers. Our makers space is also open for students during this time; however, it has limited capacity; therefore, students are not able to go to this space each day.
This Friday is the last day of the first semester. Report cards will be available on Skyward by the end of the day January 26th. This is a great opportunity for students to get a fresh start in their classes and work to their potential. The winter months can be hard, but spring will be here before we know it. A quick reminder, on Mondays and Thursdays from 3-3:45 PM our after school program is in place to provide academic support. If you think your student could benefit from this, please talk to your student's homeroom teacher, fill out the form, and return it to the office each month. The form was emailed home. If you need a copy please contact the office.
Additional reminders: Regarding drop off in the morning at the middle school, please pull up all the way to the tiger mailbox to drop off your student. This will help with the back up of cars onto Kennedy Avenue in front of the school. Also, pick up at the end of the day needs to be in the back of the school. Please do not pick up your student in front unless it is past 3:00 PM. When you email your student's teacher about their absence, please also contact the office: apieper@hgtigers.com and kschmit@hgtigers.com. We appreciate your attention to these matters.
As always, if there is anything that I can provide assistance with, please feel free to reach out to me at any time.
Thank you for your support in learning for your student(s),
Angie Houston
Intervention
Winter i-Ready Diagnostic Testing Results:
Students have completed the i-Ready Diagnostic(Universal Screener) in Reading and Math.
How can I access my student’s results?
1. Students’s should Log in to their i-Ready Dashboard i-ReadyConnect.com
2. Click on the For Families dropdown and select the For Families report.
3. Enter your District’s Report Code H5W2PF
If a pop-up blocker is enabled on the browser, families may encounter the message, “Please ensure pop-ups are allowed for *.i-ready.com in your browser settings to get your report.”
Please click on the links below to learn more about what i-Ready is and how you can support your student. Please contact Kerri Eilers HGMS Reading Teacher & i-Ready Leader with any questions or concerns or help with seeing reports at keilers@hgtigers.com
i-Ready Helpful Links for Families:
Understanding diagnostic results from i-Ready
i-Ready Central Resources | Family Center – Home
i-Ready Domains covered by Diagnostic
Dear 7th & 8th grade families! RE: Scholastic Book Orders
I will be managing the Scholastic Book Orders for all students in grades 7th & 8th grade. Please use my name Kerri Eilers, class code KWG77 when ordering books. All orders should be placed and paid online, I will deliver them to your student when they arrive. If you would like it to be a gift then please email me to let me know at keilers@hgtigers.com
Ready to discover the characters and stories your kids love? With expertly curated selections, plus the chance for your teacher to earn rewards for the classroom with every order, Scholastic Book Clubs is here for you all year long to boost your kid's reading fandom and maybe even create moments of quality time you can share together!
Place an order of $25 or more and you can pick a FREE $5 book (use code READS at checkout) to add to your reader’s TBR pile!
Family Order Due Date: 02/07/2024
SHOP OUR CLASS PAGE: https://orders.scholastic.com/KWG77
SHOP FLYERS: https://clubs.scholastic.com/all-flyers
Invite relatives and friends to help your child discover the pure joy of reading when you share our Class Page link. Every order benefits our classroom, helping me earn FREE books and resources that every child can enjoy.
Thanks for your support!
Mrs. Eilers, Reading Teacher Grades 5-8
Counselor's Corner
Happy New Year Middle School Families!
In 5th and 6th grade Life Skills classes students have started a new unit focused on the connection of thoughts, emotions, and decisions. In this unit, students will learn to identify their own emotions as well as recognize the emotions of others through verbal and nonverbal communication. In addition, students will learn how their thoughts contribute to their emotions. They will explore and understand different coping strategies that are productive and healthy for their emotion regulation, leading to positive and effective decision making. Our 7th and 8th grade students are making connections between their social emotional learning unit on bullying and harassment into their unit on thoughts, emotions, and decisions as well.
As a part of our Academic Career Planning (ACP) in our district, 8th grade students are busy diving into their high school planning process. Students are scheduled into meetings with their parent/guardian and me to start the process of deciding their high school classes for next year.
Mental Health and Wellness Information:
We have certainly hit the "real" winter here in Wisconsin, and with it can sometimes come a dip in mood. While this is common for many, the severity can certainly increase for some and be a true struggle. Attached is a link to Mental Health America's website regarding signs and symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder. This is a great resource for awareness, prevention, identification of symptoms, and treatment ideas.
https://www.mhanational.org/conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder-sad
In addition, Mental Health America is also a great resource, both nationally and locally, to increase awareness, knowledge, and a place to reach out for help if needed.
Stay warm and stay safe,
Mrs. Luecke
Student Council
We are excited for the start of a new year. As we are moving into January, the Middle School Student Council is looking forward to planning some events to beat the cold weather. In February, the council is planning to do a variety of activities to celebrate Valentine's Day and support the American Heart Association. To build awareness about heart health, students will participate in a heart scavenger hunt that showcases various facts and statistics about leading healthy lives and heart health. At recess students will be able to participate in activities that promote physical activity. They will also be planning some themed dress-up days followed by a school dance. The council members are also planning to help out with the Pancakes and Books festivities that will be held at Northview Elementary School. In the next month, sixth graders will be invited to join our council to see if this is an organization that they would like to participate in for the remainder of this year and next year.
PTO
· Family Food Night: Thank you to everyone who joined us at the December Family Food Night at Log Cabin. We’re appreciative of our new partnership with Log Cabin and look forward to many more Family Food Nights there in 2024!
· Holiday Sale: We were thrilled to partner with three amazing local businesses for our annual holiday sale and want to give a special shout-out to everyone who made purchases from Dairy Queen, Little Brown Cow Cheese, and Hartman’s Bakery. As a result of your generosity, the PTO raised over $600!
· Winter Market: We cannot thank you enough for joining us at our first annual Winter Market in December. Nearly 40 local vendors came to showcase their homemade products and offerings, many of which sold out due to overwhelming support from the community! The PTO was able to raise nearly $1,600 due to your support – thank you!
Save the Date
· Monday, February 5, 2024: Stop by our next Family Food Night at Log Cabin, where 10% of all sales will be donated back to the PTO for ongoing student programming. Join us for great food and another easy night of meal prep!
· Tuesday, February 6, 2024: PJs, Pancakes, & Books at Northview Elementary. Put on your favorite PJs and join us for a fun evening of reading and a yummy pancake dinner at Northview Elementary. More details coming soon!
· Monday, February 12, 2024: Join us for our monthly PTO Meeting at 5:00pm in the Northview Library. Everyone is welcome! Free babysitting is provided if requested within 72 hours of the meeting. Please contact hgpto@yahoo.com for more information.
· February 2024: Family Food Night. More details coming soon!
· Friday, March 15, 2024: Have you “Herd” the good news?! Family Night with the Wisconsin Herd is back on March 15 at 7:00pm, where a portion of all ticket sales will be donated back to the PTO. Here’s what you can expect:
o Special reserved section just for Howards Grove families.
o All children from Howards Grove will be invited to participate in the Jockey High Five Tunnel!
o All families will be invited on to the court post-game for a group photo and will have an opportunity to shoot free throws!
o Five children will be randomly selected to serve as Co-Captains for the game!
Grab your tickets here: https://fevo-enterprise.com/Howardsgrove
Virtual Learning Plan
Below is the link for the middle school virtual learning plan. Students are expected to complete assignments from their google classroom in their core classes: Reading/Writing, Math, Science, and Social Studies. These assignments will be posted by 9 AM on the virutal learning day by teachers. If students have questions about their work, they may login to their google meet for their class during the teachers office hour. Students are not required to login if they do not have questions. There will be no assignments posted from our Encore staff. We will do our best to send chromebooks home the night before should we anticipate inclement weather. Students have all been instructed by staff about this plan.
8th Grade
ELA
8th grade Readers and Writers has kicked off a new reading unit. Our reading unit is focused around the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. We took some time to explore vocabulary from the novel, and reviews about the book. Students are learning how to take sophisticated notes about each chapter of the book. As well as learning how to use the story to reflect and make connections to themselves. We are also continuing to read The Outsiders, as we learn about different reading and note taking strategies along the way.
Math
Eighth grade math students have been diligently learning about functions. These students are now able to identify functions when given a table or a graph. They’ve also spent a great deal of time deriving and interpreting slope intercept form and have recently begun to interpret rate of change and initial values. These students are to be commended for their high-level mathematical abilities. They're now able to construct a function when given a verbal description, table, or a graph. Great job everyone!
Algebra
Algebra students are now waist deep in an in-depth study of quadratic expressions and equations. These students began by simply adding and subtracting polynomials but have moved on to multiplying polynomials. They discovered the ease of multiplying two binomials using the FOIL method. Most recently, they’ve begun to identify special product situations and how these may be efficiently multiplied. Soon, these students will begin factoring polynomials. How cool is that!
Science
In Science, we're discovering our unit on Matter and Energy. The students are picking an element on the Periodic table and with that creating a Superhero/Villain comic book character from that. This project not only gives the student the chance to research and learn about the element that they have chosen, but incorporate their research using their creativity to form a character's backstory and how the character will look in their uniform and when they are using their powers. Looking forward to showing you some examples after we present and finish the project.
Social Studies
We just wrapped up talking about the Axis and Allied Leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Hideki Tojo, President Franklin Roosevelt, and General Dwight Eisenhower to name a few. We are now getting into the key battles of World War II that will lead us into our Key Battle Radio project. Stay tuned!
7th Grade
ELA
In 7th grade Readers and Writers we are finishing up our Author Study Reading Unit where students studied different character perspectives and authors’ craft moves in two different books. Students are applying what they learned to create a WeVideo project to showcase their authors and their books. Students will have the chance to watch some of these videos to learn about these authors, and will hopefully have a few new books to add to their list of books they would like to read this year.
After the completion of our author study, we will be moving into our Argument Unit where students will explore different topics. The seventh graders will research both sides of an issue, and then be asked to choose one side to support. They will be asked to research various topics, formulate claims, and back those claims up with supporting evidence and justification.
Math
The class is studying Algebraic Expressions. Some key words associated with expressions is terms, like terms, and collecting like terms. Students are using the distributive property to simplify expressions. Students are doing a great job preparing for Algebra. Next up…..Equations.
Algebra
Students are analyzing equations to see if they produce a line (linear). Students were introduced to Desmos, an online graphing calculator tool.
We just started to graph equations using the x and y intercepts. These intercepts can be useful when interpreting word problems. This is brand new material for the students, so it will be so important that they practice the concepts to be successful on assessments. Keep encouraging your son/daughter to ask questions.
Science
The students went outside this week to make observations about the changes that organisms go through in snowy environments like Wisconsin. How do insects, frogs, squirrels, birds, and trees survive freezing temperatures in Wisconsin? These observations are things that make for great class discussions that are inspired by our journey's outdoors. Indoors, the students started growing plants (mustard) to make observations about plant processes and genetics. As the plants grow we will discuss the dynamic needs of a growing plant... and try to keep them alive.
Social Studies
In social studies we are getting into the Civil War (1861-1965) and learning about the policies and politics that led to this epic American feud. We will examine the political decisions of past presidents that led to polarizing mindsets of people within the country. In addition, we will debate the legitimacy of the Civil War itself and understand the policies that shaped the United States afterward.
6th Grade
Reading
Sixth graders are learning when they read nonfiction informational pieces that
one way to hold on to any text is to summarize it. In order to help the learning
process students are reading a chunk of text thinking and asking themselves
“What is most essential here?” Then to reduce the text even more students identify
the most essential points. As students are doing this thinking work in their
nonfiction reading, they are learning to identify the central ideas and a few of the
most important details. Soon we will be heading into the third bend of Tapping
the Power of Nonfiction. This is where the students will be researching a new topic
with more independence while helping students to read and practice familiar
work they have already been taught. Students will work in research groups as they
dive into a new set of topics to report what they are learning to their other classmates.
Writing
I can't believe the second semester is here! I am impressed with how far the 6th grade has come along in their writing skills. Please ask your child to share his/her published work. We will begin our new Unit of Study, Research-Based Information Writing: Books, Websites, and Presentations. We will also begin practicing for the Forward Exam using sample questions and writing prompts provided by the state.
Math
The 6th graders started January with a brand new unit on Ratio Concepts. Students are not only learning how to write and interpret a ratio, but they also are learning how to find equivalent ratios and unit rates. Students will apply their knowledge to real world situations by finding the best deals on products when finding the unit rate. They will compare unit rates of similar products from different stores and make a decision on which product quantity would be best for them. Once this unit wraps up, 6th graders will be moving into chapters that will involve applying ratio knowledge to finding measurement conversions and finding percentages.
Science
6th grade science has been studying minerals and rocks. Students identified various samples using dichotomous keys and a variety of tests within the classroom. The two cohorts also had a guest speaker on January 10th. Lorie Scharenbroch joined during class and shared her rock and mineral tumbling process. She brought additional resources and multiple displays for the students to engage in. Mrs. Scharenbrock also brought in her handcrafted jewelry made from troubled minerals.
Recently the classes worked in groups to present a '28th Amendment' to the US Constitution. The groups identified needs that our population has and rights that could be added for the citizens. Some ideas included a fair living wage, a national 4 day school week, healthcare cost assistance, insurance cost assistance, term limits, and ideas to stop gun violence. They presented their ideas to their classmates. On Monday 1-15 they learned about the civil rights contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
5th Grade
Reading
I can't believe the second semester is here! It has been a joy working with your children for the first half of the school year. I love teaching 5th grade and I am looking forward to the rest of the year. We have wrapped up our first Unit of Study and we are on to the next one. We will continue our reading growth spurt with our second Unit of Study, Tackling Complexity: Moving Up Levels Of Nonfiction. We will uncover what makes a main idea complex, learn strategies for determining implicit main ideas, use context clues to determine the meaning of vocabulary in complex texts, use morphology of words to tackle tricky vocabulary, and learn how to summarize complex nonfiction texts. We will have a cart of nonfiction books in our classroom from the library that students will work with daily, along with various articles from our Unit of Study. Our new mentor text will be, When Lunch Fights Back: Wickedly Clever Animal Defenses, by Rebecca L. Johson.
Writing
Fifth graders are learning to explain the function of and use prepositions and
prepositional phrases. Students are learning that prepositions contribute to the
flexibility and fluidity of English sentence structure. Fifth graders recognize that
prepositions are important because they act as vital markers to the structure of a
sentence; they mark special relationships between persons, objects, and
locations.
Students have been working hard to become informational writers. They have put
the time into the research. They are able to explain the writing structure and are
able to craft the information. Students are working on producing their writing to
lure readers into reading it.
Math
The 5th graders started the new year with a unit on Volume. Students have been exploring the concept of volume, which is 3-dimensional, but using unit cubes to build right, rectangular prisms. Students also are learning that volume can be found using the formula: Volume = Length x Width x Height. The students have figured out that all of the multiplication practice that they did in the fall is paying off as they need to multiply several numbers to find the volume. Upon finishing the Volume unit, 5th graders will be moving into a Fraction Unit.
Science
Science is finishing up the waves unit this month with light. Students experimented with light, mirrors, prisms and the basic concepts of color. Students also created an eye diagram to learn about the anatomy of the eye.
Social Studies
The class finished up their Native American presentations and did a wonderful job. They also reported on recent current events in the community and the world. On Monday, January 15th they learned about the civil rights contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.