Weekly News
January 29, 2021
Calendar Items
Monday, February 1 - Student pictures 7:45 - 10:00 a.m.
Monday, February 1 - Boys basketball games
Tuesday, February 2 - Green Day M-Z students in person
Tuesday, February 2 - Student pictures 7:45 - 10:00 a.m.
Wednesday, February 3 - Silver Day M-Z students in person
Thursday, February 4 - Green Day A-L students in person
Thursday, February 4 - Boys basketball games
6th grade Bell Schedule
7th grade Bell Schedule
8th grade Bell Schedule
School Pictures February 1st & 2nd, 2021
Ordering Passcode: 315258339
https://scholasticphotography.hhimagehost.com/V2/Home/LoginConsumer?EK=147767
School Play Information
Cast and crew of The Aubry Bend Anthology, please continue to check the Canvas page regularly. The Canvas page will ALWAYS have the most updated and recent information.
Some news to note:
- Cast: The script is up and available for you to take a look at. Please read through your scripts before we meet for your rehearsal! Try to memorize as much of your lines as you can before we rehearse your scenes. We will have printed copies available for you to take when you come for rehearsal.
- Cast and Crew: Make sure to check the calendar on the home page. This calendar has been updated recently and includes days and times cast should report.
- If you have questions, please reach out to me on Canvas, or at my email: jmgarcia02@bluevalleyk12.org.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Dane Weninger, ABMS 7th grader! Dane won our school Spelling Bee and also qualified for the County Spelling Bee. He competed in the County Bee on Thursday, January 28 and tied for 6th place. Thank you, Dane, for representing Aubry Bend with pride. We are proud of your accomplishments!
Chiefs Spirit Week February 1 - 5
· Invest in ABMS/PTO membership - Make your tax-deductible donation! Any and all support is very much appreciated!! Log into ParentVue to donate.
· DONATION LETTERS - Stay tuned! Your donation receipt letter will be arriving via email and/or mail later this month.
· AMAZON SMILE - Did you know you can support ABMS by shopping through Amazon Smile? It's an easy way to help, but you must shop through our link.
· "BE IN THE KNOW WITH ABMS PTO"- Be sure to follow us on FB (@AubryBendMSPTO) and twitter (@AbmsPto).
· TRIVIA NIGHT - We are working on a plan to host an ABMS virtual Trivia night in the next few weeks (hopefully February or March). More info to come! We just wanted to get it on your radar and know that we are thinking about our ABMS community.
· SCHOOL SUPPLIES - We are looking for two people to fill our school supplies committee for this spring. The responsibilities would be to coordinate with our vendor for the sales this spring and assist with the sorting and distribution of sets later this summer. Please reach out to aubrybendpto@gmail.com with questions or interest.
7th & 8th Grade ELA - Virtual Students
All virtual students may pick up a copy of their class novels for ELA in the ABMS main entrance vestibule beginning Tuesday, Jan 19th during school hours. Students will find their copy with a sticky note attached with their name. The books will be placed on a cart clearly labeled within the entrance vestibule. This is for Virtual students only! All in-person students have received their books during in-person classes.
If virtual students have library books to return, they may place them on the cart as well, on the bottom shelf.
Please email if you have any questions.
🖤 Blind Date with a Book 🖤
Blind Date with a book is back! Students willing to take a chance can choose a book that is wrapped with a small clue of what the book is about. After reading, they may fill out a small book review and turn it into the library. At the end of February, there will be a small prize drawing for students who completed the book and review!
ELA
We are proud of students for their concentration and effort on the Reading MAP test this week. Students continued to research and analyze articles related to our argumentative writing topic: Should Cell Phones be allowed in the classroom? Ask your student what side of the claim they are on.
Math
Math classes learned how to use ratios to calculate percentages this week! Next week, we will apply our knowledge about percentage calculations to a real-world activity.
Science
Science classes are wrapping up the Inside Earth unit and will be moving into Rocks and Minerals in the next couple of weeks.
Social Studies
Social Studies has started our study of Ancient Greece. We have looked at their geography and their gods and goddesses. Ask your student which god or goddess they learned about this week. They took an online personality quiz to find out which god/goddess they are most like and they did some research about their god. They created a project to go along with their learning, including options like a music playlist, a myth, a busines plan, or a comic strip. They were so creative! Ask your student who they learned about and what they created.
Social Studies
We are finishing up and assessing on our World Population unit via two reflective writing pieces: an I Am… Poem and a DBQ essay. Both require our students to process and reflect on the driving question for the unit: Am I in the majority or minority of the world’s population? Using the multitude of resources we have looked at over the past several weeks, it’s time to make a claim and defend it with evidence! Can’t wait to see what their argument is! At dinner tonight, ask your child what stance they took: Majority or Minority, and why?
ELA
Students are studying Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. They are also writing Sunflower Award nominations for one teacher and one peer. Ask your student to check Canvas to make sure all of their work is completed and up-to-date.
Math
We are finishing up 2-step inequalities and MAP assessments. Our next unit is proportional relationships. We have a project in mind...find out how your family can save money using unit rates!
Integrated VirtualED Math
Students will assess next week over 2-step inequalities and review unit rate concepts from 6th grade before jumping into a project!
Advanced VirtualED Math
We are finishing up 2-step inequalities and MAP assessments. Our next unit is proportional relationships. We have a project in mind...find out how your family can save money using unit rates!
Science
It's eyeball dissection time! This week we are dissecting eyeballs! This will tie in with our investigating eyesight activities we have already completed. On February 4th, 8th hour will Zoom with a guest speaker Dr. Justin Davis. He is the Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Students in other hours will have the opportunity to submit questions & view a recording.
ELA
We will be diving into Night by Elie Wiesel.
Farris Science
Continue working on Rollercoasters.
Moss Science
Newton's third law of motion lab.
Social Studies
“Can words lead to War?” The exploration of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and its impact on the awareness of slavery in the United States leading up to the Civil War.
Math
Alegbra 1: Linear functions. Different forms of linear equations with an emphasis on slope-intercept form
Math 8: Types of Angles.
I want to send a BIG shout out to our kids and families this week for a successful winter MAP assessment. Kids were focused and ready to do their best to help us gather data regarding their instructional level, and families supported us in many ways, from moving appointments to setting extra alarms.
There are so many misconceptions about the MAP assessment that I would like to share information here in the hopes that we can debunk many of those misconceptions.
First and foremost, MAP stands for Measures of Academic Progress. It does just that…measures student progress toward curricular standards. It is NOT an achievement test that measures the end goal. It is a diagnostic assessment that gives teachers, families and students a snapshot of their current instructional level on the day of the test.
MAP is diagnostic because it’s designed to measure the student’s instructional level in math and reading. The test starts with a leveled question based upon the student’s last known MAP score. If the student gets that question correct, there will be a more difficult question next. If the student gets that question incorrect, there will be an easier question. The system “deals” the student questions until it finds the level where the student gets half of the questions wrong. This indicates the student’s current instructional level.
The biggest misconception among kids is that they believe or want to get all the questions right. This is impossible on a diagnostic test like MAP. Unfortunately, we still have kids who will sit with a math problem for 20 minutes trying to figure it out…and they may be able to do that eventually, but that kind of time can sometimes invalidate the results of a test designed to figure out what they know and don’t know immediately. Our job is to look at the instructional level and then provide the instruction needed to take those problems that they can eventually solve with 20-30 minutes of “trying” time and teach them the content/skills needed to be able answer or solve right away.
The MAP is not intended to rank students top to bottom like an ACT or PSAT, and that’s why we discourage students and families from comparing scores to each other. Every student can learn, but every student learns at a different rate and in different ways. Comparing my 213 RIT score to my friend’s 233 RIT score is poor practice because my 213 could jump to a 230 with a strong unit designed to help students understand inferences in reading passages.
My friend’s 233 may not change because she already understands inferences, but her score may change when we study the unit on literary analysis. When we study literary analysis, I may understand it quicker than my friend, so my score may jump to a 245 and my friend’s may jump to a 240. It doesn’t mean either one of us is smarter than the other…it means that we’re learning at different rates. Most importantly, we are both learning and progressing. THAT is the point.
This year, especially, it’s important for us to use these assessments as a data point aligned to our standards that will help us target skills and standards needed for instruction. We are looking forward to digging into the data as a staff once the window closes and norms are set. Our teachers work really hard to meet the needs of our kids, and this provides us one more tool in our toolbox to continue our work.
Thank you for your support of ABMS! We love our community and want you to know that you can count on us.
Sincerely,
Diana Tate, Principal
Aubry Bend Middle School
Email: AubryBendMiddle@bluevalleyk12.org
Website: www.bluevalleyk12.org/ABM
Location: 12501 West 175th Street, Overland Park, KS, USA
Phone: 913-624-2300
Facebook: facebook.com/Smore
Twitter: @smorenewsletter