Jonas Clarke Middle
News and Notes | September 2018
From the Principal
Dear Clarke Community,
It has been a wonderful and smooth start to the 2018-2019 school year! Despite the heat during the first two weeks, we are back to the business of teaching and learning. I have truly enjoyed visiting classrooms and seeing and getting to know students in the the lunchroom and the hallways. I am extremely proud of our 7th and 8th grade students who have returned to school with a desire to be role models for our new students. Our 6th graders have also embraced the middle school with much excitement. We are still learning our way around and working on those lockers but with great success! Sometimes transitions can be difficult and this is definitely a month of transitions for all of us. I do hope that the beginning of the year has been smooth for your family, but of course if there are challenges that we can help with please let us know.
During the first two weeks we met with each grade level to go over information and reminders that students may find helpful to get the year started including BARK (Balance, Acceptance, Resilience and Kindness) and Clarke's Constitution of Caring (found in the front of our student handbook as well as in the hallway outside of the main office.) In addition, we went over entry procedures to the school, expectations in the hallways and cafeteria and reminders about attendance and after school procedures. Most of this information can also be found in our Student Handbook as well as our Insiders Guide to Clarke. Once you have reviewed the Student Handbook, please be sure to sign off by filling out the online Handbook Acknowledgement and Photo Permissions Form
I would like to thank the Clarke PTO for sponsoring our first day Welcome Back Breakfast for all Clarke staff! It was wonderful to be able to connect with staff before beginning our meetings for the day and prepping classrooms for students. In addition, thanks to the PTO for sponsoring the first PTO coffee of the year on the first full day of school for all students. It was wonderful to have so many parents there to start the year off.
I am looking forward to a great school year and we hope to see you at the Middle School Back To School Night scheduled for Wednesday October 3rd (grade 6 parents) and Thursday October 4th (grade 7 and 8 parents) Stay tuned for more information coming soon!
Upcoming Events
Wednesday, September 12 | Special Education parent Coffee
9:00am - 10:00am Clarke cafeteria
Thursday, September 13 | Middle School Early Release
Dismissal @ 11:45AM. No breakfast or lunch served
Tuesday, September 18 | School Picture Day
Wednesday, September 19 | No School - Yom Kippur
Wednesday, October 3 | Back To School Night for 6th grade parents
(more info to follow)
Thursday, October 4 | Back To School Night for 7th and 8th grade parents
(more info to follow)
Thursday October 4| Clarke PTO Meeting
8:45AM Clarke Cafeteria
Monday, October 8 | No School
Friday October 12 | 6th Grade Social
3:00PM Clarke Cafeteria
Friday October 12 | 7th Grade Social
6:30PM Clarke Gym
From the Clarke PTO
News from the 6th Grade Teams
Atlantis Team
Atlantis Team students are off to a great start. We are seeing lots of smiles and enthusiastic greetings! Coming from a number of different elementary schools, we are learning about each other and quickly becoming a team. We are still learning to navigate our way around the building, use the correct stairs, read our schedules, and open our lockers.
Team teachers are planning our Annual Team Breakfast for students, which is a wonderful opportunity for getting together with old friends and making new ones. After breakfast, the team will go outside for some team building activities. We are also looking forward to the sixth grade trip to Hale Reservation in the beginning of October.
The Atlantis Team Homework Club will start in October. All students are welcome to come and work on homework in room 367. There will be LHS students earning community service hours serving as peer tutors for our middle school students. Homework Club runs every Wednesday from 3:00 to 4:00. Students need to make arrangements for rides home.
The Atlantis Team will be taking advantage of the fall weather by enjoying outdoor recess whenever we can. We have an awesome recess bag, full of great equipment. Any donations to our recess bag this year are welcome.
We look forward to an exciting year!
Columbia Team
The Columbia Team has had an exciting start to the year!
In Math we will be focusing on having a growth mindset, working in groups collaboratively, working on being active listeners and being able to ask and answer questions to further our understanding of concepts. For example, we will be working on being convincers, defenders and skeptics of mathematics.
Questions parents might ask their children at home:
Is there more you could do? Could you solve it in a different way? Could you show this using a visual representation? Why does your answer make sense? Can you prove your answer?
In our humanities classes we have been establishing routines, and have jumped right into getting to know our new teammates, and preparing to compare and contrast our lives as modern humans with those of ancient and prehistoric times. Reviewing our reading and argumentation strategies is also essential at this time of year. Soon we will engage in Writer’s Workshop for our personal narrative unit, and will analyze the plot elements of various published short stories as models for our own pieces. Much of our work this year will be guided by overarching questions such as “Who am I?” and “Who might I have been?” as we seek meaningful ways to deepen our understanding by identifying connections across the curricula.
In Science class we have been working on defining what the expectations are of both the students and of Mr. Murray. We have also been working on what distinguishes scientists from everyone else. Mr. Murray even took a day to explain whether or not the great Bigfoot was real or just another myth. We are currently working on what measurement is, and how to find the mass, volume, and density of an object. After that we will tackle geology, and looking at all the rocks that we collected over the summer!
Tips on How to be a Successful Clarke Middle School Student:
1.) Write your homework in your agenda/assignment book.
2.) Have all your materials for all of your classes.
3.) Organization is the key! Keep your binder organized. ALL papers need to be put away by subject. Try scheduling time for this once a week at home.
4.) You should have an assignment folder labeled “To Do” and “Done” to keep current on your assignments.
5.) At home, set up a successful homework area.
6.) Have a growth mindset attitude.
7.) Support each other.
8.) Have fun!
Quest
Students on Quest have been learning the ropes of middle school life: finding their way to class independently, opening their lockers, managing the expectations of multiple classes and teachers, keeping track of their homework assignments in their agendas, and meeting so many new people!
One topic of conversation in all Quest classes during these first two weeks has been our school and team values. These values are summed up in the acrononym: BARRK
Balance: Understanding that we have many aspects of our life that need our attention and need to be nurtured.
Acceptance: Being open-minded and respectful of diverse people and ideas.
Responsibility: Being willing to follow the rules and procedures that help keep our school community a safe, orderly, and great place to learn.
Resilience: Being able to bounce back from setbacks and move on from disappointments.
Kindness: Showing care and concern for others as well as ourselves.
During one of our team times, Quest teachers and students discussed what each of these values meant and how we can show these values through our actions.
Throughout these weeks, Quest teachers were particularly impressed how students have taken these conversations to heart. We teachers have seen students showing Balance by managing their time well and getting to class promptly by saving the desire to socialize with friends for lunch time. Quest students have demonstrated Acceptance by listening respectfully and responding thoughtfully during whole class discussions. We have witnessed Responsibility as students have been come prepared with their materials for class each day. Students have exhibited Resilience by asking for help with their lockers and being willing to try opening them again and again until they finally got it! Finally, we teachers have noticed so much Kindness. Students have offered to walk with others who were not sure how to get to their next classes. They have inviting new kids to join their conversations while waiting for homeroom to begin. They have taken the time to explain to their classmates what the teacher had said in a different way to those who didn’t quite understand the first time.
We teachers on Quest have appreciated how all of our students have been “bringing their BARRK” to school each day, and we look forward to a great year getting to know this fantastic group of kids as both people and learners!
Voyager Team
Voyager is off to a strong start as we continue to build team spirit. In Ancient Civilizations we have kicked off our archaeological unit and will be answering lifelong questions such as: what exactly does an archeologist do, what are the steps of an archeological dig, how does one date artifacts, and who exactly was Otzi the “Ice Man” (with apologies to George Gervin).
Voyager English students are off to a strong start this year learning about active reading strategies, annotating texts, and the purpose of imagery in narrative writing. Students will soon be engaged in a visualization project, where they closely read a passage from Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and analyze the use of imagery, sensory language and figurative language. From there, they will use their active reading strategies to recreate a picture of the scene Taylor so expertly crafted. The final stage of this assignment is for students to use the best evidence possible from the text to support their images. I’m so impressed with the independence, resourcefulness and effort the students have displayed! Next up for the Voyager students is a writing assignment that will challenge them to create their own “imagery snapshots” using what they’ve learned about descriptive language.
Voyager science is off to a great start of the year!
We are refining our scientific observation skills so that we can use them throughout the course. Students have been working collaboratively to discover how scientists work together to achieve a common goal. Our first unit is on measurement and scientific tools which explores mass, volume and density through engaging experiments. As a class we have enjoyed rich conversations as students share their personal experiences, cultures, and interests. This has created a wonderful community of learners. I am looking forward to a great year in Voyager science.
Voyager math students started out the school year with a fun unit on number sense. We're becoming more automatic with breaking down numbers into their most basic, prime factorization. We're getting stronger at recognizing when divisibility rules are useful. Perhaps most challenging, though, is the application of greatest common factor and least common multiple to real world problems!
Journey Through the IMC
Clarke librarian Ms. Kelly introduced the sixth-grade students to the Instructional Materials Center, or IMC, this week. However, this library orientation was not a typical library orientation.
When the students arrived in the IMC, they were presented with a lock box that held special prizes for them. In order to open the lock, they needed to go on an adventure through the library to find the key. Teams of students were given encrypted names of books and authors. Once students cracked the codes, they looked up the books in the online card catalog Destiny and found them on the shelves. Each clue led the teams to another new book and a new code to break until they finally found the key to their lock box.
It was a fun and engaging way for students to learn the different section of the IMC and practice using the online catalog. Now that they know how to use the library, they can go on new adventures within the pages of a book!