Hickory Creek Newsletter
December 2022
School Goals 2022-2023
- We will continue to provide rigor and opportunity for academic growth to all students in grades 6th - 8th.
Social/Emotional Goal:
- We will support staff and student social and emotional needs and enhance the opportunity for growth in relationships.
Communication Goal:
- We will increase opportunities for family engagement both during the school day and through extra-curricular activities.
Safety Goal:
- We will provide a safe learning environment for staff and students in grades 6th - 8th.
Hickory Creek November Pictures
Dan Gemeinhart Author Visit - Thank you FSP!!
Important Dates
December 7th - Education Foundation Lunch
December 8th - Kim White Presentation to 8th Grade Health Classes
December 9th - Chorus Holiday Tour of District
December 14th - FSP Hot Lunch
December 22nd - Last Day before Winter Break - 1:40 P.M. Dismissal
8th Grade Graduation Date Announced
Emergency Snow Day Learning Plan for Hickory Creek
- All students will be expected to log in to their Tiger Time Teacher's TEAMs page by 7:45 A.M. for attendance and announcements.
- After Tiger Time, students will attend 30-minute single classes (60-minute blocked classes) throughout the rest of the morning by virtually logging in to each teacher's TEAMs page. The "Virtual Bell Schedule" is attached below.
- All students will be given a lunch and study break from 11:50 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.
- From 1:00 P.M. - 2:30 P.M., students will not be required to be online with teachers unless they have specific questions or are invited to a small group learning opportunity for a specific class. Teachers will be available through Microsoft Chat during this time for any questions that students may have from their morning work.
- During the morning hours, attendance will be taken for each class, students are expected to attend by being on-time and having their camera on, actively participating. If your child will not be in attendance on this day, you will need to call them in to our office so that their attendance can be recorded. These will be learning days and curriculum will move forward, just done virtually.
Attendance at Hickory Creek
If your child is going to be out for an extended time, please complete the attached form and have your child bring it to each teacher, while collecting missing work, and get it signed. https://4.files.edl.io/bbab/08/21/20/144043-e70fd2b5-79e5-4142-8807-65560fc63082.pdf
Remembering Lanyards
Students who leave their lanyard at home will sign out a loaner lanyard for the day from the front office and be expected to return it in a basket in the office before leaving the building.
Students will be tracked each time they need a loaner lanyard. By the 3rd time in a quarter that they request a loaner- Mr. Crockett will call home.
Students who have lost their lanyard & ID will have the following options:
1st Time – free replacement for lanyard and ID.
2nd Time – Charged $3.00 to My School Bucks and a replacement will be given.
3rd Time – Charged $3.00, a replacement given and a meeting with Mr. Crockett with parent notification
4th Time – Charged $3,00, a replacement given and a consequence from Mr. Crockett. Progressive discipline will follow with any infractions after this incident.
Each quarter, this process resets and students have a new opportunity to demonstrate their responsibility.
6th Grade ELA
6th Grade Math
6th Grade Science
6th Grade Social Studies
7th Grade ELA
7th Grade Math
7th grade Core math just finished our unit on precents with a culminating activity that challenged the students to create their own outfit then determine the discount sales tax and last, their final cost. We will be learning about integers, all operations, for the weeks between parent conferences and winter break.
7th grade honors math just completed their unit on integers and will be moving into our first set of 8th grade standards covering the real number system and Pythagorean theorem.
7th Grade Science
7th Grade Social Studies
8th Grade ELA
8th Grade Math
Eighth grade math students will be continuing with Chapter 7 on Real Numbers. Students will learn about what makes a number rational vs. irrational and will learn to compare and order them. We will also be doing Chapter 10 on Pythagorean Theorem. In this chapter, students will learn a new formula for finding side lengths of right triangles. We will be applying this formula to real world word problems and conclude with a summative before winter break.
Eighth grade honors math students will be finishing their unit on Systems of Equations and Inequalities before diving into the Real Number Unit. They will complete the 8th grade standards for this unit along with simplifying radicals.
8th Grade Science
8th Grade Social Studies
Spanish
8th Grade students finished the unit about food. They completed a writing assessment to talk about how to maintain their health and use a lot of previous vocabulary to add details. We are proud of how far they have come in such a short amount of time. We will move on to learn about places they go in their free time.
7th Grade students breezed through the review units at the beginning of the quarter and are using so much Spanish in class! They are learning to talk about their class schedule, teachers and supplies. We will then move into learning about the classroom and location words.
6th graders are doing fantastic with learning about free time activities. They are now connecting what they like/dislike to do with their personality traits. It is wonderful to see how eager they are to use all the vocabulary in a new way.
Art
6th and 7th Grade artists will be exploring clay in the month of December. In 6th grade, students will study the tradition of coil pottery from around the world and use it as inspiration for their own coil pot. 7th grade students will explore representing emotion in art through creating mood masks.
8th Grade sculpture and design students will explore a variety of paint and texture techniques that they will apply to painting their clay house and their figure sculpture projects.
Music
We are approaching the end of the 2nd quarter for 6th and 7th graders and 1st semester for 8th. Time is flying by in the music room!
6th and 7th Grade students are working hard to finish their melody and harmony unit before break where we will be exploring ukulele, and guitars!
8th Graders will be continuing our progress with the ukulele and creating projects using Wevideo that will be featured on our TV Station Tiger TV. Check us out on YouTube:
STEM
8th Grade – As we round out the semester of coding and robotics we will be creating our final project to showcase our abilities! We will also be researching coding and robotics STEM careers and creating a poster to inform our classmates of the careers we researched!
7th Grade – We finished our first SMART Goal in November and are on to our second in the 3D Design Space! Students will follow tutorials to bring their objects to life! They will also begin their third SMART Goal using the Cricut design space.
6th Grade – We have been busy learning keyboard shortcuts and coding. In December we are going to create a keychain in the 3D design space and see them come to life, as well as begin to learn video production skills via WeVideo.
PE
PE will be finishing up their volleyball and dance units and moving into the Basketball unit.
Health Topics to be discussed in December are: Nutrition, Alcohol Tobacco & Other Drugs, Hygiene, and Personal/Consumer health. Eighth grade will receive a personal and heartfelt presentation regarding Drugs from Kim White.
Tiger Time Advisory
Tiger Time
- Monday - Tiger Time TV viewing
- Tuesday - Executive Functioning Skills
- Wednesday - "WIN Day" - What I Need Help With Day
- Thursday - SEL Lessons based on the Second Step Curriculum
- Friday - Team Building
Second Step Social and Emotional Lessons for the month of November
6th Grade Lessons
Lesson 17: Managing Your Emotions
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn and practice several emotion-management strategies to help them make good decisions when they’re feeling a strong emotion.
Question
Ask your child what strategy they like to use when they realize they need to manage their emotions. Share a strategy you like to use and see if it’s also helpful for them.
Lesson 18: What Works Best for You?
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will practice choosing an emotion-management strategy that works best for them in a given setting. They’ll look at several different settings and pick a strategy they think will work for them.
Question
Discuss different scenarios that might happen at home or school where your child might need to use an emotion-management strategy. Talk through the scenarios and ask your child to share their thinking and reasoning with you.
7th Grade Lessons
Lesson 10: The Effects of Sexual Harassment
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn about the effects of sexual harassment, and how to identify support resources available at school.
Question
Help your child brainstorm a list of trusted adults at school who can help if they, or a peer, experiences sexual harassment. Remind them to report any incidents of harassment to you as soon as they can.
Lesson 11: Gender-Based Harassment
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to recognize gender-based harassment. This is when people are bothered, teased, or bullied because of their sex, or because they look, act, or have interests that are different from male and female stereotypes.
Question
Remind your child that it's important that they tell you if they experience gender-based harassment. If you feel comfortable doing so, share an example of gender-based harassment you or another person has experienced and how you or the other person dealt with it.
8th Grade Lessons
Lesson 9: Social Factors that Contribute to Bullying
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will consider other people’s attitudes and beliefs about bullying and harassment, as well as their own.
Question
Share your thoughts and feelings around bullying and harassment with your child. Find out where you and your child agree and disagree and have a respectful discussion.
Lesson 10: Environmental Factors That Contribute to Bullying
Summary
In this week’s lesson, your child will identify environmental factors (the physical space and rules of an area) that contribute to bullying and harassment, and explore how they contribute to bullying and harassment in their school.
Question
Ask your child what environmental factors are. Share your observations about environmental factors that you’ve witnessed in the world outside of school.
Nurse Updates
From the Desk of Nurse Tammy
Please update information such as phone numbers, emergency contacts and name changes in Power School. Contact me to update care plans if you have not had the chance to do so or if you have questions about medication forms. If you have need forms for Eye and/or Dental exams, call or email and I will be sure to send those home with your student. Have a nice winter break!
Extra Curriculars
Band and Orchestra
Concert Band, Jazz Band, and all Orchestras will have their big Winter Concert on December 8, 6:00 at HCMS! See your email for details!
Chorus
All three HCMS Choruses did a FANTASTIC job at the Fall Concert! Our Varsity Chorus were wonderful singing for the Veteran’s Day breakfast!
- On December 1, our combined chorus will be singing at 6:30 p.m. on Breidert’s Green in Frankfort for the annual Tree-Lighting event.
- On December 9, the HCMS choruses will travel to Grand Prairie and Chelsea to perform and then cap off the day with a winter bowling social sponsored by our hard-working Chorus Boosters.
- On December 16 the HCMS Chorus members and their families will have a private catered dinner and see a production of “The Sound of Music” at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora.
It’s a busy month!
Student Council
Best Buddies
National Junior Honor Society
On Friday, November 11th, 2022, we had our third member meeting. Since we met only two weeks prior there were minimum announcements. We discussed everyone's NJHS service hour requirements and the pillar of the month; service. During the meeting we made cards for soldiers overseas. Everyone was very creative, and the cards turned out wonderful!
Secondly, we would like to acknowledge everyone who volunteered for the Red Ribbon Week projects, Day of the Dead projects, and organizing materials for Spanish and STEM. Thank you to everyone who helped!
Our next meeting will take place on: Friday, December 9th. Thank you!
Tiger TV
Tiger TV is HCMS’s AV Club! We live stream games and events. We also produce a weekly broadcast with many great segments such as: Week in Review, Upcoming Events and Announcements, Joke of the Week, Teacher Feature, Special Feature, Random Facts with Humans, and more.
This year’s club is up and running. There are five production teams and many students that are in the club, to stream, take pictures, and create video edits. To see a list of all the students please check out our TEAMS page. We also have a new YouTube Channel where we post our weekly broadcast, plus individual features from past episodes. Please check out our channel and subscribe using the link below.
JV and Varsity Girls' Basketball
6th Grade Girls' Basketball
Cheerleading
7th and 8th Grade Boys' Basketball
8th grade has a current record of 5-1. Team leaders are Evan Riiff and Aidan Deist.
7th grade has a current record of 4-2. Team leaders are Marcus Gordon and Jimmy Hellrung.
6th Grade Boys' Basketball
The 6th grade A team has a record of 5-1.
The 6th grade B team has a record of 6-0.
Both teams are off to a great start to their seasons.
Students of the Month for November - Recognizing Critical Thinkers
6A - Mia Simon and Rishi Patel
6B- Katie Hegeman & Jack Doyle
7A -Grace Zhang & Brandon Khuu
7B-Sahana Vijayaraj & YUSAF CHUGHTAI
8A-Jackson Plutz & Ava Venable
8B-George Skibinski & Sophia D’Ambrosio
ENCORE-Cayden Burgess & Emma Boll
PE- Meg Egglesfield & Jacob Wagner