Sandwich Middle School
April Newsletter 2018
6th Grade News
Welcome back from Spring Break! The 6th graders will be keeping very busy during the month of April! Upon returning to school the week of April 2, we will begin PARCC testing for Math and Reading. Math classes will be finishing up area, surface area, and volume topics, then spending the rest of April learning about statistics. Instructional Math will work on multiple step word problems. Language Arts classes will continue to work on Greek Mythology and will begin our novel unit on The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordon. Instructional Language arts will be using evidence to support arguments/claims. Social Studies classes will be exploring the cultures of Ancient Asia.
Reminder: those students who qualified by participating in the Cougars Reading Club will be taking a field trip to the Kane County Cougars game on April 24, so be on the lookout for that permission form!
Congratulations to our April Students of the Month: William Lappe and Emily Beltran. Keep up the great work!!
6th Grade Career Day
On Friday, March 9, 2018 the sixth grade students had a special day where they were able to listen to eight adults talk about their professions. Students listened to the presenters talk about how they apply what they learned in school in their everyday lives. Presenters were: (back row left to right) Joie Dennis (Mechanical and Robotics Engineer), Kyle Sheley (Oswego Fire Department), Stacy Skillin (Body Shop Owner), Detective Brian Fasnacht (Sandwich Police Department), Kasi Fialco (Animal Trainer), Angelica Valdiviez (Food Services), Amanda Stotler (Substance Abuse Counselor), and Aaron Clark (Mechanic). A HUGE thank you for helping educate the students at SMS.
7th Grade News
Hope you enjoyed the great break and are ready for the final quarter of the year. As we settle into April, we will begin our focus in social studies on the antebellum period. This will identify reasons and causes as to why we engaged in a serious Civil War. To enjoy living and local history, the re-enactors of the 10th Illinois will be at Knight’s park on the 13-15th of April so students can appreciate what it took to serve in that time era. This will help in the understanding of events around the Civil War period.
In science, we are continuing with the Biology unit. We have learned about plant and animals cells and the function of their organelles. Next, we are going to learn about how cells get their energy through either photosynthesis or cellular respiration. We will also focus on how these two cycle work together between plants and animals. We will also be learning about more cells are created through the process of mitosis.
In the math classes, we just started our first unit on geometry. This is the first of the three that we will be working on this year. This unit consists of learning the different types of angles, triangles, quadrilateral, and other polygons. Once we finish up this unit, the next unit we will be working on is finding the perimeter and area of 2-dimensional figures and then we’ll move on to volume and surface area of 3-dimensional figures.
In the pre-algebra classes, we currently working on collecting, displaying, and analyzing data. During this chapter, the students are learning about samples, surveys, organizing data, measures of central tendency, variability, misleading graphs and statistics, and displaying data. Once we finish up this chapter, we will be starting our first of two chapters over geometry. During this chapter, the students will be learning about points, lines, planes, angles, triangles, polygons, coordinate geometry, congruence, and transformations.
In language arts the students will be working on both short stories and informational text. They will be using graphic organizers to compare and contrast the text and to develop their responses. Both regular language arts and AT language arts will finish the year with a novel unit. They will be reading, responding and completing appropriate projects.
The students of the month are Cody Peterson and Amanda Skinner
8th Grade News
8th Grade Newsletter
The students did an amazing job on the PARCC test! We are so proud of them. Now that the PARCC test has ended, it is on to Map Testing. We know this great group of 8th graders will do well on those tests too! In language arts, we will be starting poetry and practicing our grammar skills while reading The Cheat by Amy Goldman Koss. Soon the students will be reading an individual novel of their choice. In history, we will begin the study of the Cold War and start then our study of the United States & Constitutions. Science will be finishing up a unit on oceanography and marine biology. They will begin working on a physics unit, where students will learn and apply Newton’s three laws of motion. In regular math, we are doing a unit on linear relationships and also discovering non-linear graphs and equations. In advanced math, we will be working on solving quadratic problems.
Our Students of the Month are Marie Pawelczak and Lilly Heiman.
They are dedicated students who really shine. Their hard work, positive attitudes, and willingness to succeed are commendable.
PE News
Hello from the Physical Education staff.
Spring is upon us and hopefully warmer weather is coming soon! We have already finished up 3rd quarter activities and our students have been on the move in class participating in our Olympics, teambuilding, and fitness units. Time sure flies and it has been exciting to watch our students in action. To finish up the year, our 4th quarter activities include badminton, team handball, softball, and fitness testing/classes. I think we can speak for everyone about welcoming the warm weather and get our classes outside for some sun and fun! Some students who have gone above and beyond lately and deserve some special recognition are: Samantha Pfaff 6th grade, Ty Ahrens 7th grade, and Chase Hologa 8th grade. Congratulations on your great efforts to earn being our students of the month! Keep up the good work and lets have a great 4th quarter!
Phys Ed Staff
STEM NEWS
Welcome 4th quarter STEM students! During the first two weeks of the quarter 6th grade students in Introduction to Engineering has begun exploring the work of engineers. They will continue to learn the engineering design process and complete exciting design challenges this month. 7th grade students are learning about different types of sketching and technical drawings used by engineers to document and communicate designs. They will be working with an internet based CAD program, called TinkerCAD, as they begin to explore the possibilities of computer modeling. Finally, 8th grade students have been learning about current robots technology. This month they will be building mechanisms to bettern understand how automated systems work. They will later design and build projects which include the mechanism they have studied.
News from the LRC
SMS SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR
Monday April 30TH – Friday, May 4th
7:30-3:30 daily
Check out the link on our school webpage or go to www.scholastic.com/fair for more information about our book fair and the opportunity to purchase books online beginning May 22nd.
Please visit the book fair. It is a chance to stock up on great reads for the summer and support the LRC’s book collection!