Meeting in the Middle
November 2016
Dear Parents/Guardians:
Thanks to all of you for your continued support and attendance at Parent/Teacher Conferences! Our first marking period of the year ended on Friday, November 4th. Rather than being mailed home, report cards will be available on ParentVue Wednesday, November 9th by the end of the day. Now that we are back on semesters, we use first and second marking period grades for a semester grade. At the end of the first semester, we will have our Honor Roll celebration (the beginning of February). We will mail report cards at the end of first and second semesters.
Thanks to all of the parents chaperoning the 8th grade Washington D.C. trip! Without you, we could not offer such a great opportunity for our kids! Thanks to all of the LMS staff for making this trip possible each year!
Our annual 8th grade EDP parent meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 9th. During this meeting, parents will learn about the required EDP class for all eighth graders and will be given a preview of the high school Michigan Merit Curriculum requirements and learn about programs and opportunities available for high school students who attend the Genesee Career Institute. This is the first step for parents and students as we move toward the eighth grade transition to high school. Please contact the main office to RSVP for this event.
At our last Parent Action Committee meeting, it was decided that we would sponsor two events in January for our students. More details will be made available in December. Thanks to the parents who have attended these meetings!
Please feel free to contact the main office with any questions/concerns you may have. Open, two-way communication is an important factor in the success of LMS.
Respectfully,
Julie Brown
Talented Talons (Beckman, Mazza, Thorin)
As a team we are off to a great start!
Social Studies is off to a great start this year. Students have been learning about globes and maps. Breaking the information further, they have learned about latitude and longitude lines, hemispheres, continents, oceans, and climate zones. Next we will be studying time zones and map essentials. I am looking forward to a terrific school year!
Math News- Grading
Digits grades will be transferred at the end of each topic (approx. 2-3 weeks) to ParentVue and then combined for a total grade.
Homework (digits and paper combined) 25% of total grade
Digit’s Written Work 3% of total grade
Weekly Warm-Ups 2% of total grade
Digits tests 70% of total grade
Math News- Test Retakes
Any test may be retaken the week after the original test date. I’m available on Tuesdays and Thursdays during lunch, study skills and after school. Signup sheets are on the bulletin board. Student must have a 90% on Digits homework in order to qualify for test retake. All homework is reopened and available starting on the original test day until the following Thursday (last day for test retake). Students can upgrade their homework scores even if they are not choosing to retake the test. I always encourage students to strive for 100 % on Digits homework as they can redo the workmuntil they get it correct.
Email: bbeckman@lindenschools.org phone: 810-591-0747 after 2:31 or leave a voice mail
The students in Ms. Mazza's class continue to read nonfiction articles using skills to determine if test questions are inferred or right there answers. They have written personal narratives and newspaper articles about a topic of their choice. They will begin researching monsters and use the information gathered to compile a research project titled, "The Monster Times". The students are excited to begin this project.
In science, we are continuing our unit on the Structure and Properties of Matter. Students have completed their first learning target question, "What is matter made of?" and are working on their second question, "What makes substances have different characteristics?". We have been focusing on the periodic table and its organization, physical and chemical properties, and states of matter. Check out your student's science notebook to see what we have been up to! Don't forget to ask them about the slime lab.
Winged Warriors (Adams, Baldridge, Cook, Kimball)
Math
Math classes are finishing topic 3 on equations and inequalities and will be starting topic 4 on relationships of two variables. Students will learn how to make graphs from tables of values and use equations to make tables. Upcoming Topic 5 and 6 will cover fractions. Students will be learning how to multiply and divide fractions as well as learning when to multiply or divide and solve real world problems involving fractions and mixed numbers. Please check your child’s Digits account for all homework and grades. Keep in mind that all tests may be retaken within a two week window after the original test. Keeping up on homework and asking questions in class is the key to doing well on tests and being able to meet all the learning targets.
Social Studies
Social Studies classes are working through Chapter 1 of the textbook. In this chapter, the students will learn what the job of a geographer entails. They will act as geographers as they use spatial perspective to answer questions and solve problems. They will learn to identify issues as local, regional, or global levels of study. The children are learning to use a variety of maps to answer geographical questions.
Science
Sixth grade scientists are working on science writing. This includes being able to analyze and interpret data, make a claim, and construct an explanation for that claim by using valid evidence. This is challenging for students, but I expect it to get easier as they get the hang of it. As always, anything can be re-done in my class, and late work is always accepted. Next up: “Does it go through?” in which we investigate why an object can pass through (or not pass through) the three states of matter.
Language Arts
Language Arts students are working on finding text evidence to support their inferences in informational text. Students must write the page number of the explicit responses (right there in the text), and if their response is an inference, they must give evidence from the story or write a summary of what happened that made them draw that conclusion. Students have also been researching a mythological monster and working with a partner to create a 2-3 minute newscast of their findings. These will be presented next week. Next up: Students will be writing procedural essays to explain how to do something or how to make something.
Regal Eagles (Coleman, Smith, Schultz)
Language Arts
In Language Arts, we are finishing up a grammar unit focusing on the sentence and its parts. This will eventually lead into our main grammar focus for 7th grade: clauses and phrases.
Next, students will be analyzing memoirs from famous authors. With these narratives, we will explore some of the thoughts and events that came to define who these people were. Eventually, the students will be asked to write a memoir about their own lives and experiences.
As always, please ensure that you and your child are consistently checking ParentVue for missing assignments and announcements on upcoming tests and essays.
Social Studies
Students have been learning about the first city-states in Mesopotamia. Those Sumerians had lots of geographical challenges. In class, we have been making posters that provide solutions for the Sumerians. Students drew complex irrigation systems, wall, moats, and buildings which became a city-state.
Students are learning not only about social studies, but I am working with them on test taking strategies. Writing an essay can be overwhelming, but there are solutions and strategies to help students solidify their ideas. We practice writing the essays before the test. Students have also been writing paragraphs on the topics of analyzing artifacts and drawing conclusions. They have been busy!
So, far this is a great group of students to work with. They have been respectful and fun to teach!
Science
In Science, we learned what makes something alive. Students started this unit by brainstorming characteristics that they thought all living things have. Students then completed a lab activity where they looked at fifteen different items and used their list of characteristics to determine if something was living. Students revised their thinking based on their data, and together we came up with the five characteristics of life.
Next, students learned how to write a claim, evidence, reasoning report (CER). They completed a Roller Lab Race where they rolled toy cars with varying masses down a ramp and had to make a claim as to whether or not the mass of the car affected how long it took to go down the ramp. Students learned that in order to make a claim, it must be based off of their evidence (data) and their reasoning. Lastly, students used their knowledge of writing a CER to make justifications as to whether or not something is alive, and students recently took an assessment on this concept.
Students will next learn about the Cell Theory and the scientists that contributed to it. Students will be creating a timeline to show their understanding. This assignment will lead us into comparing and contrasting multi-cellular and unicellular organisms and eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells.
If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Soaring Eagles (Boyer, Marton, Strong)
Thank you to all of the parents who attended Parent/Teacher Conferences. It was very nice to meet all of you. The end of the first marking period is Friday, November 4. Marking period grades will be available in ParentVue. If you have any questions or comments, please contact your child’s teacher as soon as possible.
Language Arts classes will be writing a personal memoir in class. Please ask your child what they’re writing about and offer to read their rough drafts! Mrs. Strong’s classes are learning about the Middle East. Mrs. Boyer’s classes are working on percentages.
The Soaring Eagles Team is planning a field trip to SkyZone in Brighton on December 22 (the day before Winter Break). Permission slips will be coming home in mid-November, so please be on the lookout!
Please contact team teachers for updated class information.
8th Grade Newsletter
It’s been another busy month for the 8th Graders. The Washington D.C. trip was a success! The students had great weather to enjoy our nation’s capital. Linden Middle School was well represented by our 8th grade students. Thank you to Mrs. Elmer and Mrs. Bogie for organizing the trip. Also thank you to all of the staff and parent chaperones who attended with our students.
Washington D.C. tee shirt orders will be coming home soon. This is a fun way to remember the trip!!
8th grade students will be taking a bowling field trip on December 22nd to Striking Lanes in Hartland. Permission slips and details to come home after Thanksgiving. Each student will need to have a permission slip signed and returned to attend.
Thank you to all the parents who attended parent-teacher conferences on October 13th.
We would like to remind parents that using ParentVue is a good way to keep track of your student’s progress. Remember to keep checking your student’s Digits account, too! This will help track homework assignments and grades.
Eighth graders are about to take their first assessment of the year in science. We have been working with understanding the apparent motions of the Earth, Sun and Moon. The units in science take a much longer time to complete due to the newest approach in teaching the concepts as phenomenon with an emphasis on modeling and engineering practices. Be sure to check the communication link in Parent/Studentvue as a log of what we do in class. It is posted daily!
Language Arts students are reading “The Outsiders.” They are also working on writing their own Realistic Fiction story.
Students in Social Studies are learning about the Constitution and all of its parts! Also, we continue to have discussions on the Washington DC highlights and look forward to the upcoming Presidential Election!