St. Francis Middle School
December Newsletter
MESSAGE FROM PRINCIPAL CRITCHLEY
As we close up 2023, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you for sharing your students with us. We have enjoyed watching our students grow and learn. We anticipate a great start to 2024.
See you soon!
Principal Critchley
ATTENDANCE MATTERS - Assistant Principal Nick Jacobs
School success and good attendance go hand in hand. Research shows when students attend school regularly, they feel more connected to their school community, develop important friendships, strengthen social-emotional skills and are more likely to graduate from high school. Showing up for school has a huge impact on a student’s academic success starting in kindergarten and continuing through high school. Even as children grow older and more independent, families play a key role in making sure students get to school safely every day and understand why attendance is so important for success in school and in life.
In addition, some benefits of having good attendance are as follows:
Students do better on state tests
Keep up with their homework
Get good grades
Graduate from high school
Become positive role models
Are more likely to have better self-esteem
Build and maintain positive relationships with their peers and staff
MR. REHANI'S THEATER CLASS
Mr. Rehani's 8th grade theater classes just finished making character masks. The process used plaster gauze, paper clay, and acrylic paint. Students were able to make their own character mask, write about their creation, and reflect on other people's work. Students were highly engaged throughout this whole process and the end products were incredible! Our students have great imaginations!
6TH GRADE SCIENCE
The 6th graders participated in a heat transfer lab where students were able to experience radiation by making mini s'mores. Shout out to the awesome parent volunteers and the parents who helped donate the supplies for the lab. The students LOVED it.
MR. LIBBY'S 8TH GRADE GEOGRAPHY CLASS
In Mr. Libby's 8th Grade Geography class, students are currently working on creating their very own countries! The students are taking all the information they learned in the first trimester about political and physical maps, culture, governments, economies, 5 Themes of Geography, climate, and natural resources to create a realistic country. The goal is that they will then compare their country to the countries around the world we are starting to study. Be sure to ask about it!
8th GRADE SCIENCE
In November, 8th grade science students finished up the Force and Motion unit. Throughout the unit, students gathered information about how strength of force, mass of objects, and collisions can affect the motion of these objects. Students used their scientific argumentation skills to explain why an unmanned space pod would experience unexpected motion. Great job, 8th graders!
6th GRADE ART - Mr. Buettner
6th grade students recently took a break from art-making to do an art career group research project. Groups researched information about their chosen career such as what that career is, what skills and schooling are required, what the salary range is, and types of projects people with that career do. Students also learned how to build effective slideshows, present their information to the class, and work in groups to complete a creative task. The presentations were fun and impressive. Even though many students were nervous about presenting, they enjoyed sharing their work.
SFMS KNOWLEDGE BOWL TEAMS - Coach Camille Zupfer
The Knowledge Bowl season is underway and SFMS has a great group of 8 students consisting of 6-8th graders. The team has been competing in monthly competitions around the twin cities answering questions about history, literature, mathematics, science and current events. At their first kick off meet in Shakopee, SFMS placed 5th out of 22 teams from the surrounding area! The SFMS knowledge bowl team hopes to keep this momentum going as they get ready for their next competition on Tuesday, January 23rd!
WINTER WONDERLAND
6th GRADE PHYSICAL EDUCATION
The 6th grade students that have Ms. Hanson for PE class learned the Electric Slide in class and did an excellent job with it. The dance goes along with MN PE standard 6.1.1.1.
6th GRADE MATHLETES - Coach Dawn Nordin
We have 35 Mathletes- all learning tons of math concepts and gaining confidence in their math skills. It is fun to see them teach each other. We have a few future mathematicians. Great group of 6th graders.