The MMS Guidance and Social Work Department is Here to Help--I hope that you enjoyed the long weekend with loved ones. The holiday season can be special but we also understand that it can also be emotionally triggering/challenging for some of our young people. If you feel that your child is in need of social and emotional supports at this time of year or any time of year, please encourage them to visit our amazing guidance/social work department or reach out to us directly and we will support your child. Family Connections/The Hub at MMS is another wonderful resource for our children in need of support. We are happy to connect families to the wonderful social workers and recreation-based approach at the Hub. At MMS, we care about the whole child.

Choose Kind-We are continuing to work with our MMS community to reinforce the importance of kindness, being an upstander, and the many wonderful lessons that our kids learned from our My Face/Wonder Project October 2017 assembly and the Wonder Movie field trips last week. We welcome input from families if there ways you would like to partner with us in our efforts.

Instructional Spotlight-MMS faculty is hard at work supporting our students as they read and respond to complex informational texts. How can you help? 1) Find topics of interest to your child (current events, sports, politics, local community issues, etc.). 2) Share with your child topics that are of interest to you. 3) Just as you did when they were little and you shared and read your favorite stories together, read informational and editorials together. 4) Discuss how the author/editor/writer forms an argument, and discuss their ideas about the piece with them. 5) Ask your child: What do you like about the piece? What do you think about the author's point of view? What would you like to learn more about? This is a great way to support their academic thinking and have a great discussion with your child!

Have a wonderful week!

Warm Regards,

Ms. Gronau

This year, the MMS Principal has added a school-wide "Remind App" as another way to communicate with families. Many of your child's teachers will share Remind class codes for you and your child to stay up to date about class events and assignments. As needed, the MMS Principal will periodically use the Remind App to share important info with our school community. Our Maplewood Middle School school-wide code Remind code is listed above (@k92d29). The link below explains how to begin getting notifications. It's a simple way to stay in touch. Join us!

https://help.remind.com/hc/en-us/articles/203179887-How-do-I-join-a-class-