Monthly Class Updates

May 2020

 

Instrumental Music 6 (Introductory and Advanced): The 6th grade instrumental music students are winding down the year with a few video projects that will document their efforts to increase their endurance (how long they can play with good tone); improve their pitch identification and knowledge of fingerings; and reflect on how the year unfolded for them. The focus for these last few weeks will be to celebrate the good work that they have done throughout the year and gearing up for how to maintain their progress through the summer.

 

Acting 6: The 6th grade acting students are finishing up the “Neighborhood Stories” project right now. The project started with the question: “While walking through your Neighborhood what stories bubble up for you?” The stories could be based on actual experiences, or could be totally made-up, generated by visual prompts. Once the students shared those stores with the class we broke into smaller groups to reimagine those stories and share them as a small cast. The students will end the semester with a final “Big Story” exercise in which they will create a new story based on prompts, and then will tell that story in the style of an old radio show.

 

Vocal Music 6: Students are working on their final big project of the year, “Song Choice” in which they work as a soloist or collaborate with others to create a performance on a song of their choice. Their performance must meet certain criteria and will be filmed before our final class where classmates will watch each other’s pre-recorded performances and give feedback. As young musicians, students are also learning the critical skills of recording, collaborating, editing, and troubleshooting remotely via some technologies that every professional artist needs to be comfortable with in the modern world. 

 

Art 6: Students are working on Islamic Geometric Designs. They are designing tiles and a calligraphic version of their name in Arabic so they can create a drawn Islamic tiled arch of their own creation.

 

PE 6: In the final weeks of the school year, our goal in class will be to continue to keep the students active on a daily basis. I am very impressed with the work that the students have done and the variety of exercises that they have been performing on a daily basis. The weekly fitness log with an assignment given for each day of the week has worked well for the kids. We recently started to do either small groups or entire class F2F warm-up exercises together. I have loved this because it has given me the opportunity to see the kids being themselves doing PE. They have also mentioned that they have enjoyed this as a way to connect with their classmates. Usually, during this time of year, our final round of fitness testing occurs. We should be able to be able to do a couple of those tests during our F2F time together. Again, the main objective is to keep the kids active and enjoying fitness. 

 

Health and Wellness 6: This month we will launch into our work around the power of words. We will start by introducing a vocabulary of equity and inclusion and then discuss the history, intent, and impact of language that attacks the dignity of others. Following this unit, Ms. Hicks will work with students around the theme of mental health. Students will continue the practice of self care throughout the month through analyzing their “digital diet,” suggested wellness activities and maintaining their gratitude journals. 

 

Science 6: To close the year in science, students are engaging in project-based learning activities. Students will spend the first few weeks of May working on an at-home version of science research. Students have the opportunity to pick any project of their liking and demonstrate three new concepts and three new skills they’ve learned via completing their project. Just after the first day, the number of ideas the students have is astounding! Afterwards, students will close out the year working on different STEM challenges that will fortify their creative thinking, measuring, and content knowledge through various STEM projects they can do at home. Students will have an opportunity to present their work on one of their remote-learning projects to your family and the greater community towards the end of the year, so we will still get to celebrate the fantastic work your young scientists have accomplished this year. Despite not having the typical science research process, they still have so much impressive work to share! There will be more to come on about how we will share and celebrate their work towards the end of the school year. 

 

French 6: In the final stretch, students will build their vocabulary skills for classes, descriptive adjectives, places around town, and how to ask specific questions. They’ll make cultural comparisons with what it’s like to go to school in France, and what school lunches are like in francophone countries. They will expand their communication skills tackling two major verbs this month: être and aller. They will also learn a staple grammar point: agreement and position of regular adjectives. At the beginning of the month, we begin preparing for the oral interview, their final assessment. We continue to look out for what I call PFGs: petites fautes de grammaire. These little grammar mistakes start to get more attention, as students better understand how French grammar works. During remote learning, we can still play perennial favorites together, like the crossy-offy game, Quizlet live, and Kahoot. During the last two weeks of school, students will be busy preparing for their final written assessment on Unit 3 (May 28) and their oral exam (June 2–3).

 

Chinese 6: This month, students will continue finishing and presenting their fruit game board game by playing with one family member. We are going to learn about the symbolism in fruits. After that, we are starting Lesson 11, which is about food. Students will inquire about how to indicate hunger and thirst, and ask for food and drinks. We will learn a few common food and drinks and learn to ask and answer questions regarding food and drink choices or preferences. For grammar, students will learn how to use 了to indicate change; 想 to express wishes and make suggestions with 吧 ba. For the last class project, students will create a self-introduction Chinese script and video with all the lessons we have learned this school year. I am so looking forward to celebrating what great learning they have done this year!

 

Spanish 6: The end of the school year has us excited to finish our last chapter and to get started on final projects. Chapter 6 is focused on pastime and hobby vocabulary. We will continue to work on indirect object pronouns (to/for me, you, her, us, etc.) with some tricky verbs. Also, we will soon directly practice possessives, even though we have been intuitively using them all year. Our cultural learning has us demystifying “Cinco de Mayo” and trying to understand some complicated socio-cultural aspects in contemporary and historical contexts. For pronunciation we are enjoying having two songs to alternate between. Our final projects are TBD given the current situation. There will not be a final exam!

 

Technology 6: The 6th grade technology students have just embarked on their final project. The students have been introduced to several different web-based coding and creation environments (MakeCode Arcade, MakeCode Micro:bit, CoSpaces VR, and Swift AR), they will then use the coding environment of their choice to code and create applications or VR experiences. Some of the students are making games using Block Code or Javascript in Arcade, some are choosing to build virtual museums or tours in CoSpaces, some are using Swift, or exploring how they could create their own AR experiences. The goal is to encourage the students to use code and technology to create something that they personally find to be meaningful or interesting, to look at code as a creative tool to construct meaningful applications or experiences.

 

Pre-Algebra Prep 6: We’ll finish up our work with positive and negative numbers and absolute value. We’ll work with all the operations, which will also provide a platform for reviewing order of operations, exponents, fractions and decimals. We’ll end the year with a quick look at some statistics such as what makes a statistical question along with dot plots, mean, median mode and perhaps quartile analysis and box and whiskers diagrams as time allows. 

 

Pre-Algebra 6: The PA students will work through chapter 14, their final chapter of the year. This chapter gives them an opportunity to pull together many of the skills that they have worked on this year including applying rational numbers, working with percents, solving algebraic equations, and deciphering real world situations as equations to solve.

 

Humanities 6: Humanities students are exploring the world of Ancient Greece from the comfort of their homes. Geraldine McCaughrean’s The Odyssey provides an adventure opportunity to explore mythology, ancient beliefs, and what it means to be a leader. For each chapter, students mark a variety of elements of literature and note passages that catch their interest. They share their work with their teacher through short videos, and they discuss the book in large and small groups during weekly face-to-face time. Beginning the week of May 11, students will brainstorm topics of individual interest in preparation for an inquiry-based project that will take them through the end of the year. Whether their focus is on literature, history, geography, culture, or another area of interest, they’ll have daily note taking, journaling, and/or other documentation tasks to lay the groundwork for a final product of their own design.

April 2020

 

Instrumental Music 7: Seventh grade instrumental music students are winding down the year with a few video projects that will document their efforts to increase their endurance (how long they can play with good tone), improve their pitch identification and knowledge of fingerings, and reflect on how the year unfolded for them. The focus for these last few weeks will be to celebrate the good work that they have done throughout the year and gearing up for how to maintain their progress through the summer.

 

Acting 7: Seventh grade acting students are working on long-form improvisational exercises as we move towards the end of the school year. At this point we are doing “Disaster Movie,” which is an exercise based on the old model of the “disaster movie” films in which some wildly improbable disaster occurs (think The Poseidon Adventure or Sharknado) and the characters involved have to respond to the disaster, usually in very predictable and unsuccessful ways. We will end the year with two other long form exercises as the class builds the skills needed to maintain character and story over an extended period of time in preparation for our production work next year.

 

Vocal Music 7: Students are working on their final big project of the year, “Song Choice” in which they work as a soloist or collaborate with others to create a performance on a song of their choice. Their performances must meet certain criteria and will be filmed before our final class where classmates will watch each other’s pre-recorded performances and give feedback. As young musicians, students are also learning the critical skills of recording, collaborating, editing, and troubleshooting remotely via some technologies that every professional artist needs to be comfortable with in the modern world. 

 

Art 7: Seventh grade artists recently finished a fun and engaging project that invited them to recreate a famous painting using their family, pets, and items from around the house. The results were awesome. We are currently wading into the dream world of Surrealism with a project that challenges the students to create a psychological landscape drawing of their interior self. We will then use the drawing as a launching point to create a Surrealist collage. We have a found-object sculpture project on horizon that will look at the work of Joseph Cornell and Louise Nevelson.

 

History 7: As May arrives, students are wrapping up their study of the US government. In lieu of the traditional speech project that is usually the culminating activity of this unit, we will experiment with students screen recording their speeches, and presenting what they learned in research with a visual aid accompaniment. The last weeks of the May will be devoted to a deep dive into current events and reflecting on the year.

 

PE 7: I feel that students have found routine and challenges as the program has evolved over these first seventh weeks. For May, usually our third round of fitness testing, I am still looking at a possibility of making this remotely (no pun intended) a reality. The weekly Adapt day will continue as we go forward. Also, weekly challenges will certainly be part of the program. Due to the overwhelming positive feedback from students, I will add another day(s) of required yoga. I will also continue to ask for students to fill out their log as well as a small reflection on a weekly basis and a cumulative one for the whole year.

 

Health and Wellness 7: This month studentswill explore the role of media in their lives, particularly the impact of social media. Students will do an inventory and reflection of their media habits and will create a “true-selfie” to help them explore identity. Following this unit, Ms. Hicks will work with students around the theme of mental health. Students will also continue the practice of self-care throughout the month through suggested wellness activities and maintaining their gratitude journals. 

 

Science 7: Seventh grade students will be working on at-home engineering projects and labs as a modified version of science research. Science class will be alternating between weekly engineering challenges and science experiments for the remainder of the year. These lessons will allow students to engage in inquiry and provide a framework for students to apply the science and engineering skills they have learned throughout the year.

 

French 7: In the final stretch, students will complete Unit 6 by developing even more vocabulary for food items at grocery stores and markets. They will continue to develop skills with quantifying food and drinks, and will broaden their use of articles (du, de la, des)—a staple of French grammar. We’re always on the lookout for what we call PFGs (petites fautes de grammar), those little grammar mistakes we learn to avoid. The culture sections in the book are now in French, which helps develop strong reading skills. Students will explore cheeses and desserts from different regions, learn about the Maghreb in North Africa, and write a dialogue with a partner between a client and a person at the market. The last few weeks of school are busy as students prepare for a final written assessment on Unit 6 (May 26) and their oral exam (June 1–2).

 

Chinese 7: In Chinese 7 class, this month students will present a project for Lesson 31 on Flipgrid, which entails drawing a layout picture of their house and taking a panorama picture to introduce their home to the class on Flipgrid. After that, we will start a new Lesson 32 my campus. Students will learn to welcome visitors and conduct a campus tour; name and describe various campus facilities; describe relative positions of different facilities and buildings. For grammar, students will learn expressing ongoing action with 呢 and using 到处 everywhere in the sentences.

 

For the project, students will have a final class project with all the topics that they have learned in this school year. They will present their work by introducing their school, professions and hobbies and their surroundings. At the end, students will also hold a Q&A section with other classmates. I am so looking forward to celebrating what great learning they have done this year!

 

Spanish 7: We are just beginning our final grammar unit for the year—el pretérito perfecto(the present perfect). Students will work with grammatical constructions around what we “have done.” This unit also tends to be everyone’s favorite, and not simply because this is a first glimpse into a past tense, but because this unit’s vocabulary is based around food! We will look at typical dishes from many Spanish-speaking countries and discuss the importance of various ingredients. Instead of a written exam, students will be creating their own cooking show! I’m excited to see the culmination of this year and their fantastic creativity.

 

Pre Algebra 7: The seventh graders will continue their dive into graphing linear functions. They will work on a variety of methods used to graph equations and apply these skills to real life situations. The students will be presented with a variety of real life situations that offer an infinite number of possible solutions that graphing can portray. 

 

Algebra 7: We are hitting the homestretch! We will learn several more methods of solving quadratic equations, and we will end the unit learning how to derive the quadratic formula. We then switch gears and spend some time reviewing the entire year. The final exam will take place during the last week of May. The test will cover the entire year; slope-intercept form, inequalities, systems of equations, exponent properties, factoring, exponential functions, and quadratic equations are possible topics. 

 

English 7: This May in English 7, we will complete Romeo and Juliet, remotely. Normally, I conclude the unit with a viewing of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 movie version, but there is really no practical way to do that this year, nor can I require it. However, if you do have the means and the time to stream the movie at home for your seventh grader, I highly recommend it—you might even want to join them. It is a visually spectacular movie, shot on location in Verona, and it won two Academy Awards for Cinematography and Costume Design. After we finish with Romeo and Juliet, students will return their focus to learning the poems they were originally scheduled to recite in early May. I postponed that assignment due to scheduling issues related to remote learning. Instead it will be a culminating presentation during the final week of school.

 

Technology 7: The seventh grade technology students have just embarked on their final project. The students have been introduced to several different web-based coding and creation environments (MakeCode Arcade, MakeCode Micro:bit, CoSpaces VR, and Swift AR), they will then use the coding environment of their choice to code and create applications or VR experiences. Some of the students are making games using Block Code or JavaScript in Arcade, some are choosing to build virtual museums or tours in CoSpaces, some are using Swift, or exploring how they could create their own AR experiences. The goal is to encourage the students to use code and technology to create something that they personally find to be meaningful or interesting, to look at code as a creative tool, and to construct meaningful applications or experiences.

 

Religion 7: In May, our seventh grade religion class will continue focusing on important characters and plot lines that appear in early stories within the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths and their parallels in pop culture, specifically focusing on movies, literature, and music. We also will begin exploring key figures within religious stories that are commonly forgotten because of their gender, class, or ethnicity. In particular, students will read and hear stories about Miriam and Judith, two important women in Jewish and Christian traditions. We’ll wrap up the month and the quarter by learning about the prophets found in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic writings, discover what they had to say about social justice in their time, and how their ideas relate to our time. Students will then research a modern day prophet of their choice and create a short video to share virtually with the class.

  May 2020

 

Eighth Grade Inquiry: In May, the 8th Grade Inquiry will conclude with students finishing their artifact of learning and having the opportunity to celebrate their hard work. Starting in early May, students will create a plan to finish their artifact at home and will also give and receive feedback from their peers on their plan and ideas. In addition, during the week of May 4, Chaplain Mel and Mr. Fuller will meet with each student virtually to check in, offer feedback on their progress, and provide specific support to keep students moving forward with their learning. Then between May 11th and May 15th, instead of certain classes, students will have blocks of time in their day to work on their artifact and receive the support of teachers and advisors. Specifically, instead of English classes on Monday, the 11th, History classes on Tuesday, May 12th, and Science classes on Friday, May 15th, students are expected to work on their artifacts and seek out support when needed. Artifacts of learning are due by May 21st. Celebrating each student’s Inquiry journey this year and offering students the chance to share their work are key to the 8th grade Inquiry Class. We will create a virtual opportunity to celebrate and share student work the week after May 21st. Stay tuned!

 

Instrumental Music 8: The 8th grade instrumental music students are winding down the year with a few video projects that will document their efforts to increase their endurance (how long they can play with good tone), improve their pitch identification and knowledge of fingerings, and reflect on how the year unfolded for them. The focus for these last few weeks will be on celebrating the good work that they have done throughout the year and gearing up for what music might look like in high school.

 

Acting 8: The 8th grade acting students are currently working on Spoon River Anthology, written by Edgar Lee Masters. Spoon River was written in 1915 and chronicles the stories from the citizens of a small, fictitious midwestern town. The short monologues are written in free verse and allow the students to create character based on given circumstance and character research. We will then combine the monologues into a collection to create a final “production.” If we have any time at the end of the semester, we will finish with a long-form improvisation that connects to the work they have just completed with Spoon River.

 

Vocal Music 8: We are focusing on developing sight-reading skills, working on some music theory, and some listening. The main thrust of our efforts, however, is creating a “Virtual choir” of a very fun song, “Don’t Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin, mashed up with “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley! It is a lot of work for the students to put this together, but I think we can do it! I will be sure to share the finished project with you all.

 

Art 8: Students are looking at the artists Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg, and Betye Saar to get inspiration for mixed media, found object Assemblages. Students will be creating work based around a progressive (new part of the assignment given each class) timed lesson where the themes of Past, Present, and Future are explored. 

 

History 8: In History we will be finishing up the work of examining the Cold War. Our next focus will be Decolonization. We’ll mostly look to Africa, revisiting countries we discussed in our look at the Scramble for Africa. We’ll work on cause and effect as we explore the ways that colonization and then independence movements have shaped different people and places. 

 

PE 8: Students continue to do a pretty structured workout each week. There are some opportunities for free choice of activities and exercises. We will try in the next couple of weeks to do some fitness testing and place those scores in the week logs. It does sound like the kids are being pretty active overall. 

 

Health and Wellness 8 (Mounsey): In class we will continue to examine how common good is about how we live together in community, lessons learned from one another, and striving to reach out to others despite what we may be feeling. We have reflected on the following questions: (1) What actions can I take to help the people—or groups of people—who I am connected to?; and (2) How can helping the people I am connected to help to promote the common good?

Finally, students will continue to explore the relationship between the individual and society by examining how we often believe “single stories” and stereotypes about groups of people.

 

Health and Wellness 8 (Brennan): Last month’s work around conceptual thinking, bias, and stereotypes nudged us into deeper explorations of the role of the thinking mind. We’ll continue to explore the nature of the mind through mindful practice, reflection, and discussion with an eye toward seeing how the mind is an excellent tool but a tyrannical master. These studies will offer a chance to grow our understanding that we are more than our thoughts and greater than our emotional responses. We will continue to practice present awareness, gaining an ever-greater understanding that we canexperience the unchanging Self while maintaining a healthy identity with the person/persona self. These efforts continue to be framed in the context of this strange moment in which we find ourselves–with an emphasis on maintaining balance in the midst of challenges & adversity.

 

Science 8: Our astronauts have learned about science and engineering, living systems and agriculture, energy production and use; produced their own technological devices; and have investigated Newton's laws of motion and researched constellations. So what's left to do? Plan a trip to space of course. As a culminating project, each student will take on an individual task that would contribute to a mini-NASA-style mission to send a live crew to rendezvous with an asteroid. Diverse interests and pursuits will help us accomplish something bigger than any individual, just like any good space agency does. The big picture realization for this mission and for our course is that if we can plan out solutions to live in an environment as foreign and hostile as space, then we can definitely solve the challenges that we face here on Earth. As long as it’s not physically impossible, then we can do it.

 

French 8: How does travel transform a person? How do I give directions and talk about location? During the final unit of 8th-grade French, students will study vocabulary related to travel and directions, learn to use a variety of negative expressions (nothing, never, no one, etc.) and make superlative statements (the best! the worst!). Keeping travel in mind, we started the month watching Survivor in French (Koh-lanta!). As always, we’re working on balancing communication skills with keeping an eye out for what we call PFGs (petites fautes de grammar), those little grammar mistakes we learn to avoid. The last few weeks of school are also dedicated to preparation for their oral exam (June 1 & 3)–the last one of middle school!

 

Chinese 8: This month in Chinese 8 class, students are going to analyze and present the survey result to class and reflect what we can do to protect the environment.

After that, the class will start to work together to go over what they have learned in the Middle School Chinese program by looking back on all the lessons. For the final class project, students will create their own Chinese learning map. In addition to that, students will also make a script/slide with each topic. At the end, students will put all their learning together by making a prezi slide. I am so looking forward to celebrating what great learning they have done in Middle school and wish them the best for a new beginning soon!

 

Spanish 8: Our last grammar unit of the year is the conditional (“I would do"). Similar to the future tense, the conditional tense also has very simple conjugations, which is a welcome respite! We will ask and answer ridiculous hypothetical questions and have lots of opportunities for creativity and silliness, especially as this unit is paired with outer space themed vocabulary. It’s a really fun way to wrap up middle school Spanish! Our end of year project, rather than a final exam, is going to showcase all of the work students have done this year in a quirky way. I can’t wait to see them!

 

Geometry 8: We are in the midst of our study of right triangles and basic trigonometric ratios. This incorporates similar right triangles, special right triangles and an introduction to sine, cosine and tangent. Students will do a two-day mini project before we move to quadrilaterals. We’ll focus on parallelograms and their qualities (including proof!) and will bring in other quadrilaterals such as rhombi, squares, rectangles, kites and trapezoids as time allows. 

 

Algebra 8: We are hitting the homestretch! We will wrap up our current unit on graphing quadratic functions, and then we will spend a week exploring quadratics. We then switch gears and spend two weeks reviewing the entire year. The final exam will take place during the last week of May. The test will cover the entire year; slope-intercept form, inequalities, systems of equations, exponent properties, factoring, and exponential functions are possible topics. 

 

English 8: As we move into the last stretch of the year, students are completing their final project tied to MAUS and comics as a medium of storytelling. We will then begin our final book of the year, Lord of the Flies. In light of our work together being remote, we will move through as much of the book as we can in the time remaining and use it as a way to affirm and build the skills of analytical thinking and expression that we have been developing over the year. It also serves as a great window into their studies in history, particularly World War II, so a key thread of our conversation will look to explore that link. 

 

Technology 8: In a time of distance learning and distanced society, technology is clearly not the solution by itself. But good minds and good hearts that use technology, on the other hand, can make life a lot better for a lot of people. Many projects are in the works for this final Tech rotation of the school year, mostly utilizing programs like Scratch, TinkerCAD, Unity, machine learning, photo and video editing, and learning programming languages for the purpose of making something to help others. Over the course of the month each student will take steps towards developing their project for their user of choice and then present their work to the class. Our final actions in class will be sharing out our work so that our hard work can live beyond our own uses and can benefit and inspire a larger community.

 

Religion 8: During May, our 8th Grade Religion class will continue to design and lead our weekly virtual chapels, with a particular emphasis on our power for good, the power of appreciation, and the power found in sharing wisdom.  In addition, students will have the opportunity to explore the meaning and traditions of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which partially falls in May this year. Lastly, we’ll reflect on both the past year and the past two months of chapel so that we can offer our ideas, advice, and guidance to next year’s chapel leadership teams.