Middle School Matters - Feb 22, 2018

General Announcements:

Mothers & Sons: Come join us for an Amazing Adventure on Fri, Mar 02 from 6:30-8:00pm. It will be a night designed to test your wits with team challenges, "Survivor" type puzzles, and creative games! Tickets are on sale online or in the office. Couples tickets for $20 and family tickets for $30. Registration deadline Feb 22.

Blue Lake - a large number of student auditioned for Blue Lake Summer Camp Scholarships. You should be receiving a letter about this in about a week if your student auditioned. Scholarships defray the cost of camp very nicely. Blue Lake does great things in the summer.

Knollcrest Music Camp - a lower cost and more local summer day camp option - - band, choir, jazz, orchestra, music theatre, bells, dance, music tech - - lots of great options at Calvin College. Many ACS students have attended and enjoyed this day camp.

Dates for your calendar:

Feb 22 PT Conferences in the Commons 4:30-7:30pm
Feb 23 & 26 - No school, winter break
Mar 02 - End of trimester 2
Mar 02 - Mom/Son Night
Mar 02 - SEED Market
Mar 22 & 23 Dessert Theatre performances
Jun 07 - 8th Grade Graduation at Thornapple Covenant Church

Spirit Week is Feb 27-Mar 02 for grades 5-8, daily drawings for school school gift for those who participate

Feb 27 - PJ Day
Feb 28 - Crazy Hair, Crazy Socks and/OR Hat day
Mar 01 - Sports Jersey Day
Mar 02 - “Faith. Strong.” Friday

Fifth Grade:

NEW! Goat Care - We have updated the protocol for Chicken Checkup & Goat Care. 5th grade families will be in charge of goat care only. There won’t be a need to coordinate with another family on time, but you’re welcome to do so! Please click here to sign up. Revised instructions are linked here and also on the sign up. Thanks to all of you for your help!

SEED update: SEED market day is coming up on Fri Mar 02 from 2:30-4:00! If your child cannot stay until 4:15 (15 minutes to help clean up), please let us know. Any extra SEED Money is due back to school by Thu Mar 01. Please ask Mrs. Witte or Mrs. Westrate if you have questions. Here is a link to an update students received this week.

Art: The 5th grade is learning about Seurat and Modigliani.

Band: Final practice records for Trimester 2 come due this week - - turn them in, turn them in!

Bible: Please have all plays memorized by Tues Feb 27. Bring in props as needed. Stay on top of Bible memory 5S--20 points are needed by Spring Break! We are continuing our Jesus Project with rewriting Jesus’ parables and miracles.

Language Arts: We will have a quiz on Helping/Linking Verbs on Wed. Feb. 28. Students will have to know the 23 helping/linking verbs.

Math: We finished up our Division and Fractions chapter and we are now moving on to Adding and Subtracting Fractions. Students have been doing great with these concepts so far!

Orchestra: Wow - we are now learning 2 more long orchestra pieces- and also working in our books # 101- 110. Hand in practice minutes on Tuesday!

PE: We will continue our floor hockey unit.

Science: We’ve begun our study of Living Systems. We’ll be thinking about food chains and food webs this week.

Social Studies: OH CANADA quiz today....on to Latin America and our neighbors to the south.

Spanish: Students learned how to access their Spanish Moodle account. They may use it to practice and enjoy Spanish.

Sixth Grade:

NEW! Chicken Checkup - We have updated the protocol for Chicken Checkup & Goat Care. 6th grade families will be in charge of chickens only. There won’t be a need to coordinate with another family on time, but you’re welcome to do so! Please click here to sign up. Revised instructions are linked here and also on the sign up. Thanks to all of you for your help!

Devotions: Please sign up to lead our class in devotions on a Wednesday this year. Click this link for details and an opportunity to sign up.

Art: 6th grade students continue to work on creating a torn watercolor paper landscape out of their watercolor painting experiments. Please check the homework calendar for sketchbook and project due dates.

Band: Final practice records for Trimester 2 come due this week - - turn them in, turn them in!

History: Culture Webs and bibliographies are due on Tues Feb 27 along with Chapter 8 Lesson 2 reading guide notes (if notes weren’t completed in class). The history textbook & notes are online, so everyone should be able to do the reading and notes. Next week we will continue to learn about Greece by discussing the differences between Sparta and Athens.

Language Arts: World Fair! World Fair! Students will write a culture poem next week and begin researching their country!

Math: We will continue to learn about inequalities and review equations. Test will be on Friday. Here is a link to the study guide.

PE: We will continue our floor hockey unit.

Orchestra: We are looking at new orchestra pieces and working on the previous ones as well.

Science: We’ve been exploring the properties of air and will continue to investigate air pressure next week.

Spanish: We are working on our class story for Unit 5. These will be posted to Moodle when done.

Seventh Grade:

Algebra (7th): We will continue working through chapter 9 and problem solving with radical numbers and expressions, as well as the quadratic equation.

Art: 7th grade Lego Self-portraits are due next Thursday 3/1. Please check the homework calendar for sketchbook and project due dates.

Band: Final practice records for Trimester 2 come due this week - - turn them in, turn them in!

Bible(Huttenga): 7th graders will be working on a unit exploring gratitude.

Bible(Wanner): 7th graders will be learning about the Lord’s prayer and the meaning behind each section of the prayer. Prayer stories are due handwritten into the prayer journals Tuesday 2/27.

History: Next week we will start a new unit focusing on Central and South America.

Language Arts: 7th graders will continue workshopping the program No Red Ink and learning about grammar in context. Meanwhile, as they continue do independent reading, they will also be gearing up for a novel study based on The Westing Game.

PE: We will continue our floor hockey unit.

Math: We will spend time reviewing inequalities to prepare for the inequality portion of the test.

Pre-Algebra: We will be solving Inequalities next week.

Orchestra: Our focus is on all music for dessert theatre. Soloists will begin to practice with the piano accomp. soon.

Science: We will continue our work investigating phase changes and chemical interactions.

Spanish: We are working on our class story for Unit 5. These will be posted to Moodle when done.

Eighth Grade:

Dessert Theatre: Here is the sign up sheet where parents may sign up to help with all things related to our show. You will see spaces for name and phone number. Any non-perishables could be brought to school whenever convenient for you and Mrs. VN will store them here for you. The week of the show we have meals on Mon/Tue and then for the Fri cast party. Tricia Hedlund graciously volunteered to captain the cast party - THANK YOU SO MUCH! :)

Summer Session. At Grand Rapids Christian Schools, we believe a student’s learning and growth does not stop when second semester ends. Summer Session is an exciting new way at Grand Rapids Christian High for students to participate in fun enrichment and immersion activities during the summer and earn high school credit. Incoming 9th – 12th grade students can participate in Courses, Workshops, College Prep Activities, and even Drivers Training.

There are loads of great reasons to take a class during Summer Session:

For new students – get a taste of academics at Grand Rapids Christian High School. Make a few friends before high school starts!
Get ahead on graduation requirements.
Make room in your normal school-year schedule for electives and Advanced Placement classes.
Take unique classes that aren’t offered during the school year.
Demonstrate to colleges that you invested in summer enrichment.
Prepare for college entrance exams.

All summer offerings are posted online at www.grcs.org/summer. Registration for Summer Session goes live on March 1. Don’t miss out!

NorthPointe Christian Schools - Enrollment Now Open - Any 8th grade family interested in enrolling in NorthPointe for the 2018-2019 school year may begin the application process by completing the online application at: http://www.npchristian.org/admissions/process.cfm Students interested in NorthPointe Personalized Learning Community are asked to fill out the NPLC supplemental application at: http://www.npchristian.org/academics/nplc.cfm. Space for NPLC is limited.

Questions? Please contact Brittany Noll at nollb@npchristian.org or 616.942.0363 x276.

Yearbook Covers: 8th grade students who would like to create a proposal for our yearbook cover need to have them completed by Tuesday, Feb 27.

Algebra: We will begin studying quadratic equations next week--learning how to solve them with graphs and the quadratic formula.

Art: 8th grade Frank Stella Family shape projects are due at the end of school Tuesday 2/27. Next up, returning to our ceramic pots for glazing. Please check the homework calendar for sketchbook and project due dates.

Band: Final practice records for Trimester 2 come due this week - - turn them in, turn them in! The second instrument experiment continues- with a break for a field trip to Cascade Christian Church on Mar 01.

Bible(Huttenga): Students will be concluding their work with The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel. They will also be working on a final project for the trimester. Students should be looking at the homework calendar diligently, as due dates for the remaining material are already online, and they will need to be prepared to work at home as well as in class.

Bible(Van Noord): We will wrap up the Case for Christ, Bible Memory and one other project as well. Ask your student to recite John 1:1-14. They did GREAT on this passage.

Geometry: We will continue to study surface area and volume.

History: Next week we will start a new chapter that focuses on the events that eventually draw the country into the Civil War. At the end of this chapter, students will be creating a project that highlights 3 of the most significant events that led the country into war. More details on this to come.

Language Arts: As students continue to work on the Book of Memories project, they will each be issued a copy of Lois Lowry’s The Giver, and work their way through a unit based on the novel. Key talking points will be dystopian literature, identity, and wrestling with problems of evil in the world, society, and the self. Parents, I will be sending out some information on The Giver.

PE: We will continue our floor hockey unit.

Pre-Algebra: We will be solving Inequalities next week.

Orchestra: Fantasia for strings, Wexford , Symphonia -- all have very difficult, fast sections. Cellists will also focus on Jesu, Joy.

Science: We will continue our study of light and sound waves.

Spanish: We just finished Unit 5. We will take a small break and use the Senor Wooly site to build more vocabulary. After that we start our novel!

Athletics:

Uniforms should be returned to Mrs. O’Brien as soon as possible.

The tournament brackets for our 7th and 8th grade basketball teams have been released! You can find the brackets on the GRACEAC website. Go Wildcats!