Middle School Matters – Oct 19, 2018

General Announcements

Concert attire for Dec 13 Christmas Concert:

56 - retreat shirts and nice pants or skirts

78- white shirts and dark shoes, black pants or skirts - legs should also be black/tights

Washington D.C. 2019: This summer, June 11-15, a group of ACS 7th and 8th grade students and parents are invited to travel to Washington D.C. to visit many of the famous landmarks, monuments, and museums in the city. A handout was passed out last week with lots of information. If you have questions, or would like to know more about the trip, contact Henry Witte.

ACS Cross Country at Gainey field this past weekend

Fifth Grade:

Bach’s Lunch: Ask your child if they have signed up for Bach’s Lunch Thur, Nov 01. This is an optional performance opportunity that takes place once a month in Miss Slauer’s room during lunch and recess. All performers are welcome!

Art: 5th grade students will be working on cutting out their block designs for the next few weeks.

Band: Band students could play any number of their band songs for Bach’s Lunch! Yay! Encourage regular practice - we are learning a lot of concepts right now, it’s amazing how fast they are able to learn, and practice is essential.

Bible: This week we covered the following stories: Call of Abram, God’s Covenants to Abraham, “Sacrifice” of Isaac, Jacob & Esau, Rachel & Leah, and the beginning of the Joseph story. Lots of great conversations! Please check in with your child to see if they need to spend extra time at home catching up on their pages. I know we have been a bit rushed in class.

Language Arts: Spelling “My Words” Test #2 is on Tues, Oct 23. Survival books need to be read by Mon, Oct 29.

Math: We wrapped up dividing by 1-digit divisors and we are beginning to work with 2-digit divisors.

Orchestra: String students are able to play for Bach’s Lunch so encourage them to sign up for a spot. Encourage regular practice as well. We will begin playing scales next week.

PE: No PE this coming week, we will have a test on volleyball concepts, passes, and rules the week after fall break. More details to come. Please remind your students to come to PE prepared each class period.

Science: We are studying Earth’s moon. Encourage your student to complete his or her “15-sec Sky Log” each night at some point between 4:00pm and 7:30am.

Social Studies: This week, we completed our Geography unit and began our unit on Native Americans.

Spanish: We are wrapping up Unit 3. Students will be bringing home Brag Forms (more details included on form). Look for them on Monday. Return the forms after Fall Break for a small treat.

Sixth Grade:

Devotion Sign-up: Sign up to lead devotions for our 6th Graders on a Thur (8:00-8:10am) this school year. We love to have parents and guests come to share a story, song, verse, prayer or devotional with us.

Chicken Checkup & Got Yolk?: Is your child’s team “on duty” for Chicken Checkup this week? It is important to share the responsibility of taking care of our chickens on the weekend. After determining which Team your child is on, please sign up to take care of chores on Saturday and/or Sunday at some point this trimester (be sure to ask your child which team they are on to get to the correct sign up). If your child has questions, he or she should contact the “Eggsecutive Council” member on his or her team.

Art: Next week we start drawing self-portrait drawings. Please check the homework calendar for sketchbook and project due dates.

Band: Ask for a concert this week from your band student. They have a LOT of songs they can play for you.

Bible: We began our unit on the book of Joshua. We have Bible Memory (Joshua 1:6-7) due on Tue Oct 24.

History: We will be celebrating our learning with a Geography Test on Tues, Oct 24! Students have been working through their study guides as preparation for this test.

Language Arts: Parts of Speech slideshow is due on Friday and the test is Tues, Oct 23. The test will be VERY similar to the review sheet.

Library: The Mock Newbery Club is off to a great start. We have 12 books to read and discuss by Jan 15. All book club participants must turn in a signed form in order to vote on a winner and attend the Reveal Party in Jan. Our first author Skype with Diane Magras is Tuesday, Oct 16. Occasional updates will be posted on Twitter @loisboerman.

Math: Over the next two weeks we will be multiplying and dividing with Fractions.

Orchestra: We learned extended 3rd and 4th fingers and the A major scale this week. Be sure to request a concert from your string player since they have many, many pieces in their music folders.

Science: Our next unit of study is bacteria, archaea and fungi. We will be designing investigations about bacteria in the coming weeks.

Spanish: We are halfway through unit 2 already! After break we will take a look at the running of the bulls in Spain. Check out our Moodle Page for extra fun, our class story for unit 2, and additional practice.

Seventh Grade:

Algebra (7th): We are doing some real-world application of the concept of slope. Ask your student about the “lab” they did today.

Art: 7th graders are working on completing their sculpture project with the final addition of lines to select areas of the sculpture. Next week Mon students will come home with a manila folder to fill with 5 unique examples of texture that could be used in a sculpture. Please check the homework calendar for sketchbook and project due dates.

Band: Solo Day is Nov 08 at school. All students have been working on their pieces, listening to them on Moodle, working on them during school with and without piano as well. A parent letter and SE chart went home as well to help them prepare.

Bible (Huttenga): 7th graders are continuing their unit on sermon analysis. They will continue to learn about the important aspects of sermons: Biblical, Authentic, Context, and Life-Changing.

Bible (Holtrop): We will continue to talk about prayer. Next week we will be studying the parables and share what they tell us a prayer. Students will make a comic strip to help display this.

History: Next week we will begin our study of South Asia where we will be focusing on the geography and the history India and its neighboring countries.

Language Arts: We are doing our first literature study with a unit on short stories. Throughout the unit we will be learning about elements of plot and types of conflict in literature. There will be a large quiz at the end of this unit - the date of which will be announced after we return from teacher conventions

Math (Holtrop): We will continue to learn about percents.

Orchestra: Wow! This group of 7th string players is so eager to perform at Solo/Ensemble Festival on Nov 08 at school. All students have practiced their pieces with a pianist. Ask for a brief concert so that you can hear some of the wonderful sounds!

PE: We will wrap up our volleyball unit the week after fall break with a test towards the end of the week. Please remind your students to come to class prepared (appropriate clothes and shoes for physical activities) each class.

Pre-Algebra (Kiser): Our next concepts are Square Roots and Cube Roots.

Science: We are investigating what impacts the size of a population of animals and what the potential for a population is.

Spanish: It was story week and our classes created some good ones! Check them out on Moodle. Ask your student to translate! There was a very very “nice” student in each class. We ended the week with an assignment called Shrinking Summary. This is due Oct 31 if it was not completed in class. See Moodle for more details.

Eighth Grade:

Algebra: Next week we will keep working on graphing linear equations. We will be looking at a chapter four test the week after teacher’s convention.

Art: 8th grade students will begin working on constructing their ceramic pots. Please check the homework calendar for sketchbook and project due dates.

Band: We are hard at work on Festival Music - we perform Nov 08 during school. Can you come to hear us? We would love it. We perform from about 12:35-1:00pm and will also have the judges clinic the band until 1:10pm. It's very fun to watch.

Bible (Huttenga): We are reading The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel. Students will be learning about the major objections to the Christian faith and documenting their thoughts on each matter in a series of guided journals.

Bible (Van Noord): We are reading The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Strobel set out to prove there was no God and wound up believing in him.

Geometry: We will spend time practicing our transformations.

History: We will be starting a new unit next week that focuses on the early years of the U.S. as an independent country and the process of creating the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Pre-Algebra: Our next concepts are Scientific Notation, Square Roots and Cube Roots.

Orchestra: The 8th grade string ensemble sounds amazing! They are working on some of the fast spots in their music and adding more dynamics as well. You are invited to come to hear them play for a judge from Grand Rapids Symphony - Nov 08 at 12:40pm.

Science: We are studying Earth’s moon and testing various theories for why it has the features it has. As we finish these investigations, we will investigate why Earth doesn’t have the same features the Moon does.