Friday, November 18, 2016

November 18. 2016

In this post...

  • Thanksgiving and the Holiday Season: 
  • Spring Journeys
  • Homework
  • Transcript Requests 
  • What We Are Learning...highlights from Language & Literature and Science
  • Upcoming Dress Uniform and Civvies Days
  • Things To Do in our Community

Thanksgiving and the Holiday Season:

For the last few years, as we approach Thanksgiving I typically return to a short book by Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow: Three Essential Prayers. The book is a meditation of sorts with insights to three words that reflect much more than prayers - they reflect dispositions that are formed from life experiences. When it comes to "Thanks," Lamott explores the origins of gratitude as well as what to do with it when it's felt. Gratitude can be for everything, she writes,
"from the daily break of good luck and found money, to the magical, mystical magnetic force of quiet or exuberant relief, when you know that something - God, fate, luck, kismet, the law, Powerball - has smiled on you big-time...Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides...When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back. Most humbling of all is to comprehend the lifesaving gift that your pit crew of people has been for you, and all the experiences you have shared, the journeys together, the collaborations, births and deaths, divorces, rehab, and vacations. Every so often you realize that without all of them, your life would be barren and pathetic. It would be Death of a Salesman, though with e-mail and texting."
This week, the Middle School was able to translate gratitude into giving back. Many students demonstrated initiative and generosity in encouraging each other to bring donated bags of foodstuffs for the Food Connection. Additionally, in Wednesday's Chapel, students prepared decorations for the annual Gingerbread Jamboree at the Children's Museum, part of our annual commitment to the event. Amidst all the "giving back," it's still important to say "thank you" to, as Lamott describes, the pit crew that gets us through it all. I'm particularly grateful for the diverse talents, gifts, and perspectives in our school community, for our students who are so extraordinary, for our families who show commitment to students and to our mission, and especially to our faculty and staff who care and support our students every school day. For all this - thanks. 
  
 
As the holiday season continues, we will have numerous opportunities to celebrate these aspects of our community. When we return from Thanksgiving Break, you will see a flurry of decorations throughout the school to mark the season and the many winter holidays on the calendar - Diwali, which concluded a couple of weeks ago, Advent and Christmas, Chanukah, Bodhi Day, Kwanzaa... so many ways to celebrate. Engaging our heritage as an Episcopal school, our school honors the annual tradition of Lessons & Carols (December 13), a Christian liturgy that tells a story, through text and through music, about the meaning of Christmas. For us, it also serves as a chance to celebrate the talents of our students and to recognize the power of community. In the Middle School, we also have two much-loved traditions to mark the season - our annual MS Holiday Celebration (December 14), an informal sing-a-long in the Lounge, and our annual Holiday Tea (December 15), a formal afternoon tea in the Great Hall. All of these events will lead up to Grandparents' & Special Friends' Day (December 16), in which we invite our guests to get a glimpse of life in the Middle School and the extraordinary talents and ingenuity of our students, before the Winter Break. Throughout the season, I invite students and families to share any ways that they might celebrate and observe winter holidays. 

Spring Journeys

Homework over the Break

Please note that over the breaks, we encourage students to really take a break! While many students plan to use time during breaks to catch up on work or to get ahead on projects, we encourage students to focus on their families, on being well, and to close their laptops. 

8th Grade: High School Applications and Transcript Requests

Just a gentle reminder: If your student’s application will require any components from Annie Wright, such as a transcript or letters of recommendation from teachers, please notify and deliver any relevant materials, such as forms or templates, to Alicia Mathurin, Middle School Office Coordinator. Please provide any forms that need to be completed at least three weeks ahead of the submission deadline. Teachers’ recommendations, transcripts, and other requested materials will be collated and mailed directly from Annie Wright to the schools unless specifically requested to be picked up. If information or recommendations are to be completed online, please ensure that recommenders receive that link at least three weeks ahead of the submission deadline. For more information about local schools' processes, please refer to the High School Application Process that was emailed out at the beginning of the school year.

What we are learning...

This week, we highlight our Language & Literature and Science programs!

 If you have a student in Middle School who has not developed a habit of reading, the holidays are a great time to work on that. Even just 20 minutes every night before bed can make a big difference, over the long term, in developing better reading comprehension and in building a stronger vocabulary. And studies suggest that people sleep better when they don’t end their days with screen time.

 Talking about books with your kids is also a great way to encourage reading.  6th and 8th graders should by now have chosen their Choice Novel for the semester and hopefully they are enjoying their choice. Engaging them in a conversation about what they are reading  - or what you are reading - can open up new and interesting areas of conversation.

 If you need book suggestions for your kids, you can always talk to Kyle Price, Shelli Strate or Joe Romano.

Eighth Grade Science is still exploring Genetics and Variation and recently completed the popular “Design a Child” activity in which they looked at the variation in facial features that parents can pass on according to Mendel’s Laws. They’ve also spent time determining the probability of inheriting traits through Punnett Squares and tracing the path of traits in families through pedigree analysis. After Thanksgiving break they’ll be researching a genetic disorder that is of interest to them and looking at how science has been applied to improve the lives of individuals with that disorder.

 Seventh Grade Science students were challenged recently with a lot of new vocabulary terms when learning about the organelles that help a cell to carry out the characteristics of life. Ask your student to name some organelles and if they can describe their structure and function. A recent highlight was a few labs using compound microscopes in which students learned about proper microscope technique and were able to make their own slides to look at cheek and onion cells. Ask your student how they identified the differences between animal and plant cells.
Sixth Grade Science students are wrapping up their unit on Earth Science. Over the course of the unit we have enjoyed learning about the Earth’s interior, volcanoes and earthquakes. Students particularly enjoyed modeling the P and S-waves of earthquakes with slinkies. Ask your student about the difference between waves and how they can demonstrate them! After Thanksgiving break we will be transitioning to our next unit: Chemistry.

Upcoming Dress Uniform and Civvies Days
Tuesday, December 13: Dress Uniform (Lessons & Carols)
Wednesday, December 14: Civvies Day (MS Holiday Celebration)
Thursday, December 15: Dress Uniform (MS Holiday Tea)
Friday, December 16: Dress Uniform (Grandparents' & Special Friends' Day), Noon Dismissal

Things To Do in our Community...

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Friday, November 11, 2016

November 11. 2016

In this post...

  • Veterans Day
  • MYP: Statements of Inquiry
  • Spring Journeys
  • What We Are Learning...highlights from Language Acquisition and Design
  • Upcoming Dress Uniform and Civvies Days
  • Things To Do in our Community

Veterans Day

Today included our annual observance of Veterans Day, made particularly special by the opportunity to honor faculty, staff, parents, and grandparents who have served. To all whom we could recognize today and to all who couldn't be here, thank you for your service.

MYP: Statements of Inquiry

Throughout the Middle School, you'll see posters with terse sentences in classrooms and in hallways. Too dense to be a simple conversation starter, these "Statements of Inquiry" are crafted by teachers to reflect the concepts being explored in curriculum units. As pedagogues Erickson and Marzano have described, each SOI "expresses the relationship between concepts and context; it represents a transferable idea supported by factual content. Statements of inquiry facilitate synergistic thinking, synthesizing factual and conceptual levels of mental processing and creating a greater impact on cognitive development than either level of thinking by itself." MYP provides guidelines for constructing each statement, such as the integration of the key and related concepts and global contexts that are central to the unit.

Because of the awkwardness and density of these statements, some teachers simplify the concepts further so that students can readily access the idea driving the unit. For example, in Individuals & Societies, students are beginning a unit driven by the SOI "The cause of a culture's progress is rooted in their identity, which can lead to lasting change that may still influence us today." The statement deliberately integrates words like culture, identity, and change, but Mr. Hunt gives students the simplified version as well: The cause of progressive change remains. As we prepare for our authorization visit in the spring, please engage your student in reflection on the SOIs that are guiding her or his courses. Start by asking, What is the statement of inquiry? Ask to identify the key concepts in the statement, and explore what you think the SOI means. As the unit progresses, ask about how different texts, ideas, assessments, or projects connect to the SOI and inform about the concepts driving the unit.

Spring Journeys

If you haven't already, please register your student for the Spring Journeys via the links below by October 16, 2016. 

What we are learning...

This week, we highlight our Language Acquisition and Design programs!
Language Acquisition
Spanish students working in the unit Deportes are wrapping up their summative assessment. Using their SOI (Verbal and non-verbal communication affect the way teams interact) as a starting point, students created sports trading cards that highlighted their physical and communication skills. Cards will be presented to the class next week and students will be able to choose a valuable player to be added to their team. Elements of their assessment include grammatical accuracy, presentation, audience, pronunciation, and vocabulary use.

The Sixth Grade Chinese has finished their first PowerPoint presentation on self-introduction and introducing others. They learned to dance a Chinese pop dance “ You’re my little apple.” In order to have their ears getting used to Chinese language students were assigned to watch an authentic Chinese movie “Hua Mulan”, which was in Chinese but with English subtitle. Students were also asked to answer three questions about it. They were shocked that this version was so different with the one made in Hollywood. In order to engage all students with multiple intelligences I also introduce and practice all kinds of teaching approaches and methods with my students. Students just completed their first Kahoot presentation having much fun.

The Seventh Grade Chinese class has learned how to use time phrases to express their plans on doing something. In order to engage all students with multiple intelligences I introduced and practiced all kinds of teaching approaches and methods with my students. I allowed students to make a movie called “A Little Monkey in Chinatown.” They put the whole movie together writing script, acting, videotaping, and editing it. They also watched a documentary called “Chinese schools” accessing relevant and authentic materials. Students have completed their first Kahoot presentation for this year.

The Eighth Grade Chinese has learned how to ask about and describe their schedule. They all made a Kahoot presentation on phrases and sentence structures taking their ownership for their learning. They also learned to dance a Chinese pop dance called “You’re my little apple.” In order to engage all students with multiple intelligence allow them to make a movie called “Annies vs Gators” together. They had fun writing the script, acting, videotaping, and editing it. This is a student-centered class. They are making dramatic progress this year.

 Design

The first big units in Sixth and Seventh Grades have just been completed with great success all around. Eighth Grade is currently working in small teams to submit their creations for the Verizon App Challenge. This national competition requires that each team to identify a problem in the school or community. They are then tasked with designing an app that can help solve or mitigate that problem. The creativity of the Eighth Grade has been impressive, and their knowledge of coding, gained from Design classes in previous grades, has most certainly aided in the solutions they have produced. The regional and national winners will be announced next year. However, as we stress in all Design units, it is the process of using the Design Cycle and Design Thinking that is valued in this subject and not solely the end product.

Upcoming Dress Uniform and Civvies Days
Friday, November 18: Civvies Day
Tuesday, December 13: Dress Uniform (Lessons & Carols)
Wednesday, December 14: Civvies Day (MS Holiday Celebration)
Thursday, December 15: Dress Uniform (MS Holiday Tea)
Friday, December 16: Dress Uniform (Grandparents' & Special Friends' Day)

Things To Do in our Community...

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Friday, November 4, 2016

November 4, 2016

In this post...

  • MYP: Principled
  • Honored Pumpkins
  • Spring Break Trip to France & Italy - Last Chance!
  • Spring Journeys
  • What We Are Learning...highlights from Language Acquisition and Design
  • Things To Do in our Community

MYP: Principled

During the months of November and December, we are turning our attention to the IB Learner Profile attribute "Principled." Like the other attributes that reflect the end-goal of an IB education, the IB offers a very specific definition of what it means to be Principled.
We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
Along with the other attributes in the Learner Profile, Principled points to a vision of what it means to be an educated member of the global community, and the attribute's focus on justice and dignity along with responsibility for our actions, impels us to support students' ability and initiative to serve people on the flipside of these virtues - those who experience injustice in mundane or profound ways, those whose dignity is trampled because of various circumstances. It's impossible for any single student - or even our community as a whole - to eradicate injustice and uplift all people, but the Learner Profile reminds us that each of us has a responsibility and capacity to contribute in small or big ways. Our students and colleagues in the Upper School have already developed a thriving service program, and it's inspiring to see Annie Wright students have a hand in making a difference in the lives of individuals and the work of organizations combating systemic injustice. As we continue to develop our service learning program in the Middle School and as we continue to support organizations like the Food Connection, it's important to remember that we are not doing these things in isolation. As a community, we are in a position of privilege to be able to identify concerns of justice and dignity, propose solutions, and contribute to making a difference. In these efforts, we can be proud to be a community that strives to be Principled.

In Chapel this week, we invited Advisory groups to reflect on what it means to be principled in various contexts - in academics, in relationships, in our community, in decision-making, and outside our community. Their insights were profound, revealing both their values and hinting at behaviors and actions that they see in themselves and their peers. My take away from their insights is simple: students hold themselves and each other to very high standards, especially when it comes to questions of fairness and respect (even if they don't always live up to those very high standards). More importantly, they articulated concrete ways to reach those lofty goals and embody the attribute - as individuals and as a community.

Honored Pumpkins

The results are in! Our panel of guest judges, which included staff from throughout the school and the Fifth Grade, has awarded the honors of Fifth Grade Fan Favorite, Most Scary, Most Original, and Best Overall to the following Advisory groups: 

 Fifth Grade Fan Favorite: Price Advisory (7th Grade)

Most Scary: Rockne/Lorance Advisory (7th Grade)

Most Original: Hunt Advisory (6th Grade)

Best Overall: Wagstaff Advisory (8th Grade)

Spring Break Trip - Last Chance!

Saturday, November 5 is the deadline to sign up for the Spring Break trip to France and Italy! The "Abundance" Journey focuses on Patronage of the Arts, as studied in 7th Grade Music. The group will fly to Paris, travel by the fast train to Nice, and travel on to Monaco, Florence, Assisi, and Rome. While the trip is especially geared toward 7th & 8th Grade students, 6th Grade students who are ready for independent international travel are also eligible as space is allowed. Click here for the itinerary and to sign up! Please contact Ms. Gettel for further details. 

Spring Journeys

If you haven't already, please register your student for the Spring Journeys via the links below by October 16, 2016. 

What we are learning...

This week, we highlight our Individuals & Societies and PHE programs!

Individuals & Societies
In Sixth Grade Individuals & Societies the students showed their wonderful ability to research, synthesize information and to create through their Seven Wonders project. The end result was some amazing work, which I am hoping they have already shared with you. We ended last week with a pre-reading activity to show the importance of gathering as much information from the book prior to actually reading the chapter. From there we will begin our examination of the ancient Greeks. The text will become more prevalent as we examine chapters and also start taking notes from what they are reading. I would encourage them to get in the habit of reviewing their notes every few days just to make sure the material is fresh and to reduce the need for cramming before any unit tests. Sophist debates are on the horizon.

In Seventh Grade, the current statement of inquiry is the following: The local circumstances and power structures for a group of people can shape their identity and their interest in political revolution. Here’s the shortened version that students more readily see and remember: Circumstances shape identity. We’re using this statement to help the kids make sense of some geography and more specifically to make sense of the American Revolution. But it’s also a statement that can help the kids make sense of the election season. If you can engage your son or daughter in a conversation about how circumstances shape identity, it will help with their conceptual understanding of the world.
In Eighth Grade, students are continuing their exploration into the philosophies of our Founding Fathers. With their first major project, the students are researching a significant individual of the American Revolution who contributed to the formation of the American government. Our Statement of Inquiry for this unit is: Government systems are formed when shared cultures and ideologies create working relationships. We will be examining the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in the following week.  

PHE
Over the past two months the students have been arming themselves with the tools to create their own Personal Fitness Plan to round out our What is Fitness unit. They recently learned that math terms such as equation and variable come into play in PHE. The FITT Principle (Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type) is a set of variable that when applied created an equation for an effective exercise program. Students will soon receive their packet to begin creating this plan as well as write SMART goals for their own health and fitness that they would like to work out throughout the year. We have encouraged students to include their families in their health and fitness plans and create family time to get out and be active together. Watch soon for the introduction of our next unit, Nutrition: Fuel Your Body!


In all grade levels, we have just completed the first set of rotations in the middle school PHE class that focuses on the social and emotional side of health. Ann Dicks, Day School Counselor, will rotate through each section for two rotations at a time, and will invite other speakers in as well throughout the year to ensure we are meeting the social and emotional needs of the students. In this first rotation we focused on the competency area of self-awareness. This includes a deep understanding of a variety of emotions, the ways they are felt in our bodies, positive ways to manage emotions and opportunities to practice empathy with others. We also followed up on the presentation by guest speaker Michael Gurian on gender and the brain. We will continue to explore self-awareness and will introduce self-regulation in the next rotation. In the rotation before the Thanksgiving break, Angela Heath will work with students during PHE on digital citizenship, exploring appropriate use of technology and the importance of setting boundaries.

Things To Do in our Community...

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