Upper School Update - March 4

Dear Upper School Parents and Guardians,

I hope you and your children enjoy a well-deserved break. Please see the ask me abouts, followed by some pictures and information about grades, comments, and spring conferences below. We look forward to seeing you in two weeks.

Please ask your students about:

5th Grade (outside of homeroom classes):

Science (Wildrick) How does the “matter,” the molecules of plants and animals in an ecosystem, move through the food chain?

Music: Our rhythm skits?

6th Grade:

Geo (Abramson): What product did I choose to investigate and explore? What connections across the world did I find?

Geo (Burns): What are the laws of supply and demand? How do the Hula Hoop and Silly Bandz examples help us understand these concepts?

Math: How I can figure out 10% and 20% in my head.

Music: What songs are they learning for their performance?

Spanish: Classroom objects, my classes, and some words to describe those classes

Science: The Coriolis Effect and Our Planet: Fresh Water/The Water Cycle

French: Food, food, and more food. What I like, don’t like, prefer, etc.

English: What is a theme, and what is a symbol?

7th Grade:

History: Where did the United States turn its attention after the Constitution was ratified?

English: Poetry talking points

Music/Theater: What did I learn about costume design?

Math ( Carbo): How I am learning about Square Roots and Pythagorean Theorem in Right Triangles

Math (Carver): How do I relate an addition or subtraction sequence to a linear equation?

Internet Literacy: How have social media and websites been used to spread misinformation and disinformation? More importantly, how can students see through this type of fraud?

Spanish: Some exciting places to visit in the Spanish speaking city I was assigned and how to arrive there

Science: different types of cell transport

French: The maple syrup and sugaring off-season in Québec.

8th Grade:

English: Romeo and Juliet’s Sonnet and the meaning of “wherefore.”

History: How did my Mock Trial go?

Math: the difference between simple and compound interest

Theater: Am I off-book for the play? Will I be off book by March 25th?

Spanish: What kind of adjectives and pronouns do I use to describe things and their distance from me

Community Life: “The Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975)

Mandarin: We work on Unit 5 Lesson 3. The food and the music. We will try Sticky Rice Dumplings on Friday!

Science: Winter chemistry project presentations

French: How to talk about things that we used to do.

Please click here to see some pictures from the 8th Grade Field Trip to Boston.

6th - 8th Grade - Spring Progress Reports

On March 25, you will receive access to your child's grades and comments. Please keep in mind that these progress reports are not permanent in any way, and students will have approximately 11 more weeks to continue or improve their efforts before the end of the school year. It's plenty of time to rescue a low grade or make a change in a habit that isn't serving a student well. Please do share these carefully crafted comments with your Upper Schoolers. During the week of April 4, we will have parent advisor conferences or parent-teacher conferences for 5th-grade parents, and sign-ups will be sent by Doug Fodeman when we return from break.

Enjoy the break!