Upper School Update + Samson Strolls- Jan. 13

Dear Upper School Parents and Guardians,

I hope you are all doing well and settled back into a routine after winter break. Below you will find the end of semester information, pictures from this winter, Samson Strolls, the ask me abouts, and what students can do on Martin Luther King day.

End of the Semester: Today marks the end of semester one. Next Friday, parents with children in Grades 5 - 7 are receiving reports on how their child has progressed over the first semester.

Grade 5 families will find a narrative section written by the homeroom teacher that outlines your child as a citizen within the class community, as well as your child’s approach to learning. In addition, specific benchmarks within each academic area are detailed within the checklists. Specialist teachers also wrote a semester comment. Some of these subjects include an individual comment about your child, some include information about the specific course, and some combine the two.
Grade 6 and 7 families will find an end-of-the-semester grade, and if your student received a C or below, they would also receive a comment with more in-depth feedback from the teacher. Students will also receive a comment from a skills specialist and a comment from their technology, wellness, and changemaking classes. We encourage you to share grades and comments with your Upper Schoolers, and please contact teachers and advisors directly if you have any questions. The narrative comments and checklists for 6th - 8th graders will be distributed in April when we send out mid-term grades and comments. Please contact me or your child’s classroom teacher/advisor if you have questions or concerns.

Slideshow - Please click here to see an assortment of pictures taken this winter.

Samson Strolls: I visited 6th Grade Geography and World Cultures with Mr. Abramson. Please click here to learn more about the class. If there is something you would like to see this semester, please email me!

Please ask your students about:

5th Grade:

Social Studies - Ask me about the beginning of our wealth distribution (poverty) unit. Come upstairs and see the BrainFrame we created!

Literacy: Ask me about our new novel Sophia’s War and our protagonist Sophia, who is our age, and has had to navigate difficult things!

Math: Ask me about wrapping up our first unit on fractions!

Music - Ask me what tamboo bamboo is and what theme my class has chosen.

French: Pulling together time, days, months, and the date and adding this information to sentences.

Science: How do scientists define an ecosystem? We traveled to the salt marsh adjacent to campus to explore this theme. We also began a new unit called Ecosystem Restoration.

Spanish: the activities I enjoy doing and how I can express what days of the week and months I do them in.

Art: Ask me about our ink paintings, sumi brushes, and honoring the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Rabbit

Wellness:

5A enjoyed Yoga Day and learned a cool new partner pose, Double Downward Dog

6th Grade:

Math: Ask me about working with positive and negative integers and mastering all the operations with them.

French: The very useful verb “être” and how its forms change depending on the subject pronouns. Also, ask me what the subject pronouns are.

Geo/World Cultures: What product am I following around the world?

Music: Learning the songs their class selected.

Science: My science in the news article!

Spanish: Ask me about the verb “estar” and how I can use it to talk about my feelings as well as the places my family and I frequent.

Art: Ask me about figure drawing (aka: gesture drawing) and being a class model

Wellness:

Intro to Wellness and Mindfulness