Middle School Newsletter

7^th Grade - This month in history we are starting with a study about our United States Presidents through John Tyler.

After the week of Nature’s Classroom, the students will be working on an Independent Study of the time period of 1800-1850. Students will be analyzing population trends, mapping US territorial and state expansion, charting powers of government, and applying historical facts in creating diaries, menus, letters, newspaper articles, models, &/or posters.

8^th Grade - Economics is our theme in 8^th grade for April. Through-out March & now into April we have been engaged in a wonderful, hands-on economics curriculum, Exchange City. Students have been learning everything from the foundations of economic theories, such as, producers and consumers, to in-depth concepts of supply and demand and Laissez-Faire philosophies.

They have also applied for jobs and written resumes in preparation for job interviews with Winchester business owners on April 3^rd. The recommendations of these business men and women will determine which jobs our students will have in running Exchange City in Portsmouth, NH on April 11^th. This is a simulated city with buildings, restaurants, and a park that will be run ENTIRELY by our 8^th graders. The students will have taken out business loans, created business plans, and will get paid for their work. Their businesses will either fail or succeed based on their prep work from March and April.

The 7^th graders are doing a fine job on the Integers and Equations unit. There is plenty of time for additional practice and I see growth in them as we work through this unit. After they get back from Nature’s Classroom, we will begin to pilot a MathScapes unit on modeling, measuring and constructing homes. The first phase will have them investigating scale, proportion, measurement, area and monetary calculations. The second phase will have them use geometry and tools to create the floor plans for a modular home. They will make cost calculations based on the area of the plans. The third phase has the students preparing budgets and examining the relationships among size, design, features and cost. If there are any adults who are experts in this field that would like to share their experiences with the students, please feel free to call me.

The 8^th graders have finished up the unit on comparing and scaling numbers. I had some beautiful scale model projects show up in my room. Crystal Card model was featured in the Keene Sentinel and is on display at Ted’s Shoe and Sport on Main Street in Keene. Check it out! The 8^th graders are returning to the traditional textbook to work on Variable Expressions and Equations. They have also begun work to prepare for their trip to Exchange City. We’ve done activities around supply and demand, scarcity and abundance and production process. The next step is to get them into the nitty gritty of personal finance and managing the accounting for their business. We will be learning a computer-based accounting program during this time. This is another wonderful way to build every day use of math into our curriculum.

Just a reminder that the students still have their monthly skills review to work on at home!!! The next one is due April 18^th.

January, 2008

7th Grade Reading is immersed in the land of Antonio Cruz and Felix Vargas, two fictional characters who are best friends and boxing champions. As a result of the tournament, they will face each other for the first time in the ring. Where will their friendship be at the end of the match? Students will write newspaper articles highlighting the important points of the story, and predicting their own ending.

8th grade reading is currently enjoying the play version of the book, "The Diary of Anne Frank." We have had some discussions about people who are of the Jewish faith and what the Holocaust was about. Soon in history, they will get a global perspective of what was happening in the world at the time of this story. Each student is having the oppurtunity to play different characters and we are drawing parallells between the feelings, thoughts and emotions of a thirteen year old in 1942 and one in 2008.

Writing

Lisa Lounder

llounder@wnhsd.org

April, 2008

In Seventh and Eighth Grade Writing we are working on an intensive essay writing unit. There are several goals that we are working towards. First, we are doing an intensive study on the four primary types of essays: descriptive, narrative, persuasive and expository. We are learning the elements of each of those styles through study, partner work, mini-lessons, and formal essays.

Through this unit, we are also working on the importance of multiple drafts, self-editing, peer editing, interpreting rubrics, and consistently correcting common errors. These skills are being honed through mini-lessons, quizzes, and accountability through their writing.

The kids have really embraced the elements of this unit, and I feel confident that this unit will yield stronger and more confident writers. I'm proud of the work they're doing, and it's exciting to watch them grow as writers.

7^th Grade – Spring has sprung and spring fever has hit the 7^th grade. We have begun to monitor spring in many ways. In the classroom we have planted several plants and are keeping careful track of the bean in particular. We have some flowers planted as well and hopefully they will be healthy and robust enough to go home to add to your home gardens later in June. Everything is an experiment and we draw measure and otherwise monitor in order to write it all up in a few weeks.

Meanwhile we are outside as often as possible putting what we learn in class in practice. Currently we are studying botany and conducting a species inventory of the back yard. This is a diversity index to compare to our study plots that we will establish next week.

Study plots, botany, plant ecology and general ecology will take us right up to the end of the year.

8^th Grade – Magnets, waves and light take us to the end of the year for the eight grade. Magnets is finishing up this week with the “Magnetic Mayhem Lab” and dovetailing into learning how to use a compass on this really big magnet that we live on. We also discovered that the magnetic north pole is moving at the alarming rate of 10 Km per year towards Russia. To put this in perspective it usually moves 10 Km in 50 years. Are we due for a polar shift? Up will become down and down up.

Waves are cool dude…. We will surf waves from water, sound and light and hopefully see their similarities and differences. Sound waves take us outside for the day as we experiment with different mediums. Light wraps up with the exploration of solar energy in the form of a solar car that the students will build and test drive. Each student pair will be given the challenge of constructing the fastest car. They get to put into practice all they have learned about inertia, mass and momentum as well as simple machines and solar energy. The solar car is the “Final Exam” for science.