14 September 2012

Issue 1

Seward Middle School Weekly Update

Welcome to the 2012-2013 school year!!!!!

Helping Your Student Stay Organized In Middle School

Tuesday, September 18th from 5:30-7:30 pm at Matthews Park Center

Please come to our first meeting of the year for an opportunity to meet Seward Middle School Staff and other Middle School Parents and discuss strategies for helping students stay organized in Middle School. There will also be a chance to have your questions answered by Middle School staff and administrators. This is the first of 4 meetings we have throughout the year. This is a great opportunity to get to know other Seward families and Middle School Staff and learn about ways to support our Middle School students. Please contact Kari Kleven at ktkleven@mac.com or Katie Paulson at Katie.paulson@gmail.com with any questions. Gratefully, Tammy

Remember----- 6th

grade canoe trip ------

Thursday, 20 September.

Important Information

Contents

Important Information 1

Upcoming Events 1

Abby Augdahl 2

Ben Knaus 2

Dave Hedenstrom 2

Doug Brown 3

John Roper-Batker 3

Katharine Skibbe 3

Katie Balk 4

Marilyn McGovern 4

Nancy Barthel-Waara 5

Sarah Rose 5

Barbara Rice 5

Kaisa Lee 6

Tammy Goetz, Principal

Verlene Green, Vice-Principal

Upcoming

Events

♦ 9/18: Parent Meeting

♦ 9/20: 6th grade canoe trip

*All classes: Please remember to check my classroom page on the Seward website for current assignment sheets, as well as parent guides for each of the units we will cover throughout the year. 6th: We will finish our work with area and perimeter of various quadrilaterals, triangles, and irregular figures. We will finish the week with a Learning Target Assessment on the material we have covered so far!

Dave Hedenstrom: Minnesota History 612-668-8512 dave.hedenstrom@mpls.k12.mn.us

Page 2 of 6 School Newsletter

Advanced 6th: We will finish our work with area and perimeter of various quadrilaterals, triangles, and irregular figures. We will finish the week with a Learning Target Assessment on the material we have covered so far! 7th: We will continue working with integers and rational numbers, learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and exploring 4-quadrant graphs. 6th Real-World: We will finish reviewing how to convert between fractions, decimals, and percents, then being a "Dining Out" project using what we've reviewed and applying it to real-life activities.

Classroom News

6th grade Minnesota Studies:: In class, students learned about the history of the Native American burial mounds of Indian Mounds Park in St. Paul and then we went Tuesday to see them for ourselves. Students are now learning more about early Native American history as we study Chapter 2 “The First Minnesotans in our textbook. A vocabulary quiz was scheduled for today and next week we will have a test on the unit. Students are required to bring their notebooks daily and I am checking them on a rotating basis, a few each day. 7th/8th U.S. Studies:: Students are working on a project involving a topic from North America before the U.S. became a nation. The project involves choosing a topic and doing some research covering the 5 w’s and illustrating it. It will be due this Tues. 9-

18. We have also been following the presidential campaign process. Students took a test on “8 Steps to the Presidency” last Friday and some re-took the test today to improve their scores. Today students were given a copy of the Preamble to the Constitution to memorize. They will need to recite it to me from memory by next Friday, Sept. 21. Next week we will begin studying the U.S. Constitution. Students are required to bring their notebooks daily and I am checking them on a rotating basis, a few each day. Lego Robotics: In teams, students have been doing the “Beam Bridge Challenge.” This involves building the bridge with a certain type of Legos and testing them with weights to determine which types of construction appear to be the strongest. Next week we will likely begin a more advanced bridge-building project.

Abby Augdahl: Mathematics abby.augdahl@mpls.k12.mn.us

AVID: Seward's AVID program is excited to help this year’s students organize to become college ready and help insure that they are all college bound.

This week in AVID, all students are focusing on the AVID tutorial process. What does a successful tutorial session look like? It starts with student’s consistently coming to class prepared with a completed Tutorial Request Form (TRF), which is assigned as homework and due every Monday & Wednesday. You can see the tutorial form by clicking here. In tutorials students present their point of confusion that is taken from their daily class work in content courses and transformed into a final question. A small group of the student’s peers (mediated by a tutor) lead the tutorial by asking a series of questions to help

guide the presenter to the answer. Notes are taken, knowledge is shared, no answers are given directly, and the presenter’s understanding is checked/affirmed. Each student reflects on the tutorial process by assessing their own level of personal engagement, and searching for connections to the ways their question relates to the larger topic being discussed. Reflective thinking plays a crucial role in the way middle school students process educational experiences and relate new knowledge to prior understanding. You can find out more the AVID courses at cool201.com.

Ben Knaus: AVID ben.knaus@mpls.k12.mn.us

Doug Brown: Science douglas.brown@mpls.k12.mn.us

Page 3 of 6 School Newsletter Classroom News

Science – 6th Grade Science – 6th Grade: In science we have gotten off to a great start. We are working on measuring volume, mass, and distance using metric units. Your child has a science notebook that should be coming home daily. There is science homework every day, Monday through Thursday. Every Friday there will be a quiz or a test. (No Homework on

John Roper-Batker & Doug Brown: Science john.roper-batker@mpls.k12.mn.us

Fridays!) Students should be reviewing their notes in preparation. We are also working on making conversions within the Metric System. 7th & 8th grade: Please see John’s section below.

It's been a great start to what will be a year filled with learning! English - Students are reading Nothing But the Truth by Avi. Next week should bring us through chapter 12. Ask your student how they like the docunovel format of this text. Students have received the final project and rubric. The due date for the project will be in next week's Update.

Katharine Skibbe: Language Arts katharine.skibbe@mpls.k12.mn.us

Kaisa will be working with 7th graders on Monday and 8th graders on Tuesday in the Naviance and Needs Assessment, all part of the My Life Goals that the district all students to complete. Graphic Design students have completed a number of projects that have been geared to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills. Next week we will be working on cityscape collage murals. Should be festive! If you have any questions or concerns, please email me at kskibbe@mpls.k12.mn.us.

7th and 8th Grade Science: This week we studied the atmosphere--what it's made of, and how it is layered. We also experimented with air and concluded that it really is something, and not nothing! Next week we will review on Monday, and take a quiz on the atmosphere on Tuesday. Next we will be modeling the seasons and the Earth's orbit around the sun.

8th Grade Properties of Matter (6th hour): We have been experimenting with density, and your student should be able to describe the difference between mass, weight, and density. We are beginning to make our own water and air thermometers, which we will test next week. We will have a quiz on Density on Thursday or Friday.

Katie Balk: Spanish kathryn.balk@mpls.k12.mn.us

Spanish 7: Welcome to Spanish! This week we continued exploring basic Spanish by learning common phrases and numbers 1-100 in Spanish. Ask your child to count in 1-100 in Spanish! Next week we will continue to study common phrases and learn how to say the alphabet in Spanish. Spanish 8: This week we continued to review content from last year, particularly how to conjugate –ar, -er, and –ir verbs. Next week we will begin our unit in the year two Realidades book, which is focused on family and celebrations. Expect a vocabulary quiz at the end of next week!

World Cultures Elective: This week we continued to present our projects on major world religions and started to learn about foods different cultures eat and how much they spend per week on these foods. Ask your child what surprised them most about the difference between cultures! We will continue to explore this food unit next week with a “Explore a Dish” Project.

Marilyn McGovern: World Studies marilyn.mcgovern@mpls.k12.mn.us

Page 4 of 6 School Newsletter Classroom News

U.S. Studies - 7-8: We have spent the last few weeks studying the 2012 Presidential Election - the process of electing a president, some of the major issues, mapped states likely to vote Republican, Democratic, or still undecided, viewed video clips of the candidates Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney, and analyzed a political cartoon. All students had a quiz on the 8 steps to the U.S. Presidency last Friday, 9-7-12, and there was a retest today history. We have also discussed Current Events such as the political conventions, the war in Afghanistan, and 9-11-2001, and will continue to follow current events throughout the year. This week the students also reviewed early American history by playing a timeline game. The students have a homework assignment, with one partner, to choose an event from the early American timeline to illustrate and write a one

paragraph explanation of the who, what, where, when, why/or how about the event. This assignment is due Tuesday, 9-18-12. We will be studying the U.S. Constitution next week, and all students have a copy of its first paragraph, the Preamble, to learn to recite to the teacher by next Friday, 9-21-12. 6th Hour Elective Class - 500 Nations: This class focuses on the First Peoples - the Native Americans of the United States. The students have viewed 4 episodes of the video series of 8, learned to take Cornell Notes on the films, and have discussed: Episode 1: Wounded Knee Legacy and the Ancient peoples of North America and Central America; Episode 2: Mexico; Episode 3: Clash of Cultures; Episode 4: Invasion of the Coast. They have mapped the tribes living in the U.S. in 1500 as well. We will start Episode 5: The Cauldron of War next week.

Advanced Math 7: Students have finished the first half of the Comparing and Scaling book. Next week we will take our first learning target (Tuesday) and then we will focus more on writing and using proportions. Algebra 1: We are already done with chapter 1! On Friday, students took learning targets on chapter 1 material (histograms, 5-number summary & scatter plots). Look for these to be returned on Monday. Next

week we will continue our work in chapter 2 – dimensional analysis and direct variations. Linear Algebra: Students are working on discovering the Pythagorean Theorem. We will have our first learning target on Wednesday –drawing a square with a given side length and then finding its area, side length and slope.

6th ELA (English/Language Arts): We have been working hard on symbolism, metaphors and similes this week. Students did an amazing job identifying and writing their own similes and metaphors. We have also been reading stories such as "What Do Fish Have to Do With Anything?" and poems like, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "Alone" to prepare for our community unit. Next week, we will get our first book: Seedfolks! In addition, students should be reading a minimum of 20 minutes reading their choice book each night. Check out what we're up to on Sarah's website: sarahssewardsite.weebly.com 7/8 ELA (English/Language Arts): We just started reading our first class novel: Nothing But The Truth. We will be looking at this novel in a variety of ways in the coming weeks. Students learned about

Sarah Rose: Language Arts sarah.rose@mpls.k12.mn.us

characterization and have done vocabulary work with the text. Next week we will continue to work with the text and we will do "close readings" that will help us start to develop our analytical skills. Students should be reading at least 30 minutes of their choice book each night. Check out what we're up to on Sarah's website: sarahssewardsite.weebly.com Creative Writing: Students have been working diligently on their creative writing blogs. Their first "official" post is due Monday, September 16. It is a restaurant (or home cooked meal) review! Next week, we will learn more about figurative language and write our own poem/rap/song lyrics that utilize our new knowledge. Check out the links to our blogs here: sewardcw.blogspot.com

Nancy Barthel-Waara: Mathematics nancy.barthel@mpls.k12.mn.us

School Newsletter Classroom News Page 5 of 6

6th grade music: 6th graders in music class are learning to play melodies on guitar and read guitar tablature. We played a 4-part arrangement of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as a class. Each student will choose a melody and perform it for the teacher. There will be a quiz this week on tablature and how

to read it. Students write a brief reflection each week on what they have learned. You can check grades online. If you have questions or concerns please contact me, e-mail preferred, Barbara.Rice@mpls.k12.mn.us

Barbara Rice: Guitar

Counselor’s Corner Hello Seward families and welcome back! I hope you fully enjoyed your summer and only continue to enjoy the sunshine as we head into the fall. For those of you who don’t know me yet, my name is Kaisa Lee and I am the school counselor here at Seward and I am excited to have the opportunity to work with your kids! I have been a school counselor with Minneapolis Public Schools for three full years now. I have worked with middle school students for each of those years. I absolutely love what I do and have a passion for helping students be successful and overcome any obstacles through a time period in life where one is figuring out who they are and who they want to become. As a school counselor I work within the academic, personal/social, and career areas to support the needs of our students. I work with students individually, in small groups, and in the classroom. I support academics by tracking their grades, assisting students in setting goals, teaching organization and study skills, helping students understand their learning styles, and providing information to families about how to better support learning at home. I also work with students on personal/social issues. Middle school can be a tough time in life with all the physical, emotional, and social changes going on. A lot of transitions are taking place both academically and socially and it is a huge part of my job to help those transitions go as smoothly as possible. I also talk with students about any issues they may be having with their peers or problems at home. Middle school students are in a stage in life where they are really searching for their individuality and their identities as it relates to their peers as well. Bully prevention and intervention is also a huge part of my job as a school counselor. I work with students individually, in small groups, and teach classroom lessons around personal/social issues. In classrooms I teach lessons called My Life Plan which focuses on career exploration, academic skills, and transitioning into high school and the importance of going to college. My Life Plan lessons are taught to every 6th-12th grade student in Minneapolis. We use a computer program called Naviance where they can explore different careers and take interest and learning style inventories. In high school Naviance is used to store test score information, view transcripts, track college application and scholarships as well as take surveys and communicate with high school counselors. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call or email me. Kaisa L. Lee, Licensed School Counselor Seward Montessori School 612-668-4973 Kaisa.lee@mpls.k12.mn.us

Page 6 of 6 School Newsletter Classroom News

Kaisa Lee: Counselor kaisa.lee@mpls.k12.mn.us