January/February 2014

I am calling for all hands on deck. The John Glenn Middle School staff and I need your support to help address a misperception amongst some students regarding the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Since my arrival at the middle school, I have heard a number of students echo the expression, "why should I try if the test doesn't matter until high school?"

Contrary to what some students may believe, the MCAS, and the data it yields, does matter both for your child and for us as a school. For each individual child, the MCAS results may identify the need for support services, and an inaccurate score may lead to the misperception of a student's ability. Teachers and students alike benefit from accurate data to differentiate instruction as we begin the following year. As a faculty and also in departments, we analyze MCAS data to find potential gaps in our curriculum and instruction. We also use the disaggregated data to identify groups of students whose needs we may not be meeting. In turn, we problem-solve solutions, create new programming, and use the data to reflect upon our instruction. The JGMS Skill Center evolved partly due to this type of work and we will continue to look for creative and necessary ways to support our struggling students. It is imperative that the MCAS data is valid and reliable for us to have confidence in our decisions on how best to efficiently and expeditiously meet student needs.

For me, there also is a real sense of pride that drives why I wish for our students to do well. We have an incredibly supportive community, excellent teachers, great students, are well resourced and yet, our scores do not often fully reflect our successes or are a true indicator of our many strengths. Our results are good, but they could be much better. I (we) recognize all of the variables inherent in the MCAS exam; however, I also strongly feel our students and staff deserve to be acknowledged publicly for the hard work and impressive talents they display on a daily basis.

Renowned Coach Vince Lombardi once remarked, "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether or not we win or lose, we have applied the best of our ourselves". This level of focus, tenacity and stick-to-it-ivness in the face of a challenge reveals character and will ultimately build a positive habit of mind in our children as they develop into young adults. I ask that you please review the schedule below. Take note of the days your child will be taking an exam. On the night before, please stress the importance of a good night sleep. In the morning, please make sure your child has a good breakfast, give them a big hug, tell them you are proud of them, and then tell them to go knock it out of the park.

Many thanks,

Kevin

Please click here for the MCAS schedule and important notes.

Principal's Accolades

Anton Lucas
Sophia Buonopane
Olivia Harrington
Qayyum Salako
Katie Ellison
Kiley Bertos
Emily Harrington
Grace Clark
Mike Buonopane
Adrianna Harris-Carvello
Caroline Towle
Madeleine Seigal
Lucas Pianca

A Principal's shout out to the students above for exhibiting some of the best attributes of a JGMS Buccaneer.
K.T.T.

From the Health Office

During the months of February and March I will be checking all students for scoliosis. The postural screening program is conducted during physical education classes, and each student is checked individually. Assessments for lateral curvature of the spine and /or other postural concerns will be the focus of the program. The Mass. Dept. of Public Health has mandated that children be screened yearly in grades 5-9. These grades cover the years in which adolescents experience rapid growth, and in which signs of curvature most often appear. This program provides for early detection, and regular monitoring. It is not meant to provide medical diagnosis, but rather to detect possible early signs of spinal problems, which should have further medical evaluation. Parents will be notified if their child is referred for evaluation by their physician. Please call if you have any questions.

Carol Eaton, RN BSN NCSN
School Nurse
John Glenn Middle School
781-275-3165

Counselor's Corner

Attention all grade 8 parents and students. We are beginning the grade 8 to 9 transition into High School. At this point you should have received a letter in the mail from Principal Henry Turner inviting you to attend the Grade 8 Parents' Night. This will be held in the evening on February 6th (7:00 – 8:30) in the auditorium at Bedford High School.

During the week of February 10th you will receive another letter from Principal Turner regarding the High School course selection process. From February 24th through March 7th JGMS teachers will make their course recommendations, in Aspen. On March 7th Dr. Diane Ryan (Program Administrator for grade 6 – 12 Guidance) will meet will the 8th grade students, at JGMS, to inform the students about Bedford High School course selection and BHS graduation requirements. Finally, between March 10th – March 21st students and parents need to log into Aspen to review the teacher recommendations and input their final course requests from home. Please mark this on your calendars at home so that you do not forget to review the course recommendations and sign up for electives. Between March 24th and April 4th Mrs. Siegenthaler (Grade 8 Counselor) will review every student's grade 9 course selection and meet with students to confirm that they have selected the correct number of classes for grade 9.

Feel free to call me with any questions that may arise.

Diana Siegenthaler
Counselor – grade 8
781-275-3201 (ext. 5234)
JGMS

8th Grade News

As we approach the second winter interlude, February vacation, it is hard to believe that this school year is halfway over. Despite some tough weather, we have been able to maintain the normal ebb and flow that usually accompanies this time of year in all of our classes. As we enter the second half of the school year, we continue to encourage all of the 8th graders to continue to bring enthusiasm and a strong work ethic to all of their classes.

English:
English classes have recently finished their first complex essay from our study of the novel, The Hunger Games. Some classes were asked to develop a response, which asked them to consider which contestant (tribute) from District 12 was the true victor. Other classes explored the structure within this dystopian society as they answered this prompt: When a government severely restricts its citizens' rights to life (basic necessities), liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is often causes them to rebel. Currently, students are studying specific English grammar and convention rules in order to improve their formal writing skills, while other classes are completing their investigation of Poe's short stories. Soon all classes will begin our next novel study, The Call of the Wild, by Jack London. This classic novel explores the themes of survival of the fittest and the quest to return to an instinctual life or one's ancestral roots. Prior to February vacation break, students will have the opportunity to visit the school library, select an approved novel and begin work on their next (Term 3) independent reader's response.

Science:
Students on both teams will continue to explore how the Earth's surface is continually built up and torn down by natural processes and how plate tectonics causes both gradual and rapid changes to the Earth's surface. They will study how, why and where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. We will also beginning our review of physical and life science in preparation for the science MCAS exam in May.

Also, all JGMS students will soon be taking the You Be the Chemist Challenge. In April the top scoring 10 students from each grade level will compete for the honor of representing Massachusetts in the national competition in Philadelphia in June.

Math:
Students in Algebra are almost done with a unit on systems of linear equations and inequalities. The unit focuses on methods to solve systems, writing equations and inequalities to represent real-world situations, and examining constraints placed on those situations. The next unit of study deals with rules for exponents and exponential decay. Students have also been preparing to take their two-day midterm before February vacation.

Pre-Algebra students are beginning a unit on polygons and transformations. Students will be classifying angles, triangles and quadrilaterals and solving equations to find missing angles measures. The next unit of study focuses on real numbers and right triangles. Students will be taking a two-day midterm before February vacation.

Math recommendations for ninth grade will be completed after February vacation.

Social Studies:
Students on both the Green and Grey Teams have recently completed our Middle East unit where we focused our discussions on the rise of Islam as a political, social and economic system. Class discussions and writing assignments asked the students to determine which causes were most influential in the spread of Islam during the Middle Ages.

This past week all classes began to study Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Throughout the unit students will be again be examining how this region developed key political, social and economic systems. Our focus will be around the topics of Feudalism, the rise of the Catholic Church, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Age of Exploration.

Geography Bee Winner!

LUCY S. IS THIS YEAR'S GEOGRAPHY BEE WINNER!
Congratulations to all of our class winners for this year's National Geographic Geography Bee! After an exhaustive final round, 7th-Grader Lucy S. was crowned this years' JGMS winner.

Lucy has taken a qualifying test in hopes of being in the top 100 scores in the state, which will allow her to compete in the State Finals to be held in mid-March at Clark University in Worcester. Congratulations to Lucy and all of our participants for a great Bee!

7th Grade News

We hope that you have been able to enjoy these very cold winter weeks! The 7th grade teams have been very busy in classes. We took a wonderful trip the Museum of Fine Arts on January 24. The students were very well behaved and saw some wonderful exhibits throughout the museum, in addition to the focus exhibits for Social Studies class.

Second Quarter closed last week, and report cards will be available before February vacation. Please be sure to check Aspen for specific details about any grades. If you have questions or concerns about your child's report card grade in a particular class, please contact the teacher.

English
Students in 7th grade just finished reading Stephanie Spinner's Quicksilver and completed a long composition where each student needed to think about something they wanted to be the god or goddess of. In a five paragraph long composition, students needed to prove their role through three personal qualities and expand on how they demonstrate this quality and why the quality is necessary to qualify as that god or goddess. In the upcoming month, students will be reading Lois Lowry's The Giver. While reading this text, students will also continue work in the vocabulary workbook with future units of study, and students will be exposed to more work with grammar. We will also continue to write responses to literature as well as another long compositions. As we enter the third term, it is important to remind students to seek help, ask questions, and self-advocate.

Math
All 7th grade students will be taking assessment tests between February 10 and 13, which will be part of the criteria for their 8th grade math placement. Letters will be sent home with students' results explaining the placement process. The 7th Grade Math classes just finished the Ratio and Proportions unit and are now working on the Percents unit. They submitted amazing cartoon projects for the Proportions unit. The 7th Grade Pre-Algebra classes are working on a Geometry unit. They concluded the Proportions unit with some beautiful graphed cartoon enlargement projects. They will be completing a project involving the Pythagorean Theorem at the end of the unit. They will also be working collaboratively on a Google Sites project that will be due in March. Please check with your child to make sure he/she has a calculator, graph paper, and pencils for math class every day. Thank you for your assistance.

Social Studies
During the month of January, Social Studies classes ended their study of Mesopotamia and began to learn about the geography, culture, and history of ancient Egypt. To supplement this unit, the entire seventh grade took a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. At the museum, students were able to witness firsthand many of the artifacts that were discussed in the Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt units, as well as artifacts that will be discussed in future units. As part of the ancient Egypt curriculum, students have begun to work on the Egypt Project. This project consists of a five-paragraph essay and a visual/oral presentation. Students are asked to choose a topic relating to ancient Egypt and then must use books and online resources to gather facts in order to prove a thesis. This project will also help teach students how to keep track of their sources by having them create a bibliography to hand in at the end of the project. Our next unit, which we will be starting towards early March, will focus on ancient Greece.

Science
Wrapping up our unit on cells, students in Life Science have been learning just how complex multi-cellular organisms, like us, can be. Students have been working together in small groups exploring one of the eleven Human Body Systems for this in-class project. They organized their research to create informative posters and taught their fellow classmates all about their chosen system. As part of this project, students have discovered that all of the organ systems depend on each other to create a functioning individual. Upon returning from February break, we will be starting our unit on Heredity.

6th Grade News

Curriculum Updates:

Math:
As we close out Term 2, we begin to transition from working with fractions to percents, ratios, rates, and proportions. Students will learn how to convert between fractions, decimals and percents, how to calculate percent of a number and how ratios and fractions are different. In addition, students will be asked to work with rates and unit rates as they apply to real world situations; such as miles per gallon and dollars per hour. Below is a challenge problem involving ratios for your amusement.

Challenge Problem - Ratios :

Carol and Kelly shared a stamp collection in the ratio of 7:5. Then Carol gave Kelly 12 stamps.
If each of them have the same number of stamps after this, how many stamps did Carol have to begin with?

English:
In English on the orange team, we are delving deeply into the world of fantasy fiction with C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew. We are asking questions such as "How do you really know a person/character?" and "How does an author's life impact his/her writing?". We are also starting to examine literature for subtext to understand symbolism, allegory, and the deeper life lessons an author includes. The writing that accompanies this unit will be heavily focused on how to write an open response when given a prompt, similar to what students might find on an MCAS test. We are also excited to understand more about how literature helps us build empathy and explore the world around us.

On the yellow team we are embarking on our short stories unit. We are learning to analyze the structure of a story by delving into the various literary components that an author utilizes in order to construct it. Students are learning to chart and identify introduction, conflict, rising action, climactic turning point, falling action, and resolution for short stories within multiple genres. Students are learning the importance of narrator's perspective and how the action of a plot unfolds within the parameters of a narrator's point of view. In addition to graphing stories on the story arc, we are also looking closely at settings, character development, tone, and mood so that students can begin to understand how to employ these skills when constructing their own, unique short story in the coming weeks.

Social Studies:
In social studies students have been involved in a cross team station unit focusing on the continent of Africa. They are currently working in small groups comprised of members of the orange and yellow teams. Each day the students are exploring topics through brief videos, newspaper articles, picture books, songs, primary source documents and text readings. Be sure to ask your child what they have learned!

The goals of the unit include:

1. Recognize bias in readings.
2. Distinguish between facts and opinions in readings
3. Recognize and pick out cultural differences between fairy tales from the perspective of the writer
4. Gain a better understanding of the countries located in Central Africa and their resources.
5. Be exposed to a variety of languages spoken on the continent of Africa with a focus on the Xhosa and Zulu Languages
6. Learn about the importance of trees in the environment.
7. Demonstrate understanding of cause-effect as it relates to Wangari Maathai's life and her importance to the Kenyan people and their environment.
8. Gain a better understanding of how one tree and one person can make a difference.
9. Prepare to write a comparison and a contrast paragraph by using prewriting templates.
10. Identify facts and opinions in Primary Sources.
11. Recognize elements of culture through various picture books.
12. Learn the causes and effects of desertification
13. Compare and contrast life in the country of Lesotho to life in the United States

Learning Strategies:
It is an exciting time of year for Learning Strategies. We have just finished a long two part unit on the author's craft. First, students learned text features, writing styles and other elements of the author's craft. Next, the students spent the month of January working to create their own original books with multiple original writings inside. Currently, the class has just begun to read Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. During the reading of Maniac Magee the class will work with plot summaries, vocabulary and open responses based on textual content. The hard work the students put into their author's craft projects and the reading of Maniac Magee all builds towards the Battle of the Books later this year.

For the yellow team, term 3 has officially begun in Learning Strategies and we will be introducing Literature Circles. Literature Circles is a nice way to get all students involved in what they are reading in class and at home. The Learning Strategies teachers thought it would be a good idea to get students comfortable with the process of Literature Circles to prepare them for Battle of the Books which will begin at the beginning of March. Battle of the Books is a fun event led by the school Librarian that gets students involved and excited about reading from assigned books.

Science:
Students are currently engaged in CSI: Bedford! As we work to solve the crime of who stole the ancient Egyptian artifact from the JGMS library, we are doing a series of labs to see the physical and chemical properties in action and observe what happens during physical and chemical changes. After we wrap up our unit on properties of matter we will transition to the Periodic Table and learning about atoms. These are units the students usually enjoy, and involve a lot of hands on learning experiences.

Spanish News

Grade 6
Students have made enormous progress over the last two months. We just started the new Unit 2 Lesson 1. In this unit we will talk about daily schedules, learn how to ask and tell time, say what you have and have to do, and say what you do and how often you do things. We will learn our 1st regular conjugation (-ar verbs) and another irregular verb conjugation (tener). We will also talk about México and learn what students wear, courses they might take in a school in México, and learn important facts about the Mexican culture.

Grade 7
In 7th grade Spanish we are just beginning work on unit 4 lesson 1. In this lesson we will focus on seasonal clothing and shopping. We are practicing tener expressions we have studied, and learning about stem-changing verbs and direct object pronouns. This lesson is set in the cultural and geographic context of Spain. We have also been spending time working on speaking fluency. This has included recording the students' voices in the computer lab as they respond to various prompts. This is a great way for everyone to get an opportunity to hone their speaking skills, and a chance for the teacher to get an idea of how the class is doing in this very important skill area.

Grade 8
Our new unit takes place in the cultural context of Barcelona, Spain. Students are learning to describe their daily routine, talk about grooming, tell others to do something or not to do something and discuss daily household chores. One of the new grammar objectives is the introduction of reflexive verbs. Affirmative and negative familiar commands with reflexive and action verbs are also a part of this lesson. The cultural reading takes place at the Pablo Picasso Museum in Barcelona. In this lesson students learn to create and present an advertisement for an imaginary store in Barcelona. Through the creation of this advertisement students will demonstrate mastery of many of the important concepts of the eighth grade curriculum. Students will be using technology with programs including Glogster and Audacity.

French News

In 7th grade French we are completing Unit 4 which has reviewed a lot of vocabulary and grammar concepts such as adjective forms, placement of adjectives and forms and usages of indefinite and definite articles. In groups the students are preparing the four chapters for the unit test and presenting to the class. We have also looked at the cultural context of being a young person in the U.S. and in France and drawn comparisons and contrasts. 

In the lab we are practicing how to use Audacity to record our voices using prompts. We will be using Audacity and Moodle in future assessments for oral proficiency so we are practicing now.

In 8th grade French we are finishing up with leçons 21-23 in Discovery French Bleu textbook and moving on to the high school text Discovery French Blanc. The students are working diligently with the Passé Composé using both the Avoir and Etre auxiliary verbs. They are using more transitional words and time phrases in their compositions.
In cultural context we have discussed the use of free time/vacation in the U.S. and in France and what some of the similarities and differences are in our cultures. In the lab we are practicing how to use Audacity to record our voices using prompts. We will be using Audacity and Moodle in future assessments for oral proficiency so we are practicing now.

Visual Art News

Congratulations to 3 of our JGMS students who were awarded prizes in the statewide Scholastic Art Competition. Leslie Yan and Taline Dawson were both awarded Honorable Mentions for their beautiful contour line drawings of boots. Also, 7th grader, Jenna Sharkawy won a silver key award for her sculpture utilizing found materials. The title of her piece was "Egypt in Turmoil." Congratulations not only to the winners, but to all students who were entered into this competition. It's an honor to be selected! 

Music News

Our next chorus concert is on Tuesday, February 11th at 7 pm, in the BHS auditorium. Chorus members should meet their directors in the auditorium at 6 pm. The concert will include offerings from all of the chorus classes in Bedford, including the Lane School 5th grade chorus, the JGMS 6th grade chorus, the combined 7th and 8th grade mixed chorus, and all the Bedford High School chorus ensembles. Admission is free, and all are welcome.

Eastern District Junior Music Festival
Eighteen dedicated student musicians represented JGMS at the Eastern District Junior Festival auditions on Saturday, February 1st. We are pleased to announce that seven students were chosen based on their audition to participate in the music festival in March. The festival is a two-day event where students from our district work with a respected music clinician to prepare advanced level music for chorus, band and orchestra. The weekend culminates in a concert. Bravo to all who auditioned, and congratulations to the following students who will attend the festival: vocalists Chris Cowles, Christina Solitro, and Ben Woodward, and violinists Fionna Zhang, Andrew Ha, Giuliana Knox, Rachelle Shao.

JGMS Spring Musical is "The Wizard of Oz"!

Rehearsals are in full swing for the upcoming performances of "The Wizard of Oz". Our performances will be on Wednesday, April 2nd at 4 pm (matinee), Thursday April 3rd and Friday April 4th at 7 pm, and on Saturday April 5th at 6 pm, in the JGMS auditorium. We hope you will join us as we go off to see the Wizard!. This stage version is very similar to the beloved MGM movie, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. Members of our production team are: Amy Budka, Jaime Smith, Barbara Ferri, Linda Aiken, Josh Shaine, Libby Beinert-Hunnewell, Justin Newton and Jeff Ferro.

There are 98 students in the cast, and 20 students on stage crew. Parents and families of participating students should already be recieving information about volunteer opportunities, costume requirements and ticket sales through our communications website tool "Lotsa Helping Hands". If you are not yet recieving emails from us, please go to www.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/611149. Follow the prompts to join the community and you will be all set. Call or email Mrs. Budka if you have any questions.

Tickets are $9.00, and will be available soon in the JGMS, Lane and Davis School offices, and also at Fetch It on Great Road.