February 17th - February 21st

February 14, 2020

February 17th - February 21st

IMPORTANT 8TH GRADE PARENT MEETING FOR WASHINGTON, D.C.

We will be having a pre-trip parent meeting on Wednesday, February 19th at 6:00pm. This session will be repeated on Thursday morning, February 20th at 8:30am. It is important to attend one of these sessions to get important trip details.

ASSESSMENTS CALENDAR

THIS LINK leads to a Google Sheet that will have the next 2 weeks of assessments. The link below will lead to the 6th grade assessments, but by using the tabs in the lower left corner (shown below), you can navigate to 7th grade and 8th grade assessments as well.

History/black, Science/green, ELA/blue, Spanish/red, and Math/pink.

Dates are subject to change; teachers will keep the calendar updated.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE - SPRING PERFORMANCE

Each middle school student is required to complete ten hours of community service over the course of the school year. Please remember to list hours worked on a daily basis, do not log total sum of hours worked over an extended period of time. See below for a few upcoming service opportunities. Click HERE for a log form.

The Old Savannah City Mission needs volunteers for various positions. The mission provides food, shelter, and clothing to the homeless. For more information, contact Connell Stiles at 912-232-1979 or stiles@oscm.org.

America’s Second Harvest needs volunteers to help prepare monthly bags of food for senior citizens in our community. Volunteers should arrive by 7:45 and must wear closed-toe shoes. Contact Bryce Seuntjens at bryce@helpendhunger.org for more information.

February’s Virtue of the Month is Acceptance, which is a particularly important part of development for adolescents. Middle school is a time that students look to form deeper relationships with peers and even those with a strong sense of self want to feel included and appreciated.

While it is easy to become wrapped up in a particular peer group or everyday routines, we encouarge Hancock Students to look outside themselves to see how they can make others feel accepted.

-Allison Maher, School Counselor

As always, middle school students that stay for extended should report to the appropriate classrooms to be signed-in immediately after school. We have mandatory homework time from 3:30 to 4:00 and 4:00 to 5:30 students may choose to go to Hancock Hall for board games, outside to play, or stay in a quiet classroom to complete homework. Student athletes staying at school until their practice/game are also required to report to extended for sign-in and work on homework. To be released for a practice/game, a parent or coach must sign the student/s out. Click HERE to view this month’s Extended Newsletter!

Algebra 1 - Mr. Cargile

Next week in Algebra 1 we will begin our new chapter, Systems of Equations and Inequalities. This week we will learn to solve linear systems by graphing and by substitution.

Geometry - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Geometry, we will begin Chapter 10 by learning everything you wanted to know about circles and more! We will learn about properties of tangent lines (10.1) and arc measures and central angles (10.2).

Advanced Algebra - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Advanced Algebra, we will complete our study of angle relationships by having a day of review on Wednesday and a quiz on angle relationships on Thursday. We will then begin Chapter 9, which deals with surface area and volume of solids. We will begin by learning about solids and polyhedra (9.1).

Physical Science - Ms. Hoffman

Over the last two weeks the eighth graders have participated in several activities including a fun chemistry lab to learn about the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project and conducted a dissolved oxygen titration to see the level of oxygen found in a water sample from the Wilmington River. They also built and tested marshmallow catapults and soda straw rockets (see photos below). The students spent several days learning about some of the important inventions from the last century and chose their own inventor to research. Our focus was on inventors from the twentieth century (their current topic of study in history) and underrepresented individuals in science such as women and people of color. Students used the information they gathered to produce a flyer as an advertisement for their inventor and the importance of the invention. The eighth graders do not have a written exam for science this trimester and their science fair project triptych grade will count as their exam grade.

Next week we will begin our third and final trimester of science at Hancock. We will begin with waves and wave energy and then learn about sound, light, electromagnetic energy, magnetism and electricity.

Fourteen Hancock Day School students participated in the district science fair competition at Savannah State University on Wednesday, 2/5/20. Six of these students also received awards and three of them earned first place in their category and are advancing to the state competition in Athens held at the end of March. I am so proud of all their hard work and how they represented HDS at the competition.

These students are Emiline Baxter (1st place), Sam Bueno (1st place), Brooke Coulter (1st place), Harris Glidewell, Ava Grace Harris, Sydney Hoye (2nd place), Julianna Jones, Jack Owen Myers, Sam Robin, William Shearouse, Harper Silva (3rd place), Mary Tippens Solana (2nd place), Isabella Soldan, and Grace Stoever. The district science fair coordinator will be presenting awards and certificates to our students on Thursday, February 20th.

English Language Arts - Mrs. Boyer

Students will be starting their discussion and reflection on Night by Elie Wiesel. This novel addresses some very tough topics. Students will be participating in a large Art & Writing Project/Contest which will be the majority of their T3 grade. Think Science Fair by for ELA. We usually enter our projects into the JEA Holocaust Art & Writing Contest every year; however, because the JEA changed their schedule we are not going to be able to enter our HDS students. BUT, we will be bringing the art and writing pieces to the JEA to be displayed as a part of their Holocaust Remembrance month in April.

T3 Reading Log Project: Students will be given a choice of three different novels to read. They will read their chosen novel and complete a Google form, answering key discussion questions about their novel. All Google forms must be submitted by May 13th.

History & Gov’t II - Mrs. Robinson

Welcome to T3! We are in the final stretch of the year and our DC trip is right around the corner! Next week in American History & Government II, we will be starting a short Unit on the Great Depression. Students will dive into the change that occured from the boom of the 1920’s and see how America responded to the crash.

8th grade Spanish - Ms. Hill

Welcome back! We will be beginning our next lesson of Grammar and Vocabulary which will be U6L1 - Talking about Movies and Movie-making - Tú commands (which are a little different from Usted/Ustedes commands) Vocabulary and Grammar will be posted on Google Classroom.

Lesson 1 Quiz - Tuesday, Feb 25th

Lesson 1 Test - TBD - Tuesday / Wednesday - March 3rd or 4th

*any review Kahoots or Quizlets will be posted in Google Classroom under their respective categories

Algebra 1 - Mr. Cargile

Next week in Algebra 1 we will begin our new chapter, Systems of Equations and Inequalities. This week we will learn to solve linear systems by graphing and by substitution.

Pre-Algebra - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will begin Chapter 8 by learning about relations and functions (8.1), and we will start graphing linear equations (8.2).

History & Gov’t I - Mrs. Robinson

Welcome to T3! Next week, in American History & Government I, we will be diving into our study of the early presidents and how America put its new government into action. Students will start by focusing on George Washington’s presidency and the choices the young country made in its early years that defined its future.

7th grade Spanish - Ms. Hill

Welcome back! We will be beginning our next lesson of Grammar and Vocabulary which is U5L1. We will be talking about things around the house, chores and responsibilities, and ordinal numbers.

Lesson 1 Quiz - Tuesday, Feb 25th
Lesson 1 Test - TBD - Tuesday / Wednesday - March 3rd or 4th

We will be working on IXL assignments for online practice, in class as well as for homework/review
*any review Kahoots or Quizlets will be posted in Google Classroom under their respective categories

ELA - Mrs. Boyer

Literature: Students will continue engaging in a Book Club theme revolving around Voices of the World. Students will have the choice between four novels: Refugee by Alan Gratz, The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz, Audacity by Melanie Crowder, and Just a Drop of Water by Kerry O’Malley Cerra.

Vocabulary: Students will be engaging with Unit 6; the quiz is TBA. Students have their vocabulary workbooks; this workbook will be collected in May and used during their 8th grade year as well.

Writing: Students will be working on a research-based writing project in the next few weeks.

Life Science - Mrs. DuRant

We had a very busy week this week working on a project that focused on the interrelationship between the skeletal, nervous, and muscular systems. We created prosthetic hands and discussed the functions of these 3 body systems as it related to hand movement. Pictures are below. Students also participated in a fun science Valentine’s Day escape room. They had a great time using clues to solve puzzles with their team. Pictures of the escape room are below as well. Next week in Life Science, we will begin studying the digestive system. We will work on a fun project where students will create a “travel” brochure through the digestive system!

Accelerated Math 7 - Mr. Cargile

Next week in Accelerated Math 7 we will begin our new chapter, Equations, Inequalities, and Functions. This week we will write expressions and equations and we will simplify expressions.

Pre-Algebra - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will begin Chapter 8 by learning about relations and functions (8.1), and we will start graphing linear equations (8.2).

ELA - Mrs. Sasser

This week, students will review our SRES and essay writing format. Students will choose their favorite character from The Outsiders and write an expository essay, explaining two essential character traits about their chosen character. We will write the bulk of the essay in class, and I will conference with students daily to help them through the writing process. However, I encourage students to come in early if they would like additional one on one help. They should also ask their parents to read their writing, checking for grammatical and sentence structure errors that always seem to plague them. The more eyes that check their writing, the easier the revision process becomes!

Students will not have Greek/Latin vocabulary words this week. We will instead be reviewing key writing terms. We will return to their Greek/Latin vocabulary next week, picking up with unit 16.

Earth Science - Mrs. Hoffman

We have finished working on our 6th grade science end of the trimester exam project. Both earthquakes and volcanoes were the main topics. The project began with a mapping activity to illustrate the primary locations of these two natural phenomena and questions about the correlations between the two. There were also two handouts asking basic volcano and earthquake information we covered previously in class. Finally, students conducted internet research on a specific volcano and completed a creative poster to share and present to the class. Finishing up our week we looked at point and non-point source pollution and made mini-aquifers.

Next week we begin our third trimester and will start off learning about the ocean. This will include ocean features, waves, tides, currents, and animal life.

Earth Science - Mrs. DuRant

We have had a great past couple of weeks studying earthquakes and volcanoes. Students participated in an engaging lab where they created structures to determine which would be the most hurricane resistant. Pictures are below. This week, students focused on mapping volcanoes and earthquakes, researching volcanoes and making a poster, and then presenting their posters to a 3rd grade class. Next week in Earth Science, we will conclude our study of volcanoes.

Ancient Civ - Mr. O’Hayer

Welcome back from a nice long weekend. This week we will finish up our exploration of Ancient Greece. Chapter 9 brings us to the Golden Age of Greece. Lesson 1 takes us to a Time of Glory in Athens where we will analyze the roles of Athens and Sparta in the wars with the Persian Empire. We will also identify the differences between government systems like direct democracy and representative democracy. We will then relate how the Greeks influenced our system of government today. Any assessment this week will be announced Wednesday.

Spanish - Mr. Alexander

We will be back in classes on Wednesday the 19th when we will begin a new unit on ‘the family’. This will be a short week and will not have a quiz on Friday - it will be on the following Friday.

<<<Our new discipline protocol for the new trimester will be as follows: First mark is a warning (students will not be told - they are usually good at deducing who is getting the mark by who was talking out of turn or disrupting class.), subsequent marks will deduct 5 points each from the weekly participation grade which resets every Monday. 3 marks warrant a call home. Also, names that appear on the list more than two weeks in a row will also warrant a call home - as it is usually the same names on the list week after week. They seemed to have figured out how much they can get away with before parents are contacted.>>>