March 9th - March 13th

5K RUN FOR OLD SAVANNAH CITY MISSION

Savannah City Mission will be holding their 2nd Annual 5k run on Saturday, March 28th.  Click HERE for more information and to register.

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.

Kindness in the Virtue of the Month at Hancock!  This is a great time of the year to consider participating in a random act of kindness.  As I am sure you know, kindness is contagious! 

-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 we will be going to Washington, D.C.!

Geometry - Mr. Lanfear

Next week we will be going to Washington, D.C.!

Advanced Algebra - Mr. Lanfear

Next week we will be going to Washington, D.C.!

Physical Science - Ms. Hoffman

See below for photos of last week's wave interaction lab. In this lab students rotated through four different stations to learn about wave reflection, refraction, diffraction and interference. They used slinkys to demonstrate various wave interactions, placed and sketched pencils in different liquids to observe refraction, used flashlights to test reflection off various objects, noticed the energy created in water by a tuning fork and dropped marbles in water  to observe reflection and diffraction. 

This week we began discussing sound beginning with the parts of the ear and their function, the range of frequency we hear and how we can lose our hearing.  Students also compared music to noise, learned about the specific properties of sound and discussed the Doppler Effect. We finished the week off with a Musical Notes Lab identifying different pitches of sound and how they can change (photos next week).  

After the Washington D.C. trip and Spring Break, we will continue the information on sound including sonic booms and echolocation and will create a wave/sound booklet. Our unit test is tentatively scheduled for Thursday 3/26/20 and our March Science Choice Board is due Tuesday, 3/31/20.  Students may use their trip to Washington as one of their choice board topics (Science on the Road) by writing one to two pages describing their visit and three ways it involved science using science vocabulary and concepts. I also wish them a fun, safe time out of time. 

    

                 

English Language Arts - Mrs. Boyer

DC Trip!! YAY!

Vocabulary: Unit 15 & 16; Quiz TBA. 

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 6th. 

History & Gov’t II - Mrs. Robinson

Next week we will be headed to D.C.! We are really looking forward to the trip and we hope the students are too! The 8th grade will be working on reflective journals for my class while we are in D.C. The journals were created to help them get the most out of their experience to this wonderful city! Looking forward to it!

8th grade Spanish - Ms. Hill

Enjoy your DC trip! :)

Algebra 1 - Mr. Cargile

Next week in Algebra 1 we will continue our study of Systems of Equations and Inequalities. We will solve linear systems by multiplying first, solve special types of linear systems, and solve systems of linear inequalities.

Pre-Algebra - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Pre-Algebra, Ms. Reardon will be subbing for Mr. Lanfear as he is going with the 8th Grade on the Washington, D.C. trip.  Students will be working, in groups, to create a scale model of a playground that they will design.

History & Gov’t I - Mrs. Robinson

Next week, in American History & Government I, the students will  complete a mini-unit on Fake News. We are using a system called Penpal Schools where the students are able to discuss online with people of their age from across the world! Students have already started engaging with peers on the topic of fake news and will wrap up this unit by creating a PSA to help people avoid fake news. This is great prep for a Student News Network we are going to do later in the year as well as their trip to Atlanta where they will visit the CNN center. I will be in D.C. next week with the 8th grade but will be keeping in touch with the 7th graders at night via email. 

7th grade Spanish - Ms. Hill

We will be continuing our U5L1 Vocabulary and Grammar about things around the house, chores and responsibilities, and ordinal numbers.

Lesson 1 Test - TBD (March 10th) 

Grammar:  Continued practice of Ser and Estar and the use of ordinal numbers as adjectives. Determining the reason of using SER and ESTAR with the acronyms DOCTOR or PLACE

Here’s a link to the studyspanish.com lesson to Ser and Estar.

Ser and Estar: Part I

IXL Review - IXL Unit 2 Grammar section J and K for Ser and Unit 4 Grammar section I and J for Estar

Kahoots & Quizlets will be posted in Google Classroom under their respective categories - All items are listed in T3 folders

ELA - Mrs. Boyer

I will be in DC!! Email or comment on GC with questions! :)

Vocabulary: Students will be working on their Unit 7 Vocabulary Ex. if they complete their projects early. 

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

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. 

Life Science - Mrs. DuRant

This week in life science, students will wrap up their unit on the circulatory system.  They will begin the week learning about the components of blood and conduct an engaging lab using simulated blood to learn about blood typing. A test on the circulatory system has been scheduled for Thursday.  We will then focus on the respiratory system, concluding the week with a lab in which students create a model simulating the respiratory system.

Accelerated Math 7 - Mr. Cargile

Next week in Accelerated Math 7 we will complete working on Chapter 7, Equations, Inequalities, and Functions. We will review concepts from the chapter and have our Chapter 7 test on Friday.

Pre-Algebra - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Pre-Algebra, Ms. Reardon will be subbing for Mr. Lanfear as he is going with the 8th Grade on the Washington, D.C. trip.  Students will be working, in groups, to create a scale model of a playground that they will design.

ELA - Mrs. Sasser

This week, students will work on their group project biography poem. Students will select an individual that has had a positive impact on society, research their life and accomplishments, and draft a 40 line poem about their chosen person. Their poem will incorporate key pieces of figurative language that we have learned throughout this unit. As I will be in D.C. this week with the 8th graders, students will be given a timeline of pieces that they will need to E-MAIL me nightly for a grade. This will help them stay on track in class and give them a chance to receive my feedback before the final submission on Friday. It is very important that they keep up with their requirements and stay on track. On Friday, we will have an in-class poetry house where students will perform their poems. 

For our poetry house, students are expected to have their poem MEMORIZED and bring a costume to wear that represents their chosen person. This will count for a major project grade. 

T3 Reading Log Project: Students will be given a choice of five different novels to read. They should have a copy of their novel in class by March 9th. They will read their chosen novel independently over the course of the trimester and complete a Google form, answering key discussion questions about their novel. All Google forms must be submitted by May 6th. 

Earth Science - Mrs. Hoffman

We have been learning a lot about the ocean, including its chemical makeup (NaCl, minerals, dissolved gases), topography (continental shelf, continental slope, abyssal plain, trenches, seamounts, etc.), various water columns (intertidal, neritic, pelagic, surface, transitional, deep) and general animal types (benthic, plankton, nekton). We also looked at live organisms that live beneath a floating dock such as a scud, nematode worm, sea lettuce, bryozoa and polyps.  The students also created ocean dioramas with some of the features, zones and animals found in this wonderful and unique environment. (See photos below of these activities.) Students finished up the week with a quiz and an introduction to ocean waves.

The focus for next week will be ocean motion as we continue discussing waves and then move to information on tides and currents.  Their ocean animal cereal box project is due Wednesday 3/25 and the ocean unit test will be Thursday, 3/26/20. The March Science in Comics is due Tuesday, 3/31/20.

Earth Science - Mrs. DuRant

This week in Earth Science, students will wrap up their unit on rocks and minerals. At the beginning of the week, they will work on an in-class project making a rock tri-fold.  They will have a test on rocks and minerals on Thursday. On Friday, we will begin a discussion on fossils, and have a virtual tour scheduled with the Aurora Fossil Museum also on Friday. 

Ancient Civ -  Mr. O’Hayer

This week we will finish up Ch. 9 with the study of Alexander the Great and how his influence impacted Greek culture and the spread of Greek ideals in the Hellenistic Age. We will study his conquests and the events that led to the end of a great empire. We will have a quiz on Wednesday the 11th. To finish out the week we will look at Greece Today and study current events that are shaping Greece and the regions that surround it. After the break we will dive into the study of the Great Roman Empire.

Spanish - Mr. Alexander

We will learn about prepositions and phrases to describe the location of places and objects. We will introduce some minor grammar concepts like the difference between muy/mucho and more uses of ser/estar as we prepare for spring break!

<<<Our new discipline protocol for the new trimester will be as follows:  First mark is a warning (students will not be told - they are expected to be on best behaviour at all times), 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 warrant a call home - as it is usually the same names on the list week after week.>>>

Art - Mrs. Cookson

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” -Scott Adams

I will be out with the 8th graders in Washington, DC.

8th: Will be enjoying museums and monuments in Washington, DC

7th: Will take a break from working on concert posters and will work with the substitute on the Block Name Design Project

6th: Will take a break from wet felting to work with the substitute on Scribble Art. It is more challenging than it sounds. :)