January 8th - January 12th

 

Dear Parents, 

The beginning of a new calendar year holds the promise of limitless potential and is met with great excitement and anticipation. We are in this together, and with you, we endeavor to provide the best possible learning environment where your children can thrive academically, emotionally, socially, and as artists and athletes. 

The home-school relationship is an important component of exceptional education, and it is our mission to partner with you, the parents, to ensure that your children are supported through their educational journey at HDS. Your student will inevitably experience some challenging times this semester, whether in the classroom, in extracurriculars, or during unstructured times like recess and lunch. Here are a few tips to support your student’s growth and keep the lines of communication open:

• Contact your child’s teacher directly if you have any questions or concerns. Going directly to the source eliminates miscommunication and frustration. 

• Presume positive intent, and remember that everyone (teachers, students, and parents) is doing their best every day… even on the days when we miss the mark, we are doing the best we can at that time.

• Focus on effort and strategies, not on the outcome. We can’t always control the outcome, but we can always control our efforts and the strategies we choose to employ. 

• Learning is a process, not an event like a test or quiz grade, and reflecting on the learning process is a valuable exercise that helps students learn how to learn.

• Always remember that we are in this together. When we work together, communicate openly, and focus on solutions to challenges, we can overcome any obstacles in our path.

We look forward to a productive, positive semester of learning, growth, and fun. We are excited to see what the next five months will bring!

Kind regards,

Jack Cargile

Head of Middle School

Parent Survey
Last fall, we sent out a school survey to the HDS parent community in an effort to gather valuable feedback about many different aspects of you and your child’s experience at Hancock Day School. The information from this survey is used to assess areas of success and areas for improvement. The feedback informs decisions regarding curriculum, policies, and additional programming. While a response does not guarantee a desired outcome for all, please know that all input is valuable and considered. If you have not already done so, please be sure to complete the parent survey no later than January 19, 2024. At that point, we will close the survey and begin compiling responses for review.

8th Grade Washington, D.C. Trip Reminders
When purchasing 8th grade school lunches, do not sign up for the week of March 11th - March 15th.

We will have another DC meeting on Thursday, February 8th at 6:00pm in Hancock Hall. We will be talking specifics with baggage, behavior, dress-code, etc. Please complete this form prior to attending.

Attention 7th Grade Families 

It is a long-standing Hancock Day School tradition of having the 7th grade class host the reception at 8th grade graduation in May. It's an exciting time for Hancock to send off our graduates with support from our community! In the past, families have set up decorations/flowers, brought in finger foods and desserts (homemade or store-bought), and provided beverages. Those interested in volunteering for this event can click here to learn more information and sign up. 

2024 Talent Show!

​​Our Talent Show Auditions and Performance is coming up soon! Please sign up by completing this form. Sign Ups will close on January 12th.

President's Volunteer Service Award (8th Grade)

If students in the 8th grade would like to receive a PVSA at this year’s Honors Assembly, all community service hours need to be completed and turned in to the middle school office no later than Monday, March 25. 

Bronze Level: 50 - 74 hours

Silver Level: 75 - 99 hours

Gold Level: 100+ hours

8th Grade Graduation

Time to start preparing for graduation! Please take some time to complete the graduation form (link below). This information will be used on the programs and diplomas. After the ceremony, we will have a brief reception, where a slideshow will be displayed with the graduates. We request families to submit 5 pictures for the slideshow. The pictures can be anything you would like (baby, siblings, family, friends, etc). The pictures should be submitted electronically to mmannarino@hancockdayschool.org. 

Graduation information and slideshow pictures are due Friday, May 3rd.

Follow all the fun on our Middle School Instagram account!

Parents and students have an easy way to look at upcoming assessments and projects.  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.

Different subjects will appear in different colors:

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

Please bear in mind that Middle School Assessments may be added, removed, or changed at any time.  This Sheet will always be up to date, however - once a teacher assigns or adjusts an assessment, this Sheet will reflect that change.

• Middle School Baseball Tryouts have been rescheduled due to expected rain.  The new tryout date TBA.

• 5th - 8th grade Boys & Girls Soccer & Golf sign-ups are in the Middle School office.

• Congratulations to our Eagles Basketball teams combined!  Their record going into the new year is 25-5.

• Basketball parents, please sign up to volunteer for 2 games this season - concessions & entry gate.   Please go to SignUpGenius to find an open spot.  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094CAFAB2BABF5C34-46393022-home

• Anyone interested in singing the National Anthem or being a guest announcer for the home basketball games, please see Coach Bellairs.

• Please check the HDS Athletics Calendar for updated game schedules.

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 the total sum of hours worked over an extended period of time. Click HERE for a log form or see Mrs. Mannarino in the office.

1. Below is a volunteer opportunity, organized by the PA, for our Middle Schoolers outside of school!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094CAFAB2BABF5C34-second

2. Coastal Pet Rescue - email Emily Piette (emilyp@coastalpetrescue.org) 

As Learning Coach, I work with students, parents, and teachers to offer support and strategies throughout the year. Please reach out to me if I can be of any assistance to you and your child/ren. I will share ideas and strategies often in this space. My email is tguggenheim@hancockdayschool.org. My phone extension is 327. I look forward to working with you! Tricia Guggenheim

16. New Year, New Beginnings 

While it’s technically not a new school year, the calendar new year offers a great opportunity for everyone to take a moment and reflect on how their year is going. Setting aside a few minutes this week to think about what’s been working well this school year and what could be tweaked is a great way to set a couple of school goals for the remainder of the year. There’s always room for improvement! If you have a goal or two that you’d like to work on and are wondering what strategies would work best, please stop by my office or reach out via email, and we can set up a time to meet. Happy New Year!

With the start of 2024, our virtue of the month is commitment. This is a great time to renew procedures and routines that set up your student for success.  One of the best ways to stay on track with commitments is to set reasonable and achievable goals.  However, it is also just as important to be willing to assess and readjust goals as needed!

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns that you may have this year at amaher@hancockdayschool.org.

ALGEBRA 1 - Mrs. Taylor

Students began the year off well, refreshing their brains on the new material they learned before break.  They take their first quiz 6.1-6.3 Monday. We will move on to compound and absolute value inequalities. I am making them complete IXL’s in class and for homework because they were not practicing at home. Also, I started doing book work in class and sending home Worksheets for additional practice. I hope this makes practice easier if I am forcing the hand.

ADVANCED ALGEBRA - Mr. Lanfear

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  Next week in Advanced Algebra, we will continue Chapter 8 by learning how to find the area of squares, rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, rhombuses, trapezoids, and circles (8.3-8.7).  There will be a quiz covering 8.1-8.4 on Tuesday.

GEOMETRY - Mr. Lanfear

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  Next week in Geometry, we will continue Chapter 7 by learning about special right triangles such as the 30-60-90 and 45-45-90 right triangles (7.4).  There will be a quiz covering 7.1-7.4 on Tuesday.  We will then begin our unit on right triangle trigonometry where we will learn SOHCAHTOA and how to use that to find missing side lengths and angles of right triangles (7.5-7.6).  There will be a short quiz on Friday about using SOHCAHTOA to find side lengths.

ELA - Mrs. Boyer

This next week we will be taking our final assessment on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We will then complete A CHOICE PROJECT from January 9th-18th. Students will have their CHOICE of final assessment for the play. This will take us to the middle of January. 

I am extremely proud of our kiddos and their perseverance and dedication to the Macbeth Unit! Seeing as they put their best foot forward, we will be continuing with tradition and the 8th graders will be having a Brain Break with a movie in class. Students will be watching The Freedom Writer’s Diary and The Secret Life of Bees; please check your email for permission email. I will be reaching out to parents for snack volunteers. :) 

Assessments: 

Macbeth Act V Test 1/8/24

PHYSICAL SCIENCE - Ms. Hallman

It is SO good to be back and we are treating this like a brand new class. We are starting physics! We began this week working on building roller coasters to explore the relationship between gravity, potential/kinetic energy, and friction. Next week we will begin laying the foundation for the rest of the year by talking about motion.

US HISTORY - Mr. Saviskas  

Glad to be back and refreshed from Christmas break. Getting back into the swing of things we are tackling Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. We will be focusing on how the Civil War changed America and how that contributed to the societal changes during the Industrial Revolution. This should be a nice and easy week to help everyone get back into the flow of classes.

HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH  - Mr. De Cardenas

I am excited to be back after the Christmas break and super ready to continue teaching conversational Spanish to my students. Next week will continue seeing the current unit we are covering, specifically we will learn in class how to talk about jobs in Spanish, all the grammar instruments we have to use for this in order to give different choices for the students to achieve this kind of conversation. We will also start using the preposition (en) to combine it with the interrogative adverb (Qué) as one of the most common ways to ask about someone's job. Besides, we will expand our vocabulary, the most common words to name jobs in Spanish will be taught as well as their pronunciation. We will have a quiz on Thursday to check the students' master on this topic. We will also be practicing the previous topics we have already seen in class and keep up improving their communicative and especially talkative skills.

ADVANCED SPANISH - Mr. De Cardenas
I am excited to be finally back after the Christmas break and super ready to continue teaching conversational Spanish to my students. Next week we will continue seeing the current unit we are covering, specifically we will learn in class how to talk about jobs in Spanish, all the grammar instruments we have to use for this in order to give different choices for the students to achieve this kind of conversation. We will also start using the preposition (en) to combine it with the interrogative adverb (Qué) as one of the most common ways to ask about someone's job. Besides, we will expand our vocabulary, the most common words to name jobs in Spanish will be taught as well as their pronunciation. We will have a quiz on Thursday to check the students' master on this topic. We will also be practicing the previous topics we have already seen in class and keep up improving their communicative and especially talkative skills.

Mrs. Brown (Mr. Jones)

My name is Dylan Jones, and I am Mrs. Brown’s substitute while she is on maternity leave. I reviewed the days of the week and months of the year with the students on Wednesday; next I intend to review basic greetings/responses to meeting someone and to practice it by being in a larger circle greeting then asking our classmate to the left or right how they are, continuing in one direction until complete. I do this one for informal and again for formal conjugations. We will also be talking about age and introducing ourselves and others.

ALGEBRA 1 - Mrs. Taylor

Students began the year off well, refreshing their brains on the new material they learned before break.  They take their first quiz 6.1-6.3 Monday. We will move on to compound and absolute value inequalities. I am making them complete IXL’s in class and for homework because they were not practicing at home. Also, I started doing book work in class and sending home Worksheets for additional practice. I hope this makes practice easier if I am forcing the hand.

PRE-ALGEBRA - Mr. Lanfear

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will continue Chapter 6 by learning how to write and solve proportions (6.2-6.3), identifying similar and congruent figures (6.4), and using similar figures to find missing side lengths (6.5).  There will be a quiz on Thursday covering 6.1-6.4.

ELA - Ms. Ferkol and Mrs. Boyer

Welcome back from what we hope was a wonderful and relaxing holiday break! While grading exams, we noticed trends emerging from the 7th grade class that need examining. Based on these trends, we will be implementing small group lessons and weekly IXL practice to help aid students with these skills. The skills we will focus on include, but are not limited to, completing multipart questions and reading comprehension strategies. Exams have been given back, reviewed, and taken back up. If you have a particular question, please reach out. 

This week we will be diving into the exciting world of poetry and begin our next project: “A Poem in Two Voices”! We are very excited about this project as it will allow students to be creative and utilize perspective as a means to make an impact on readers! Following this project, students will be creating their own “Theme” Parks…stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks! It is important to note that students should have their VOW novels and ALL journal entries completed by January 16th. 

Students will be assigned an outside reading assignment this week to end this trimester. They will be required to choose an independent non-fiction book and complete a choice board project to identify and practice reading and writing skills. The reading choice and project will be due Thursday, February 13!

Please stay on top of the assessment calendar and Google Classroom assignments. 

LIFE SCIENCE - Ms. Hallman and Ms. Insignares

We are so excited to be back! We are continuing our exploration of the cell by finishing with the cell cycle and mitosis. We will be spending about two weeks here before moving on to learning about each body system. The questions have been interesting and made for lively discussions! Please encourage your students to use their time in class wisely. 

US HISTORY - Mr. Saviskas

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas break. Now that we’re back, we will be finishing up the American Revolution and transitioning to the US Constitution. This topic can be complicated, but we’ll be taking it slow and methodical to ensure students understand the document and its purpose. Its an incredibly interesting topic that I’m sure the students will love!

US HISTORY - Mr. O’Hayer

Welcome Back everyone!! I hope your Holiday break was restful and fun. Coing up in American History, we will move on from the American Revolution and begin our study of how our Founding Fathers created our U.S. Constitution. Students will examine the environment after the Revolution, look at how our leaders went about building the Law of our Land, and study how compromise played such an important part of our laws and guiding documents. 

ACCELERATED MATH - Mrs. Taylor

Students are doing much better with integers. We have completed a few real life tasks to support the concept. For instance, we did a debit and credit checkbook ledger. That was interesting. (lol) We will multiply and divide integers, then work on the coordinate plane. A test will be the following week.

PRE-ALGEBRA - Mr. Lanfear

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will continue Chapter 6 by learning how to write and solve proportions (6.2-6.3), identifying similar and congruent figures (6.4), and using similar figures to find missing side lengths (6.5).  There will be a quiz on Thursday covering 6.1-6.4.

EARTH SCIENCE - Ms. Insignares

Happy New Year! This week we will have a quiz on Air Pressure and Weather. We will also start an in class project that will show students’ creative side! More information to come. 

ELA - Ms. Ferkol

Happy 2024, everyone! I am excited to be back in action with your wonderful students! While grading exams, I noticed a few trends in student work that I would like to work on over the coming weeks. In order to jumpstart this work, we have begun an “ELA Bootcamp” where students are reviewing and refreshing basic ELA skills to help with reading and writing. Additionally, students will have weekly IXL work to build fluency and ability with skills. These skills may relate to lessons planned for that week, be a review of skills practiced previously, or be an extension of learning to help prepare students for the coming ERBs later this year. 

Students will have a quiz covering the Bootcamp material next FRIDAY, JANUARY 12TH. Following this quiz, we will wrap up our Dystopian Unit by writing a persuasive essay to gain a “following” for the dystopian society students made prior to break. More information to come next week!

INTRO SPANISH - Ms. Brown (Mr. Jones)

My name is Dylan Jones, and I am Mrs. Brown’s substitute while she is on maternity leave. I reviewed the days of the week and months of the year with the students on Wednesday; next I intend to review basic greetings/responses to meeting someone and to practice it by being in a larger circle greeting then asking our classmate to the left or right how they are, continuing in one direction until complete. I do this one for informal and again for formal conjugations.

WORLD HISTORY - Mr. O’Hayer

Welcome Back Everyone!! I hope your break was awesome. We are making the change in World History from Ancient Greece and Rome forward in time to France and England and the great Enlightenment. We will study and anyalyze great thinkers like Newton, Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, Descartes, and Bacon. We will end the unit with our study of the great thinkers in Early America that helped shape our country and it’s foundations of law and rights. Men like Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison. Important: Students are moving into topics that they have not had before and mostly have never heard of these subjects. It is so important to keep up with reading and questions and keeping up with quality outlines to aid in review and study.

We are fortunate Georgia Peaches with Pantone’s color of the year Peach Fuzz! Students will incorporate Georgia peaches into our printmaking projects ahead.