April 8 - April 12

 

Dear Parents,

Now that we have moved into April, we have a new Virtue of the Month: curiosity. We believe that fostering curiosity is a key to unlocking a world of knowledge and opportunities for our young learners.

Curiosity is more than just a fleeting interest; it's an eagerness to investigate, explore, and learn. It's about asking questions, seeking answers, and embracing the unknown with enthusiasm. In essence, curiosity fuels the innate desire to understand the world around us and to grow intellectually. We believe that nurturing this trait in our students empowers them to become lifelong learners, critical thinkers, and problem solvers. When students are curious, they actively engage with their learning experiences. They delve deeper into subjects, connect concepts across disciplines, and develop a genuine passion for knowledge. Curiosity sparks creativity, drives innovation, and cultivates resilience in the face of challenges.

As parents, your role in nurturing curiosity is invaluable. Encourage your children to ask questions, pursue their interests, and explore new ideas. Support their curiosity by providing access to resources, and engaging in meaningful conversations. Let's cultivate a community where curiosity thrives, igniting a lifelong love for learning in our students. By doing so, we not only prepare them for academic success but also empower them to navigate the complexities of the world with confidence and curiosity.

Kind regards,

Jack Cargile

Head of Middle School

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 want (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.

Junior Achievement of Georgia’s Upcoming Summer Camp

It’s going to be a fun week at their Discovery Center on the GSU Armstrong Campus. The camp is for 10-14 year-old students, and it’s June 10-14th from 9AM - 3PM. Here is a link for more information about the camp - JA Summer Camp

And here’s a link to register - JA Summer Camp Registration (just click the “Get Tickets’ button) 

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.

HDS Sports Update

  

Baseball wins again!  Your Eagles are now 5-0 on the year with a huge game this Tuesday 7 PM at Paulson field to decide the regular season title and the number 1 seed for the SPAL Tournament. This past Tuesday your Eagles faced an SPS pitcher that threw an 80 MPH fastball with a great curveball as well but were able to score 2 runs! But with great pitching from eighth graders, Elliot Ziegler and Carter Allen, along with an amazing closing performance by 5th grade pitcher Rex Ziegler. HDS won 2-0!

Soccer started their season with a 3-0 win over SCPS at Hancock Field. Ryder Goodman had 2 goals and Jackson Roberts had 1. Next Home Game Monday Night 6:15 pm

Track - will have its opening meet at SSU hosted by HDS this Tuesday. The action starts around 3:15 pm. The following Tuesday HDS will travel to SCPS for a meet. Tuesday, 4/23, SSU will again be the site for the SPAL Championship hosted by HDS!

FOOTBALL- A parent/organizational meeting is scheduled for 4/15 in Hancock Hall @ 5 pm. All Parents are STRONGLY encouraged to attend as coaches will talk about the upcoming spring practices starting in May and requirements as the fall season gets closer.

CAMPS-Basketball and Volleyball Camps will be held in June. 

Basketball will have camps for all ages including PRE-K to 8th Graders!

Volleyball Rising 4th-8th grader. Camps will fill up so apply soon!

Each middle school student is required to complete ten hours of community service over the school year.  Please remember to list hours worked daily, and do not log the total sum of hours worked over an extended period. Click HERE for a log form or see Mrs. Mannarino in the office.

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

• 29  How can you prepare your child for ERBs?

Parents play a crucial role in helping children prepare for tests like the ERBs. Your partnership is essential in assisting your student to enter any test with a calm presence and confidence in their abilities. 

1. Make sure your child gets good rest. Standardized tests like the ERBs require us to think clearly and focus—two things we can’t do without adequate sleep.  

2. Eat a good breakfast. Like sleep, nutritious food helps us remain alert and fuels our brains.

3. Arrive at school on time. A calm beginning of the day leads to less stress and anxiety.

This year our testing will occur from April 8-11. If your child is absent on a testing day, I will reach out to schedule a make-up time before or after school or during the school day if there is an appropriate time.

The virtue that we are highlighting for April is curiosity. Just as with the other virtues, the children take their cues from the adults around them. Here are some tips to encourage and embrace curiosity.

• Try something new as a family and/or get involved in the community.

• Ask open-ended questions that require more than a “yes” or “no” answer.

• Encourage your child to ask questions.

• When possible, adopt a slower pace to appreciate an experience at another level.

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

We will be taking sections 9.4-9.8 slowly. We will have little to no HW M-Th. Friday there will be some homework. They will take a final Chapter 9 test the following week. I am not sure when just yet due to the time frame of the ERBs.

ADVANCED ALGEBRA - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Advanced Algebra, we will use the website desmos.com and a variety of different types of functions to create works of art!

GEOMETRY - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Geometry, we will use the website desmos.com and a variety of different types of functions to create works of art!

ELA - Mrs. Boyer

Students will be 80% through The House on Mango Street by the end of the week. We will be diving more into the topics of writing style, analyzing themes, the creation of our personal vignettes, and engaging in reading comprehension activities. 

We will have a whole novel quiz on April 19th. 

PHYSICAL SCIENCE - Ms. Hallman

Next week, we will continue our work on waves. Their focus will be on ERBs next week, but we will be beginning our unit on sound waves. There will be no assessments next week due to ERBs. 

US HISTORY - Mr. Saviskas  

Next week we are working on the 1920s and 1930s as a combined unit. We will be touching on the many social movements of the era as well as the Great Depression. This unit will be pretty short so I expect there will be only a little over a week’s worth of content. After that we move onto WWII and till the end of the school year.

HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH  - Mr. De Cardenas

The students are making amazing improvements in Spanish class. They are already capable of giving or following directions to get to a location using the modal verbs in simple present tense to form compound sentences and also are proving they can handle it using the Imperative verbal mode. Next week we will keep consolidating how to give directions using imperative mode in its two forms and the different conjugations. This will allow the students to grow more talkative skills. We will continue practicing this in actual conversations in which they will spontaneously give directions in Spanish to get to different locations on a map. During the week we will have some classwork to grade and a Project due to Friday. We will continue practicing the new vocabulary that was taught in class. 

ADVANCED SPANISH - Mr. De Cardenas

The students are making amazing improvements in Spanish class. They are already capable of giving or following directions to get to a location using the modal verbs in simple present tense to form compound sentences and also are proving they can handle it using the Imperative verbal mode. Next week we will keep consolidating how to give directions using imperative mode in its two forms and the different conjugations. This will allow the students to grow more talkative skills. We will continue practicing this in actual conversations in which they will spontaneously give directions in Spanish to get to different locations on a map. During the week we will have some classwork to grade and a Project due to Friday. We will continue practicing the new vocabulary that was taught in class.

Mrs. Brown (Mr. Jones)

All grades thus far have been added. Thank you for your patience, each student had the opportunity to self check and evaluate their errors on our project, test, and CW to obtain half points back if able to explain their mistakes. This is a tedious albeit crucial moment for them to deepen their metalinguistic awareness and thought processes therein. Sadly, this week is our last together and so it will serve as a “game week” in which all CW that we do will revolve around exercising covered content and, quite literally, living the language! I thank you all for the opportunity to have worked with your students and I hope to have impacted them positively, both in content and character.

ALGEBRA 1 - Mrs. Taylor

We will be taking sections 9.4-9.8 slowly. We will have little to no HW M-Th. Friday there will be some homework. They will take a final Chapter 9 test the following week. I am not sure when just yet due to the time frame of the ERB’s.

PRE-ALGEBRA - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will do a group project where groups will create a play and then use math to determine various costs and profits of selling tickets and concessions!

ELA - Ms. Ferkol and Mrs. Boyer

This week we are beginning our journey into The Shire, the home of our main character, Bilbo Baggins. We have set up our Hero’s foundation, and now it is time to begin to piece together the puzzle as we read and comprehend the novel. 

All assessments for the remainder of the year are on GC and in the assessment calendar! 

Assessments: 

Hero’s Guide Book Test 4/15

Ch. 1-4 Quiz 4/17

Ch. 1-11 Test 5/6

Exam: Final Hobbit Assessment

LIFE SCIENCE - Ms. Hallman and Ms. Insignares

Next week, we will be starting our unit on genetics! This will be our last large unit. Depending on when the fetal pigs arrive, we will be dissecting them sometime this month. The students are very much looking forward to that. We will not have assessments next week due to ERBs. Workload will be lighter, so 7th graders can focus on that! :)

AMERICAN HISTORY - Mr. Saviskas

ERB testing is next week so the class load will be fairly light. We will be spending this time working on Manifest Destiny and the run-up to the Civil War. This is an incredibly interesting time in history and I know the students will love it. This will be the unit we’ll work on for the next few weeks as we finish out the year.

AMERICAN HISTORY - Mr. O’Hayer

Next week we will have our ERB Tests. In class, we will begin our examination of the causes of the Civil War. We will not have any assessments this week. We have been working in class on our Native American Tribe Project. Students will have plenty of time to complete this project.

ACCELERATED MATH - Mrs. Taylor

Students seemed to enjoy chapter 9. We will begin a mixed chapter 11. It will cover Area of parallelograms, square roots, etc. There will be little to no HW the M-Th. THere will be Homework Friday. The next assessment will be the week after ERB’s.

PRE-ALGEBRA - Mr. Lanfear

Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will do a group project where groups will create a play and then use math to determine various costs and profits of selling tickets and concessions!

EARTH SCIENCE - Ms. Insignares

ERB’s next week! We will learn chapter 8 and 9, but no assessments will be given! We will quiz the following week.

ELA - Ms. Ferkol

This week we will be wrapping up our final novel unit with a short poetry project and student-created assessments! To allow students to connect with both the format and content of this incredible novel, students will utilize the poem titled “Left Behind” on pages 57-59 of the text to model their own “Left Behind” poems. Students will consider what items in their life are essential to their identities and the impact it would have on them to leave them behind. How would you choose one item to represent your whole life? Students will then work on creating their own “final assessment” and answer key for this novel. They will be provided assessment structure options and be asked to cover important concepts in their assessment such as vocabulary, theme, figurative language, etc. A hard copy of this assessment will be due MONDAY, 4/8, at the beginning of class. The final mini vocabulary quiz for Part 4 of the novel will be on FRIDAY, 4/5 – all four of these quizzes will be averaged together to culminate in one vocabulary quiz grade for this trimester! 

INTRO SPANISH - Ms. Brown (Mr. Jones)

All grades thus far have been added. Thank you for your patience, each student had the opportunity to self check and evaluate their errors on our project, test, and CW to obtain half points back if able to explain their mistakes. This is a tedious albeit crucial moment for them to deepen their metalinguistic awareness and thought processes therein. Sadly, this week is our last together and so it will serve as a “game week” in which all CW that we do will revolve around exercising covered content and, quite literally, living the language! I thank you all for the opportunity to have worked with your students and I hope to have impacted them positively, both in content and character.

WORLD HISTORY - Mr. O’Hayer

We have ERB testing next week. We will not have any assessments next week. Students will continue our study of Economic Systems during the Industrial Revolution.