April 7th - April 11th

 

8th Grade Graduation Information – Deadline April 18
Graduation is just around the corner! On Thursday, May 22, we’ll be celebrating the accomplishments of our 8th grade students. To help us prepare for the event, we need your help with a few things:

1. Google Form: Please fill out this form for program and diploma details.
   
   

2. 5 Photos: We’re creating a slideshow for the reception, and we’d love to include 5 pictures of your child! These can be anything you’d like—baby photos, current pictures, family moments, sports shots, or anything else that captures their journey.

The deadline to submit both the form and pictures is Friday, April 18. Please send photos directly to Mrs. Mannarino’s email (mmannarino@hancockdayschool.org).

Thank you for helping us make this special day unforgettable for your child!

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 Athletics Update 

Volleyball - Free Clinic!
We’re excited to announce that Jordan Yantin, along with other former professional volleyball players and coaches, will be hosting a free volleyball clinic for all HDS girls! This clinic is open to girls in grades 1 through 8 and will be held on April 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.

Schedule:

• Grades 1-3: 3:30 - 5:00 PM (Court 1)

• Grades 4-5: 3:30 - 5:00 PM (Court 2)

• Grades 6-8: 5:00 - 7:00 PM (Courts 1 & 2)
  
  

We encourage every girl at HDS to come and join the fun! Several of the coaches from the clinic will also be working with HDS next year, so this is a great chance to meet them. Parents are welcome to stay and watch.

Parent Meeting:
There will be a parent meeting at 5:00 PM for all grades.

HDS Fishing Tournament – April 11th-12th
Join us for the annual HDS Fishing Tournament!

Prizes:

• 1st Place: $100 Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card

• 2nd & 3rd Places: Various prizes
  
  

Tournament Details:

• Starts: Friday, April 11th at 3:45 PM

• Ends: Saturday, April 12th at 12:00 PM

• Fish anywhere within 30 miles of HDS
  
  

Make sure to pick up your tournament papers from Coach Bellairs before the end of school on April 11th!

Free Basketball Clinic – April 12th
There will be a FREE basketball clinic for girls in grades 2 through 4 on Saturday, April 12th, from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM. Middle School students who want to help and earn service hours can contact Coach Bellairs.

Also, don’t forget about our upcoming Basketball Camp—spots are filling up fast, so make sure to register soon! Remember, you can invite friends from other SPAL schools!

New! Girls’ Flag Football (Fall 2025)
We’re launching a Girls' Flag Football league this fall for grades 6-8! The league will run on Saturday mornings for 4-6 weeks. For more information, email Coach Bellairs at bbellairs@hancockdayschool.org.

Baseball
Hancock Day School held off a late rally to defeat St. Peter the Apostle Rams 7-5 on Thursday. They built a 5-0 lead by the third inning with key hits from Walker Y, Charlie A, and Oliver N. After St. Peter tied the game in the fifth, Hancock responded with a go-ahead RBI single from Walker and a bases-loaded walk by Oliver. Wesley C earned the win in relief, while Anderson L pitched 4.2 strong innings as the starter. Hancock’s offense collected 10 hits and dominated the bases with 11 stolen steals, setting up their next matchup against St. James Chargers on Tuesday.

Track Team Results - April 2, 2025 (SCDS Meet)

Girls 5/6th:

• 4x100m: 2nd Place

• 400m: Lucy Mac Hasselle, 2nd

• 800m: Bentley Milmine, 1st; Emma Kate Broderick, 3rd

• 4x400m: 3rd Place

• 1600m: Harper Odom, 3rd

• Shot Put: Ellie Jones, 2nd
  
  

Boys 5/6th:

• 4x100m: 1st Place

• 400m: David Goodman, 1st

• 4x400m: 2nd Place

• 1600m: William Cameron, 3rd

• 200m: Ashwin Deshpande, 3rd

• High Jump: David Goodman, 1st

• Long Jump: Ashwin Deshpande, 2nd

Boys 7/8th:

• 400m: Gage Hart, 1st

• 4x400m: 2nd Place

• 1600m: Wesley Pedigo, 3rd

• 800m: Pete Rosario, 2nd

• Long Jump: Pete Rosario, 2nd

• Discus: Alton Smith, 1st; Jack Burt, 2nd

• Shot Put: Gage Hart, 3rd
  
  

Team Scores:

• Girls 5/6th: 2nd Place

• Boys 5/6th: 2nd Place

• Boys 7/8th: 2nd Place
  
  

Special Shout-Out:
A big shout-out to Flynn Kilpatrick, who stepped up to compete in both the 5/6th and 7/8th 4x400m Relay events to help his teammates. Great attitude and effort, Flynn!

Next Meet: April 8th at SJS.

Golf
The HDS boys’ golf team finished in 2nd place at this week’s SPAL golf challenge. Congratulations to Carson Hayes, who took 1st place in the tournament! On the girls' side, the team also finished 2nd, with Skylar Haddick earning 2nd place individually.

Soccer
The HDS soccer teams faced off against experienced Calvary teams. Our girls team lost a tough 1-0 game, with a shot just barely missing our goalie in the final seconds. The boys’ team managed a 1-1 tie after Flynn Kilpatrick scored with just 43 seconds left in the game, despite running track the day before!

That’s all for now, Eagles! Keep up the great work, and we’ll see you at the games and clinics!

#18 Executive Functioning Skills: Understanding Time Management, con’t

Middle school students often struggle with time management as they balance school, extracurricular activities, and personal time. Here are some effective strategies to help them manage their time better:

For the past two weeks, I have provided tips and strategies to support time management skills. Today I have included a link to a helpful time management checklist.

Middle School Daily Time Management Checklist

The virtue for March is courage. This article has some great tips, two of my favorites are: 

• When you define courage for your student, let them know that it often feels different inside than it looks on the outside. Courageous acts can often make you feel scared and anxious.

• “Failure and rejection are often signs that we have done something brave.” 

How to Encourage Courage in Your Kids

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

Each middle school student is required to complete ten hours of community service over the course of the school year.  Please remember to check this area of the blog for opportunities. Click HERE for a log form or see Mrs. Mannarino in the office.

Algebra I - Mr. Scordato
It will be ERB week, but the new unit of Quadratic Functions begins!

Advanced Algebra - Mr. Lanfear
Next week in Advanced Algebra, we will begin our unit on reviewing important topics from Algebra 1.  We will review exponent rules such as the product rule, quotient rule, negative exponents, and zero exponents. Students will also make presentations about the exponent rules.

Geometry - Mr. Lanfear
Next week in Geometry, students will design a piece of art using desmos.com and a variety of different types of functions such as linear, quadratic, cubic, square root, circles, ellipses, and sinusoidal waves.

Physical Science - Ms. Harmon
Next week we'll be learning about Electricity, Forces, Contact v. Noncontact, Force fields, Electromagnets, Conductors & insulator

 ELA - Ms. Hall

Students have now had the opportunity to select their interest levels in the various novels being supported with this unit. In the next weeks, they will begin reading their vignette/verse novels and take on the responsibility of answering the corresponding journals as we discuss what it means to grow up in different walks of life.

US History - Mr. Saviskas
Hello everyone. Our WWI unit is done and we are moving on to our last two units of the year. Next week during ERB I am going to do a micro unit on the time between WWI and WWII called the Interwar period. This period covers the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression and will touch on how both of these eras lead us to WWII. Should be an easy and fun unit for everyone!

High School Spanish - Mr. De Cardenas

I hope you're doing well! I wanted to take a moment to update you on what we have planned for next week in our Spanish class. After receiving positive feedback from students about our current unit, we’re excited to maintain this momentum and continue making progress.

Next week, we’ll focus on further developing speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills. We'll continue performing a range of activities that provide students with more opportunities to practice Spanish, helping them gain fluency and confidence in conversation.

In addition, we will begin studying the present perfect tense in Spanish. This will give students the tools to understand and effectively use this complex grammatical structure. Our goal is to equip them with the skills needed to handle situational communication confidently, as well as to refine their ability to use Spanish accurately and fluently in everyday contexts.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m looking forward to another fantastic week of learning!

Algebra I - Mr. Scordato

It will be ERB week, but the new unit of Quadratic Functions begins!

Pre-Algebra - Mr. Lanfear 

Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will continue the second part of Chapter 8 by learning how to solve systems of linear equations using graphing (8.7) and how to graph linear inequalities (8.8).

Life Science - Ms. Harmon

Life Science - Ms. Harmon Continued

We will be Learning Population Communities and their interactions. After next week we will be taking a test Friday 4/18/25. The study guide will be given 1 week from their test.

Life Science - Mrs. Swanner
Next week, we will complete an in-class (with the exception of cooking) activity centered around nutrition.

ELA - Ms. Ferkol

As we move into next week, we will finish the first of our two novels, The Hero’s Guidebook. It is a quick read, but sets an extremely important foundation for the work we will begin in The Hobbit. We will begin reading The Hobbit in class on Tuesday, and students will be expected to complete reading checks and have a guided question packet that will accompany their reading to ensure understanding. Please note that this novel is more dense than others read this year, so it is important that students are in class and annotating in their margins as we read together!

ELA - Ms. Hall

Student’s will be finishing reading the first of our two novels for this unit as we head into next week. The Hero’s Guidebook is an easy read, but it is setting up for the more advanced work we’ll be doing with The Hobbit. On Tuesday, we’ll begin reading the Hobbit and students will be completing additional activities to ensure their comprehension of their reading.

American History - Mr. O’Hayer

Next week in American History, we will begin our unit on the Civil War. Students will research and analyze the causes of the war and dive deep into how our Nation became so divided. Next week is ERB Testing, so we will not have any assessments. The next group project will create a Union/Confederate Soldier/Officer. This is another student favorite. Students research a particular officer and tell his story using artwork and information.

American History - Mr. Saviskas

Hello again! We are beginning a mini unit on American Slavery as our prelude to the Civil War unit. This will be a short unit meant to catch kids up to speed on the conditions slaves were experiencing before the Civil War and why the issue became so important to America at the time. I’m so excited to start this unit!

After Monday we will be moving onto the early America post-Constitution. This will cover the War of 1812, the beginning of westward expansion and the issue of slavery which was hotly debated in its day.

Advanced Spanish - Mr. Jones

 Having focused on creating our own study guides for our verbs in the past and present tense conjugations, we will proceed with having our test over said material this Friday, 4 April and will postpone the due date of the half page paragraph students are expected to write until next Wednesday, 9 April to ensure students are refreshed and ready to write independently in a foreign language.

X + 1 = Fluency

Advanced Spanish - Mr. De Cardenas 

 Having focused on creating our own study guides for our verbs in the past and present tense conjugations, we will proceed with having our test over said material this Friday, 4 April and will postpone the due date of the half page paragraph students are expected to write until next Wednesday, 9 April to ensure students are refreshed and ready to write independently in a foreign language.

X + 1 = Fluency

Accelerated Math - Mr. Scordato

We continue our studies of Geometry, and the Chapter 11 test has been moved to next Friday. ERB week means a light homework week, and hopefully lots of good sleep and healthy breakfasts.

Pre-Algebra - Mr. Lanfear
Next week in Pre-Algebra, we will continue the second part of Chapter 8 by learning how to solve systems of linear equations using graphing (8.7) and how to graph linear inequalities (8.8).

Earth Science - Mrs. Swanner
Next week, students will need to bring supplies to build their volcano models. 

ELA - Ms. Ferkol

Students have done some wonderful work this week with our new dystopian unit! This week, we will continue this great work by further discussing archetypes, obstacles encountered, and connecting our novels to our realities. Students should also be prepared to participate in book club discussions this week to focus on how we are seeing these features play our in our novels!

Students will utilize a digital interactive notebook for this unit, so please encourage them to charge their chromebooks nightly as these slides will be checked for classwork grades throughout the unit and a quiz grade at the end. 

World History - Mr. O’Hayer

Next week in World History, students will dive deep into one of the most important periods in world history: The Industrial Revolution. This is one of my favorite topics to teach. Students learn about how/why this event happened and research all the amazing inventions that still impact our lives today. Next project: Students will work in groups to collaborate on creating their own inventions or adding onto an existing product. A definite student favorite. 

Spanish Fundamentals - Mr. Jones
Having reiterated the past and present tense conjugations of our irregular verbs and the conjugation patterns of regular verbs, Spanish Fundamental students will begin ready short stories for reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition heavily next week. 

The Printmaking Unit is a three to four week process:

6th grade will pull a print for each participant and distinguish their collaborative work with transformative color. A few teams were “courageous” to collaborate with classmates they have not before. 

7th graders will transform the printed 9x24 panels through color application. 

8th graders are embracing the pop art portrait prints with ease. I am proud of their progress and skill to carve into linoleum thoughtfully by adjusting the tools for particular effects.