Middle School
Weekly Update
Week of September 29th
01
Friday is an A Day
Calendar
Friday, 10/4: 7th grade field trip
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Office Updates
From Mrs. Lomax
A big thank you to all who attended our Open House last week! It was wonderful to see so many familiar and new faces as we kicked off the school year together. On a practical note, please be aware that we will be conducting two more fire drills this week as part of our ongoing safety procedures. These drills help ensure we're all prepared in case of an emergency. Lastly, to our Jewish families and staff, we'd like to extend our warmest wishes for a Happy Rosh Hashanah. May this new year bring you joy, peace, and prosperity.
From Mr. Megivern
October is National Bullying Prevention Month! Each week on the announcements we will highlight strategies and resources students can use to help make Trumansburg Middle School a safe, friendly, bully-free learning community.
You can find a link to the National Bullying Prevention Center HERE.
The Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights (PACER) also has an anti-bullying website for kids (HERE) and for teens (HERE).
And finally, click HERE to read up on New York State’s Dignity for All Students Act.
5th Grade
5th Grade Daily Planner Please check your students’ take home folders and planners with them daily.
ELA: It was lovely to meet so many of you at open house! In ELA this week, we read about and discussed the history of immigration in the United States. We also worked on stretching our sentences using the words because, but, and so. On Wednesday, we began our whole class novel- Front Desk, by Kelly Yang. We will be reading and discussing Front Desk in class for the first few weeks, but by next week, students will be assigned a few chapters for homework each week. For now, students should still be reading their free-read books daily.
Science: Your young scientists have begun a month-long project of doing nightly observations of the sky. If they haven’t already done so, please ask them to tell you all about this assignment. Their observation sheet should be traveling back-and-forth to school every day in their take-home folder.
Social Studies: This week we began researching the Early American cultures of the Adena, Haida, and Taino.
Math: Students spent the week multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers. We practiced using both area models and the standard algorithm. Students will be getting their exit tickets back on Monday as we prepare for our mid module assessment on Wednesday, 10/2. The assessment will cover place value, exponents, and multi-digit multiplication.
Band: Mrs. Posegate’s Lesson Schedule Our first lessons went so well this week! Students will need to read this lesson schedule to know when their lesson is next week. Please encourage your student to make a new habit of practicing every day. Right now it takes 5 minutes or less to practice their mouthpiece. We hope to start with our instruments the week of 10/7. I will assume you are renting an instrument unless I hear from you that you need to borrow a school instrument.
Chorus: We have started our first “official” piece of chorus music, Galop! This piece is a great training ground for learning solfege syllables and Kodaly hand signs, which form the foundation of our ear-training pedagogy. Your students have also started sight-reading up to 4 measures of music each rehearsal. Ask them to tell you a little bit about how we take each exercise apart! Also, if your student would like to practice warming up at home, try these warmup slides.
5th Grade Student Council: The first 5th grade student council meeting will be Thursday, 10/3 after school from 3:00 - 3:30. The late bus will be available for anyone who needs it. Students taking the late bus need to sign up with Ms. Stearns by 1:00PM on Thursday. There will be a second (shorter) meeting on Friday 10/4 during 5th grade lunch for anyone who couldn’t make it after school on Thursday. Feel free to email Ms. Stearns with questions: JStearns@tburg.k12.ny.us
6th Grade
Here is a link to the planner-please bookmark this page. Our iReady Diagnostics finishes up this week with Math on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Math: We spent last week factoring and finding Greatest Common Factor, and will be finishing up with distributive property on Monday. There will be a review sheet sent home on Monday, and a unit assessment will be Wed or Thurs. Our next unit will work with fractions.
Science: Glad so many of you were able to make it to open house. This week we were focused on two questions: Why is the air near the ground warmer than the air up higher? And, what happens to the air when it is warmed up? We will be wrapping up the second question early next week. Our purpose here is to ultimately be able to explain what is causing hail storms to happen. We have some general ideas and are narrowing them down as we collect pieces of the puzzle. Each piece we figure out helps us to see the bigger picture. Next week we will also be looking at the cause and effect relationship for what causes the upward and downward movement of air inside of clouds. Keep asking them about science!
Social Studies: It was wonderful to see so many of you at open house. We traveled to Ancient Greece this week and started our exploration of geography and religion of Ancient Greece. We discussed how the geography of Greece greatly influenced the culture and governments. Students have been very excited to share their knowledge of mythology and learn more about the gods and goddesses. We will make great connections to ELA and The Lightning Thief.
Band: Mrs. Posegate’s Lesson Schedule “What should my student be practicing?” Your student’s assignment is flagged with a red post-it and circled in pencil. Your student should be able to show you. We are working on 2 eighth notes with different pitches this week to prepare for our concert music. Band members are invited to participate in the OPTIONAL Gimme coffee sale Music Booster fundraiser. Here is the info. Here is the order form.
Chorus: 6th grade had our first “movement” rehearsal this Friday, during which students learned some basic drum and shaker patterns to accompany Somagwaza, our piece from South Africa. Many of our Friday rehearsals will use Dalcroze and world music pedagogy to help singers internalize a sense of pulse and strengthen ensemble skills. Ask your student to show you one of the rhythm patterns we learned! Chorus Lesson Schedule 9/30-10/4
7th Grade
Please have students bring a water bottle to school everyday. This is the 7th grade weekly planner. Please bookmark it.
We are planning to go on a field trip Friday, Oct. 4. Please have your child dress appropriately for the weather. It will be cooler on the boat, so we recommend dressing in layers.
Science: This week, we explored different types of cells under the microscope, examining slides of bone, muscle, and nerve cells. We discussed how the shape of each cell aids its function, which sparked some great conversations. Additionally, we began our study of cell organelles, and we will continue this next week.
ELA 7: We will continue to dive into the murky waters of Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt.” We will have a mini debate this week. Our focus will be on making claims, supporting our claims with text evidence, and creating arguments with logical reasoning. As always, thank you for encouraging your seventh grader to read everyday. Pink reading bookmarks are due on Monday.
Math 7 & Pre-Algebra: We worked more with signed numbers this week. We’ve now learned all 4 operations and will be spending time practicing and extending our skills with this. View our Week 4 photos. Fridays are our statistics day, and this Friday we learned to make our own box plots, as well as how to compare box plots of two different things. We looked at the cost of houses in Trumansburg compared with Ithaca this Friday. Next week we’ll spend more time with multiplication and division of rational numbers and bring signed numbers into the Order of Operations. Pre-Algebra students have a short assessment next Tuesday on the material they have learned for September. Our next topic is Geometry. We’ll begin with Geometry Terms and then move into Transformations. Note that Pre-Algebra students will have in-class stations next week as part of their learning and practice. View our Week 5 Agenda
Chorus: This week your students dived deep into sight-reading parts directly from their music in two of our pieces, Shoshone Love Song & Sing a Jubilant Song. On Friday we also had our first “movement” rehearsal, where we worked on internalizing the pulse of the music by stepping the beat and the rhythm of sections of the music. Many of our Friday rehearsals this year will use Dalcroze pedagogy in this way. Chorus Lesson Schedule 9/30-10/4
Music: We are continuing our study of musical genre. We have been talking about what makes a good listener and how to direct our focus when we are listening to music. This week, we will unpack the elements of music and explore how they are the building blocks of all music.
7/8 Band: A reminder to those who are using a school instrument this year to fill out a Borrower's Agreement. This needs to be completed each year even if you are still using the same instrument as last year.
We are well into learning our first band piece: Coldwater Crossing. We will be getting a new piece this week. The 2 band pieces plus material we are working on in lessons should give students lots to practice!
7/8 Band Lesson Schedule/Groups week of 9/30
7/8 Band Course Outline/Concert Dates
8th Grade
Science 8: Students have been studying elements. We have looked at the ingredients in our foods and health products and have determined which elements are the most abundant in our lives.
Regents Earth Science: We have continued our study of maps. Students have learned how to draw contour lines and how to read a topographic map.
Kotler’s ELA 8: Students have finished reading chapters 3-5 of Dr. Jekyll & Hyde and are currently exploring themes, practicing inferring (w/ ch. 4 - The Carew Murder Case). Thursday and Friday, students will read chapters 6 & 7.
Social Studies: Our first content unit will be the Civil Rights Movement. We will talk about guidelines necessary to talk about sensitive topics & lay some groundwork on the concept of race and the impacts of bias. Once we define what “civil rights” are, we will move on to talking about the landmark supreme court case: Plessy v Ferguson.
Chorus: This week 8th grade worked on formal analysis and pattern recognition to improve the speed and efficiency of their choral sight-reading. This is a challenging skill for even HS musicians, but I was pleased to see them demonstrate persistence and a growth mindset as we began this work. Chorus Lesson Schedule 9/30-10/4
7/8 Band: A reminder to those who are using a school instrument this year to fill out a Borrower's Agreement. This needs to be completed each year even if you are still using the same instrument as last year.
We are well into learning our first band piece: Coldwater Crossing. We will be getting a new piece this week. The 2 band pieces plus material we are working on in lessons should give students lots to practice!
7/8 Band Lesson Schedule/Groups week of 9/30
7/8 Band Course Outline/Concert Dates
Health: Students made great progress in understanding what helps to ensure a nutrient-dense diet this week. We also had a lesson on risk and protective factors. Next week will wrap up discussions on the importance of nutrition and physical activity and students will complete a mini-research on a topic of their choosing. The unit on abstinence, puberty and personal health will begin in the first week of October – here is a parent resource you might find helpful.
PTO
Our next MS PTO Event: Glow Golf and Game Night, Friday, Oct 4 from 7-9pm
- Middle schoolers can be dropped off OR they can bring their family to stay with them to do some Glow in the Dark Mini Golf in the MS gym and play some board games and/or BINGO in the nearby MS spaces.
- $5 Admission per person, $1 snacks, and drinks available for purchase
- Volunteers & donations are needed to make this event happen! Please sign up to help or to donate toward this fun evening for our students! https://signup.com/go/AkbMxVQ
Help us serve our community! We would love to see some more members & volunteers from the Middle School. Attend a meeting when you are able and/or help us at events that create a fun community for our families and that raise funds to support our children, teachers & staff. Fill out the form in this link to be added to our email listserv and get more information on what we have planned for this year.
Save the Date: Our next meeting is Wed, Oct 16 @ 6pm in the ES STEAM room.
Up next for the Middle School: MS Teacher/Staff Appreciation Meal, Friday, 11/8. Be on the lookout for a sign up to help feed our faculty and staff in appreciation for all their hard work.
Thank Yous!
Thank you to those who recently helped with and attended our first annual campus wide outdoor movie night on 9/20. It was a beautiful night for some fun under the stars. We also want to thank those who were able to help us set up and serve ice cream to families attending the MS open house & 8th grade chicken BBQ last week on 9/26.
For more information: Contact us at tburgpto@gmail.com. Visit our website at www.tburgpto.com and follow up on Facebook: www.facebook.com/tburgpto
Clubs & Activities
Student Council
We are looking for students in grades 5-8 to be involved with this year’s Student Council. We will be asking each homeroom to elect two people to attend our meetings which typically occur twice a month after school. Student Council is active in helping to make the Middle School an even better place to be. So if your child has ideas and wants to get involved we would love to have them.
Late bus riders will need to sign up for the late bus by 12pm - please see a teacher for help with this.
Ski Club
We will be in touch soon about registration for the program.
Building Contacts
Main Office: 607-387-2825
Attendance: Lauren Conners, 607-387-7551, x1425
Nurse's Office: 607-387-2827
Student Services Team: 607-387-7551 ext. 1449
Bryce DeSantis, School Psychologist
Lisa Magee, Administrative Assistant
Brian Cobb, LCSW, Social Worker
Claire Valletta, Guidance Counselor
IT Help: help@tburgschools.on.spiceworks.com or 607-288-2821 (Monday - Friday 8 am to 4pm)
Newsletter items/help/unsubscribe: Gail Brisson, gbrisson@tburg.k12.ny.us