Come join us!

Please follow our new middle school blog, over on synergymiddleschool.wordpress.com ! This new blog will replace synergylanguagearts.wordpress.com (as well as the previous History, Math, and Science blogs)– it is now where you can find announcements, information about what is happening month by month in the classrooms, student blogs, etc– everything and anything from the middle school teachers– Language Arts, History, Math, and Science all together! The specialist blogs remain the same!

We’re going to use Haiku as an online Learning Management System for the student side of things– that’s where you will find assignments, due dates, handouts, etc.

If you’ve received this blog post and you want to hear more from us, head on over to synergymiddleschool.wordpress.com and add your email to the “Follow blog by email” link on the side so you don’t miss a word! See you in a few days!

Back to School (almost!) – Supplies!

Hi all– It’s time to think about back to school organization and getting ready for the new year! I can’t wait to hear about everyone’s adventures and see relaxed, ready faces back at school next week– and I’m really looking forward to hearing about some great summer reading!

In case you missed it when it appeared at the end of last year in the Wednesday Word, here’s the school supplies list for middle school: MS_Supply_List.

And yes, for returning seventh and eighth graders, you did turn in your Language Arts binders to me at the end of the year! So as long as it is in one piece, you can definitely use it again for next year. Any questions? Feel free to email your advisor teacher, or ask us on Wednesday morning!

Also, watch this space for the link to the new Synergy Middle School blog– coming soon! Enjoy the last days of vacation and read, read, read!

Summer Reading: Incoming 6th graders and rising 7th and 8th graders!

Dear Students and Families,

Happy summer! Perfect time to relax, with your nose in a book!

Over the summer, it’s important to keep the up the habit of reading—for personal pleasure, to build a strong vocabulary, and for exposure to new ideas and worlds. With these goals in mind, students are expected to complete a summer reading log and record their responses to a number of books over the summer. Students should choose books based on their interests and reading level, aiming to include at least one book that is a personal “challenge.” This challenge could be based on the complexity of the writing in the book, or maybe because the book is a departure from their preferred genre.

Incoming sixth graders are required to read two books over the summer. Incoming seventh and eighth graders are required to read three books over the summer, with at least one non-fiction choice. Students should keep a list of their summer reading (attached). Students will turn this list in during the first week of school. Yes, these assignments are part of their fall grade, and we will continue this personal reading project once we are back together at school. And yes, of course you can read and record more than the minimum!

But what should I read? Is this book a good book? How about this one?

I don’t have a definitive answer to those questions! Instead, here are some recommendation lists to get you started to find out the answer for yourself. Experiment with audio books, new authors, and new genres! Some books are available as ebooks or audiobooks through Synergy Library, and of course the public libraries offer these too. Read the first page to check and make sure it’s a good level for you—not too easy but not something that would be painfully hard going either. Don’t forget about graphic novels, short stories, essay collections, and other text types like magazines!

In Language Arts next year, the sixth graders will be reading The Giver by Lois Lowry and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Seventh graders will be reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Eighth graders will read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. However, these whole class novel choices are subject to change depending on the class’ interests. Please feel free to either read these over the summer to get a head start, or to avoid them so you are pleasantly surprised when we read them together!

Don’t be limited by this list! Explore recommendations from the library, friends, parents, teachers, the internet… The possibilities are endless, and there’s a whole word of amazing writing for you to explore!

Online Lists: There are a number of fantastic book recommendation lists online. GoodReads has a lot of lists composed by users around different themes, including “middle school reads.” Most publishers (like Scholastic and PrenticeHall) also have recommendation lists targeted at middle school or young adult readers. Here are a few places to get started looking online:

• http://time.com/100-best-young-adult-books/
  • Time collated the most recommended young adult books in a pretty image focused format that you can click through- because they are the 100 best, they vary in level and from modern reads to classics

• http://www.ala.org/yalsa/2015-best-fiction-young-adults
  • Fantastic list by the American Library association that is perfect for those who have read everything, since all the books are from 2015. Some of them are more appropriate for more mature teen readers.

• http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1606.Top_100_Middle_School_Must_Read
  • A comprehensive list that includes both fiction and non-fiction, classics and new reads. I love how GoodReads has so many reviews and breaks everything down into all their sub-genres.

• http://www.phschool.com/curriculum_support/reading_list/middle_school.htm
  • There are a number of books on here I haven’t read, but they look interesting. Some non-fiction and culturally diverse choices.

• http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/teens-teen-books/379003056/
  • Focused on fiction books and “teen reads.” But it’s an engaging website with video content and lots of pretty book covers.

Here’s the full summer reading letter and recommendation lists: summer reading June 2015

And here’s the chart to complete as you read: summer reading chart

   Happy reading! 🙂

History Fair!

The head of a king, an embroidered pennant, a miniature castle, a half-completed watercolor of beautiful flowers, a game with a spinning wheel that almost always points to “death,” a replica of a cross bow, Genghis Khan himself (complete with a beard and a long red braid), Barbies burning at the stake and riding white horses, an obsidian-bladed sword, a popsicle stick tea house set up for a ceremony, a Jeopardy style quiz about Tang Dynasty art, and panels of handmade stained glass…

It’s the History Fair, of course!

It was amazing to see the engagement and deep knowledge from the seventh and sixth graders around a myriad of topics from Modern History. I was fascinated to learn why barbers’ poles are striped, how many countries have a majority Muslim population, why thousands of children were encouraged to march off to a horrible fate, and how much our modern architecture and sanitation practices owe to the Mayan city-builders and the European church-builders.

Great job, sixth and seventh graders! Some incredibly well-written and organized research reports, eye-catching and interesting boards, creative and clever 3D projects, and articulate and thoughtful presentations to all ages! If you didn’t get a chance to check out the boards and projects on Friday, they will be on display Monday morning before school in the Math, Humanities, and Science rooms, and then some of them will remain on display in the halls until the end of school on June 5th.

Thanks to everyone who helped support the students, and those who were able to come and enjoy the fair!

History Fair this Friday!

This Friday afternoon, all the hours of research, creative building, and typing pay off in the display of seventh and sixth grade projects. After lunch, there will be students ready to talk about their topics– everything from the bubonic plague to the bushido code for samurai, and from Tang Dynasty art to the impact of gunpowder. Come see their projects and presentations from 1:30 to 3pm this Friday afternoon in the Science and Humanities Room! The project boards will remain on display after school. On Monday, we will move the projects to display in the halls. It’s always impressive to see the quality and depth of their research and writing, and of course, the 3D elements are really fun and interactive– games, slideshows, dioramas, paintings, and more! Come check it all out!

8th Grade Trip to Costa Rica

The 8th graders wrote about their experience in Costa Rica! Can’t wait to go next year! 🙂

Synergy Times

Every year, Synergy 8^th graders take a week-long trip as a capstone to their final year. For the last few years, students have gone to Costa Rica with Global Works, to do community service work, practice their Spanish, and get a taste of another country and culture. This year, teachers Dominic, Mahala, and Uschi accompanied the students. Eighth graders Lucia, Sophia, and Danika collaborated on this article.

Everyone gathered in the SFO airport: moms, dads, students, cousins, aunts, pets—you get it.  They were all there to see us off on our long journey to Costa Rica.  We were scheduled for a quick flight to LA and then a red eye to San Jose, Costa Rica. After several delays we finally got on the plane to Costa Rica at midnight. This was an overnight flight so everyone tried to get some sleep.

Our Global Works guides, Esteban and Krisley, greeted…

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Terra Nova Testing!

It’s that time of the year again… We are doing TerraNova testing next week in the Middle School, with the sixth and seventh graders. We will be doing the testing between snack and lunch, Wednesday through Friday. Today we brainstormed different testing tips for both before and during the test– lots of good ideas around sleeping well, relaxation techniques, how to choose the best answer, and how to use time really well. We’re also looking at some examples of the different types of questions this week, and discussing how to navigate test answers and the best strategies.

Please help support your student to come prepared next week, with a good night’s rest and a nutritious snack! If students are absent, they will make up the missed test time at the beginning of next week. I will provide some sample materials for practice and we will go over some together in class.

While the Language Arts questions are reading comprehension so students don’t have to study, students should feel free to review their Language Arts work and proofread their reports for practice if they want to be prepared.

8th Grade Project Night

Thanks Synergy Times for the write up! Congrats again to 8th graders for their successful completion of their projects!

Synergy Times

If you’ve never been to 8^th grade project night, try to make it next year—even if your child is still in kindergarten. It’s a special night, not only because it’s exciting to see how hard the 8^th graders work on subjects they’re passionate about. Project night also gives parents of younger students the chance to see the transformation their child will go through during their years at Synergy.

As someone who has been around the school for a while (my oldest son started kindergarten in 2000). I’ve known some of today’s 8^th graders since they were in Snugglis and strollers, dragged along to school events and to fetch older siblings at pick up time. When they started at Synergy, they still seemed tiny and impossibly cute: downstairs when my kids moved upstairs, the little kids my older kids watched out for at buddy time.

On project night…

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Weekly Wrap– May 1st

What an amazing evening of presentations, information, and beautiful displays at the 8th Grade Project Night! It was wonderful to see the culmination of so many months of hard work: bringing all their research and creativity together in impressive, articulate form. I learned a lot this year about so many diverse topics; thank you to all the parents for coming to celebrate, and huge congrats to the 8th graders!

For sixth and seventh graders, viewing the 8th grade projects on Wednesday morning was a great motivator and inspiration as they begin to research, organize, and write their Humanities Fair reports on student-selected topics from this year’s history curriculum. Please help your students find resources by making a trip to a city library together! We’ve covered in class how to find and analyze the validity of web sources, and students should be finding a variety of information from different sources, including videos, primary sources, textbooks, and articles. Students have begun writing their reports by crafting an introduction that starts with a hook, includes a strong thesis, and summarizes the aspects of their topic. They will continue to write these reports, using TEXAS as a framework for their body paragraphs, over the next three weeks.

Their drafts are due on May 15th, the final paper is due on May 22nd, and their projects will all be completed and due on the Humanities Fair day on May 29th. A few students have made a huge start already, and some are finding it difficult to get started– if either of those ring a bell, please remember that I offer office hours after school on Mondays from 3:15-4:15 and Thursday during lunch, in the Humanities Room. I want to help! Emailing or asking questions during worktime in class is another way to touch base with me.

All year levels are also working on short stories, to be completed by the end of the year. We have brainstormed and discussed what makes a compelling beginning, and students are off and running, writing elaborate stories about everything from plane rides to immersive video games, and everything in between. We will do a lot of work around grammar and spelling in the context of revising these drafts: here’s a helpful cartoon about Oxford commas:

We are also continuing to work on the essays on the novels that we have read, and the 8th and 6th graders are beginning creative projects on their recent novel. They are creating final chapters, movie trailers, poetry, maps, quote posters, and more– to show their understanding of the novels The House on Mango Street (6th) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (8th). Since this is the second literary essay students have written this year, we are working on improving our analysis in our body paragraphs, and choosing strong, meaningful quotes to use as examples. Students will complete their drafts individually both in class and as homework, and then go through a self, teacher, and peer- assisted drafting process.

This time of year is always jam-packed, but also so great to see the culmination of students’ efforts in all the different areas of writing. Many students are motivated to improve their work in the last quarter of the year; remember that a good time to check in with me is before school, from 8-8:30, when students can check their grade as well as ask about previous grades or comments!

8th Grade Project Night- Tuesday, April 28th- 6-7pm!

Did you know that there is a parasite that is found in cats that has infected more than three million Americans? Are you aware of Mao’s involvement in the Korean War? How about the trajectory of Jimi Hendrix’s career? Or that Jean Paul Gaultier created a fashion show entirely out of bread products? Were you aware that there is a connection between the Super Bowl and modern slavery? Have you ever been curious about what different layers there are inside Doc Marten shoes? Or the difference between graffiti and street art?

These are only a few of the very interesting things that the 8th graders have been learning about as they research and write their 8th grade projects. Next week, all their work will culminate in an evening of information and presentations here at school. You are invited to come check out their presentations– including some impressive 3D projects– on next Tuesday evening, April 28th, from 6-7pm. Eighth grade parents are especially invited, but all parents and students are welcome. The projects will remain on display in the morning for the rest of the Middle School students, and they will also be in the front and upstairs hall for a few weeks. Please come and check them out!