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TPMS May and June Events
TPMS May and June Events May/June 2016 May 2-6 —Staff Appreciation Week June 7 — TPMS Awards Ceremony, Blair HS,7 p.m. May 5 —Bike to School Day June 13-17— Final Exams May 6 & 7 — Seussical the Musical—7:00 p.m. May 8 —Seussical the Musical —11:00 a.m. June 17 —8th Grade Promotion Ceremony 1:30 p.m. (Northwood HS) May 10 —PTA Meeting - 7 p.m. June 20—Last day of School—Dismissal at 12:20 p.m. May 17—18 — Instrumental Music Concerts 7 p.m. May 20 —Grades 6, 7 & 8—Field Trips May 24 — Spring Choral Concert, 7—8:30 p.m. TA K O M A PA R K M I D D L E S C H O O L Principal’s May 30 —Memorial Day—No School “And a bird overhead sang Follow, And a bird to the right sang Here; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.” Dear Parents and Guardians, As we enter the final weeks of school you will notice that the school calendar is buzzing with events that celebrate and showcase the talents of our students and staff! Congratulations to Ms. Epling and the TPMS Science Bowl Team. They competed in the National Science Bowl and placed 14th in the country. Congratulations also to 7th Grader Lara Ojha who is being recognized for her entry in the 2015 Mosaic Creative Writing Contest! Lara’s short story received honorable mention in the short story category. Thank you as well to Ms. Dina Beatty for supporting all students who made submissions from TPMS. Samantha Rodriguez was one of the 16 winners in the annual "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" poster contest sponsored by the Maryland Council on Economic Education. Congratulations Samantha! In other news at TPMS, students and the science department staff organized a hugely successful STEM Family Science Night. Our largest number yet of students and parents attended an evening that celebrated an enormous range of science, technology, engineering and math topics. The student project presentations were impressive. Thank you to the staff, students, and volunteers who made this event such a success! TPMS Drama Club presents Seussical, Jr. on May 5th and 6th at 7pm and May 7th at 11am. Doors open 30 minutes before show time. The show is about 70 minutes long with a 10 minute intermission. Refreshments will be sold before the show and during intermission. Proceeds from the refreshments will go towards support the arts at TPMS. Tickets for Seussical, Jr. are $5 for students and $8 for adults. Tickets can be purchased at the show, but we are encouraging our patrons to purchase tickets in advance at www.showtix4u.com. We look forward to seeing you there! Ms. Saftner would like to congratulate all her student’s that competed in the April Rubik’s Cube Contest. The times were amazing and it’s impressive that students finished the Newsletter entire contest in just 30 minutes. A special congratulations to the top 6 finishers. In 6th place Leo Wang averaged 22 seconds, in 5th place Chris Tong averaged 15.7 seconds, in 4th place was Raymond Luo with 14 seconds, 3rd place for Eric Chen at 13 seconds, 2nd place Maxwell Zhang with 12.7 seconds, and in first place with an average solve time of 12.3 seconds was Arthur Hu. From May 9– June 3 students will complete the PARCC Assessments. On their designated date, students will take a portion of the PARCC during the first block of each morning. For all students not scheduled for testing, instruction will continue as usual. If possible, please do not schedule any out-of-school appointments during your child's designated testing dates. PARCC English Language Arts (Literacy) Grade 8 - May 9-11 Grade 7 - May 12, 13 and 16 Grade 6 - May 17-19 PARCC Math Grade 8 - May 23-25 Grade 6 - May 26, 27 and 31 Grade 7 - June 1-3 Our choral and instrumental music concerts will take place in mid-May. All grade levels will be participating in field trips on May 20. Final exams will take place June 13—16. June 17 will be a final exam make-up day. June 20 will be the last day of school and a half-day for students. Information will soon be on its way to 8th Grade families about the promotion ceremony on June 17 at Northwood High School at 1:30 p.m. This is our final newsletter of this school year. I wish you a wonderful end of the school year and a fantastic summer! Sincerely, Alicia Deeny Principal 6TH GRADE NEWS Field Trip to the Smithsonian! Permission Slips due May 16. The trip is Friday May 20 TAKOMA PARK MIDDLE SCHOOL Science 6th grade science is currently working our last unit, Energy and Waves. Students will be investigating electricity, circuits, magnetism, and the properties of waves. Our trip to release the trout into the Patuxent River at Brighton Dam was a huge success. We had about 50 students join us to release about 150 trout that we had raised from eggs starting back in January. INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Science 1 Social Studies 1 Computer Science 1 English 2 Mathematics 2 Digital Literacy 2 M A Y 2 0 1 6 Social Studies This month in Social Studies, we will finish our unit on Economics in Ancient and Modern China. Our focus will include the dynastic cycles of ancient kingdoms in China and geographical influences on culture. We will take the principles of settlement, government, and economics that we have studied all year to analyze how culture impacts us all. 6th Grade Magnet Students will finish the year with physics and engineering projects. We have been working on rubber band powered cars, and will soon be working on catapults, if time allows. We will definitely be ending the year by designing Rube Goldberg machines, so if you have extra Legos or Duplos, marble track, or toy cars that you would be willing to donate to the cause, we’d love to have them! Donations can be dropped off in the office, or brought to room 110. Thanks so much! Computer Science Students just completed the Microsoft Excel segment of the curriculum. During the segment, students applied their mathematical and researching skills to create excel spreadsheets. We also learned how to use formulas, graphs and charts to represent data. 6th grade students are currently learning about Cyber-Safety, Cyber-Security and CyberEthics. Some of the subjects that we are covering include how to keep safe online, be a good cyber citizen and the various types of malware. We will be entering the Python coding phase of the curriculum, during the first week of May. Students are excited to learn Python. Students continue to use Turbo Typing to enhance their word processing skills and speed. English Happy 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare! William Shakespeare and many of his famous plays and sonnets are filling the 6th grade classes this quarter. Students are immersed in the life of Shakespeare, learning about the Elizabethan period of history and studying excerpts from some of his most well-known plays, among them A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors, and As You Like It. Students are reading aloud excerpts of the above plays and wrestling with Shakespeare’s elegant and sometimes incomprehensible English. The moment when students understand that Shakespeare’s plays are full of humor and portray real-life situations like fights between parents and children is a moment to behold as a teacher! Students come to life when they realize human emotions and relationships haven’t changed much in 400 years. Long live the Bard and may his words ring true with young people for 400 more years! Digital Literacy This Quarter, Digital Literacy students will focus on “The IFC – Issued For Construction Unit.” The students will be able to understand figurative language, analyze and evaluate the strength of an argument via peer feedback and revision. Presently, we are applying learned test strategies to PARCC Assessment practice tests. Mathematics Math CC6 The month of May is an exciting time for Math 6. During the middle of the month, the students will take their English and Math end of the year PARCC assessment. We will also be continuing the final push of the math 6 curriculum by continuing our examination of geometry, particularly our examination of the volume and surface area of three dimensional prisms. There will be two unit assessments on these topics toward the beginning of the month. Then we shift our focus to the final time this year toward another examination of dividing numbers. Finally, the month of May and the month of June will conclude with a study of statistics and analyzing data and data distributions. As always, if you have any questions regarding specific plans and dates of assessments please refer to edline and email your child's teacher with any other questions. It has been a great school year and the Math 6 teachers thank you for all your support throughout this school year. Magnet IM: May will begin with a wrap up of Unit 6 (Linear Equations) and students will take the unit test during the second week. The remainder of May will introduce students to Other Operational Systems. They will study Zahl systems (and have a project based on this topic) and will learn how to convert and calculate in base systems other than base 10. June will return students to geometry topics of plane figure transformations and congruence. Please check Edline for assessment dates and topics. All dates are tentative as we navi- gate around PARCC testing during the month of May. GRADE 7 NEWS Takoma Park Middle School 7611 Piney Branch Road May 1, 2016 Volume 8, Issue 7 Grade 7 May Newsletter What’s Happening in Class? World Studies In World Studies students are learning about the transition from a traditional economy to a market economy as Europe shifted from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. We will examine the motives of explorers and Renaissance people who left their homes in Europe and Asia, and began exploring and trading with the rest of the world. We will also study the triangle trade, and the market economy conditions that facilitated this trade. The unit will end with a study of colonies, which will bring students to the shores of North America and get them ready for 8th grade U.S. History. Following the Unit 4 test, we will watch Invictus, a movie that follows Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the South African President, as he attempts to unite the post-apartheid nation by asking the national rugby team to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup (your child should have shown you a permission slip for this film, which needs only to be returned if you do not want him/her to participate). English/Reading In English 7 students are currently studying works in the “Expressions” unit; the major text for this unit is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Students will be performing scenes from this play in class and analyzing plot and character features as well. A focus on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, irony, dramatic irony, and use of iambic pentameter will help the students appreciate the writing in the play. . Computer Science In Intro to Computer students are creating websites which include photos, video links, text, and web apps. Animoto was introduced so that students could produce their own videos which can be incorporated into the websites. In Magnet CS 7, students finished the unit on text file and lists, though these topics will be revisited in future projects. Defining functions and using the main function in Python has been started. Dictionaries and the recursive function will conclude the new topics for Python. Science In Science, kudos to the 7th graders on a fantastic assemblage and presentation of their projects! They really did a phenomenal job in their public demonstrations! In class, we are growing corn to identify the genetic traits of golden and silver corn. We will then conclude this year by looking at The Earth’s History. In Magnet Science students are completing the Body Systems unit. Students have been responsible for actually teaching their classmates about an assigned body system. They have had to design a presentation, notes page, classwork, home work, and assessment for their respective body system. Our next unit will be Forensics. Students will use some of the skills and knowledge they acquired during the school year to solve a classroom mystery. This unit is filled with biotechnology, labs activities, and science application. Students will be interviewing suspects, analyzing evidence, and developing a conclusion with a respect to a classroom crime. This unit is truly the highlight of the year. Grade 7 May Newsletter Page 2 What’s Happening in Class? Mathematics In Magnet Algebra students have the opportunity to extend Units 6/7 and complete an optional unit on Rational Expressions and Equations. At the same time, we will complete Quadratic Functions by learning how to solve any quadratic equation. Some answers will involve irrational and imaginary answers. A unit test can be expected in the middle of the month. At the end of the month, we will begin a small unit on data analysis while PARCC testing takes place. In IM students are beginning Unit 6: Other Operational Systems. This unit will introduce concepts that are very unfamiliar to students. Please make sure students keep notes organized. Our last unit is Unit 7: Probability. This unit will also be started this month and end in June. In Math 7 students will be completing Unit 5 which is algebraic relationships. In Unit 5 students have been learning how to identify linear functions and complete a function table. In midMay students will begin Unit 6 on measurement. Students will determine the degree of precision of a measurement. Student will learn how to determine the effect of geometric dimensions on area, surface area, and volume. In Algebra students will continue working with Unit 4, Quadratic Relationships. Topic 2 focuses on the structure of quadratic expressions including: transformations, polynomial operations, factoring, completing the square, and properties. Topic 3 focuses on solving quadratic equations using tables, factoring, graphing, and the quadratic formula. In addition, the Pythagorean Theorem and the distance formula will be studied. Goal Setting THE W'S OF GOALS Each goal you set should state what you will do and when you will do it. For example, a goal relating to writing a research paper might be stated as follows: I will finish gathering information for my research paper by November 20. Your goals should be: 1. within your skills and abilities. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you set goals you can accomplish. 2. realistic. Setting a goal to learn the spelling of three new words a day is realistic. Trying to learn the spelling of fifty new words a day is not realistic. 3. flexible. Sometimes things will not go the way you anticipate and you may need to change your goal. Stay flexible so when you realize a change is necessary you will be ready to make the change. 4. measurable. It is important to be able to measure your progress toward a goal. It is especially important to recognize when you have accomplished your goal and need to go no further. Failure to measure your progress toward a goal and recognize its accomplishment will result in effort that is misdirected and wasted. 5. within your control. Other than when working as part of a group, accomplishment of your goal should not depend on other students. You can control what you do, but you have little or no control over what others do. You may do what you have to do, but if others don’t, you will not accomplish your goal. Many times your parents, teachers, and counselors will set goals for you. Be accepting when they do. These are people who know what is important for you and are very concerned with your success. They can also help you accomplish the goals they set. SET GOALS IN SCHOOL THAT PROVIDE YOU WITH DIRECTION AND LEAD TO SUCCESS. May 2016 8th Grade Newsletter “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” ~William Shakespeare ENGLISH “It always seems impossible until it’s done” (Nelson Mandela). The end of the school year approaches, and students must persevere in order to finish the year on good academic footing. English students continue their study of Shakespeare and As You Like It. Students may also be performing dramatic readings of Shakespeare’s sonnets or non-fiction texts related to the Civil War, as a United States History connection, or the USSR, as an Animal Farm connection to finish up their work from Unit Three. They will then prepare for both the end of middle school and the beginning of high school. U.S. HISTORY In United States History, students are working on their Civil War Lap Books. Each student has chosen a fictional character of their choice to follow through the Civil War period, describing his or her life before, during, and after the war. All checkpoints, research information, and the rubrics are on Edline and on individual teacher websites. Students will have in-class opportunities to do research and put together the final products. We will also have a debate on the causes of the Civil War using primary source documents as evidence. This debate will start as a DBQ with a written essay. Then, students will use the information for a highly interactive, round-robin debate. The last topic of the year is Reconstruction—or how the nation heals from a civil war. This last topic is where ninth grade U.S. History picks up next fall! ALGEBRA-PREP We will continue Unit 4, Plane Figures: Measurement and Area, by identifying corresponding parts and finding missing measures of similar triangles; identify congruent triangles and their corresponding parts,; find the missing angles and classify quadrilaterals; find the areas of parallelograms, triangles, and trapezoids; classify polygons; determine the sum of the measures of the interior and exterior angles of a polygon; find the circumference and area of circles; and find the area of irregular figures. We will then begin our Algebra Transition Unit with laws of arithmetic, applying properties of exponents, solving linear equations in one variable, and interpreting timedistance graphs. ALGEBRA 2.0 During May and June, algebra students will be working on Unit 3, Descriptive Statistics, which builds upon prior experience with center, variability, scatterplots, and linear trends in data, by providing more formal means of how a model fits data. Students will use regression techniques to describe approximately linear relationships between quantities and look at residuals to analyze the goodness of fit. Then it’s on to the last unit, Generalizing Function Properties. Students will investigate Piecewise, step, absolute value, square root, cube root, and fractional functions. MAGNET GEOMETRY Our final unit of study is circles. We will discover, apply, and prove theorems related to angles and segments in circles, such as tangents, secants, and chords. Sketchpad will again be used to explore geometric relationships. As a final project, students will be creating skits to demonstrate an application of a geometry topic. MAGNET ALGEBRA 2.0 Our final unit is modeling with functions. We will review all the types of functions we studied this year and learn how to determine the most appropriate model for a given problem. As a final project, students will be creating skits to demonstrate an application of an algebra II topic. Come to 8th grade Homework Club! After school on Thursdays with Ms. Taylor in Room 306 HONORS GEOMETRY During these next two months, students will continue to prove basic theorems about circles, including that a tangent line is perpendicular to a radius, the inscribed angle theorem, and theorems about chords, secants, and tangents as they relate to segment lengths and angle measures. Students will then study relationships among segments on chords, secants and tangents as an application of similarity. MAGNET SCIENCE Students are investigating geologic events, rocks, and minerals. Students will identify and categorize different types of rocks and minerals. The rock cycle and weathering are also scheduled for this month along with various labs to reinforce the concepts discussed in class. SCIENCE In science we will be finishing up our Earth’s materials and surface processes unit which rocks and minerals and erosion. We will then be studying Earth’s history and global change. This will include a study of fossils and the process involved in fossilization, divisions of geologic time, relative and absolute dating techniques, and climate change. These topics will include labs on half-life, fossil identification, relative dating, and global climate change activities. This is the last unit of the marking period. World Languages Department May/June Newsletter Please be aware that all French and Spanish classes will still have a final exam during the last week of school this year. Students will receive study guides to prepare for these exams the first week of June. Please avoid making earlier vacation plans or scheduling appointments during your exam block. Exams can only be given during exam week. The written final exam schedule is as follows: Monday, June 13: Periods 2 and 8 exams Tuesday, June 14: Periods 3 and 5 exams Wednesday, June 15: Period 4 and 6 exams Thursday, June 16: Periods 1 and 7 exams Friday, June 17: Makeup exams Oral exams will be administered in class during the week of June 6-10. Please let your teacher know if you already have any conflicts with these dates. Spanish Spanish 1A/B (Señora Kim and Señora Carroll): Students will finish a unit on the House and Chores and will start their final unit for Spanish 1, La Ropa y Las Tiendas, the clothing and stores unit. In this unit, students will share their preferences about clothing, gifts and shopping experiences. Students will learn and apply several grammar points including Direct Object Pronouns (DOP’s), demonstrative adjectives, and more stem-changing verbs. Parents, May is a very busy month. Please make sure that your child stays on top of his/her work for class. It is necessary for students to study vocabulary outside of class. Oral and written semester exams are coming fast at the beginning of June! Please refer to Edline for grades and due dates and deadlines of assessments. Spanish 1A (full year)—Sra. Carroll Students have finished the unit on School and will have concluded a unit on FOOD by the end of May. Vocabulary revolves around food preferences, food categories, and meals. Students will learn –ER and –IR verbs as well as review -AR verbs. This unit also introduces the concept of Stem-Changer verbs. This last unit of the year reviews many of the structures and grammar concepts learned throughout the year. Parents should check Edline for student progress and any missing assignments, and check agenda books for homework. Students should be practicing vocabulary outside of the classroom by naming food items, food groups, snacks and meals at home in addition to reviewing all vocabulary from past units to begin preparing for the exam. Final exams will be the week of June 13. These exams will cover everything students have studied this year, since August. Specific dates for Period 4 and 8 will be posted on Edline but PLEASE keep June 9 – 16 clear for Oral exams and the MCPS written exam. A student must take this exam to be considered for promotion to Spanish 1B. Spanish 1B (full year)—Sra. Vogel Students just began the last unit of the year, Clothing and Shopping. The unit focuses on clothing and accessory vocabulary and clothes worn for different seasons and occasions. Students will practice asking and telling the cost of clothing items using big numbers 100-1000. Students are learning to describe clothing and how it fits. Parents should check Edline for progress updates and agenda books for homework assignments. Please email me at [email protected] with any questions. Spanish 2—Sra. Guevara, Sra. Vogel & Sra. Kim In May, students will complete a unit on Cooking experiences in which they use affirmative and negative commands to give recipes. We will end the year with a unit on travel. Students will be able to use the preterite and imperfect past tenses to describe their experiences. Students should check Edline regulary, write assignments in agenda books, and bring workbooks to class daily. The pace of the class moves quickly and students are encouraged to continue to study every week night for 10-15 minutes in order to help build vocabulary and ease with structures. This is especially important as semester exams are approaching rapidly at the beginning of June. There are many resources on Edline for them to practice such as Quizlet, an online flashcard website which allows students to make flashcards for vocabulary but also verb conjugations as well. For Ms. Guevara’s classes, please see her quarter calendar for exam dates and deadlines. Her students may also complete the monthly optional formative assignment, ¿Dónde está Sra. Guevara? which students can find on Edline or posted on the board in the classroom. Spanish 3— Sra. Guevara In early May, students will finish a unit on mysteries of archaeological sites by presenting a legend and taking their final unit test of the year. Students will finish the year with a unit on the environment called “Our Planet” in which they use the subjunctive to give advice and caution about environmental hazards and conservation. In this unit, they will review the major grammar concepts of the semester with a culminating summative debate. We will then begin reviewing for the final exam in early June. Please see the quarter calendar for exact dates. Parents should check Edline and agenda books regularly. The pace of the class moves quickly and students are encouraged to establish a routine of studying every week night for 10-15 minutes in order to help build vocabulary and ease with structures. There are many resources on Edline for them to practice such as Quizlet, an online flashcard website which allows students to make flashcards for vocabulary but also verb conjugations as well. Students may also complete the monthly optional formative assignment, ¿Dónde está Sra. Guevara? which students can find on Edline or posted on the board in the classroom. French—Mme Finklea French 1 In May and June, French 1 students will be learning to communicate about the home (rooms in the house, furniture) and chores that they do (or don’t do!). Parents should check agenda books for HW and encourage students to study vocabulary at home. Parents should also check Edline and weekly student progress reports. If your child has a C or below on a weekly progress report, please sign it and have your child return it to me! Our county-wide semester exam will be during the last week of school. I will send details via Edline. Students must pass the 1B exam in order to continue in French 2 next year. French 2 French 2 students will learn to communicate about health and fitness in the present and past tenses. They will be able to describe all kinds of disgusting illness symptoms and relate what happened in an accident. Parents should check agenda books for HW and encourage students to study vocabulary at home. Parents should also check Edline and weekly student progress reports. Our county-wide semester exam will be during the last week of school. I will send details via Edline. Students must pass the 2B exam in order to continue in French 3 next year. French 3 In French 3, we will be finishing our year with a unit on art and movies. This is a favorite for everyone! Parents should check agenda books for HW and encourage students to study vocabulary at home. Parents should also check Edline and weekly student progress reports. Our county-wide semester exam will be during the last week of school. I will send details via Edline. Students must pass the 3B exam in order to continue in French 4 next year. Arts Department May/June Newsletter Art – Ms. Spera FACS – Ms. Davis Computer Applications Ms. Galley Dr. Taliff Ms. Wu Contemporary Communications and TV Studio – Mr. Wilson World Beat Music and Chorus Mr. Liddle Orchestra & Band Ms. Pasquale Congratulations to the 43 students who participated in the Black-Eyed Susan Voting Party! Takoma Park Middle School Media Center News May 2016 Return Our Books! Dear Students and Parents, As the end of the year draws near, it’s time to clean out your locker, search under your bed, and find those overdue books! The deadline for returning all books to the Media Center is Monday, May 23! “What about that book I checked out on Friday, May 20?” you ask. That book is also due on May 23. The deadline for turning in all Media Center materials is May 23. Lost books can be paid for at the circulation desk. Sincerely, Ms. Phelan Adam A. Varun S. Bella J. Hannah Z. Grace E. Juliet G. Audrey P. Kadiatou S. Shrujana K. Tsion W. Toby B. Kevin Z. Akuma B. Tara F. Brandon W. Indira F. Amanda L. Molly M.C. Yiyi L. Ikram M. Johanna P. Aviva B. Anita L. Bibhu L. Danny S. Isabella F. Jennifer L. Alex Y. Anna Grace O. Emmanuel K. Shalom A. Lauren L. C. Y. Camille W. Jasmine X. Suveena S. Belinda L. Yanelee F. Kelly L. Karen Y. Jason H. Victoria X. Liang L. Jennifer R.