Happy Friday! What a beautiful week, and it ended with a lovely Grandparents and Special Friends event. It was so nice to have visitors in our classes and be able to share the middle school environment.

Middle School spread their Kindness Rocks on the playground this week at the beginning of the week and younger students have enjoyed finding these inspiring treasures. One student likened it to an egg hunt!

This week, humanities classes were productive. 6th years completed drafts of their Egypt Game essays and completed a vocabulary lesson. They are ready to begin their study of Afghanistan and the novel Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai next week. 7th years completed drafts of their essays which asked them to support a quotation from using specific evidence from Facing the Lion and A Long Walk to Water. They also completed a vocabulary lesson. Next week, they begin their study of Russia and will read Animal Farm by George Orwell (books provided in class). 8th years continued their critical reading of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and looked at policy, education in the South from 1900-1950 (including Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. BOE), and the NAACP. 8th years are also gearing up for their Expert Project presentations! All classes read and listened to lyrics written by Bob Marley for poetry Tuesday, discussing the platform and influence of musicians (last week, 8th years spent time reviewing the artist Kendrick Lamar, a recent Pulitzer Prize winner).

Stock Market Fever is sweeping the entire middle school! In math classes,  all students are participating in the Stock Market Game, which explores the fundamentals of personal finance and investing while practicing content and skills in math. They are focusing on technical analysis and investing in companies that students believe in or support.

In Science, the 6th years worked on creating their own telescopes using convex lenses of different diameters. Students mounted these lenses onto meter sticks, adjusting the length as needed to focus. Next, the 7th years just wrapped up their unit on chemical reactions. Finally, the 8th years are working on designing the middle school bulletin board near the commons, illustrating their current unit on plate tectonics. Come check it out!

**As temperatures rise, it is important children remain hydrated.  Please have your child bring to school a filled water bottle with his or her name clearly written on the bottle or a label.

Happy Friday, everyone! Middle School had a full week beginning with a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Students visited the Hayden Planetarium and viewed their current show, Dark Universe before exploring the museum.

Students also chose new electives for the third trimester! They will be participating in either Scrabble, frisbee golf, or big ball volleyball on F days.

Finally, Middle School prepared for a pizza & salad night before this week’s parent-child night! Cookies were baked, aprons made, and tables were set beforehand. Service was provided by our students and made the night a delicious success. Following the dinner was a lively game of parent-child dodgeball. Who knew the parents were such competitive dodgeball players?! Thank you to all who came to support!

Reminders:

**Science Fair is next Wednesday night, April 25th from 6:30-8pm! 

**Middle School trip forms are due to advisors by April 25th! All are attached to an email sent on Wednesday.

 

Congratulations to the 6th and 7th years on a fantastic Science Fair! While 8th years continue to work on their expert projects, the 6th and 7th years researched and presented topics surrounding the theme of environmental conservation. Topics ranged from efficient lighting in homes, recycling practices, and using green roofs for drainage in urban areas.

Students started by choosing a topic and then developed a hypothesis. Then, they decided whether to conduct an experiment or collect data in order to prove or disprove their educated guesses. Students created visual presentations including their hypotheses, procedures, results, and graphics that highlighted their topics.

It was amazing to listen to the young scientists discuss their projects. They truly became experts in the process! We all learned a great deal from each presenter and applaud all for their hard work!

While we are having our first, full week of normal scheduling, choosing new electives, and gearing up for Science Fair, I can’t help but reflect on last week’s play, The Disappearing Act.

From the conception of the idea for the play through the writing process, the plot of the play took many twists and turns, but it always stayed true to the original plot line we developed together and all but one of the scene summaries we originally set out to accomplish, which is amazing and surprising.

I have to admit, I was nervous to block this play because I had such a hard time visualizing what it would look like on a stage with so many student actors and actresses in each scene. I could easily see it as a movie, but I had no idea how to tell the students where to stand or what movements to do while they are on stage. I was honestly relying on them for this part, as I have limited experience with theater.

I could not be happier that I did. Asking students to watch scenes, take notes, and then give feedback for each scene to the actors/actresses was one of the best tools for running the show.

In the end, the show was funny, lighthearted, and carried out the plot with its major conflict. Hearing laughter after the lines was exactly what the students hoped for.

The day after the show was bittersweet. We took down the set, packed away the chairs, and had a delicious ice cream sundae party. We also spent time writing reflections and discussing what went well and what could go better moving forward. Now being on the other side of this experience, we have to take advantage of the knowledge we learned and use it to make changes, keep the best parts, and improve upon the experience.

In the end, I think The Disappearing Act exceeded the expectations of the students and was filled with authenticity and enthusiasm from all.

**Reminder: Monday we will be traveling to The Museum of Natural History in NYC from 8:30-4:30. Please pack nut-free snacks and lunch for your child.

 

We hope you will enjoy some photos from our immersion week working on the student-written play, The Disappearing Act.  The progress on blocking, projection, set construction, props, costumes, and tech is tremendous each day. Students spend time in the afternoon writing a reflection on their morning work and discuss their goals for the next day. It’s been fun!

Last Friday, the middle school listened to wonderful and interesting presentations given by the 8th years about their week at their internships. Locations for internships included Centre Stage Boutique, Southbury Music Store, ESPN, Union Savings Bank, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a dental office in West Haven, and Children’s Adventure Center. The diverse experiences seemed informative and worthwhile.

This week, 6th years held a debate in science over whether space exploration is worth the billions of dollars spent on it or not. Students researched their perspectives and presented them in class. Each side had an opportunity to view the other’s facts to refute if chosen.

We’ve spent an exciting week focusing on writing the play for immersion week. This week of script writing focused on finishing developing our characters and beginning to write the scenes. By the beginning of the week, we had already mapped out the plot line and wrote scene summaries. We should be about halfway through by the weekend!

The process has been a learning experience for everyone. Students see the challenges in writing a plot: Deciding on a beginning, middle, and end; what information to unveil and what to conceal to the audience; how to use dialogue to foreshadow and build up to the climax; and, how to resolve it all.

I have been surprised with how open the students have been to each other’s ideas. At first, I had planned to separate the humanities classes into smaller groups and assign each to write the same scene; then, bring students together to decide which fits best. This was not needed though because we were able to compose as one big group and include everyone’s ideas to fit the scenes.

There was almost no casting involved; students developed their own characters using questions to guide them. They also wrote lines as their character that have been incorporated in the scenes. There are also no true leads. Since the students are writing the script, they can all have speaking lines if they wish. It was discussed that, in the end, some characters would have more than others, and it was all in the best interest of the play.

While writing a play in a short amount of time is a daunting task, it is exciting for students to see their visions realized. We can’t wait to see what week 2 of script writing brings us!