Day 172 - Two-Column Note Taking Variations - MSMS Staff

This post first appeared on the Burlington Keys to Literacy Blog

by: Virginia Volpe, Jaime Kotarakos, Theresa Bergeron

Two-column notes have been an effective strategy in all content areas. They are very useful in helping students find main ideas, supporting details in textbooks, organize their thoughts for writing assignments, and preparing for tests and quizzes.  It has become a great study strategy technique for students.

Many students can become overwhelmed by the amount of background information examined and collected when researching topics.  Some students have difficulties distinguishing between facts and opinions when reviewing their evidence. The Two Column Notes Strategy is a good tool to help students’ identify misconceptions when organizing historical facts. One variation I found to be very beneficial is having students create Two Columns Notes with the headings, Fact/ Opinion or as seen in the student sample below, Myth/Fact.

  

The students had fun with this project. They enjoyed sharing their work and they were intrigued with the information they discovered.

 

Day 35 - Math Lessons for Grades 6-8 (YouTube Vidoes) - Mrs. Tate - MSMS Math Department

This post first appeared on Mrs. Tate's Blog

Click the link below for Mrs. Tate’s YouTube Channel. This channel is a resource for students and parents featuring mathematics videos for sixth through eighth grade students. The 7th and 8th grade videos will be added throughout the 2016-2017 school year. All of the videos are under ten minutes and a great tool for absent students, homework help, previewing material, and reviewing for upcoming tests and quizzes. If you select playlists you will see a better break down of the videos by grade and topic.

Mrs. Tate's YouTube Channel

Day 101 - Congratulations MSMS Artists & Writers - Ms. Phillips - MSMS Art Dept.

This post first appeared on Ms. Phillips' Blog

Congratulations are extended to this years Scholastic art and writing award winners!

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have existed since 1923 and the contest affords students across the country the opportunity to be recognized for their talents.  Notable winners of these prestigious awards include Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Redford.  Judges look for originality, technical skill, and development of a personal voice and/or vision.  At the regional level, students are selected  to receive the Gold Key, the Silver Key, or Honorable Mention.

The 2016 MSMS award winners were selected from more 15,000 ART entries and 2,500 WRITING entries submitted to the Massachusetts Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, where just over 50 judges had to make hard choices based on the 3 criteria of originality, technical skill, and personal vision.

Grade 8 Art Awards

Sydney Alesse (currently gr. 9), Film & Animation, Honorable Mention for   “Nightmare”

Cynara Ferrao (currently gr. 9), Drawing & Illustration, Honorable Mention for“Self Portrait”

Bridgett Brown, Painting, Honorable Mention for “Untitled”

Olivia Perry, Painting, Honorable Mention for “Urban Sunrise”  

Grace Rakes, Drawing & Illustration, Silver Key for “Inspiration Daydream”

Sameeksha Sharma, Drawing & Illustration, Honorable Mention for “Precious Smile”

Grade 7 Art Awards

Jack Giles, Drawing & Illustration, Honorable Mention for “Patriot Pride”

Photography Awards (from MSMS Photography Club)

Ashlyn Biundo, gr. 8, Silver Key for “Untitled”

Bridget Conceison, gr. 8,  Silver Key for “Bitter and Sweet

Sophia Lupo, gr. 9, Honorable Mention for “Invisible”

Sarah Owens, gr. 9, Silver Key for “Enjoying the View”

Neil Pandit, gr. 9, Silver Key for “Into the Barn”

Olivia Perry, gr. 8, Honorable Mention for “Concrete Jungle”

Shea Riley, gr. 7, Silver Key for “Portrait of Shannon”

Layla Robinson, gr. 8, Silver Key for “My Grandma”

Sarah Schissler, gr. 8, Honorable Mention for “Road to Vacation”

8th Grade BEAM students entered in this year’s writing contest include the following award recipients (writing provided in links).

• Dilan Churchill, Poetry, Honorable Mention for “Rooms”  http://bit.ly/1m0U7RK
• Aurora Golden, Poetry, Honorable Mention for “Education”  http://bit.ly/1Son8DJ
• Niti Seereeram, Humor, Gold Key for “Goldstar Children”  http://bit.ly/1nsEfsr

Congratulations to all students who participated!

Day 11 - New Teacher Spotlight - Mrs. Lynch - MSMS Blog

This post originally appeared on the MSMS Blog

Mrs. Lynch comes to us from Pine Glen Elementary and is happy to be 6B’s new science Teacher. Mrs. Lynch had this to say about her background and hopes for this year:

Hello my name is Jane Lynch and I’m very happy to be joining the 6th grade B team this year as the new Science teacher.  I was a third grade teacher at the Pine Glen Elementary School for thirteen years prior to moving to MSMS.  Before receiving my Masters of Education I worked in the medical field as a laboratory supervisor .  

Science has been my passion ever since my middle school years.  I look forward to teaching Earth science and providing many hands-on opportunities for students to  engineer and explore the natural world .  I am the  2013 recipient of the  North Shore Science Supervisors Association  Award  of Excellence in Science teaching ,and have also presented at the NSTA  Boston convention with Sean Musselman.   Many of my hobbies are science based and I am the proud owner of 6 chickens here in town.  I have recently been appointed to a three year term on the Conservation Commission to help protect our town’s natural resources and wetlands.   Often times you will hear me say “Science is life!”

Mrs. Lynch goes over directions before starting the lab timer.

Mrs. Lynch goes over lab results from class the previous day.

Mrs. Lynch’s students engineer structures out of spaghetti and marshmallows.

We’d like to welcome Mrs. Lynch to MSMS and wish her and her students a great year!

Day 6 - Living Things Day - Mrs. Scelsi - Marshall Simonds 7th Grade Science

Today was "living things" day.  Thank you so much for supporting your students in bringing their living things to school.  We had representatives from the Animal Kingdom (birds, guinea pigs, geckos, boa constrictor, hamsters and fish), the Plant Kingdom (venus fly traps, dusty millers and a wide variety of other plants), the Protist Kingdom (red algae, amoeba, slime mold), Kingdom Fungi (yeast and mushrooms) and the Eubacteria Kingdom (acidophilus).  We had a great time investigating the various attributes of these organisms!  We will be delving a little more thoroughly into the characteristics of living things this week.

Day 174 - Geometry Scavenger Hunts - Mrs. Tate - MSMS Grade 6 Math

This post first appeared on Mrs. Tate's Blog

6A students did an extraordinary job on their Geometry Scavenger Hunts. Students chose to use either the Book Creator or Explain Everything app for their presentation. All projects included geometric terms, pictures, and definitions. Students also calculated volume and surface area of three dimensional objects around the school as well as the area of either squares, rectangles, parallelograms, or trapezoids. Here are some samples of student Geometry Scavenger Hunts.

Day 114 - Russia Song Parody - Brian Leslie - Marshall Simonds Middle School Grade 6

This post first appeared on Mr. Leslie's blog. 

Last week students spent part of a class period creating their choice of either a song parody or poem about Russia.  For the assignment, they worked in small groups and had the option to make either one and really to take it as far as they wanted. While some simply wrote down the lyrics, several students created music videos.  In B Block, Colleen, Sydney and Marina worked very hard and even worked through one of their lunch periods creating an outstanding “Let it Go” Russia song parody. Check out the video below to see what an amazing job they did.

Day 98 - 7th Graders Go Shopping (Ir de Compras) - Ms. Mirabella - MSMS Spanish Teacher

This post originally appeared on Ms. Mirabella's Blog

7th-grade students have been busy learning Chapter 3 vocabulary that includes school supplies, clothing, colors, shopping phrases, and the numbers 100-1000. After they took a quiz on these words, students completed a hands-on, “real world” activity where they were given an allowance for back to school shopping. Students had 2000 pesos between themselves and a partner and needed to shop for school supplies and back to school clothes. They first jotted down what items they were interested in, and then created a final draft of their shopping lists in complete sentences in Spanish! I was very proud of their hard work and wonderfully constructed sentences. Here are some pictures of our shopping trips and shopping list composition!