Keigwin Middle School - Middletown Public Schools

Visit us on the web: www.middletownschools.org
March/April 2013
Keigwin Middle School
99 Spruce St., Middletown, CT 06457
Tel #: 860-632-2433
FAX #: 860– 632-2032
Dr. Silvia Mayo Molina, Principal — Shauna Brown, Assistant Principal
Principal’s Message – Dr. Mayo Molina
Parents as Partners:
Your children will be
taking the Connecticut
Mastery Test during the
first three weeks of
March. As you know,
this state assessment
measures your child’s
progress in reading,
writing and mathematics and is the gauge by
which our school is
compared to other sixth
grades throughout the
state. Teachers and
students have been
working hard on the
most important skills in
these areas, and now is
the time that your children will need to put
their test-taking strategies in place to perform
to the best of their ability.
As our partners in your
child’s education, you
can help your child in a
variety of ways during
the testing time:
1. Testing begins at
8:20 AM. Be sure that
your child is not late to
school.
2. Provide a good
breakfast and a morning snack each day.
3. Ensure that your
child gets a good
night’s sleep.
4. Encourage your
child to do his/her best
on each test.
5. Help your child to
relax! This is the best
way to help your child
to concentrate on his
work.
Discuss the test at
home. Show your child
that you are interested
in what he/she is doing
each day.
This month I would like
to share some thoughts
on ”Discipline Basics”
from the educational
publication Middle Years:
“When you make decisions, it’s important that
you stick with them.
Youngsters whose parents are likely to change
their minds under pressure will try harder to get
their way. Being consistent sends a strong
message that can limit
nagging.
Principal and
1
Assistant Principal
News
Academic Updates 2-3
Health and
Wellness
3
Odds & Ends
4-6
District Art Show
Saturday March 9th through
Saturday March 16th
Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University
Monday—Friday 12:00—7:00
Saturday and Sunday 1:00-4:00
Come see Keigwin
Students art on
display!
Assistant Principal’s Message - Ms. Shauna Brown
As our children pass
through the adolescent
years, parents may find
that encouraging appropriate behavior in
their children is a challenging task. Sometimes, the compliance
that their children
showed in their elementary school years
changes to stubbornness, and the consequences that parents
put in place no longer
seem to “work” for their
child.
Inside this Issue:
Your child will learn to
accept your decision,
even if he or she doesn’t
agree with it.”
Developing a few ground
rules and appropriate
consequences will help
your child to learn from
these experiences.
Your children will develop a sense of ownership
for their actions and will
learn the value of selfcontrol. These life lessons are a critical part of
the developing maturity
of young adults.
Academic Updates: Language Arts, Math and Science and World
Language Arts
March Madness is upon us! As
we head into March we will be
focusing our energies on CMTs.
Make sure to get plenty of rest,
eat breakfast to fuel your body
and mind, and be sure to fit in
some stress-relieving activities!
We know you will do your very
best! During the month, we will
continue to practice our skills on
expository writing focusing on
elaboration and sentence structure. In our next unit, we will
begin comparing and contrasting
author’s point of view through a
variety of multimedia sources
(video clips, political cartoons,
memoirs, and nonfiction texts).
As the old proverb goes, we’re
all crossing our fingers that
March will enter and leave like a
lamb.
Science
We will begin working with
the 6 steps of the scientific
method (ask a question,
form a hypothesis, test hypothesis, analyze results,
draw conclusions, and communicate results). The scientific method is extremely
important because it is the
foundation for all scientific
inquiry. We will be practicing
the scientific method with
every lab this year, as well
as our upcoming science fair
projects.
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Math
Keigwin math classes
have just completed an intense
unit on fraction and mixed number operations. The children
have been working tirelessly at
adding and subtracting fractions
and mixed numbers with unlike
denominators. Descartes Cove
students competed in the New
England Mathematics League
Contest, results will be shared
with the children next
week. Over the next few
months we will continue to explore additional Common Core
Units. The next Common Core
unit is "Algebraic Concepts and
Expressions." Just as a reminder, you will not see math homework assigned during the three
week CMT testing window.
World Cultures
Students have just finished their first unit of
study, "Welcome to the
World." The growth from
their pre-tests to post-tests
was incredible! Some students went up 70%! We
are so proud of them. We
will now be concentrating
on the Five Themes of Geography and Map Skills.
Minds in Motion—
Some of our Keigwin students participated in this
program at Snow School on Saturday March 2nd.
They had a great time building
hot air balloons.
Academic Update: Computers, Physical Education, Art, Band and IROCK
Computers
Art We are fast approaching
the Middletown Public School's
In computers, we are coming to
the end of the trimester. Students annual Student Art Show to be
have been working in Excel creat- held at the Zilka Gallery on the
ing spreadsheets by using formu- Wesleyan campus from March
9th-March 16th. Monday-Friday
las. There major project in Excel
gallery hours are 12-7 p.m.
was to plan a family vacation to
Weekends from 1-4 pm. There
Los Angeles. We will be moving
are students from K-12 repreinto our last project and creating
sented and our Keigwin Wall alour state portfolios before we
switch later this month. They have ways looks great. We hope that
many of you will make a point to
done an outstanding job this trivisit this show filled with wondermester!
ful student work. The students
Physical Education
are working hard to finish up projects for possible art show piecAll Physical Education students
es. Please encourage your art
will be taking part in the Health
student to work hard, finish neatportion of our Wellness proly and always do their best.
gram. Topics to be addressed
are: self-esteem, decision-making,
IROCK As we approach the
conflict cycle, and the physical
CMT’s IROCK students will be
changes of puberty. If you have
especially prepared as they just
any questions about the topics
completed a unit of academic
please email Mr. Fong
th
(fongm@mpsct.org) or Mrs. Quinn success in 6 grade. In this unit,
students learned about organiza(Quinnt@mpsct.org)
tion, time management, taking
ownership of their learning and
General Music
self-advocacy. They spent two
In March, we expand our explora- class periods on a study hall
tion of musical styles that evolved where they spent time working
due to the vast contributions of
on activities that would help
Black Americans. We continue this them to achieve their academic
journey into April when we celegoal. As a culminating project,
brate Jazz Appreciation Month.
students worked in groups of
Students have been making great threes to create a brochure for
progress in the keyboard lab and
the incoming 6th graders about
have also been playing drums as
what it takes to be successful at
we learn new rhythmic elements.
Keigwin Middle School.
Keep up the practicing!
Chorus The All-City Music Fes- Health and Wellness
tival is just around the corner on
Saturday April 27th 2013. This
event is held at Wesleyan University. Students will be receiving detailed information regarding this
very special event that celebrates
music in Middletown schools.
Don’t miss it!!
Updates
School Nurse
Physical Exams: The State
of Connecticut requires all students in grade 6 to receive a
physical exam which needs to
include the following: H&H or
hemoglobin and hematocrit, a test for anemia, Tdap vaccine,
Band
The Keigwin Band is
busy preparing concert music
from the practice CD,for their
busy Spring concert season.
The Keigwin Band will be performing concerts at all eight of
the Middletown elementary
schools in the 32nd Annual
Keigwin Band Elementary
Schools Concert Tour, sponsored by the Cultural Council.
Upcoming performances: More
information coming – Info will
be sent if there are any changes.
• All-City Festival Concert: Sat.
April 27, 6:00 P.M.- 5:30 Report - Wesleyan Hockey Arena
Health cont.
Meningococcal vaccine, Hepatitis B Vaccine (3-needed in all),
MMR or Measles, Mumps, Rubella vaccine, Polio vaccine,
Varicella (chicken pox ),
vaccine (2 needed) OR written
MD verification of having the
disease.
Please remember to send the
Blue State physical assessment
form to the school nurse as
soon as it is completed. This
assessment needs to be done
in the 2012-2013 school year to
be accepted as a 6th grade
physical. Please note that your
child will not be allowed to enter
WWMS without these requirements completed and in writing
to the school nurse. Any students that received a reminder
for medical requirements with
their report cards, please submit the information to the nurse
as soon as possible.
Odds and Ends
Student Council In the upcoming month, Student Council will be planning our annual
spirit week! Be on the look out
for further information. Also, in
the month of April, Student
Council will be hosting our next
fundraiser called "Pennies for
Patients." This is a fundraiser
that raises money for patients
with leukemia and lymphoma.
Please help support this
cause.
Drama ClubThe Drama Club
has been practicing since December for its production of
"Little Red: Life in the Hood," a
comedy with 3 Red Riding
Hoods, 3 wolves, 3 little pigs
and an assortment of other
fairy tale characters with lots of
kaos! The show will be on April
25th and 26th at 7:00. There
will be no school performance.
Yearbook Club We have
made great progress with the
creation of this year’s yearbook. We will meet twice more
in March to complete the yearbook and then begin advertising for yearbook sales in April!
The yearbook students have
put in a great effort this year to
create a truly memorable yearbook so be sure to reserve
your copy in April!!!
Facebook Policy
Throughout the school year, there are
sometimes issues that arise with students posting improper information on
Facebook. When these issues cause our
students to become upset, it causes a
disruption to the work of our school .
Please read the excerpt to the right from
the Facebook Privacy Policy which clarifies their age requirements. We appreciate your support with this issue.“ No information from children under age 13.
If you are under age 13, please do not
attempt to register for Facebook or provide any personal information about
yourself to us. If we learn that we have
collected personal information from a
child under age 13, we will delete that
information as quickly as possible. If you
believe that we might have any information from a child under age 13, please
contact us. This Site is intended solely
for users who are thirteen (13) years of
age or older, and users of the Site under
18 who are currently in high school or
college.
Any registration by, use of or access to
the Site by anyone under 13, or by anyone who is under 18 and not in high
school or college, is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of these Terms of
Use. By using the Service or the Site, you
represent and warrant that you are 13 or
older and in high school or college, or
else that you are 18 or older, and that you
agree to and to abide by all of the terms
and conditions of this Agreement.”
Statement of Non-Discrimination
The Middletown Board of Education is an
affirmative action/equal opportunity employer, and it does not discriminate on the
basis of race, color, religious creed, age,
marital status, civil union, military or veteran status, national origin, sex, ancestry,
sexual orientation, or past or present
physical or mental disability in any of its
education programs, activities, or employment policies. All educational programs
and offerings, including vocational education and extracurricular activities, subscribe to this policy.
Congratulations Academic Ambassadors
January
Nathan Latina, Sonya Hadley, Leah Latimer, Kaylee Morosky,
Rhienna Sanger, Evan Acevedo, Tyler Wenzel, Dante Dimauro
February
Victoria Rucker, Artur Stamenkovic, Jessenia Sanger, Kaylee
Morosky, Dominic D’Aurio, Bianca LaBella, Dante Dimauro, Natalia
King, Garrett Pellici, Tyler Wenzel, Sonya Hadley, Turquoise Lopez,
Evan Acevedo, Nathan Latina, Maria Gioco,
Congratulations January ROCKSTARS!
Matthew Simmons, Matthew Tomer, Andrew Gordon, Sam Getek, Steven Salafia, Turquoise
Lopez, Raeann Darley, Tai’rik Ingram, Jacob Saucier, Anastasia Cucosh, Ramo
Bajraktarevic, Nicole Pekarovic, Garrett Pellici, Hannah Stevens, Jordyn Pekarovic, Michael
Harris, Kyle Dale, Kaylin Clark, Jhavon Masson, Grace Lastrina, Miracle Gilchrist, Bryjae
Bembry, Devon Moshier, Gregory Klaus, Malik Shabazz
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