Dear WMS Families,
Well, the temperature certainly feels like December now. I hope you are staying warm this weekend!
Check out this week's photo to the right: It comes from one of the Responsive Classroom lessons that students had during Advisory this week. We encourage you to ask your child about it, and talk about how "trust is like a house" with your family at home.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to walk through several classrooms with Dr. Galdston. We were impressed with all of the learning that is happening at WMS! We saw...
- Students working in small groups in every classroom
- Clear objectives and anchor charts with frequently-used information
- Vocabulary walls, sentence starters, and other language-based tools visibly being used by students in every room, which is supporting ELs as well as all learners
- Evidence of equitable grading practices being used, and how that is shifting how students think about and take ownership for their own learning
- Students excited to learn and clearly engaged in the lesson across many different class structures
It's hard to say who is working harder this year - teachers or students, but either way, there is a lot of learning happening at WMS!
We also want to send a heartfelt thank you from the leadership and community service crew for your help with Thanksgiving baskets. We were able to give out 29 baskets to families in need, and it's all because of you! Even with all the covid related disruption, Thanksgiving baskets at WMS still run like a well oiled machine, and for that, our community service crew is thankful.
Click on the cluster/class smores below to see an update about what is happening in your child's classes this week. We also encourage all parents/caregivers to complete the the 2023 Watertown Parent Survey. More information about all of this and more is below.
Be well and take care of one another.
Respectfully yours,
Ms. Jennifer Chen Fein, Principal
Ms. Jennifer Sarmiento, Assistant Principal (Clusters 2, 4, 6)
Mr. Patrick Dayton, Interim Assistant Principal (Clusters 1, 3, 5)
Text to 911 Information
In addition to the right are instructions for calling 911 using the Silent Call Procedure.
We are sharing these safety updates with our community because staying informed is the first step to staying safe.
News from Watertown Recreation
Watertown Recreation winter sports are live! There are several indoor and outdoor options.
Please see here for the entire Watertown Rec brochure- pages 8-11 focus on middle-school aged activities. The Ski Program is completely full but if there is enough interest from more students, they will add an additional bus! In the meantime, students can still get a discounted ticket to the mountain and provide their own transportation.
The Watertown Snow Removal Program is still accepting applications for the winter season! This program helps the elderly and disabled residents of Watertown by shoveling snow for them. Through the Rec department program, students will earn community service hours, and a $50 gift card for their work. The application can be found here. Students can also get paper forms from their advisory teacher or the main office. Please return these forms to Mr. McDermott's mailbox in the main office by next Friday, December 9th!
Lastly, the City of Watertown has Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics tickets for any resident or employee of Watertown. See here for Bruins and here for Celtics. Tickets are first come first serve.
Watertown Middle School
Website: https://www.instagram.com/watertown_middle/https://wms.watertown.k12.ma.us/
Location: 68 Waverley Avenue, Watertown, MA, USA
Phone: 617-926-7783
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watertownms
Twitter: @middlewatertown