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7th Grade 4th Quarter Newsletter

March 21, 2025

7th Grade 4th QuarterNewsletterMarch 21, 2025

Stay Up-to-Date with our Classrooms!

Staying connected to our families is important to our teachers. In addition to the front page of our Canvas courses, we are excited to share this quarterly newsletter with our families to keep you aware of upcoming events, activities, lessons, units, and materials from our classes! The 7th Grade Team has compiled this newsletter to share some of the upcoming experiences your student will be having with us. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child's teachers!


As a reminder, printed report cards from 3rd Quarter will be sent home with students on Friday, April 4th.

7th Grade Exploratory Classes

Art

Students are hard at work on Clay sculptures this week. After spring break, we will fire them in the kiln and paint them! Previously, we wrapped up 2pt perspective drawings and watercolor paintings. Everything turned out fantastic! Great effort and creativity displayed this semester! I am very proud of these students!

Band

We are knee dip in learning our repertoire to prepare for our concert on May 9th. We will continue to build our rhythmic vocabulary to help us connect to new music faster. We will also learn how to use the full conductor’s score for students to be able to work on their music together, in small sectionals, and be able to help each other with their music.

Choir

Students are starting their final round of music for their Spring Concert. After their last concert, students participated in a March Madness Broadway bracket where they compared different songs from various Broadway shows. For their final concert, they will be performing “Lightning”, a piece that teaches advanced rhythms and mixed time signatures, “Journey On”, a piece by Dr. Derrick Fox about facing challenges with friends, and “Yonder Come Day”, a famous spiritual from the Caribbean. They are also preparing a combined performance of the Bruno Mars/Lady Gaga song, “Die With A Smile” with the 8th grade choir. The final concert is May 20th.

Engineering

Students just wrapped up our design process unit by participating in the egg drop competition! That’s always a crowd favorite. The class will transition quite a bit as we enter the 4th quarter, concentrating more on computer design. Students will be using an industry-standard program, SolidWorks, as they learn to 3D model at a very high level. Students will learn skills such as extrude, cut, revolve, fillet, shell, sweep, loft, dimension, sketch, pattern, and assemble. Students will learn/practice these skills through five teacher-led tutorials, and will then apply those skills to an open-ended final project of their choice. It’s always so exciting to see what the kids create!

PE and Wellness

This semester PE classes will learn Spikeball, Basketball, yoga (stretching), ultimate frisbee, four square games, and they will be creating their own games.

In wellness, we will be learning about bullying, sleep, personal hygiene, sympathy/empathy, and relationships.

Technology

Seventh grade technology students are just about to finish up their first half of the class. They’ve learned how to do such things as modifying images in Photoshop-like programs, editing videos, recording a podcasting, and create a gripping, aesthetically pleasing presentation, among many others. In the 4th quarter, they’ll be synthesizing all of these skills together in order to construct a tour for a fictional band!

Discovery and Design

This past quarter, we celebrated the Grand Opening of our Amazon Think Big Space! Students in Discovery and Design have just finished their Amusement Park Project, in which they coded SAM blocks to create sound, movement, and lights that mimicked an amusement park ride. In Quarter 4, we will start exploring technology through robotics. We will design spaces for our Ozobots to navigate and create battle bots with our Spheros. Be on the lookout for awesome creations to be posted to your child’s Canvas account!

7th Grade Core Classes

ELA

Mrs. Huber's, Mrs. Lawson's, Mrs. Danner's, and Mrs. Kline's Classes:

Our final unit of the year will combine Poetry and Poe. In this unit, students learn to read like a movie director. First, they read a mix of poems and songs in a “March Madness” format that will allow us to review poetry terms, figurative language, and help us ease back into fiction. Then, they read three texts by Edgar Allan Poe—“The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Raven.” They use the rich details from "The Tell-Tale Heart" to create a visual storyboard that helps them understand the curious perspective of the strange, first-person narrator in this story. They watch thoughtful, animated adaptations of “The Raven” and “The Cask of Amontillado” and compare the adaptations to the original texts. After reading these stories, students’ knowledge of Poe’s tales allows them to participate in the mysterious quest, Who Killed Edgar Allan Poe?, where they investigate a fictitious crime scene, interrogate characters to find and interpret clues, and present their proposed solution to the mystery before the true solution is revealed. At the end of the unit, students write an essay arguing for or against the reliability of the narrator of one of the unit's texts.


Also, the ELA OST is Tuesday, April 22 & Wednesday, April 23.



Mrs. Heinig's Classes:


Argument Essay Writing and Debate Unit

The art of debate goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and we still participate today. Our past, present, and future in the USA will depend on this essential process, which is a freedom in our republic: citizens gather, listen to each other, debate, do research, make up their minds, and determine a course of action. During this unit, your kids will benefit in the following ways:

  • Learn better ways to structure one’s thoughts and graciously state one’s point and learn to value another’s viewpoint

  • Acquire better poise, speech delivery, and public speaking skills

  • Help students identify holes in their theories in order to concoct more balanced arguments

  • Improve critical thinking and writing skills and learn to write a knockout argument --it is a 7th grade requirement (this is also required in many high school and college settings)

  • Learn to use our language in creative ways

  • Have fun--Debating can be lots of fun!

For our final unit of the year, we will be reading in Historical Fiction book clubs. In groups, the kids will write newspapers to represent the real world that coincided with the time period of their books. They will create BodyBio Characters and play “To Tell The Truth” with items and people from the past. Lastly, we will interview the oldest people in our families to glean wisdom that we can use today.

Math

Math 7

In Math 7, we have just finished Module 10 on probability. Next, Module 11 focuses on the statistics portion of the 7th grade standards. Students will analyze data through box and whisker plots, mean absolute deviation, and discuss sample types. This is our final new module of the year. The remainder will be preparing for OST testing and starting our finance project. In this project, students will dive into what it is like to be an adult with a salary where they budget within their means. 7th-grade math teachers will send out more information closer to the project.


Please note OST testing for math takes place on Tuesday, April 29.


Math 7+

Math 7+ has just concluded Module 10 on statistics. We are moving into Module 11 on angle relationships and Module 12 which will be on Area, Surface Area, and Volume. This will include composite figures that are not familiar to students. We will also be exploring some of the 8th-grade volume formulas! Module 13 will be the last unit of the year and focuses on Transformations, Congruence, and Similarity. These are 8th-grade standards that will push students in their geometric thinking. The remainder will be preparing for OST testing and starting our finance project. In this project, students will dive into what it is like to be an adult with a salary where they budget within their means. 7th-grade math teachers will send out more information closer to the project.


Please note OST testing for math takes place on Tuesday, April 29.

Science

Students are finishing our study of the atmosphere and will soon be starting a chapter on weather. Over the next month, seventh graders will keep a “Cloud Notebook,” track a hurricane and learn to read weather maps and predict the weather. Traditionally, this is one of the students’ favorite topics. At least one former student is currently studying meteorology because this chapter sparked her interest in weather.

Social Studies

Social Studies students are moving on from their extensive study of the Roman Empire. For the rest of the school year, we jump around to study several ancient and medieval societies around the world. This week we are beginning our time in Ancient China and Japan; analyzing ancient Chinese dynasties, inventions, and philosophies. At the end of March, we will focus on Japan and its rigid feudal society. From there, we will study three African kingdoms and the impact Islam will have on their societies and cultures. Finally, we will end the year in Medieval Europe after the fall of Rome. The fourth quarter is full of hands-on activities, simulations, and collaborative assignments. It always goes so quickly at the end of the year, and we are looking forward to finishing strong!

Common Sense Media

Common Sense Media is an online tool that can help parents and students make informed decisions regarding media use. This tool can be used for many types of media, including books, movies, video games, and apps. Additionally, the “Parent Tips and FAQ” section can provide families with valuable support on facilitating social media, cell phone, and screen time use with their child.

Ryan Malany
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