Howards Grove Middle School
Family Newsletter III
At Howards Grove Middle School We Believe In:
Respect
Responsibility
Integrity
Appreciation
Important Events
11/26- GBB @ Oostburg 4 PM
11/27-11/29- Thanksgiving Break - No School
12/2- 7/8 Boys BB practice starts
12/3- FFA Meeting 3 PM
12/7-12/8- PTO Craft Fair
12/9- PTO Meeting 5 PM, School Board Meeting 6 PM
12/11- Student Council Meeting 3 PM
12/12- MS Winter Concert at Howards Grove Center of the Arts 5/6 6:30 PM/ 7/8 7:45 PM
12/17- BBB @ Home vs. Random Lake 4 PM
12/18- Student Council Meeting 3 PM
12/23-1/1- Winter Break- No School
Principal's Message
Hello Everyone,
The school year is moving extremely fast as we near the midterm of second quarter. Please take some time to review Skyward and have a conversation with your student(s). Student grades, missing work, attendance, and behavior are all a part of the larger picture we see as our students. Our staff will be reaching out to you if they see any concerns. They will also be meeting with students to create a plan for our next best steps for improvement. The plan will be shared with families as well. Our hope, as always, is to work in partnership with families and students to support all of our learners.
I am very proud to report that our Middle School has Exceeded Expectations on the State Report Card with a score of 80 for the 2023-2024 school year. This score is obtained through a weighted system of achievement, growth, target group outcomes, and on-track to graduation. Below you will see some of the break down from our Middle School Report Card. If you would like to see further break down of the scoring please visit: Report Cards Home | Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Our staff works tirelessly to improve student outcomes in learning. I would also be remiss if I did not mention our students for their efforts as well. While a test is a snapshot in time, it is an indicator that we are doing the right work here at Howards Grove Middle School. I could not be more proud to be the principal of this fantastic school. Our goal is to always improve academically but also to strive to be a better person each and every day.
I hope you enjoy this edition of our newsletter. As always, if there is ever a way that I can help please feel free to reach out to me. Enjoy your day,
Angie Houston
Intervention
Reading Tips
Are you looking for ways to build your child’s vocabulary?
Skill Level: Grades 1–8
Intervention Range: Beginning Reader to Adult Learner-
Build vocabulary with this iPad app that makes learning words FUN! Students independently play a vocabulary word game that includes a synonym activity with over 7,000 questions, antonym activity with 1,000 questions, and 600 meaning-from-context questions. A Lightning Round provides an exciting review. They won’t want to put this vocabulary game down and neither will you!
Read Extensively: Reading is the most effective way to build your vocabulary. Read or listen to books, magazines, and newspapers that cover a wide range of topics, and pay attention to unfamiliar words. Help your child look up their meanings and try using them in context. In fact, 15 minutes is recognized as the ideal time for students to see positive gains in reading achievement; students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per day see the greatest gains of all.
Are you looking for ways to build your child’s fluency?
https://oneminutereader.com/ One Minute Reader has audio support and guided steps that allow kids to build essential reading skills on their own.
Read aloud together : Reading aloud with your child is one of the best ways to improve fluency at home, and a good way to teach children that reading can be a relaxing, pleasant, cozy activity. Start reading to your child, maybe one of their favorite books, and encourage them to read along and try to follow. You can also alternate who reads and who listens, by having your child read one page, then you read the next, and so on. Reading together helps a child understand cadence, rhythm, prosody, intuitively, by following your example. It can also help them pick up the meaning of the story, because they don’t have to focus and concentrate on reading the words the right way and putting syllables together. Having a reading companion who they can trust and who can encourage them or help them if they get stuck cand instill confidence and relieve some of the stress and anxiety associated with reading as a task.
Set a daily reading routine Setting aside an hour or a couple of hours to read together every day can provide stability, structure, and discipline in your child’s life, and help them make progress. Making it fun and relaxing can build anticipation and make your child excited for reading time, and in turn they might start to realize that reading can be a highly pleasurable activity, and not just a frustrating experience. Set aside an hour before bedtime to read together, listen to audiobooks, re-read favorite stories, or any other reading-related activities. Make sure it’s a relaxing environment, where the child feels safe and relaxed and doesn’t get the sense that this is some kind of homework or task. Turn reading time into a relaxing activity, and allow your child to make mistakes or get stuck without stressing out. Instead, encourage them and help them when they need it, and show them that progress is possible.
Listen to audiobooks Listening to an audiobook while also providing a physical copy of the same book can be a great way for a child to learn how a text should be read, and to help them better grasp the meaning of the story and the written text. You can also encourage your child to read along and try to mimic the narrator’s fluent reading, as this is a great way to improve both fluency and comprehension at the same time. The next step would be to encourage your child to read the book aloud on their own, and if they get stuck, they can check the audiobook for guidance. Teaching and learning by example is the most effective way of improving fluency, and it’s much better than the child struggling to figure it out on their own without support.
Practice timed reading: Another fun way to improve fluency at home and encourage your children to read more is to practice timed reading. Use a stopwatch and set a timer for a few minutes, and in this time, encourage your child to read as fluently as possible. You can also participate and make it a fun, challenging competition, but without making it stressful or anxiety inducing. https://www.readinga-z.com/fluency/fluency-practice-passages/ You can enter your child’s Lexile which is found on the iReady Family report or grade level to find passages to practice.
i-Ready Helpful Links for Families:
Understanding diagnostic results from i-Ready
Scholastic
Dear 7th & 8th grade families!
RE: Scholastic Book Orders
SHOP OUR CLASS PAGE: https://orders.scholastic.com/KWG77
SHOP FLYERS: https://clubs.scholastic.com/all-flyers
Family Order Due Date: Order by 12/3 to get your books before winter break!
You’ll receive your order in 7–10 business days.
This year, our class is reading with Scholastic Book Clubs! You’ll have access to expertly curated, affordable books that help boost your child’s reading skills, build your home library, and maybe even create moments of quality time you can share together. Plus place an order of $25 or more and you can pick a FREE $5 book (use code READS at checkout).
Please contact Kerri Eilers HGMS Reading Teacher & i-Ready Leader with any questions or concerns or help with seeing reports at keilers@hgtigers.com
Library News
Now that the weather has started to get colder, the students have the option of coming to the library during lunch recess. While there, they may do homework, read, play games from the shelves, or make a project using the materials in the Makerspace. This option becomes more popular as the temperature goes down. As more students utilize the Makerspace, the resources available for projects get used up. Everything they use is donated, and we are in need of some items in order for students to continue to be able to make their projects. Here is a list of items we are currently out of:
● Aluminum foil
● popsicle/craft sticks
● Cotton balls
● Tape—masking and/or duct tape
● Glue sticks for hot glue guns (these go very quickly)
If you would please consider donating one of these items, the students at the Middle School would greatly appreciate your generosity.
On another note, if your child brings their Chromebook home at night, please remind them to plug it into their charger every night and put it in their backpack in the morning. We do have a few loaners for students to borrow in the event they forget to bring theirs to school or forget to charge it, but lately we are running out of those loaners. This has been an issue especially with 6th graders. Thank you for your help in making sure your child is prepared to start off each day successfully
Volunteers Needed!
Success in the Middle HGMS Volunteer Signup
Do you have a passion for giving back? Are you interested in helping students succeed? If so, Howards Grove Middle School is looking for dedicated, high-quality volunteers who are seeking meaningful opportunities to make a difference. Volunteer tutors, proven to make an impact on academic achievement, are needed in all subject areas from 5th through 8th grade.
Our volunteers;
Academic: Work one-on-one or with small groups of students with the goal of increasing their academic achievement.
Social: We are also looking for “grandparents” that would like to come for a social group where they have lunch together, chat and play board games, etc.
Receive professional training to prepare for working in a classroom.
Develop a supportive working relationship with teachers.
Please click on the link to sign up for more information HGMS Volunteer Signup. Please contact Kerri Eilers HGMS Interventionist for more information keilers@hgtigers.com
Counselor's Corner
Student Council
8th Grade
ELA
8th graders are just finishing up their writing unit, The Literary Essay. Students read various short stories and listened to songs on “Music Monday” to practice determining themes. Students ultimately picked a short story to analyze its theme in an essay. Students are able to write a thesis statement, a claim, determine evidence that supports their claims, and provide relevant reasoning that supports their evidence.
Our next unit is reading the beloved classic, The Outsiders. This unit will have a focus summarizing concisely and precisely, daily journaling to demonstrate comprehension and engagement, and power dynamics in stories.
In our grammar work, students have been also learning about pronouns, and how to correctly use them in a sentence. We spent a lot of time discussing who vs whom, me vs I, and how we need to determine the subject and the object of the sentence in order to know which pronoun to use. An easy way to practice using pronouns correctly is making sure you are using the correct word, me or I, in a text or Snapchat– this can be a super easy way to encourage students to think about their grammar work outside of class. Quick example: “Can my friends and I go to the park after school?”
Algebra
Algebra students recently completed a chapter on exponents and exponential functions. A few of the key aspects of this chapter were students learning how to multiply and divide monomials using the properties of exponents. Students discovered how to evaluate, rewrite, and solve expressions involving rational exponents. While students already had a general understanding of scientific notation, they learned for the first time how to multiply and divide numbers that were given in scientific notation. These students also discovered how to graph exponential functions while also learning more about growth and decay problems, geometric sequences, and recursive formulas.
Math
Eighth grade math students recently completed an in-depth study of solving linear equations. These students learned how to solve equations with one variable. They worked solely with rational number coefficients but did need to expand their expressions using the distributive property as well as combine like terms. Students discovered how to eliminate fractions and decimals, thus simplifying their expressions for easier solving. They also were introduced to special situations where no solution or eve infinitely many solutions were possible. Finally, students often wonder, "When am I ever going to use this?" To answer this age-old question, students were entrenched in making sense of solutions in a real-world context. Students were entrenched in making sense of solutions to not only be able to solve linear equations, but also be able to interpret their solutions in the context to the real-world problems.
Science
In Science, we have been studying the solar system and the theories surrounding the buildup to the accepted theory that we believe today. The students have been working and coming up with their designs for their Bottle Rockets that we launched on Friday November 1st so stay tuned for a video compilation of launches to be shared.
Social Studies
In Social Studies, we are just getting into our "Great Depression" unit. Students just learned and had a great discussion in class about the "Spanish Flu" pandemic of 1918 and how it relates to their own experiences going through the COVID pandemic in recent years. In this unit, there is no formal assessment, but a family research project where students will be going into their own families' past and forming a research presentation on what they have found with some Great Depression family recipes and food to enjoy as well. Stay tuned.
7th Grade
ELA
In 7th grade ELA, we have been focusing on investigating perspectives of characters. Students have been working with their book club groups to investigate the perspective of main characters, minor characters, point of view, and how the perspectives change. We have been practicing writing in our notebooks about our observations and finding quotes from our books to show our thinking. Students are wrapping up an open mind project on one of their characters in their book, which is helping us to see what is happening in their character’s head. We are working towards learning about how to study an author’s writing from their book club books.
Accelerated Math
In accelerated math class, students will use their knowledge of equations and apply it to proportional relationships (y=kx and y=mx+b), analyzing functions, and solving systems of linear equations. We are currently working from the 8th-grade textbook.
Math
In 7th-grade math class, students are learning about proportional relationships (y=kx) and will apply their knowledge to proportional reasoning and percentages. We will finish our percents module with a Shopping Spree activity. Students also continue to practice their rational number skills through fantasy basketball. We are about to start week two! It’s a fun way to work on those skills.
In 7th grade science, students are learning about animal and plant body systems. We will apply that knowledge with a unit project called “Investigating an Animal's Behavior.” Students will conduct research about an animal’s behavior and use evidence to construct an explanation about how structure and function relate to the animal’s behavior. Students will choose an animal to study from a systems perspective.
Social Studies
We are starting to kick off our Civil War Era in 7th grade social studies. Students have been learning about the causes of the Civil War. We researched and read about the Missouri Compromise. Students researched to figure out why the Missouri Compromise was one of the starts to the Civil War. Students are gearing up to look into how Wisconsin impacted the start of the Civil War.
6th Grade
ELA
As the second quarter is underway, the students are entering their writing unit. Sixth graders are learning how to better launch their writing skills. Sixth-grade writing begins with Personal Narrative: Crafting Powerful Life Stories. This unit helps students draw on their lives, learning strategies to generate meaningful story ideas, manage pace, elaborate on important scenes, and deepen insights. This writing unit especially emphasizes the importance of setting goals, practicing strategically, and aiming for high productivity. In the first bend, students are asked to generate ideas for personal narratives based on meaningful places, moments, or memories in their lives. Students will practice stretching out key episodes, choosing meaningful details and exact dialogue, and writing from a consistent point of view.
In ELA class, our students are taking ownership of their learning by sharing their learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson! By clearly identifying what they aim to achieve and how they’ll know they’ve succeeded, students are setting themselves up for meaningful progress and growth.
I have learned that adjectives describe nouns and pronouns in a sentence.
I can identify the noun in the sentence and the adjective that describes that noun.
~ Hope H.
I am learning how to write a good personal narrative.
I can identify the complete subjects and predicate of a sentence in my writing.
~ Kurt K.
I am learning about different types of nouns and pronouns.
I can find the antecedent in a sentence knowing how to find the pronoun.
~Addy D.
I have learned about how to describe the setting in a reading story.
I can find out how the setting impacts the characters of the story.
~Marcella M.
I have learned how to identify character traits in the story.
I can find and identify multiple traits for different characters in the story.
~Logan S.
I have learned how to identify the subject and predicate in a sentence.
I can create sentences using subjects and predicates in my narrative story.
~Haily G.
Accelerated Math
In Block 3 Math, we finished up the decimal and unit rate chapters a little ahead of schedule, so we are working ahead and are getting some experience with using ratio reasoning to calculate percentages and customary and metric measurement conversions. We should be finished with this unit early-December, and then we will be moving into learning about variable expressions and solving variable equations before winter break.
Math
In 6th grade Math, we finished up our unit on fraction operations and have entered our unit on decimals. We started out the unit reviewing place values and rounding decimals. We even played a wild game of Place Value Yahtzee! The students had a lot of fun and showed great sportsmanship. We also have reviewed applying all operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) to decimals. In addition, we will talk about how decimals are used in the real world, especially with money. We will wrap up the decimal unit in early December, and then we will complete our unit of writing ratios and finding unit rates before winter break. Unit rates apply to many real world situations, but one particular situation we work on is finding the best deal when shopping. If you happen to be doing some shopping, ask your 6th grader to help figure out the better deal when debating between two or more items or quantities within a packaged item. For example, which store has the best deal on soda before the holidays? How much does each can of soda cost at the sale price?
Science
In 6th grade, students have wrapped up their Unit 1 projects, where they identified real-world problems in our school community and engineered creative solutions. Some of their ideas included improving school cleanliness, reducing waste, and making lunchtime more efficient. Their presentations showcased critical thinking, collaboration, and innovation! Now, we’re launching into our unit on energy and energy transfer, where students will use their engineering skills to design ways to transform potential energy into other forms.
Social Studies
The 6th Grade class recently finished a debate on Patriot vs Loyalist ideas leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Patriot side won two of the three blocks. The students did a fine job using facts that they researched to support their ideas. We have recently begun studying the United States Constitution.
5th Grade
ELA
We wrapped up our first unit in Readers Workshop and had a lively Halloween debate. The kids read the article, Should You Give Up Your Halloween Candy? They took a position, made a claim and supported their claim with reasons and evidence. I was impressed with their analytical thinking (and sense of humor). We started our first Writers Workshop Unit: Turning Life into Literature. We will learn how to write powerful true stories and how to revise and edit our writing to publish a personal narrative. Weekly grammar lessons will be taught and these skills will be applied to our written work. We will also begin weekly word studies and learn how to make meaning of words through building morphological awareness.
Math
Students are working hard on becoming Multiplication and Divion Masters, or at least faster than the day before. One really neat thing is that students are seeing the connection between multiplication and division. Those Math facts are in every skill of Math. Keep practicing!
The class is currently finishing our long division unit and moving to Expressions! Expressions are my favorite thing to teach because we are on the road to Algebra! We are going to begin to use numerical expressions to represent a word problem. This is more difficult, but your son/daughter will be able to be successful in no time.
Keep encouraging your son/daughter even when they may be frustrated at times. Math is a process, and the "lightbulb" will go on eventually. I am teaching your child in class to persevere and to ask questions when things are challenging. Lastly, practice, practice, practice is the best way to build confidence!
5th graders are really amazing! Thanks parents!
Science
Recently in 5th grade, we started our unit on matter, where students are exploring what is and isn’t made of matter, the properties of matter, and how matter is conserved. Through fun demonstrations and experiments, students have investigated how matter takes up space, even proving that air is made of matter! The curiosity and excitement in the classroom have been contagious as students dive deeper into understanding the building blocks of our world.
The 5th Grade class recently finished making their own maps to demonstrate the skills they have learned in our maps unit. They are currently finishing up a research project on Native American tribes. Presentations will begin in class before Thanksgiving break.
Howards Grove Middle School
506 Kennedy Avenue
Howards Grove, WI 53083
(920) 565-4452
