HLWW Middle School Newsletter

Welcome to the HLWW Middle School Monthly Newsletter! We hope this will provide additional insight on the many activities and events taking place at HLWW.

If you wish to be added to the mailing list, please email adamlakerpride@hlww.k12.mn.us

• January 31st – 5th Grade MN Orchestra Hall Trip
• February 1st: 2 Hour Late Start
• February 2nd: 8th Grade Parent/Student 9th grade Registration Night: 6PM, High School Auditorium
• February 3rd: Yearbook Orders Due
  

• February 6-10: SnoFest - Look for Dress up Day information!
• February 17th: Mid-Quarter
• February 23, 27: Parent Teacher Conferences 3-8PM
• March 3rd: Spring Carnival 6:30-8PM

In the coming days, your student will email or text you the date and time you signed up for Student Led Conferences during the back to school open house. If you did not sign up, a time will be scheduled for you. If this time does not work, you may change it by contacting your child’s advisor. During the student led conference, your child will be explaining their MCA and STAR test data and give you an update on their current progress in addition to sharing some samples of their work. Your child has thoughtfully prepared for this event so we hope all of you will be able to attend their conference.

The HLWW Middle School held a Spelling Bee January 17th. 14 students from grades 5-8 competed in the Bee. The winners, Laheeb Nassiri (1st Place) and Sara Krueger (2nd Place) will be moving onto the Regional Meet on Wednesday, February 8th at the Resources Training and Solutions Building in Sartell.

By Carol Meyerson, 7th Grade Science Teacher

Seventh grade students at HLWW Middle School held their annual cell fair on January 9th, 2017. After learning about cells and cell parts, students created models of plant and animal cells to show how cells work. They used craft supplies, household items, and edible treats to represent the different parts of the cells. Seventh and sixth grade students voted on which cell models were the Most-Scientific, Most Artistic, Most Mouth-Watering, and Most Disgusting. Winners in the four categories were Brooke Baumann (Most Scientific), Carolyn Remer (Most Artistic) Trevor Karels (Most Mouth-Watering), and Andrew Fasching (Most Disgusting).

Rick Baumann's 5th Grade Science students studied natural disasters recently. Students prepared a weather report and script about a disaster of their choice. The KLKR Broadcast club recorded the results.

by Jamie Nendza, HLWW 6th Grade Teacher

The fifth and sixth grade students at HLWW middle school participated in the Howard Lake Lions drug poster contest this year. The contest was open to grades K-8. The student put in a tremendous amount of effort to create posters to support a drug free school and community. They used a lot of creativity to come up with slogans and illustrations to decorate their posters. The posters will be judged at the January 5th meeting and the winners will be announced on January 10th. The final winning poster from each category will be displayed at the annual state 5M7 Mid-Winter Convention. The winning posters will be judged again at the state level. If any poster should win at the state level, they will be placed and judged again nationally at the International Convention. This was a great opportunity for our students to pledge to keep our school and community drug free.

By Kristy Cardinal, HLWW Middle School Special Education Teacher

Storytelling is a form of entertainment and a method of conveying information that people of all ages have enjoyed for centuries. Think about a story that captured your interest. Where and when did the story take place? What problem or conflict did the characters have to resolve? Now think of a story you could write in which the characters face a challenge at sea.

This was the assignment I presented to my middle school special education language arts class. Afterwards we started learning the many steps to prepare and execute an interesting and proper fictional narrative. The students were excited to use their imaginations to tell a story and to use the district’s chromebooks to finish their final drafts.

The very first step was to define a fictional narrative. It is a made-up story in which the setting, characters, and/or events may be realistic or based on fantasy. The story may be told from the first-person or third-person point of view. The second step was to read and analyze a short, fictional narrative written by a 6th grader. The students found and discussed the characters, setting, plot, problem, climax and resolution.

Once the class had a good grasp on what a fictional narrative looks like it was time to prepare their own. The students were surprised and a little frustrated that they couldn’t just open the chromebooks and jump right into writing. I explained that there are seven steps that they need to go through before they are ready to finalize their writing. The students seemed to be accepting when I told them that the first few steps could be a lot of fun if they just let their imagination take the wheel.

The first step in writing a fictional narrative is to brainstorm ideas, characters, settings and a problem. The students used a graphic organizer to gather their thoughts. They were required to come up with at least three possible ideas for their story. Middle schoolers can be very creative. There were ideas about demolition derbies, trips to Canada and underwater adventures.

Once they came up with three ideas they had to narrow it down to one. This brought them to the second step of organizing using a web. The web’s middle was the topic. The arms or extensions held the setting, characters, problem and resolution. I explained to the students the importance of this second step. It would help them gather their thoughts without having to worry about grammar, punctuation and proper sentences right away.

After the students finished organizing their thoughts, they were ready to start their first draft. They were very eager to get to the “best part” of the writing. I think they had so many ideas to write about that they were getting excited to start the actual writing. When their first draft was complete, we learned how to complete a peer review. This is when a classmate reads through another classmate's rough draft and critiques the writer’s ability to grab the reader’s attention, using dialogue, character description, creating and resolving a problem. The students were required to give ideas of how to increase these areas of needed.

After the peer review, students were given time to make corrections using the advice from their classmates if they chose to do so. They were also instructed on how to edit their own writing by looking for proper paragraph form, grammar and punctuation. Once they felt their fictional narrative was ready for teacher review, they signed up for a time to meet with me and read through the story. We talked about the positives and negatives of their writing and possible ways to improve the format and/or grab their reader’s attention. Again, students were given time to edit if they so chose to.

The final copy was shared with me through Google Docs along with their rubric. The students were graded on a four point scale with 4 being exemplary, 3 being proficient, 2 being satisfactory and 1 being needs improvement. The five areas graded on were Focus, Organization, Narrative Elements, Word Choice and Conclusion. Overall the students performed well and enjoyed the task of telling a story through a fictional narrative.

By Ben Anderson, HLWW 5th Grade Math Teacher

Students are being exposed to multiplication facts as early as first and second grade. Having these facts mastered by fourth and fifth grade is vital to their success as they move to higher levels of math and difficulty. In fourth grade, students are shown how to multiply one by two and even three digit numbers. This task is extremely difficult if they need to try and add these multiplication facts in their head. I compare it to reading when you have to sound out every single word. When this happens, students become fatigued and their motivation levels drop, causing perhaps a poor attitude and work ethic towards math. Students that have these multiplication facts memorized are far less fatigued and have a lot more confidence in their abilities.

Also in fourth grade, students begin learning how to do long division. What students enjoy about long division is that they get to use their knowledge of multiplication facts to find the quotient. Again, without the foundation of memorizing these facts, it becomes another daunting task for a fourth or fifth grader.

The use of these facts are not going to go away either as they progress through the different levels and types of math. In fifth grade alone, students will be expected to have their facts mastered to do multiplication, division, algebra, adding fractions, subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions, dividing fractions, measurement, geometry, and statistics. When a student has these multiplication facts memorized, they have demonstrated that they are very capable of mastering the processes that go along with all these different types of math.

In class, I continually address to the students how important it is going to be to have these multiplication facts memorized. In class, we have spent some time playing online games that are designed to help them practice their memorization of these facts. The faster they are able to find the answer, the better they will do in most of these games. We also have brainstormed as a class some ways to practice outside of school. Quizzing each other on the bus or in the vehicle with their parents was one of the ideas they had to help pass the time. Students also enjoy being quizzed with flash cards by seeing how fast and how many they can answer correctly in one minute. Perhaps one minute a day outside of class could drastically change a student’s outlook on math for the next few years. Does your third, fourth, or fifth grader know their multiplication facts?