January 2005: Volume , Issue # 4

Woodland Middle School

From the Desk of the Principal:

January 2005

Dear Parents,

As we approach the mid point of our school year, I would like to share with our parents some of the happenings and events that have taken place as well as those that are being planned for the second half of the school year. This edition of our newsletter has many examples of the wonderful programs and class room activities that we provide for our youngsters. Many students will tell you that their favorite classes are what we call exploratory classes; classes that are non-major subjects like technology, home and career skills, health education, etc. These classes often get overlooked in their importance to educating the middle school child. As you read this newsletter you will get an idea of why these courses continue to be very popular with our students.

During the coming months, there are many events and programs planned that are of interest to parents, such as parent orientation programs, concerts and student social happenings. I urge you to attend as many of these events as possible. It demonstrates support for your child and will contribute to making you an informed parent.

Please feel free to contact any member of our staff regarding the progress of your child. By working together, we can best meet the needs of all of our students and their families.

Sincerely,

Jack Lenson

EXPLORATORY COURSE HAPPENINGS

Business Department: Eighth Grade Business Education classes at Woodland Middle School participated in the Fall Stock Market Game sponsored by NEWSDAY.  Woodland placed four teams in the rankings during the ten week game, which concluded December 8.  The Stock Market Game provides an introduction to financial markets and an increased awareness and understanding of how money works.  Students embark on a wonderful journey through the world of finance.  Their enthusiasm and energy in this activity is always at a high level.   

Home and Career Skills Department: Students in this program are given an opportunity to make connections between their lives and the real world through a strong service learning component. This year, the Home and Career Skills Department had a school-wide collection of items that was sent to Marines in Iraq (donated Snapple was used to pay for postage). Each year, students create hand made toys that are sent to the Ronald McDonald house. Ms. Greenbaum’s students, as part of a Futurecorps project, were featured in a Newsday article on November 24, 2004 about creating book bags containing Disney books for children at Nassau University Medical Center.

Seventh grade classes are currently in the library doing research on various aspects of nutrition. They are using a combination of books, periodicals, and internet resources to find and compile their information. The students will then present their findings to the rest of their class.

Eighth grade classes have completed their unit on child development. As part of that unit they studied children's literature, wrote their own fairy tale, created a hand puppet that was a character from that fairy tale, then explored how they might use these while babysitting. The students are currently involved in their exploration of careers and the workplace.

Instructional Technology: Students in Ms. Burnside’s classes have been working in Microsoft Publisher creating holiday cards, personal stationary, mailing labels, and product advertisements. Students also selected a country that they would like to visit and searched the internet to create a six panel travel brochure that included: an attractive cover, the capital, official currency, the government population, two historical facts, three fun facts, places to eat, to stay and to visit. Another project required students to create Power Point presentations on an inventor and on their favorite car. In the coming weeks, students will be working on learning the application Excel.

In Ms. Garcia’s eighth grade enrichment computer classes, students have been working on creating graphs with Microsoft Excel. They started with charting distances to Woodland and other locations using Mapquest for mileage. Now they are designing and conducting surveys during lunch periods. They will take their data back to the computer lab and plot their results.

Students gathered data on “Favorites” – pizza parlors, ice cream flavors, fast food restaurants, bands, and cars. Other information on number of siblings and eye color were also collected.

Students classified their responses by boy/girl or grade 6, 7, or 8 to analyze if there are any correlations between the most popular responses and these criteria. Some of the students decided to personally ask the random samples for the specific information/ while others produced written surveys which were distributed and collected. In both cases, the students tallied their data and charted their results.

Technology: Students in eighth grade technology classes have begun the “Dream House Project.” They are researching different styles of architecture on various web sites. The students will choose their favorite style houses and save the architectural floor plans from the website to use as a reference for their own design plan. Students are discussing house design and incorporating their own creative ideas for a "Dream House", such as adding spiral staircases, fireplaces in the bathroom, 3 car garages, etc.

Health Education: Our students continue to be challenged on a daily basis, with personal choices that can affect their current health status. Many of these choices will also have a major impact on their lifelong goals as well as their future health. Woodland Middle School health students have joined the national concern about teenage obesity and though their education, have begun to make a conscious change in their daily eating habits. Our students have also taken an active stand against bullying in our school. They have made posters which bring awareness to both stamping out bullying and supporting healthy eating choices. Visitors have made compliments about these posters which are displayed all around our school.

The health students and faculty have again raised enough money to support an AIDS orphan from Ethiopia. This ties in to our state mandated AIDS Curriculum and makes their classroom learning more purposeful. Members of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) have reminded the school and community to make responsible choices during the holidays and always. Their bilingual holiday message can be seen on the East Meadow School District Web page. SADD will be selling red rubber bracelets, similar to the Armstrong ones, but with the SADD imprint. Students will give these to friends to show they care for them and want them to be safe by letting them know that they will always be there for them. The goal of the health department is to enable our young people to have the skills to make health-promoting decisions and maintain positive health status throughout their lives.

OTHER SCHOOL NEWS

Greek Fair: One of the year’s highlight events promises to be the second annual sixth grade Greek Fair, which will take place on March 18, 2005. This all day event is being planned by a committee of teachers (primarily sixth grade) who will lead our students in an all day interdisciplinary extravaganza that will serve as a culminating activity for students in their study of ancient Greek civilization. Both the East Meadow Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club have lent their support to this endeavor.

Speech Department: Seventh and eighth grade students who attend Speech & Language with Mrs. Keym have enrolled in the My Soldier Program through Manhattanville College. This program allows groups and individuals to adopt-a-soldier who is on a "hardship tour" (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Kosovo, or Africa) for 3 or more months. The students get their "own soldier" and are using the language and listening skills they are working on to help others and to show support for the troops. Our soldiers are in the 32nd Medical Logistics Battalion at Logistical Support Area (LSA) Anaconda just north of Baghdad, Iraq. We have written our first letters to our troops and are eagerly awaiting their responses!

Metamorphosis: Metamorphosis 6 students continue their preparations for the Science Olympiad and Odyssey of the Mind competitions. The Science Olympiad requires student participants to use their math, science, and technology problem solving skills to solve challenges. This year’s competition is February 12, 2005. Woodland’s sixth grade Metamorphosis program will be sending two separate teams. On March 4^th we will have three sixth grade teams competiting in Odyssey of the Mind. They are working on the “Laugh-a-Thon,” “In Your Dreams,” and “Get the Message” events.

The Met 7 and Met 8 students have just finished their preliminary research for their projects, and are forming their hypotheses and the methods they will use to gather the data necessary to draw their conclusions. The students are developing research projects ranging from correlation studies to full experiments.

Cluster 1: The sixth graders in Cluster 1 recently donated a 1:10 Billion Scale model of the Solar System to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City. This model consists of ten painted watercolor panels that were researched, sketched, and painted by the students. The student’s model is accompanied by a student-authored guidebook and was on display in the Museum’s Honor Roll gallery during the holiday break. The museum’s education department plans to use the model during the class visits to help explain the size of the solar system to elementary school students. The students are currently in process of completing a second set of panels which will be displayed at Woodland.

In math, students are completing a Digital Portfolios Program. This program enables math students to infuse technology with the math curriculum. The students in the program incorporate specific mathematical skills along with PowerPoint and digital video.

In social studies, the classes will be studying the pre-Columbian cultures of Central and South America.

In literature, Mr. Santer’s group has begun preparations for the casting of their annual Ides of March performance of Julius Caesar. Rehearsals will take place throughout February.

Mrs. Allen’s literature students just finished reading, “Tuck Everlasting.” This book is loaded with literary devices, which the students became expert at locating. They are currently involved in presenting the movies they created for their last book project assignment.

In Mrs. Allen’s language arts classes, the students completed descriptive essays of one of their favorite places. The focus was on using descriptive language as well as the elements necessary to write a cohesive, three paragraph essay.

Cluster 2: As part of their study of ancient Egypt, the students in Cluster 2 recently completed an Egyptian cereal project that required them to design a box of cereal with an Egyptian theme and develop an advertisement campaign to convince their peers that everyone should buy and eat their cereal. Students had to design an advertisement promotion, use math in the form of graphs to illustrate the popularity of their cereal, provide an oral presentation to the class that can be in the form of a report, a song, a video or utilize computer technology skills that promotes their cereal.

Cluster 3: Cluster 3 has been very busy during the second quarter of the school year. In math, the students have been using customary and metric units of measurement to measure everyday items. For example, they shared their birth weights in pounds and ounces and measured their classroom in inches, feet, and yards. Using hand signals, the students will be able to identify the different metric

measurements. In science, the students have created a giant timeline of the history of the universe. They have begun to explore the solar system and its galaxies.

In social studies, the Egyptian unit has been well under way. The students researched foods eaten by the ancient Egyptians and created and presented “authentic” menus. No carb-free diets here! There were 40 – 50 different types of flat breads served. The students are currently preparing to be “mummified.” In language arts, after reading and thoroughly “dissecting” the Piggins’ mystery series, the students developed and wrote their own mystery stories. Poetry is also “blooming” in room 162, as the students created winter free verse, cinquain and haiku poems. Lastly, Mrs. Galligan, Mrs. Herman, Mrs. Ricchetti, and Mr. Vassel are very proud of the efforts put forth by so many of the students and have recognized that with their monthly “effort awards.” Happy and healthy New Year to all !

Cluster 4: Students recently completed a project that resulted in the creation of a Mesopotamian Museum. Models, reports and depictions of ancient Mesopotamian culture, such as the Rosetta stone, ziggaruts and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers emerged and will be on exhibit shortly in the display cabinets alongside the cafeteria.

One of Mrs. Marino’s 6^th grade Language Arts classes participated in a fantastic writing experience. They produced an entire issue of Kidsday, the section in Newsday written for kids, by kids. The project entailed a lot of productive thinking and writing! Each student wrote an article of his or her interest. The articles ranged from reviewing different ketchups to surviving childhood illnesses. Each student also contributed a unique joke, puzzle, recipe, and personal accomplishment. Because they were so enthusiastic, Kidsday offered the class several field assignments. They met celebrities such as Ashanti, Fan-3, and Kenan Thompson! They even saw the premiere of “Fat Albert” with the stars! Also, they experienced endangered animals from Busch Gardens and Sea World. It was a great learning experience for Woodland’s Cluster 4 students. Look for the articles in Kidsday the week of March 19^th.

PTA News: Check the calendar for a schedule of upcoming PTA meetings. Join us for the February 16^th meeting where Dr. Dillon, Superintendent, will provide a State of the District Report. In this mailing you will also find a flyer for the annual Founders Day Dinner that provides a scholarship program for East Meadow students. Please consider supporting this endeavor by attending the awards dinner on March 14, 2005.

Student Drop Off and Pick Up: Students cannot be dropped off and picked up in the teacher parking lots from 7:15 am to 3:15 pm. We ask that you respect this rule at all times. This restriction is to reduce the risk of students being hurt as teachers arrive in the morning or leave in the afternoon.

If you are dropping off or picking up students, it can only take place in front of the building on Wenwood Drive. We recognize that this can be a slow process, and ask that you plan accordingly (car pooling and leaving earlier would be helpful) and be patient when using your car to transport students. To improve traffic flow, it is requested that:

· Upon arrival to the front of the building, proceed to the farthest part of Wenwood Drive. Refrain from stopping as soon as you reach the school entranceway as this contributes to slowing down traffic.

· Do not make any U-Turns on Wenwood Drive.

· Drop off your youngster and leave immediately so as to allow the next car to drop off students. Cars that linger in front of the building contribute to the slow pace of traffic movement on Wenwood Drive.

Your cooperation in following these procedures and suggestions will be appreciated.