April 17-21, 2023

Pollen, pollen, pollen! Students are a little miserable right now with heavy allergy time, but it will soon pass (thankfully)! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday. Here are a few upcoming notes:
 
Battle of the Books: If your student is participating in Battle, Mrs. Pacheco is asking students interested in the Battle team to submit an essay. Battle has been so much fun this year, the books have been great, and the Jeopardy games are incredibly entertaining. Thank you to Mrs. Prouty and Mrs. Heninger for assisting the 6th graders. Check with your participating student to see if he/she is planning to submit an essay.
 
Greek Day: The most memorable day of the year is almost upon us!  If your 6th grader remembers anything about 6th grade, it'll be Greek Day, held this year on April 25th. A handout from Mrs. Meehan went home and is due back by Friday. If your student regularly orders Yay Lunch, the luncheon items sent in are sufficient for a delicious Greek Day lunch and you could cancel the order for that day. Volunteers really help make this work smoothly - if you are able to help, please note your availability on the form. Thank you!
 
Snack: We have reinstituted Snack Time in Middle School! For the 6th graders, snack will usually be in LA class, because that is generally where the students are during the snack time window of 9:45 - 10am or so. (Classes switch at 9:51.) Please be sure the snack is easy to eat, won't make a crumbly mess, is on the healthy side (banana, an apple, breakfast bar, etc.) I told the students I don't want to get overly involved in their snack ("is this allowed, is that allowed" because I'll mainly say, check the sodium content.) Since I'm not doing the grocery shopping, the guideline I'd request for now would be please pack what you would consider a nutritious snack to tide them over to lunch at 12:30pm.  It'll be a new/old routine to reinstitute since COVID so for the next few days we'll see how we do!
 
Laptop chargers: I did an inventory of laptop chargers in our classroom cart and we were missing 9 chargers. Mr. Chris supplied us with 7 brand new chargers and we are ordering 2 new ones. However, all of the chargers are now secured to the cart and we're not having the zip-tie cut from the laptop cart for the rest of the year, to ensure that the laptop/charger pairing is intact for your student next year in 7th grade. If you see a charger around the house that could potentially be an STM laptop charger, please send it in!
 
House Meetings: Please have the House Meeting shirts washed and ready for a House Meeting on Friday, April 21 and again on Friday, April 28th. 
 
Interims: The year is chugging to an inevitable end (we have had way too good of a year so far for it to end!) and interims will be going home on April 28th. 
 
Google Classroom Homework Board: An innovation has been the Homework Board which is electronically updated. I haven't received much (or any) feedback - how is it working and do you know how to access the Homework Board? It replaced the photo we took and posted each day. 
 
Academic News: 
 
7th Reading (C. S. Lewis group): We began Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus in class. There is a Chapters 1 & 2 quiz on Wednesday, 4/19. 
6th Reading (all groups): We have started Mythology and read Creation and Prometheus early this week. We are also learning about the 12 Labors of Hercules. 
6th LA: Trickster Tales creative writing! A fun, short structured creative writing unit before writing our original Greek myths. 
 
Have a wonderful week!  
 
Jodie Morgan