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Sutton Middle School February 2020 Sutton School News Photos and articles submitted by both Administration and Staff Page 1
Sutton Middle School February 2020 7 Grade- Social Studies th Mr. Cummins The 7 grade just completed their Australia and New Zealand th unit in Social Studies class. While studying the geography of this area of the world, students focused on a particular geographical feature or region. The students then created postcard posters and skits about their feature or region. The postcards and skits were extremely creative and it gave the students a great understanding of the land of Australia and New Zealand. Following this, students learned about the aboriginal and indigenous cultures of these countries. To conclude this unit, students worked in groups to create an Australia and New Zealand alphabet book. For each letter, they chose a word associated with this unit and had to identify its significance along with an illustration for each word. The 7 grade really enjoyed this project and th we look forward to our unit on Ancient Greece! Page 2
Sutton Middle School February 2020 Sixth Grade Computers with Mrs. Wa6s - Coding Con:nues Scratch ~ Sixth graders moved on to block coding. There are many resources out there. The one the students have really enjoyed is called Scratch. It was created by the folks at MIT and is a free, well-designed website where kids can create their own stories and games. They can share their crea@ons with the world or simply play games that have been created by others. There is a great sec@on on their site for parents: h6p:// scratch.mit.edu/parents/ Students made code for “An Unusual Discovery”, which was a combined effort of Google and Scratch. li6leBits ~ Students have been crea@ng with liKleBits, using soMware and circuits, together. In groups of the three, the sixth graders have been making animated gifs, including a waving American flag, a flower in the growing process, and mythical creatures Page 3
Sutton Middle School February 2020 dancing. liKleBits also allows students to create music to go with their visuals, leOng them be crea@ve in different ways from Scratch. Check out their website for more informa@on @ liKlebits.com. Page 4
Sutton Middle School February 2020 7th Grade Science Students are mid-unit in our studies of forces that shape Earth’s surface. We have looked at gravity, rivers, and glaciers and soon will look at wind and waves as forces that move sediments and work to continually change the landscape. Here students are using sand as sediment material and small rocks as glaciers to create various landforms. We followed up this activity by writing descriptions and making drawings showing how these landforms are created. Page 5
Sutton Middle School February 2020 Eighth Grade English Eighth grade English is two-thirds of the way through Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. We are reading about the American Revolution and the Sons of Liberty. While some of the content is new, many students recognize local Massachusetts places included in the novel, such as Faneuil Hall, Charlestown, and Milton. Much of our focus has been on indirect characterization and how what a person says shows who they are. Students have been annotating many quotes and analyzing how a character’s personality can be observed through their words. This approach enables students to think more deeply about characters and people in everyday life. 6th Grade Social Studies Mr. Moseley We wrapped up February with the end of our Egyptian Unit. The students learned many important concepts about the development of ancient Egyptian society and the Kingdom of Kush. One important innovation of ancient Egypt was the creation of a durable paper-like material known as Papyrus. Students had the opportunity to create their own papyrus and even write in Egyptian hieroglyphics on their piece of papyrus. Page 6
Sutton Middle School February 2020 Egypt was not the only ancient civilization that relied on the Nile River to survive. We also focused on the often forgotten region of Nubia. Located south of Egypt, Nubia was home to many natural resources that the Egyptians coveted. The people of this region, given the name Kushites by the Egyptians, traded many of their valued resources with the Egyptians. The students took part in an activity where they had the opportunity to act as traders from the regions of Egypt, Nubia, and Central Africa. They bartered for tokens, which represented goods from their region, with the goal to get the widest variety of goods possible. The goal of this activity was for students to get a visual understanding of how powerful the Kushites were in the trade networks of the Nile River. Page 7
Sutton Middle School February 2020 8th Grade History Fun! We are just starting our Medieval Europe unit in 8th Grade World History. While we will get to kings and queens, siege warfare, and the Magna Carta, we started by looking at the Vikings and their influence on Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. When you talk about the Vikings, it's important to know about their Longships. We took some time in class recently to read about Longships and their style, design, and purpose. After gathering the information, we got into groups to build our version out of Legos. See the photos below of some excellent examples. Our next project will be to build various types of siege weapons to storm the castle. Scholas@c Book Fair in the Library Page 8
Sutton Middle School February 2020 The Scholas@c Book fair was a GREAT success!!! Thank you to everyone who par@cipated! Profits from the book fair will be used to purchase books, makerspace materials and supplies for the library. During the event some students par@cipated in games including coin wars, a lollipop pull, a raffle basket, and a book raffle. Dona@ons from these games were used to help teachers build and refresh their classroom libraries and to support kids in need through Scholas@c’s All for Books program. Most importantly, the book fair allowed students to select books to read for their own enjoyment. Page 9
Sutton Middle School February 2020 Art News! Apparently we were hungry in the art room this month because we choose our favorite desserts to render in mixed media. What is mixed media you ask? 7th graders can tell you that mixed media is a combination of materials to make art. We choose the best qualities of each material to highlight: watercolor pencil to lay a base coat, colored pencil to add texture and value, Copic marker to add contrast and acrylic paint for the highlights. The results are displayed outside the middle school office and are making me hungry! Page 10
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Sutton Middle School February 2020 As the weather gets balmier we’ll be studying weather. In the online simulation pictured above, students will be playing the role of meteorologist. As they “drive around” their mobile weather station, students will measure various weather components in various weather conditions. Be sure to discuss these weather components with your student while watching the evening news together before dinner. SKY ZONE FLIGHT NIGHT! Who: SuKon Students, Families, and Friends What: Join the SMS Student Council for a “Spirit Night” of fun! When: Thursday, March 19th from 3:00 – 8:00 pm (students must arrange their own transporta@on) Where: Sky Zone in Westborough 290 Turnpike Road, Route 9 Westborough, MA 01581 Why?: Fundraiser for the SMS Student Council Please see aKached flier for details or visit: hKps://www.skyzone.com/ westborough *** We strongly advise that jumpers guarantee their jump :me by purchasing :ckets in advance through the Sky Zone website.*** *** All jumpers MUST have a waiver. Waivers must be filled out by a parent or legal guardian. Waivers can be found on the Sky Zone website. They can be Page 13
Sutton Middle School February 2020 filled out electronically in advance or printed out and brought with you the night of the event.*** ***Upon arrival, please check in with Sky Zone staff – tell them that you are from Su6on & tell them what grade you are in!*** If you have any ques@ons, please call (x3120) or email Ms. Corron at corrona@suKonschools.net *** This is a MINI OLYMPICS event. The grade with the most par@cipants wins 1st place in the event!*** ***Each student that aKends will be entered into a raffle to win a candy giM basket! *** See Ms. Corron or Ms. DeTrolio at Sky Zone to fill out your raffle @cket!!! Page 14
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Sutton Middle School February 2020 Coming in MARCH… It’s almost @me for our 7th annual SPRING GREENING clothing drive to benefit Cradles to Crayons. We will be seeking new or gently used children’s clothing sizes infant to adult medium. There will be dona@on bins at all main offices (ELC, ELEM, MS, and HS). In addi@on, NEW this year, we will also be hos@ng a BOOK DRIVE to benefit our local community. We will be collec@ng gently used books for children, young adults, and adults. Please consider spring cleaning your book shelves and dona@ng to the book drive! This project is organized by our Project 351 student ambassador, Navjot Khatri, with the help of the CSL Club! We will be sending out detailed informa:on about both of these drives very soon. These service projects are being completed in conjunc@on with Project 351, part of the Governor’s youth leadership ini@a@ve. 7th Grade World Language While the city of New Orleans is famous for its colorful parades and balls leading up to Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent, other cultures around the world mark this time of year with Carnaval celebrations. One Hispanic city that is famous for its special costumes is Ponce, Puerto Rico. These scary costumed creatures are called vejigantes. All 7th grade World Language students worked to make their own interpretation of these unique and colorful masks. Here are the winners for the third annual Vejigante Contest: Page 16
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