Please read below about some general announcements, current curriculum topics in the middle school classes, and important dates.

General Notes

St. George Auction – Ciao Bella! Come out and support St. George School at the Vita Bella Auction. We hope to see you on Saturday evening!

Spelling Bee – Congratulations to Jennifer Palomo for winning the St. George Spelling Bee! Jennifer will be competing in the King/Snohomish Regional Scripps Spelling Bee this Sunday, March 25th. Support Jennifer and St. George School from 1-3pm at Town Hall in downtown Seattle.

Report Cards – Report cards were sent home on Monday, March 19th. Please make sure to sign and return report card envelopes.

Honors Assembly – We will be recognizing 5th-8th graders who achieved Honor Roll after Prayer Service on Monday, March 26th. We hope you can join us.

Curriculum Notes from Mrs. Schroeder

Social Studies/Writing: The students are working in groups to create a magazine about Ancient Egypt. They are also preparing an Ancient Egyptian Museum for the younger students. When we get closer to finishing the project, I will let you know so you can come to school and celebrate their learning.

Religion: We are studying the early days of the Israelites. Students have been learning about Samson, Deborah, and Ruth. Please be sure that your child is engaging in acts of Christian service by completing his/her service hours.

Social Studies: The seventh grade students are busy preparing for our Medieval Fair. They will be lords, ladies, knights, priests, monks, nuns, traveling musicians, and serfs as they entertain the 3 -5 grade students and teach them a bit about life during the Middle Ages.

Religion: We are studying the Beatitudes- Jesus’ recipe for a happy life. Students will create collages with pictures of people living out the Beatitudes today. Any magazines you would like to donate would sure be appreciated.

Social Studies: The students are learning about the major differences between the Union and Confederate armies. We will soon study the most notable battles of the Civil War and students will create a map/diorama of the battle.

Religion: We begin Chapter 14 in our study of church history. We are studying the church during the 18th Century. This includes the history of the church in the United States.

Students have three prayers to memorize this trimester. Do remind them to practice those prayers.

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Curriculum Notes from Mrs. Vincenzo

Reading: We are continuing our work with Tuck Everlasting, analyzing plot development, character motivation, and theme. On Monday we will have a quiz on Chapters 14-19.

Reading: We are continuing our work with poetry. The students have been identifying figurative language (simile, metaphor, and personification) and imagery in a variety of poems and analyzing the effects of these literary devices.

Language Arts: After reading the students’ expository essays, I discovered that many students need some extra practice elaborating on their ideas. We have spent the past week focusing on the trait of ideas and how to elaborate using specific details.

Reading: As I told the 8th graders, they knocked my socks off with their To Kill a Mockingbird projects. They worked really hard on their final projects and demonstrated impressive knowledge about the book. We will be finishing up the year with Shakespeare! To kick off our Shakespeare unit, we will be taking a field trip to see a performance of Romeo & Juliet on Wednesday, March 28th. Please be sure to turn in signed permission slips along with $17.

Language Arts: The eighth graders are continuing their study of Vocabulary in the Wordly Wise series.

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Curriculum Notes from Ms. Kusak

A word about Retakes for Math Tests: A reminder of our policy for math retakes. We encourage students to retake tests until they feel they fully understand the math.

Here's what they need to do: Pick up and fill out a retake request form within 2 weeks of the original test. Students must identify areas needing improvement and specify how they plan to prepare for a retake. Parents must sign this form.

It is our experience that students who retake the test without preparing yields poor results. It is also essential that your student writes specifically HOW they will prepare for a retake, identifying the exact things that they missed on the original test.

Science: Students will choose a topic of interest regarding either energy production or an appliance that saves energy, i.e. solar, wind, wave, underwater turbines, hydro-electric, geothermal, and biomass or coca-cola cellphones, hydrogen cars, non-electric refrigeration, etc...

Suggestions from parents are welcome.

Science: For the next two weeks, we will be looking at all the ways that electricity is generated and then converted to other forms of energy.

Eighth grade : Our next unit is on transformations in the coordinate plane: translations, rotations, reflections, and dilations of two-dimensional figures. Students will be able to show and explain the math for changes in orientation, position and scale factor.

I will be assigning a transformation poster which will include each of four translations, vocabulary and the rules that apply to each.

Sixth & Seventh Grade : As sixth graders navigate the formulas for circles (circumference and area) and seventh graders work with the volume of cylinders, prisms and pyramids, I find that they need a great deal of practice. It will be helpful if they can talk with you about how volume fits into your everyday life. This includes but is not limited to the ounces, pints, quarts, and gallons of anything you purchase. It could be the amount of detergent in a load of laundry, the amount of buttermilk in the pancake mix, the amount of gas in the tank, etc... If you buy milk by the gallon, tell them why. How much heating oil does your furnace consume monthly? If you had to paint the kitchen, how do you decide how many gallons of paint you’ll need?

As an alternative assessment of their understanding, I am assigning two posters with real-life applications of perimeter, area, and volume. The first will relate to rectangular figures and the second will be about circles and cylinders. The sixth grade will not address volume of cylinders.