January 26, 2023

Vol. 4, Issue 25

Following Your Child's Progress in IC

With first semester grades on their way, this is a good time to provide a reminder/introduction on how to keep current on a daily basis about your child's progress in middle school through Infinite Campus.

Infinite Campus, or IC, is the main data warehouse of your child's educational progress. Downloading the IC app to your phone allows you to see your child's schedule and assigned teachers, grades on assignments, including the designation of "Missing" immediately after the teacher enters the information in their electronic grade book. The same type of notification will arrive to your phone for attendance where you can see immediately if your child has been marked absent or tardy. There are a variety of options in the app's settings for receiving notifications, including choices on the types of notifications you want to receive and those you do not want to receive. For directions for using and downloading the IC app to your phone, see the below link, which also includes information on how to configure the appropriate notification settings in the app. Note that you will need to download IC through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. IC can also be accessed from a computer.

Student Voice Collective Teacher Supply Drive

Our SVC is keeping busy with many projects, and their latest is a teacher supply drive. The following is directly from our SVC:

The SVC is so excited to be starting our supply drive, and to help our teachers restock their supplies. Over the course of the year many supplies have been used up as well as broken/lost. We have great appreciation for anyone who would like to donate pencils, graph paper, masking tape, loose leaf paper, scissors, pens and sharpies, as those are the most needed items. We would also appreciate whiteboard markers, electric pencil sharpeners, whiteboard erasers, colored paper and cardstock, however, these items are less needed.

If you bring in supplies, please drop them off in the library media center anytime from the 30th of January to the 17th of February.

Thank you so much for supporting our teachers and fellow students,

-SVC

The Root of All Education?

Below are photos from Jordan Meiller's sixth grade Language Arts classes of students participating in a Latin roots scavenger hunt. Students searched the room for examples of words with Latin roots in them. They looked through books, newspapers and on resources posted within the classroom. This activity allowed students to use their knowledge of Latin roots to define words in context and study for their final test on this topic. 

Also included below and in the Quick Links and Upcoming Dates sections are photos from Ms. Meiller's Social Studies classes and their ancient Egypt board game project. Working in small groups, students created board games to share their learning about an element of ancient Egyptian society. Groups then traded off playing one another's games as a way to learn more about ancient Egypt. 

Singing Now and into the Future

Students in our 8th grade classes are now beginning the journey of charting a course for high school. Counselors from West High along with our own Hamilton Middle counselors are in the process of visiting 8th grade classrooms to discuss high school options. Included in this process was a recent visit from Members of the West High student run a cappella groups who came to Margaret Jenks' Choir classes to perform for (and with) the 8th grade students, and to answer questions about West. Their teacher, Anthony Cao, talked about curricular and extra curricular arts opportunities and led the students in some West High vocal warm-ups.

Spring Parent-Teacher Conferences

Early Spring Parent-Teacher conferences are headed our way. Official dates for these conferences are the evening of Thursday, February 9, and all day on Friday, February 10 (a non school day for students). We are also able to accommodate conferences on different days on an as needed basis. These conferences are designed to be in-person, though we can of course accommodate alternatives such as Zoom and phone meetings as requested. Be on the lookout for communication coming soon from Hamilton Middle teachers with more information on scheduling individual conferences.

Photo Finish:

The rest of the 8th Grade clay hand building figure photos from Sara McRae's Art classes!