SUPER HEROES!

BENJAMIN LOGAN MIDDLE SCHOOL

MARCH 2016 VOLUME 7, ISSUE 7

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATTERS

Parents and community,

Next generation assessments continue in the state of Ohio this year with some changes. PARCC no longer exists for our little ones, but AIR (American Institute of Research) is provid-ing the state assessments this year. AIR provid-ed the Science and SS assessments last year and will be adding ELA and Math. We believe this will make assessments more streamline and con-densed for the students. There was also no win-

ter assessments this year like last year and all assessments will be computer based. Our students will begin testing in and around April 19th and the testing will end the first week of May. The maximum number of assessments any student will take at BLMS will be three. For your son or daughter’s specific grade level assessments please keep an eye out for letters going home the first week of March. If you do not have a letter by March 9th please call the middle school office and we will get you another letter.

Our students have been working hard on meeting the state standards and learning to use technology skills, higher level thinking skills, and applying what they have learned to solve complex problems. They are ready and prepared for the next generation assessments and the 21st century skills they will have to demonstrate on those assessments.

Thank you for your continued support of BLMS!

Sincerely,

Jeff McPheron Jeff McPheron, Principal

Benjamin Logan MS

March Important Dates

1: After School Detention 4: Spring Picture Day 7: OMUN Spotlight 3-5:30pm Art Club: 3-4:30pm 7-11: M.S. Book Fair in the Media Center 8: After School Detention 10: Parent/Teacher Conferences 4-7:00pm 11: Parent/Teacher Conferences 9-12 p.m. No School for Students 13-15: OMUN Event 13: Daylight Savings Time Begins (Spring Forward One Hour) 14: Student Council Pi(e) Day Assembly 2:30pm in Gym 15: After School Detention 18: End of 3rd 9 Weeks 21: Art Club 3-4:30pm Board of Education Meeting 7:00pm 22: After School Detention 24: Study Tables Grade Cards Distributed to Students 25-29: Spring Break No School 30: Tea Ceremony for Japanese Culture Students

Exploring Career Options

BLMS 8th grade students recently had the opportunity to explore a variety of careers through an online website www.Ohiomeansjobs.com. Ohio Means Jobs gives individuals the opportunity to learn more about their career interests and in-demand jobs, build résumés, search for college and training programs, create a budget based on future

expenses, and develop meaningful academic and career plans for high school and beyond.

Through a Career Cluster Inventory, students answer a series of 80 questions that are based on your personal interests. The program then generates these responses into a list of career options that best relate to your interests. Students can investigate careers within each career area and learn more about: educational requirements, training, skills needed, job expectations and possible salaries.

Students are then asked to select their three top career areas and then choose three jobs (within that area) that interest them. Many different job possibilities are listed for each area. Students will use this information for future assignments and preparation for job shadowing and other career opportu-nities in the near future.

Susan Headings BLMS Guidance Counselor

BLMS TECHNOLOGY

Technology is moving forward at Benjamin Logan. In the upcoming weeks the Middle School, as well as the other building in the district will be going through a complete wireless upgrade. Wireless is what allows you to connect to the internet either with your tablet, laptop or even your phone. It also allows you to work on certain software at the BLMS like Read Naturally.

What this means to you: the teachers will be able to have a classroom full of laptops or Chrome Books and the students be able to work on things where before maybe they had to go to one of our labs for this to happen. It means that more classrooms will be able to work using mobile technology where before our old wireless network wouldn’t allow that to happen.

I think in the months to come and looking towards next year , you will see a lot of changes on how

teachers and student teach and learn in the classrooms using mobile technology such as laptops and

Chrome Books.

Brian Greavu

BLSD Technology Coordinator

5TH GRADE READING

5TH GRADE ELA

ALL ABOUT THE 5TH GRADE

The fifth graders in Mrs. Wishin’s and Mrs. Gill’s Language Arts classes have started reading a new novel titled Number the Stars. This book is about a 12-year old girl, Annemarie, living in German-occupied Denmark in 1943. Annemarie’s best friend, Ellen Rosen, is Jewish. Ellen moves in with Annemarie’s family to avoid being “relocated” by the Nazis, while Ellen’s parents are also in hiding. Annemarie has to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen’s life, along with Ellen’s parents. The students enjoy reading this novel because there are many exciting twists and turns in the plot!

The fifth graders have been learning many skills to help them with their fiction and nonfiction

reading skills. They have been adding notes in their interactive notebooks

for finding main idea, using supporting details, and writing summaries.

Being able to find the main idea and use supporting details will help the

students as they write both fiction and nonfiction summaries.

What’s better year-round school or a traditional calendar? A majority of the fifth grade believes in a traditional school year. For the month of February, students have been learning how to write five paragraph opinion essays. To kick off the essay, students were given three articles and a diagram that showed the differences between a traditional and balanced calendar. Fifth graders were then asked to write their essays using evidence from those articles to argue their side. We discussed the importance of an introduction and conclusion paragraph to state your

opinion and tell the reader the key points. Students worked hard on their essays and will continue to practice writing five paragraph essays in the future!

ALL ABOUT THE 5TH GRADE

The fifth grade social studies classes are continuing to study ancient civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. The first civilization they are learning about is the Mayans. They have discussed their cities, art, agriculture, religion, and other aspects of Mayan life. They even played a computer simulation of the Mesoamerican ball game that the Mayans once played.

The classes will also be studying the Aztecs, Incas, and the Mississippians.

Some of the class projects will be Aztec masks, Mayan glyph writing, and

Incan “quipus,” or math recording devices. Final projects will include flip books to compare the differ-

ent civilizations, and an inquiry activity in which the students will analyze various artifacts to try to dis-

cover where they came from and for what they might have been used.

SOCIAL STUDIES

MATH

5th grade math students finished up a unit on decimals. They worked on rounding, comparing, add-ing, subtracting, as well as multiplying and dividing decimals. Students also learned how to use area models to solve multiplication and division problems involving decimals. They had fun solving prob-lems this way.

Students also have been working sample math questions for the upcoming AIR Assessment at the end of March. They answered the questions on the computer so they could practice entering an-swers using the different input methods before the assessment.

We are beginning our unit on fractions. We have been reviewing equivalent fractions and how to make them. Students have also been working on adding fractions with like, as well as unlike, de-nominators. They will be able to multiply and divide fractions and apply what they have learned to real life situations, such as baking. Fractions can be a lot of FUN!!!

ALL ABOUT THE 5TH GRADE

Most recently, the fifth grade science classes have been working to

complete a unit on life sciences. For fifth graders, the focus in this

unit is on ecosystems. This includes recognizing biotic versus abi-

otic factors in an environment, knowing what role organisms have

in their ecosystem, and understanding how the non-living factors

affect diversity in any particular habitat. We spent part of our time

learning about physical and behavioral adaptations that allow organisms to survive in their environ-

ment. A project that we worked on during Achievement Period was to create an original hybrid

that featured characteristics and adaptations of two different animals. Students drew their hybrid in

its environment and wrote an explanation of its features, adaptations, and its new name which was a

combination of both original organisms’ names. Some examples are:

Zebra + Shark = Zark

Elephant + giraffe = Elegraffe

Monkey + koala = Monkla

Cheetah + Zebra = Cheebra

To finish our year before testing, fifth graders will be learning about different types of energy. We

should be up to the challenge in May!

SCIENCE

ALL ABOUT THE 6TH GRADE

Students in Mr. Penwell and Mr. Shadley’s classes just recently concluded a unit study on Economics. The students studied a wide range of topics from scarcity of resources and goods to how supply, demand and competition affects the prices of goods/services. The students did a mini-project where they located several items and the country they came from in their own homes. The students learned that a majority of our goods are made in other countries and shipped to the United States.

After concluding this unit of study, the students have been working on timelines. Events on a time-line are organized chronologically from the earliest to most recent dates. In addition, different groups of people around the world use different calendars based on their religious beliefs. This study will lead students into exploring ancient river civilizations and how their inventions have impacted our world today.

SOCIAL STUDIES

SCIENCE

The students in Mr. Shadley’s and Mr. Penwell’s 6th grade science classes are wrapping up a unit on matter. The students have examined the properties of matter such as weight, volume, density, and mass. We also learned the difference between physical and chemical properties of matter. Characteristics that can be observes or measured without changing

the identity of the object are called physical properties. Most of these can be observed by using your five senses.

We then went on to introduce atoms and elements. Students learned the parts of an atom as well as their location and electrical charge. Did you know that atoms are extremely small? You could put sev-eral million atoms on the period at the end of this sentence. Students were also introduced to the pe-riodic table of elements and some of the information that you can get from it such as an elements atomic number, atomic mass, and the chemical symbol. We are finishing up the unit by discussing molecules, compounds, and mixtures.

This can be a challenging unit for students because they cannot see most of the information that we learn about. However, by using visual aids, pictures and different types of manipulatives the students have seemed to catch on to the material and expand their science knowledge.

ALL ABOUT THE 6TH GRADE

There is a major emphasis on the understanding of ratios and proportions in the Common Core Sixth Grade Standards. The sixth grade students have been studying ratios and proportions. The students will be using ratios and proportions to represent everyday situations and will be conducting surveys and displaying the results visually. The students will be playing vid-eo games using ratio skills to master video challenges. Students will be

watching various video clips that relate to real-world ratios and proportions to help them with their studies.

The Iditarod is a 1,200 mile dog sled race across the Alaskan wilderness. The Iditarod always begins the first Saturday in March. This year’s race will begin March 5th. Sixth grade students will be follow-ing mushers that are racing in the Iditarod this year and will keep track of their musher’s progress along the course. As a culminating event, the students will participate in the annual 6th Grade Ikidarod, at the end of the school year. Applying STEM principles, the students will do various activi-ties, amongst all subjects, that include engineering their own sled, applying real-world Science, Technology and Math skills to the study of the Last Great Race on Earth. The Ikidarod is our version of the Iditarod where students build their own sleds and become the mushers and dogs. The students will run a course on the school grounds which is always a lot of fun!

In addition, Sixth grade students will be creating their own Geometric Cities to demonstrate their

understanding of real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area and volume.

The students will need to bring in a pizza box to use as the foundation of their cities.

MATH

ELA

The 6th graders continue to rise to our expectations this year. They have shown a lot of effort and improvement since the fall. We are currently in the middle of a unit on Facing Fear. We read a short story called “The Ravine” and discussed various aspects of characterization. We have also been work-ing on the elements of plot and how characters develop throughout a story.

To continue the unit we are digging a little deeper into fiction text and studying the effect different words have on the meaning and tone of a story. We will also be reviewing and learning more about various points of views. We will continue reading short stories, but will also be starting another literature circle on Wonder by R.J. Palacio. This is a great book about a boy with a facial deformity who is entering school for the first time as a 5th grader. There is a lot of humor in it, and we believe the kids will really enjoy it. We are looking forward to the great conversations and ideas the kids will bring to the table.

RIGHT TO READ DOOR DECORATING CONTEST!