Ayer Shirley Middle School
Weekly Update 12/2/24
Important Dates
10/20 - Grade 8 Nashoba Tech Field Trip
11/3 - No School (Professional Development)
11/5 - Picture Re-Take Day
11/5 - 90 min early release (Parent Teacher Conferences)
11/6 - 90 min early release (Parent Teacher Conferences)
11/6 - Halloween Dance
Trimester 1
- Start - 8/26
- End - 11/24
- Report Cards Issued - 12/7
11/5 & 11/6 Parent Teacher Conferences
Trimester 2
- Start - 11/30
- End - 3/12/27
- Report Cards Issued - 3/22/27
Trimester 3
- Start - 3/13/27
- Report Cards Issued - Last Day of School
Featured Staff - Ms. Tenney
This is my 5th year teaching 6th and 7th grade math at ASRMS! When I’m not at school, I love spending time outdoors by the lake with my family. My twin girls are now 20 months old and definitely keep me busy! I also enjoy working on puzzles, baking sweet treats, and getting creative with crafts..
Featured Team - Purple Team
ELA:
6th Grade: Sixth graders are finishing up their first unit in Amplify: Dahl and Narrative Writing. Students are learning about Dahl’s experiences at school as a young boy, and recognizing obvious differences between what school life was like in his time versus today! Very soon, they will begin writing their first formal essay and take the end of unit assessment.
7th Grade: Seventh graders are working hard while reading the memoir, Red Scarf Girl, by Ji-li Jiang. Students are keeping track of Ji-li’s level of hope when life as she once knew gets turned upside down. Right now, Ji-li’s level of hope is down, will that change? They are doing an excellent job working with this complex text!
Math:
6th Grade: Our 6th graders recently wrapped up their first math unit, which focused on operations with rational numbers. Students worked hard developing their skills with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals. We are now moving into our next unit, ratios and rates, which is always a student favorite! This unit allows students to explore real-world problem-solving and make meaningful connections between numbers and everyday situations.
7th Grade: Our 7th graders just wrapped up an exciting first unit on ratios, proportional relationships, and scale factors! Students can now easily identify proportional relationships in graphs, tables, and equations, and they are using these skills to solve real-world unit rate problems. Right now, they are bringing math to life by using scale factors to create scaled drawings of their favorite cartoon characters. Up next, we will dive into our second unit: rational number operations.
Social Studies:
6th Grade: Currently, students are adapting to the C.E.R (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) methodology by citing textual evidence to support a historical claim. Students are applying the CER method to the lives of early humans and the major turning points such as: changes to body, migration, tool making, and agriculture. This will culminate in an expository essay differentiating between the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras of the Stone Age
7th Grade: Namaste. Students are progressing nicely through cluster 3 of Unit 1 on the Indian Subcontinent. In particular, an in-depth analysis of Hinduism, the world’s oldest religion. We will look at the sacred texts, rituals, beliefs, reincarnation, and the concept of Brahma & Atman.
*Did you know: India has the world’s highest vegetarian population with 40% of the population following a vegetarian diet.
Science:
6th Grade: Sixth graders have been wrapping up our first unit, Light and Matter. Throughout this unit, students investigated how light interacts with different materials, including how light can be reflected, transmitted, or absorbed. They explored the phenomenon of a one-way mirror and developed scientific explanations using evidence and reasoning to explain what they observed. Next, students will begin a unit on thermal energy where they will investigate how thermal energy moves between objects and how particle motion helps explain changes in temperature. Students will participate in hands-on investigations and develop models to explain how energy transfers from warmer objects to cooler objects.
7th Grade: In seventh grade, students are deep into the first chemistry unit, which focuses on chemical reactions and the changes that occur when substances interact. Students are investigating what happens when different materials are combined, gathering evidence of chemical reactions, and developing models to explain how atoms rearrange to form new substances.
Reading:
6th Grade: Our 6th graders have finished our first unit on summarization and have now moved on to making inferences. In this unit, students are using text evidence and background information to infer information that isn’t directly stated by the author. The 6th graders are excelling at this skill so far! They are also continuing their word work, working with the long “e” sound.
7th Grade: The 7th graders have also finished their first unit on summarization and have moved to making inferences. The 7th graders are also using text evidence and background knowledge to create inferences, but are doing so with more advanced texts. Their word work this week and next week is focusing on the roots “voc” and “dict”.
