Middle School News

Dear Middle School Families,

Students hit the ground running in January after they came back from their Winter break. Even with two snow days, the Middle School still managed to pack in a lot. A couple of highlights we would like to point out are Catholic Schools Week, the middle school service trip with AABA, and the Staff-Student Basketball game.

Although we sadly missed some great events scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of Catholic Schools Week, we did have a fantastic back-half of the week packed with events. On Wednesday, we started off the day with an all-school Mass attended by the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Boston, Eileen McLaughlin.

On Thursday, students had the opportunity to serve their community in partnership with the American Arab Benevolent Association (AABA). Students spent the afternoon engaging with elderly adults at a local assisted living community, playing games, talking, and learning about their lives. One of our 6th-grade students, Griffin Miller, had this to say about the experience:

"In Leadership Seminar, the middle school students have talked about what we can do to make our school better, but we have also started thinking about how we can give back to the community and finish our community service hours. Ms. Kfoury is a member of the Board of Directors at AABA, a local senior housing facility, which we had the idea of spending the afternoon so we could make the residents’ day. We just went to AABA on Thursday, and we brought Dunkin coffee and doughnuts for them and games to play with them. I know I had a great time getting to know new people and learning new games with them!"

On Friday, students wrapped up the day with our annual Staff-Student basketball game which the whole school came to watch. Middle school teachers Mr. Pritchett, Mr. O'Connor, Ms. Stawowczyk

and Ms. Pereyra participated, among other faculty. Luckily for the teachers, the staff was able to secure a narrow victory of 17-16 over the students and keep their streak alive.

Outside of Catholic Schools Week, the students engaged in a number of activities and projects that they wrote about below.

We hope you all are having a wonderful Winter season and have taken the opportunity to enjoy the snowfall!

-Middle School Team

February 1

• 3-4 Basketball Game at Our Lady’s Academy at 1:00 p.m.

February 6

• No School (Infant - Grade 8) - Professional Development- Staff Meetings

February 13

• No EDP
  

February 14

• 5-8 Girls Basketball at St. Columbkille at 12:00 p.m.

• 5-6 Boys Basketball at St. Columbkille at 1:00 p.m.

February 16-20

• No School (Infant - Grade 8) - February Break

February 23

• Welcome Back!

February 26

• Winter Wonderland Dance (PreK-2) at 4:00 p.m.

February 28

• 5-6 Boys Basketball Game at St. Columbkille at 12:00 p.m.

8th Grade ELA by Adira Jones:

In Ms. Falcone's 8th grade ELA class, we are reading Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. This memoir is about Wiesel's struggles of growing up as a Jew during the Holocaust and later on being forced into labour at the Auschwitz concentration camp. As a child, he came from an extremely religious Jewish family who lived in Sighet, Romania. Over time, the Germans slowly took away more and more of their rights, starting with forcing them to live in ghettos. For a while, they didn’t mind this; it had become their way of life. Then they were eventually taken out of the ghettos and were forced to go into the labor camps. Before they went to the camps, they were separated depending on age and gender. Weisel was able to stay with his father because he lied about his age, but this was the last he ever saw of his younger sister Tzipora and his mother, who were sent to the killing centers. He and his father were then moved to work at Auschwitz. During their time working there, they endured many horrifying and dehumanizing events. Although his father didn’t survive, he was later liberated and was able to reunite with his older sister. Weisel was later questioned on how he survived, and he answered that he survived to write. To educate people about the pain he and so many others endured during the Holocaust, so that history will never repeat itself. The memoir displays themes of Faith, loss of hope, and sorrow.

8th Grade US History by Nella Duggan & Kennedy McConnell:

In Ms. Falcone’s 8th grade History class, we are currently discussing the Road to Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and how the colonies were formed. Throughout this unit we have done multiple engaging activities and slideshows on these topics. Ms. Falcone has ensured that we have a firm understanding of the lessons and topics. She has also guaranteed we are well prepared for future units and real-life experiences. My classmates and I have all enjoyed learning about these topics, Ms. Falcone has made this learning experience fun and engaging while still keeping it informative and educational.

7th Grade ELA by Magnus:

During ELA, we have been reading the nail-biting bestseller, The Book Thief. This book tells the story of a young girl who becomes separated from her mother and is taken in by a foster family. We have also been working on our grammar by doing daily problems and weekly quizzes. We can't wait to keep reading this suspenseful story and try to understand it.

6th Grade Social Studies by Leo:

We are currently learning about the early humans of Mesopotamia, ancient civilizations, and empires. Mesopotamia is an ancient civilization and is more than 6,000 years old. They were the first to form languages and jobs. The Sumerians also invented math and astronomy.

There were mostly kings, queens, farmers and artisans in Sumerian civilization. They created The Epic of Gilgamesh, written in cuneiform, on stone tablets. An epic is a long poem that tells the story of a hero. Usually from that time or even older times.

Then sometimes we watch episodes of CNN 10s, where we watch a video where we learn about events happening currently around the world. Then, after the episode, we write in our notebooks 3 things that happened, 2 questions, and what happened in the 10 out of 10 sections.

8th Grade Math by Jayden:

We were learning Algebra 1 in Math this year. We are learning about substitution and elimination, which are ways to solve systems of equations. Substitution involves isolating one variable in an equation and plugging it into another equation; Elimination uses addition and subtraction to cancel out one variable by aligning terms, making it ideal for equations in standard form. Our math teacher teaches us a lot of easy ways to solve systems of equations like subtracting and multiplying the original equation by the numbers that can make one of the variables become the opposite of the other equation, and then you can use elimination to solve the problem easily.

7th Grade Math by Nicole:

In 7th grade Math, the seventh graders are learning about geometry and trying to figure out if some triangles are congruent to each other. This is interesting because it's like a puzzle.

6th Grade Math by Renee:

In Math this month, we learned about percentages and dived into how to apply what we learn in the classroom to our everyday problems outside the classroom. We practice our skills on IXL and sometimes lightning jam in IXL. There were many quizzes and tests this month. We did worksheets related to sale prices.

6th Grade Latin by Kenzie:

In Mr. Pritchett’s sixth grade Latin class, we are learning about the Roman family or Familia Romana in Latin, and are also learning about new vocabulary, Pronouns, Declensions and much more. Mr. Pritchett also enjoys playing fun games with the students to help expand their Latin vocabulary and many other things. In Mr. Pritchett’s class, we are reading a book in all Latin and translating it as they go on to expand their Latin vocabulary. In the Latin book, it talks about the different members of the Roman family and their personality traits and their daily lives. In addition, our sixth grade class recently took a quiz focusing on the topics of translating vocabulary words, memorization of declensions, and telling if a few words in Latin were imperative or indicative (a statement or command). The chapter quiz also focused on conjunctions and verbs. A little bit ago our class did a Latin panel project. This panel consisted of 12 panels with the panels depicting various scenes that have happened in our books so far. Each of these panels include a sentence in Latin that's describing what's happening in the neatly colored in and illustrated images drawn on to the panels. This is what our sixth grade Latin class has been working on recently and we are looking forward to what February will have in store for our Latin class.

8th Grade Science by Diego Larios and Amdwin Mateo:

Recently in science class, we have been learning about different types of energies and how they are either conducted or insulated. Some of the energies that we have learned about are Kinetic energy (energy of motion), Thermal energy (energy of Kinetic vibrations), and Potential energy (energy of possible Kinetic energy). We have also learned about insulators and conductors. Conductors are metals and materials that conduct heat; insulators are materials that do not conduct heat.

7th Grade Science by Ellis:

In science, we did an experiment on eggs. We put them in vinegar and when we took them out we put them in other solutions to see what would happen. In the end we had a lot of fun and had a great time.

6th Grade Science by Stella Belculfine & Paloma Gaglia:

In 6th grade Science this month we have learned about different types of storms, like hurricanes and tornados. Some of the storms we have learned about are hurricanes, tornados, winter storms, thunderstorms, floods, and droughts. We recently finished that chapter of science of science and had a chapter quiz on it. Right now diving into a new chapter of the layer of Earth. We have learned about some of the layers of earth, like the inner part of earth, outer, mantle, and crust. We are doing an experiment by finding the thickness of all the layers of the atmosphere in kilometers, and finding things that represent the layers of Earth. For example some people are doing sports equipment and candy. We have to find the measurements of the things we are using for the experiment and make sure that if we add together the thickness it is equal to 100%. That is what we learned in science this month.

Middle School French by Griffin Miller:

In our middle school French class, we are learning about clothing and our French teacher, Monsieur Raymond, has a cool way of teaching it. We have recently started a project to do a skit about a clothing store that we will present in the Spring. We each get a part and lines and we each work on what we will say, what kind of store it is, and what the store's name is. We will do this skit in front of the school and possibly even the parents. I’m really excited to present this skit and I hope it goes well.

Middle School Spanish by Cleio Kellis:

In Senora Bognet’s Spanish class we are learning about verbs, correct endings, activities, feelings and the “to go” verb. We learn correct endings for activities and turn them into sentences using “ir+a+infinitive". We are also learning about correct endings, we learn that some words have special endings with different conjugations, for example, jugar. We also look at activities in Spanish with sentences to tell what time each activity might start, or little skits in the book where we talk to each other and invite others to activities.

Middle School Music by Pebbles:

In Ms.Pererya’s music class, students from grades six to eight are composing their original music on a website called Noteflight. This project is due in early February, and we are required to compose something, either like a winter jingle or an advertisement. I was very interested in this project, since I love music, it has been one of my dreams to compose a song of my own. In the classroom creativity of my classmates sparked, there are many beautiful pieces composed by people who would never have tried before. Besides this project, we also learned about the measures and values of the notes. For example, in a 4/4 measure, one quarter note equals one beat, and you need four beats in order to complete a measure. This is the fundamental theory behind everything in music.

Middle School Art by Paula:

This week in Ms Stawowczyk’s class, we have started our project on stained glass. We learned that stained glass is a long, challenging process that includes several steps and months of work. During this week, sketching, painting, cutting, and gluing are all parts of the process to creating a stained-glass window. Stained glass has been a subculture of the catholic church since the 7th century. Stained glass is not only a homage to God, but a way to convey a story to everyone. The eighth class and I simulated this process using Vellum paper. We created a sketch on a piece of paper, added a frame we had cut out and used the paper to cut and glue in the shape of our sketch, adding color and life to our image.