Maple Avenue Middle School
September 2025 Newsletter
News from the Nurse
Anyone interested in their student receiving the Flu shot must turn in a completed permission form no later than September 26,2025.
The Flu shots will be given at school on October 1, 2025 through the Health Hero program. Forms were sent home with all students.
All 6th graders are required to turn in a physical form or permission to see the school doctor.
All 7th graders are required to turn in dental forms.
The nurses are seeing high volumes of students with viral symptoms. Please keep your students home if they have a fever over 100, vomiting, or stomach issues.
The health office does not supply cold or allergy medication. Please have your students take these medications prior to the school day.
Thank you,
Mrs. Lisa Rummel, LPN
MAMS Health Office
717-359-4146, ext 3237
September Spotlight...Spanish Class!
Spanish Scrabble- As reported by Señora Jackson:
At first, the students were lost and couldn't come up with anything but with a little help, within a couple of minutes, they started to put words on their own. I was so impressed with how they were collaborating to help each other out. This game will allow them to learn words beyond what I am teaching them in the curriculum since sometimes they have to think outside the box.
I am very happy with the results. They were impressed by how many words they were able to make. Also, the winner receives a ticket for the following Friday drawing!!!
Social Studies Department Update
6th grade
Geography: Students have been delving into our Intro to Geography Unit. We had our first vocabulary and map quizzes this month, learned about globes and map skills, and participated in discussions about geography; what it is, and how geographers use information about the past to plan for the future. It is great to see the students learn that geography isn’t just about reading maps. Student Learning Packets (SLPs) continue to be checked and will be collected at the end of each unit for a grade. All information (weekly schedule, due dates, and links to handouts) can be found in the Schoology course.
7th grade
Ancient Civilizations: This month we are studying Mesopotamia and Egypt. These ancient people groups had a fascinating culture that is very different from how we live today. Their religion, achievements, government, economics and social structure were similar to each other. They both were polytheistic, had a writing system, traded with other people and had similar governments. New artifacts are being discovered even today about these amazing ancient civilizations. All information (weekly schedule, due dates, and links to handouts) can be found in the Schoology course.
8th grade
American History students have learned about the interaction between Native Americans and early Europeans. We are currently understanding the importance of the Age of Exploration and European Explorers. In the next few weeks, we will be discovering how the Thirteen Colonies were created.
Math Department Update
6th grade:
We are working through our unit in geometry and will quickly be wrapping up area and surface area. After Unit 1 we will be moving on to ratios in Unit 2. Believe it or not we use ratios every day. Ratios can be used in something as simple as pizzas! The simple explanation- you are looking at a part compared to part. This is similar to a fraction, where you are looking at a part to whole. Think of our pizza. Someone could eat half of a pizza 4 of the 8 pieces or 4/8. That would be our fraction. Someone could also order a pizza with half cheese and half pepperoni. Again assuming 8 pieces. There are 2 parts of the pizza: 1 cheese and 1 pepperoni. 4 slices cheese to 4 slices pepperoni. For every one slice of cheese there is one slice of pepperoni. Part to part.
There will be occasional practice problems to complete for homework. Classwork and homework can be found on Amplify or in their Amplify workbook. All students will have a review or practice day prior to quizzes and tests, so that they are best prepared to Ace them! If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to your student’s math teacher. Mr. Green greenj@lasd.k12.pa.us or Ms. Eckard eckardj@lasd.k12.pa.us
7th grade:
In Math 7 class students we are beginning Unit 2 - Introducing to Proportional Relationships. In this unit we will use proportional reasoning to problem solve. All students have access to classwork and homework at student.amplify.com and in their math workbook. When students are absent, they are expected to make up missed work. Please reach out to your child’s math teacher if you have any questions. Rachel Hamm hammr@lasd.k12.pa.us or Kristen Innerst innerstk@lasd.k12.pa.us
8th grade:
In Math 8 we are finishing up our unit on Transformations and moving on to Dilations next! Students have Amplify Desmos Practice Assignments due every week, which come along with homework quizzes made up of questions pulled from the practice assignments. Students also have Unit IXL lists that they have a few weeks to complete. All assignments and due dates can be found on Schoology! Absent students can find what they missed on Schoology as well under the unit and weekly folder. Please contact Miss Keilholtz keilholtzc@lasd.k12.pa.us with any questions or concerns.
Science Department Update
Welcome to the Science Department! Our curriculum and teaching is in transition as we integrate the new Pennsylvania standards. Each grade level focuses on a different area of science with the PSSA still being at the conclusion of 8th grade.
Communication is key. Reach out to us with any questions you have.
6th Grade - Introduction of Life, Earth, and Physical
7th Grade - Life Science
8th Grade - Physical and overview of all science with preparation for 8th Grade PSSAs.
Materials: McGraw Hill Science (Online-Clever) and Hardcopy Classroom sets of the online version, and other resources
Assessments: Taken on the online program Quizizz
8th Grade
Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Decker: Students are given hard copies of all assignments throughout the week. Digital copies of everything can be accessed through schoology. Please email me so I can give you the code to access your child’s work through schoology. We have a weekly quiz every Friday covering that week’s material. We will be studying the following content through September.
8th Grade: Describing Motion, Forces and Friction, Newton’s Laws
Email: schmidtw@lasd.k12.pa.us
Email: deckerc@lasd.k12.pa.us
7th Grade Mrs. Pittman
We kicked the year off by getting to know one another and learning our classroom procedures and expectations. Our first unit, Information Processing, focused on how neurons and the brain work, along with strategies for keeping the brain healthy to support better learning. We are now wrapping up our Ecology Introduction unit, where students explored the characteristics of living organisms and levels of organization. Next, we’ll dive into populations, communities, and ecosystems.
A big thank you for the tissue box donations! Students decorated their boxes with their likes, dislikes, goals, and family/friends, then shared them with classmates. Now, we have colorful and personalized tissue boxes to use all year long. Every student was able to take part in this activity, whether or not they brought in a box.
Students use Schoology to access the daily agenda and class materials. Sapphire is used for maintaining grade records.
Link to syllabus if you missed it: Pittman Syllabus
6th Mr. Liberty and Ms. Schultz
All information (weekly plan with link to daily plan, handouts and other links) is found in Schoology. Students have started the year by studying how science works through observation and experiments. We are now getting into Earth and Space science. We are starting with the structure of the Earth. Students should expect a quiz every Friday.
Email: libertyn@lasd.k12.pa.us
English Department Update
6th Grade
Welcome to MAMS!! As we begin the school year, our comprehension focus will be on determining the theme of a story. We will be reading “Laura’s Key”, a short story about a young girl who feels defeated after her experiences with her 6th grade soccer team. As we read, we will be identifying how the main character changes and the lessons that we can learn about success and failure. As the unit continues, we will be reading a poem entitled “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. This poem is full of metaphors that help identify the theme of the poem. Please have your child continue to practice learning the vocabulary terms.
Key Vocab Terms: absolute, apply, despite, distinguish, inspire, relentless, discourage
Resources:
Additionally, students should be reading 10-20 minutes daily to improve their reading comprehension and vocabulary.
7th Grade
Welcome to the 2025-2026 School Year! We are looking forward to a great school year.
Our first unit dives into the essential question of “What is meant by a community?”
We will be starting the year with a small mini unit to assess skills for areas of mastery and refinement in both reading and writing. We will then transition to our first novel study.
The first week in September, we will be testing for the baselines of reading with i-Ready, Writing a TDA, and Vocabulary.
Students should be reading at least 10 minutes a day to help increase their lexile levels and should be reviewing their vocabulary words found in their notebooks.
8th Grade
In ELA8, we’ve had a busy and exciting start to the year! All students have completed their iReady Diagnostics, which provides us with a clear picture of their strengths and areas for growth. We also took our first skill benchmark (Benchmarks are used to assess student understanding of 8th-grade ELA standards), which focused on identifying themes in fictional stories. We also started our vocabulary program to help students build stronger word knowledge and confidence in their reading and writing. Our focus for the month is reading and discussing fictional short stories together in class, practicing close reading and critical thinking skills, and analyzing the literary elements within those stories.