Black and White or Color

Whether it's the first day of school or the fourth day of school when you ask your child how school is going you might get a black and white monosyllabic reply - "fine", "great" etc. What you may not get is a lot of color (descriptive language) about their school day.

We would like to provide you with some HMS color:

• In a 5th grade classroom - students put three personal artifacts in a paper bag to share with their classmates -  classmates begin to know some interesting facts about each other
• In a 7th grade classroom - teacher and students establishing classroom rules, expectations and procedures; sitting together to determine how to work better together
• In a 5th grade classroom - visiting  the library to be introduced to all the new books
• In 7th and 8th grade classrooms - the smiles as 7th and 8th grade students are assigned or re-assigned the laptops and the next day students learning how to use technology to graph data with GraphIt.
• In an 8th grade classroom - drawing large-scale maps to represent the great state of Maine
• In the Physical Education classroom - boundless energy in "capture the chicken" and the same amount of energy for sportsmanship
• In STEAM - building and preparing rockets to fly
• In General Music - beginning guitar lessons, students putting together several notes that begin sounding like a song
• In Health Science - understanding what behaviors impact physical, emotional and social health
• In Art class - comparing how art and artists changed over time
• In an 8th grade classroom - students learning what's on the Teacher's Page and how to navigate to all the books in the classroom library
• In an 7th grade classroom - students learning how to write a constructed response with an introduction, supporting detail and a conclusion - knowing this is the expectation in language arts, mathematics, science and social studies
• In a 7th grade classroom - students understanding that communication and work will be shared for feedback with students and teacher using google docs
• In an 8th grade classroom - students mathematically solving how to package an object with in the most effective and efficient way
• In a 7th grade classroom - students learning about history through a grandmother's wedding dress - understanding that the dress represented a moment in time that has its very own history
• In a 5th grade classroom - students seeing how a novel is put together so that the reader is engaged - how the author crafts a story using specific techniques
• In a 5th grade classroom - students learning how to use the Student Planner to organize school and homework
• In the 7th grade - students participated in a variety of team building activities designed to help students get to know each other, and hone their collaboration skills. The students were totally engaged in field activities like "Stepping Stones" "Arena", and "The Pipeline", designed with a focus on working together effectively, creative problem solving, and higher order thinking skills.
• In the cafeteria - staff members supported our new 5th grade students during lunch by helping to familiarize them with the cafe and reminding them of their new pin numbers.
• The 5th grade students met their 8th grade buddies, and toured the building by participating in a Scavenger Hunt. 
• In 6th grade - students met the "Recess Queen" who provided them with a review of the rules to keep themselves and their peers safe on the playground.
• In the 7th grade - students received their laptops, along with a complete rundown on the rules governing computer use. They'll participate in a "Google" Seminar, facilitated by Mike Arsenault, to continue their learning next week.
• In the 8th grade - students played a staff trivia game to get to know the staff members in the building they can use as resources. 

And with 171 more days we can only imagine the kaleidoscope of colors that are coming and for this we thank our students and teachers.