Music Lunch at HMS

Mr. C. explains our recent "musical lunch" at HMS:

On Thursday, February 25th, the Music Boosters sponsored a "Music Lunch" bringing in a group of musicians from USM to play jazz while students ate. The students were excited about the performance and gave it very positive reviews.

We're looking forward to sharing more music with our students! Our thanks to the Music Boosters for this wonderful experience!

                                                                                    

Hannah Skeffington on Base, Thomas Brown on Guitar, Hunter McKay on Tenor Sax and Eric Landau on Drums
Photo by Jessica Townsend

Loey Waterman's painting displayed at Portland Museum of Art

Elaine Fletcher wrote this piece about Loey Waterman's exciting news:

 

Loey Waterman,  HMS seventh grade student, has had her work selected to represent HMS in the annual Youth Art Month Show at the Portland Museum of Art. This show offers a display of artwork by students throughout Maine, and each school may select only one piece, so this is a true honor!

 

Loey's piece is a tempera painting on black paper, titled "The Many Colors of Portland".

The show will be open from March 2 through April 3, and is well worth a trip to see the talents of many young Maine artists.
 

"The Many Colors of Portland "by Loey Waterman

Congratulations to Loey on her achievement!

Jenny Jorgensen presents at CMP3 Conference

Attendees at the CMP3 User's Conference in Michigan this week will be fortunate to learn from Jenny Jorgensen, HMS Lead Math Teacher, and consummate presenter. Jenny will share her expertise and knowledge about the current Connected Mathematics Program and how it can best be brought to life in the classroom. Jenny will be presenting on the following topics and exploring all aspects of related student learning with the participants.

Session 1: Using the Teacher Notes - What About those Check for Understandings?

Description: Learn more about using the "Check for Understanding" that are in the teacher notes for some of the problems. Group discussion on how educators can inform instruction

Goals: Encourage educators to take advantage of using the "Check for Understanding".

Intended Audience: 6th, 7th, 8th

Session 2: Using the Focus Questions to guide the Summary Discussion
 
Description: We will discuss the Focus Questions and how they can be used to keep students' focused on the goal of the lesson, and how they can be used by teachers during the summary part of the lesson.

Goals: Raise awareness of the Focus Questions and how they can be used to keep the lesson on track and guide the discussion.

Intended Audience: 6th, 7th, 8th

Session 3: Using Interactive Notebooks in the 6th grade CMP classroom

Description: Wow! Students are doing amazing things with their creativity and their math notebooks. See sample student notebooks and learn how 6th grade teachers are using them in their CMP classrooms. This work has helped students realize that their math notebook can be a useful tool for their learning.

Goals: Share what teachers are doing with Interactive Notebooks. Offer suggestions to teachers who would like to start using Interactive Notebooks

Intended Audience: 6th grade

8th Graders Have the Time in STEAM

Mr. Dehetre explains one of his 8th grade students' projects in STEAM:

8th grade STEAM classes have been learning about basic woodworking and woodworking safety by building clocks. As you can see from these pictures, there is also a very strong art component involved with this project and much of the fine art work can be attributed to the strong art program that we are fortunate to have in Yarmouth. 

Students begin by choosing a clock design of their own. This is followed by cutting and shaping their clock by using a scroll saw, file, and abrasive paper. A large hole is drilled in the back of the clock for the clock movement using the drill press. Once the clock takes its  final shape, the artistry begins. Building clocks has been a very popular piece of the STEAM curriculum over the years and students look forward to this activity. For some students, the clock design is brainstormed even before reaching the 8th grade!

Audrey Goessling

Angus Muir

Sara Smith

Caden Rogers

Michael McNeil

The PTO provides a sweet Valentine's Day for HMS

             

 The HMS staff thanks the PTO from the bottom of their hearts for a scrumptious Valentine's Day extravaganza! Heartfelt appreciation to Amie Moore, Kelly Sawnhey, Melina Roberts and the PTO for organizing this celebration.  

Jess Townsend's photos paint a sweet picture of this event!

 

Alexis Nisbet receives the Steingart Scholarship

Heartfelt congratulations to 8th grade student, Alexis Nisbet, who was recently named as this year's recipient of the Steingart Family Music Scholarship! Alexis will use the scholarship for private flute and/or voice lessons.

The Steingart family established this scholarship fund prior to Mr. Steingart's passing in 2013. They saw their daughter Emily's world change in positive ways when she pursued the bassoon in middle school. Emily's love of music presented her with the opportunity to play with the Portland Youth Symphony, as well as the Youth Philharmonic (in Boston) while she was in high school. Her talent and dedication opened the door to some prestigious awards and opportunities, including traveling to China with the Youth Philharmonic orchestra.

Taylor Robison (2013 winner of the Steingart Scholarship), Kristina Nisbet, Alexis Nisbet, Carol Steingart, Joan Adler, Brad Ciechomski, Able Briton, Kimberly Grover 

                                                                         

The Steingart family met with Mrs. Grover and Mr. C. in 2013 to establish this award, which will fund years of private lessons for our students. Their goal is to provide opportunities to other young musicians so they can explore and expand their own world of music and everything that music can bring into their lives.

The scholarships are awarded to students who have a love for music, and are committed to their craft. Awarding these scholarships is one of the highlights of Mrs. Grover and Mr. C's school year. Alexis is a most deserving recipient of this honor!

The HMS community extends their deep gratitude to the Steingart family for making this opportunity possible for our students.

HMS Clipperbots triumph at recent competition

Jay Harrington, Robotics club adviser, provided this update about HMS adventures with robotics!

The HMS robotics club team, The Clipperbots, sent two robots to last weekend's VEX Robotics tournament at Erskine Academy in South Paris, ME. Our teams entered two of only three middle school robots competing with 28 high school teams.

The tournaments have two parts: Qualifying Matches and the Alliance Elimination Tournament. The qualifying rounds were a learning experience for our teams with some in the moment re-engineering and fine-tuning of driving skills.

Networking is also a big part of tournament play. One of our robots, 7318, met and impressed some top teams. Our team was chosen to be part of the alliance with the third-ranked team from Thornton Academy and was on the field for both wins in the best of three final matches, becoming one of the tournament champions!

Our other robot, 7318B, stood out as well. The judges noticed the team's continued resilience after a design flaw limited their productivity. The team actually wound up dismantling their robot, cutting off a portion of the front of it and then reassembling it in between qualifying rounds. The judges agreed that this was an amazing effort and awarded the group with the tournament's Sportsmanship Award.

Special thanks to our volunteer coaches, Rich Weinberg and Adam Moore; our sponsors, DeLorme and YEF (whose grant made entering two robots possible); and our parents - many of whom made the long drive to South Paris and stayed through the duration, a very long day on the bleachers!

Both HMS teams have been invited to next Saturday's VEX Maine State Championship at HampdenAcademy!

Left-to-right (Back row) Krisztian Kovacs, Coach Adam Moore, Coach Jay Harrington, Coach Rich Weinberg (Middle) Celina Bellville, Hannah Juarez Cancino, Hannah Ho, Anushka Canfield
(Front) Matthew Robichaud, Nathaniel Snow, Sawyer Flowerdew, Sam Weinberg, Ethan Blake, and Lee Wilson (regular members not pictured: Kate Estabrook, Carter Moore, Jack Riddle, and Jonathan Stansbury) 

 

 

VEX Awards

7th Grade Math Team-2nd Meet

Jay Harrington shared this exciting information about the most recent 7th Grade Math meet:

On Tuesday, February 2nd, the HMS 7th Grade Math Team traveled to the Middle School in Kennebunk for the year's second math meet. The rounds were a bit more challenging for all who participated. Our team progressed in the standings from 17th place in December to our current 14th place standing. That is great progress! We've set our sights on cracking the top ten at the next meet on March 15th, at Saco Middle School!
 
Elena Miller, Zoe Siegel, Abby Wentzell, Evan Lucca, Annie Lowenstein, and Puja Patel competed at this meet. Congratulations to all!
                                                  

2016 Scholastic Writing Awards

We're excited to announce the 2016 Scholastic Writing Awards for the Maine Region!Gold Awards: Alex Augur and Sadie Cowles

Silver Awards: Harry Mellor, Cloe DeCristoforo, Evan Lucca, Najee McQueen, Michael McNeil, Quincy Whipple

Honorable Mention: Shanti Gallivan, Samson O'Donnell, Louisa Thompson-Longshore, Tristan Winchester, and Amelia Watt
Congratulations to these students and their teachers: Charlotte Agell, Ira Warshaw, Brad Martin, Mike Hagerty, and Marsha Newick for this impressive accomplishment. We thank them for sharing their talent and creativity with us.  Award-winning students and their teachers will be recognized at the upcoming award ceremony.  The award ceremony will be held on Friday, March 11, 2016 at 6:00 p.m., at the Talbot Lecture Hall, Luther Bonney, University of Southern Maine, Portland Campus

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards were founded in 1923. As their website notes: Since its founding, the Awards have established an amazing track record for identifying the early promise of our nation’s most accomplished and prolific creative leaders. Alumni include artists Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Cy Twombly, Robert Indiana, Kay WalkingStick, and John Baldessari; writers Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Bernard Malamud, Maya Goldberg, and Joyce Carol Oates; photographer Richard Avedon (who won for poetry); actors Frances Farmer, Robert Redford, Alan Arkin, and John Lithgow; and filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Ken Burns, and Richard Linklater. Outside the arts, Awards alumni employ their creativity to become successful in any number of ways – leaders in fields including journalism, medicine, finance, government and public service, the law, science, design, and more.

Amelia Watt, Cloe DeCristoforo, Sadie Cowles, Alex Auger, Harry Mellor, Quincy Whipple, Sam O'Donnell, Shanti Gallivan, Najee McQueen, Michael McNeil, (Louisa Thompson, Tristan Winchester, and Evan Lucca unfortunately not pictured here)