Happy New Year!

We continue on our journey to raise student achievement and begin a new year with great promise and potential. Our teachers are aligning their instructional efforts with data and the needs of our students. During the spring, our students will be assessed in math, read-ing, and writing through the Smarter Balanced Assessment while the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Assessment will be used to measure our students’ knowledge and ability in science. These assessments will give us specific data as to the academic growth of our students and challenge us to raise the bar with a relevant 21st century education.

Our students 96% attendance rate is indicative of parent involvement who not only ensure their children are present in school but, are integral to our students overall success. Always in support of student growth, Respectfully,

Dr. Trevor L. Ellis

Principal

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE

A MESSAGE FROM THE GUIDANCE OFFICE

Welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful holiday break.

Happy New Year! We’re looking forward to an awesome 2020 with your children. As the time quickly passes by, please remind your children to continue working towards Honor Roll status; they all can do it! Equally, if not more im-portant, please remind your children to be kind to every-one. As you are aware, we do not know the struggles others are dealing with in their lives. Just be kind! Wishing you all a successful 2020!

Ms. Goldman & Ms. Glenney

CARMEN ARACE MIDDLE SCHOOL

IMPORTANT DATES &

UPCOMING EVENTS

January 1-School & Office

closed

January 10-Dress

Down/”Dress Like a Teacher”

January 16—PTO Meeting,

6:00 P.M.—Library

January 20-MLK Day, School

& Office closed

January 23-Report Cards

close-2nd marking period

January 24-Dress

Down/”School Color Day”

January 29-Professional De-

velopment for Teachers/Early

Dismissal

SCHOOL HOURS:

Regular day

8:05 a.m.-2:50 P.M.

Early Dismissal

8:05 a.m.—12:50 P.M.

390 Park Avenue

Bloomfield, CT 06002

Office: 860-286-2622

Guidance: 860-286-2648

Fax: 860-242-0347

Nurse: 860-286-2638

www.bloomfieldschools.org

Trevor L.. Ellis, Ed.D., Principal

PARENT NEWSLETTER JANUARY, 2020 CARMEN ARACE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Literacy-Mrs. Parker: My classes continue to focus on Close Reading Strategies while reading the articles, Writing with Symbols and African American Holidays. Daily, my students are using dictionaries to define challenging vocabulary in the arti-cles. Additionally, students are writing written responses to main idea/theme questions from the articles; student responses re-quire text references for support. Lastly, the students have a one-page Reading Worksheet to complete every week for home-work. pparker@blmfld.org Literacy-Ms. Richardson: Students in Ms. Richardson ’s class are learning an effective approach to answer constructed re-sponse questions by including the claim, evidence, in-text citations, and a thorough explanation. Students continue to read inde-pendent books during class time and should try to have another book ready when they’re close to finishing their current one. We are closely approaching our winter performance task that will begin after break. Students will be required to close read two texts, answer text dependent questions, and write a two page expository essay. Additionally, students are learning grammar skills and are currently practicing the rules associated with subject-verb agreement. jrichardson@blmfld.org Numeracy-Ms. Cote and Mr. Semanie: In math, we are transitioning from our unit on expressions and equations to proportional relationships. Please make sure students are using their class notes to help with the homework problems and taking notes while watching the Khan Academy videos. The Khan Academy videos are helpful tools for the entire family and supplement the les-sons being taught and practiced in class. All work should be written out on paper. IXL and Khan are checked Sunday evening and need to be completed prior to that. Any late homework needs to be submitted to Ms. Cote in writing. As always, thank you for all your support and message us any time on classdojo. Elizabeth Cote ecote@blmfld.org and Thom Semanie tse-manie@blmfld.org Numeracy-Mrs. Murray/Ms. Willis: We continue to work on problems involving Order of Operations in the 7th grade. Please remember when you check PowerSchool to view the comments. This is valuable information to keep you informed of your child’s progress. The second marking period ends January 23, 2020. Mrs. Murray pmurray@blmfld.org and Ms. Willis swillis@blmfld.org World Geography-Ms. Calabro/Mr. O’Neill: 7th grade Social Studies students have started their virtual journey around the world with a focus on North America. The students have been sharpening their literacy skills through annotating text to learn the physical and human geography of the United States. The students will be improving their writing skills by participating in the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest. hcalabro@blmfld.org and coneill@blmfld.org Science-Ms. Gore/Mr. Salmon: During the month of December, students learned about plate tectonics. Students partic-ipated in a poster project that involved creating the supercontinent Pangea. Once completed, students analyzed evidence found on Pangea that confirmed that the continents were once joined together millions of years ago. In Chapter 1, students also learned about the three main types of plate boundaries. This served as an excellent introduction for our next topic in geology: Earthquakes, which will begin after winter break. Casandra Gore cgore@blmfld.org and Lincoln Salmon lsalmon@blmfld.org

Literacy-Ms. Bunting/Mrs. Morris: As we finalize our Homelessness Essay, students will begin their first Per-formance Task of the year. With this, and throughout the remainder of the marking period, we will examine bat-tles during the Civil War, and write an analysis of what was learned during this time. As always, students are ex-pected to complete weekly reading logs, and a variety of other assignments pertaining to the unit. Numeracy-Mr. Gregory: We are finishing up a quick unit on transversals and angle relationships. The goal for this unit was to give students the opportunity to apply what they learned in the previous unit to create and solve equations. Moving into January, we will start fresh with the 3-D figures units, where we will work with more com-plex equations and formulas - should be fun. Numeracy-Ms. Murray/Ms. Willis: We continue to work on solving two-step equations in 8th grade. Please remember when you check Power School to view the comments. This is valuable information to keep you informed of your child's progress. The second marking period ends January 23, 2020. Enjoy the winter break! Social Studies-Mr. Jennings: Justify the great shift in power in the English Colonies? Chapter 5, The Road to Revolution will connect the mon-archy's sharing of power with it's subjects to almost total abdication. We continue to appreciate the relevance of financial planning and responsibility through our ongoing partnership with Dutch Point Credit Union. Science-Mr. Gionfriddo: We have started a new unit on Astronomy. Students are learning about our solar system and the historic implications of the space program. This month we will begin a manufacturing program.

TEAM COLUMBIA—GRADE 7

TEAM HOWARD-GRADE 8

Page 2 CARMEN ARACE MIDDLE SCHOOL

“EVERY

GREAT

DREAM

BEGINS

WITH A

DREAMER.

ALWAYS

REMEMBER

YOU HAVE

WITHIN YOU

THE

STRENGTH,

THE

PATIENCE,

AND THE

PASSION TO

REACH FOR

THE STARS

TO CHANGE

THE

WORLD.”

HARRIET

TUBMAN

Be your best Aim for success Never give up Demand excellence

How can I help my child improve the quality of their perfor-

mance? Here’s how you can help your child in band:

Encourage your child practice each day between each band class.

Listen to your child playing at home and give positive comments on what you hear.

Encourage your child to come prepared to play. Be focused.

Remind your child that the at-home practice sessions are similar to the daily homework that

they receive in math or science.

When your child receives parental encouragement he/she will want to do more to be suc-

cessful.

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination

and life to everything.” ― Plato

Miss Jones

PHYSICAL EDUCATION: Physical Education is still finishing up their second round of fitness testing. There have been some delays and half days that have prolonged administering the tests. Once we finish, the students will compare and evaluate whether they've shown growth from the first tests to the second tests. Once the assessments are completed, we will get into Olympic Handball. The students are continuing to get exercise and burn calories in our Physical Education classes.

Mr. Poland & Mr. Michaud

VISUAL ARTS: Mrs. Wasko's 7th grade students will continue taking inspiration from the American artist, Jenny Willigrod. During this project, students are focusing on rendering specific foreground, middle ground, and background areas in a landscape...further enhancing their understanding of visual depth. 8th grade students are well underway with their grid drawing enlargements of favorite candy logos. Math concepts come into play as students are tripling their visual images by 300%, and learning to view everyday images as pieces of art and graphic design.

Mr. Spencer’s students will be able to . . . Improve their knowledge of how to use the design elements; color and val-ue, and design principles; contrast, emphasis, and pattern as visual characteristics, in a work of art through the creat-ing process to communicate ideas, feelings, emotions, in an expressive manner and use color theory and symbols to enhance and convey messages. They will be engaged in responding to, and creating artwork that demonstrates an understanding of how the color in the works of Jacob Lawrence, and Vincent VanGogh, Henri Matisse, Romare Bearden, a variety of Op Art Artists and their drawings, paintings, and prints cause different effects and evokes differ-ent personal responses. Students will also be able to use similar color, color values, drawing, printmaking, and paint-ing techniques in a variety of media to communicate ideas, feelings, experiences, and stories.

Ms. Wasko and Mr. Spencer

UNIFIED ARTS HAPPENINGS—PHYSICAL EDUCATION & VISUAL ARTS

CARMEN ARACE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Page 3

UNIFIED ARTS HAPPENINGS—BAND & CHORUS

CARMEN ARACE MIDDLE SCHOOL Page 4

PTO NEWS

Our Mission

Enrich the education of all Carmen Arace students and to build community within

the Carmen Arace School family.

Save the PTO Dates

Thursdays in the Arace Library/Cafeteria, 6:00 P.M.

February 20, 2020

March 26, 2020 April 23, 2020

May 21, 2020

Contact us at AracePTO@yahoo.com. or PTO mailbox in the school office.

MAKING COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS-CLIMATE SPECIALIST

Happy New Year Carmen Arace Families!

A quick survey will be coming to your email each month to ask a few

questions about how we are doing. Please let our voice be heard! The surveys

are anonymous, and we will review the responses both in our school and with

the district-wide data team.

Allison Glenney School Counselor/School Climate Specialist

860-286-2622 x 2016 aglenney@blmfld.org