September 12, 2016
In our continued efforts to keep families informed and updated about the curriculum at Blake, each month we 'highlight' updates from the different departments. We hope this will help facilitate conversations at home and maintain a bridge between home and school. Below please find a Summer 2016 Recap. You will see that our staff have enjoyed a nice mixture of relaxation/enjoyment with professional development/growth.
Art
All three art teachers at Blake spent their summer days recharging their batteries in a variety of ways: spending time with loved ones, traveling, being outdoors, doing artwork, and just relaxing.
Nancy Deveno and her husband went on their semi-annual pilgrimage to Italy, to spend quality time with friends and family. She toured Trieste, and then traveled over to Lignano, Udine, Bassano del Grappa, Asolo, and Venice. It was the perfect vacation -- a combination of relaxation and inspiration, filled with walking tours and gallery and museum visits. Ms. Deveno spent many hours setting up her classroom at Blake, as she will be there full time in 2016-17.
Christina Delaney and her son spent quality time at The Charles River Creative Arts Camp as an instructor and camper respectively. Ms. Delaney worked towards aligning the Dale Street curriculum with the Blake curriculum and reorganizing the art studio there. Kate Jones spent the majority of summer in Connecticut where she exhibitied in a couple of art festivals to break up the monotony of beach life. Curriculum writing was done by all of the art teachers concerning the summer reading book The Heart of the Samurai and we are in the process of looking at portfolio based assessment, as a way to evaluate student growth.
English
While parts of summer were filled with time for friends and family, teachers devoted a lot of quality time reshaping curricula, organizing new classroom delivery strategies, and reading young-adult fiction and nonfiction and professional journals. Grade 6 teacher Kathleen Caprio spent summer hours completing graduate coursework on differentiated instruction and launching a research and development initiative on standards-based grading for ELA. Focusing on ways to incorporate a standards-based approach to grammar, Mrs. Caprio is excited to use what she researched inside her classroom. Her colleague, Grade 6 teacher Eileen Hurley, met with each core content area in Grade 6 to look at the newly restructured MARS class. All are excited to present this project-based learning model with a standards-based report card to allow for more measureable extension and intervention during MARS class. Ms. Hurley also began work for her administrator’s license (LLP) and has completed courses titled, “The DNA of School Leadership: Strong Cultures Based on Honest and Open Communication” and “Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment.” Grade 7 faculty, Brian Gavaghan, Amy Reynolds and Nate Walkowicz spent research and development time planning new units for books recently added to the Grade 7 curriculum. One of the units will feature a new novel, The Color of My Words, and the other unit will feature The Giver. The Grade 7 team will use the nonfiction book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird to help students understand the tenets of nonfiction writing. Seth Hellerstein, Grade 8 faculty shared that in addition to the five books he read this summer, he completed two graduate courses and researched the new Grade 8 English writing lab assignment.
Guidance
Mr. Marenghi, Mrs. Dondero, and Ms. Allen are excited for another great school year! This year, Mrs. Dondero is working with our 8th graders; Ms. Allen with the 7th graders; and Mr. Marenghi with the 6th graders. The guidance classes are designed to provide students with certain outcome skills. These intended outcomes include:
Grade 6 Group Guidance: Making successful transitions, social skills, and empathy & sympathy.
Grade 7 Group Guidance: Resiliency, self-advocacy, and autonomy.
Grade 8 Group Guidance: Self-exploration, respect, and reflection.
Embracing Diversity: Multicultural awareness, social justice / civil rights, and human nature.
Ted Talk: Positive ways to use social media
Library
English teachers will soon begin gathering the names of students who have completed the summer reading incentive. Students who’ve read the all-school book plus four additional books from their grade list and have also made a short video, podcast, comic strip, or written review etc. on one of the optional books will enjoy our special pizza lunch with all of the trimmings in the Blake LMC. Students have until October 1 to finish their projects and the pizza lunch will take place in late October.
As you probably remember, our all-school summer reading book is Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. Our summer reading grade-level assemblies will take place on Monday, September 12
We are fortunate to have two great speakers: Mike Dyer, Senior Maritime Historian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, will discuss whaling life at sea in the 1840's and Gerry Rooney, Chair of the Whitfield-Manjiro Friendship Society will discuss the relationship between whaling ship Captain Whitfield and the book’s protagonist, Manjiro, which continues to this day through their descendants.
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/
http://whitfield-manjiro.org/
Mathematics
While vacation is always great, it’s wonderful to be home...at Blake! You can always count on math teachers to report wonderful summer happenings. Professionally, all math teachers time exploring the practice of standards based grading. We have fully aligned our content with the MA Mathematics Curriculum Frameworks, now we are examining those content standards with learning standards/skills. We look forward to implementing our work this school year. Several teachers took courses in the area of math as well as technology. Recognizing the importance of relaxing and recharging, Blake math teachers could be found in outdoors, boating, hiking and biking. Whether time in Chatham with family or in Florida with high school friends, we certainly enjoyed the summer sun. We even found time to drive our younger children to summer camps, visit colleges with our older ones and enjoy our very first Blake Math Department grandchild, Charlie! As always, let me take this opportunity to encourage an open line of communication between home and school. Do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s math teacher if you have any questions or concerns. Welcome back!
Music
Grade Six General Music
In our first classes we have been playing with rhythm and creating rhythm complements. Students are excited about the many opportunities to use our world percussion instruments in the classroom and to create music in GarageBand.
Grade Seven General Music
What is it about rock n’ roll or classic rock music that makes it sound like rock? How can we explain the difference between two genres such as opera and rock? These are a few of the questions we have been pondering in the grade seven general music rotation ‘The History and Evolution of Rock n’ Roll.’
Grade Eight General Music
Why would one write a musical? What influences the writing of a musical? These are some of the questions our eighth grade students are considering as they learn about the beginnings of the quintessentially American genre - the musical.
Orchestra
In July, Brenna Evans attended The Ohio State University's String Teachers Workshop in Columbus, Ohio. This week long workshop was attended by 90 strings teachers from all over the United States. She attended classes to refine secondary instrument skills, bowing styles, coaching chamber music, conducting, and alternative styles. Classes were taught by many leaders in the String Pedagogy field, including Dr. Robert Gillespie and Bob Phillips. Thank you to the Medfield Music Association for making it possible for Mrs Evans to attend such a vigorous and inspiring workshop.
Chorus
6th Grade Chorus is off to a great start!
There are over 40 singers in this performing ensemble with our new Chorus teacher, Mrs. Tremblay.
During our first rehearsals students have been getting to know one another and learning how to
work well as a team. Students have also been experimenting with new vocal warm-ups and songs.
The 6th graders bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm for singing so stay tuned for more exciting updates...
Science
The Blake science department teachers had a summer filled with family, friends, fun and science!!
The 6th grade team worked together to further develop their pilot program on Standards Based Reporting and create a curriculum based on the new Massachusetts Frameworks. In their free time they spent the summer with family enjoying the beautiful weather. Specifically Kristin Buley spent the summer vacationing with her husband and son in Maine. Kelly Ruminski gave birth to a brand new baby girl. Marjorie Heim spent time with her husband, 6month old twin girls and 4 year old son. They enjoyed a great trip to a lake in Albany, NY. The 6th grade team is joined by Elise Coughlin who will be filling in during Kelly's maternity leave. She enjoyed her summer with family and working at Hale Reservation Camp.
The three 7th grade science teachers (Mrs. Silva, Mrs. Dalzell and Mr. Walas) worked together investigating and developing standards based grading procedures to prepare for a pilot program during term 3. They modified the rubrics for their Project Based Learning unit on Ecology to align with standards based grading. Two of the stations in the Ecology Project were rewritten to include the new nonfiction book students will be reading in English class. Mrs. Judy Silva spent the summer on Kezar Lake in Maine where she serves as a Shoreline Steward patrolling for invasive plants. At the Lovell Old Home Days she can be found at a booth teaching the community to identify the native and invasive plants in the watershed. Judy also participated with the Forest Service to conduct a Brook Trout population study using electrofishing. While enjoying the lake, she did some organizational work for Nature's classroom. Mrs. Juli Dalzell spent the summer enjoying time with family between trips to lacrosse tournaments and hockey rinks. Zip-lining, hiking and swimming in waterfalls were highlights of her vacation in Vermont. Summer is also a great time for her to enjoy running, reading and gardening.
The 8th grade team worked together over the summer to create a weather unit aligned to the new science standards. Jillian Shaw took 4 graduate level courses in pedagogy, and spent some time with family in Maine and South Carolina. Jason Heim studied the field of realistic Mendelian genetics through the observation of his new twins and worked at Pilgrim Day camp where he managed activities in the woods of Framingham.
Social Studies
Sixth grade World Geography teachers had a great summer preparing for the 2016-2017 school year. All four social studies teachers used research and development time to reflect and improve upon the sixth grade curriculum. New lessons and projects that were developed by teachers in past years have been added to the general curriculum so all sixth graders can have similar experiences. Some lessons include a current events project focusing on world events and problems as well as a refugee unit that will focus on the refugee crisis around the world. Teachers also revamped units of study to focus on how humans interact with their environments in both negative and positive ways. For example, the unit on rivers now focuses on how humans use rivers to adapt to their environments by utilizing hydroelectricity and irrigation. Adversely, students will be able to study the effect and impact of river pollution and overfishing. Making these improvements will help world geography become more relevant and interesting to sixth grade students.
Social studies teachers have also taken steps to work more closely with English teachers to ensure writing skills are common across the curricula. By using similar rubrics and graphic organizers, students will have more exposure to writing skills necessary for student success.
The sixth grade teachers are well rested, reinvigorated and ready for an excellent year with a great group of new Blakers!
Summer 2016 was a busy one for the members of Blake's 7th grade Ancient Civilizations team. As a team, we met to do some R&D work on planning a standards-based unit for students this year. We discussed what skills were essential for our students to learn in the context of studying ancient history, and designed a unit geared towards developing these skills, including comparing/contrasting different cultures and civilizations, and looking at the cause and effect of key historical events on a civilization. In addition, the 7th grade Social Studies team met with 7th grade English to work on a Greek mythology unit. This is a new unit this year, and involves teaching mythology from both an ancient history and a short story perspective. We are excited to have students go deeper into this engaging topic this year.
On a personal level, we each 'experienced history' in different ways this summer. Greg Keohan (Red Cluster) took part in a National Endowment for the Humanities workshop in Richmond, Va. entitled "The Legacy of the Civil War: Changing Memories Over Time". This involved examining public art in Richmond and evaluating how the memory of this pivotal time period in American history has evolved with the passage of time. Greg also visited several Civil War battlefields (Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Appomattox) and spent time enjoying nature in the Shenandoah, Adirondacks, and White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Deb Manning (Blue Cluster) took part in a fascinating program at the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, learning about the important role that the whaling industry held in Massachusetts circa the 1850s. This course was taken through the Massachusetts Historical Society. Deb also enjoyed spending time with friends in the rustic wilderness of Maine.
Lucas Mihalich (White Cluster), new to Blake this year, spent time this summer working at a day camp in Nantucket, where he had previously taught 7th grade history. Lucas is excited to be joining the Blake team this year.
For our summer history assignment, we asked all incoming 7th graders to 'experience history' in some way. There were three ways that this assignment could be completed: 1) to visit a historical place 2) to read a book about history or 3) to have a conversation with someone over 65 about what life was like when they were growing up. Once students come back to school and are settled in, they will be asked to write a short essay about their summer history experience.
Welcome back! The 8th grade World History I team is excited to kick off this new year with the Byzantine Empire. We will pick-up right around the fall of Rome and explore why and how the Byzantine Empire was successful in surviving nearly one thousand years. In addition to looking at all the many factors that led to the empire’s success and failures, we will be working on skills and techniques for analyzing primary source documents, and answering analytical based questions. Students will continue to use geography skills by analyzing maps making connections between territories gained, lost, and the lasting impact these changes made on political borders. As the year progresses, students will revisit the Byzantine Empire and make continued connections to other units including Islam. The goal is that students will leave this year seeing how World History is more like an intricately woven cloth rather than a separate island of events.
Wellness
Kath McCullough spent the first half of the summer taking the following graduate courses: Prevention and Intervention of Bullying, Why Gender Matters, Social Effects of Media, and Personality Types and Education. In anticipation of her first child coming this September, it was a great way to stay cool indoors during this very hot summer! She also became a new aunt and was happy to spend time withher niece and family.
Mr. Nickerson spent the summer working at Pilgrim Day Camp in Framingham and coaching the 12 year old Medfield Baseball team. It was a great summer on both ends. Camp was amazing with the great weather and fun activities. The baseball team did very well, winning our district championship and going 26-3-1 for the summer. He is very excited for the amazing things that will be happening at Blake this year!
After a week's vacation on Prince Edward Island and Quebec City, Mrs. Cowell spent the summer working in the family gardens, reading, hosting extended family, and visiting the family at Franklin Country Day Camp. She spent several weeks in Medfield in her role as content specialist preparing for the school year and working with the grade nine Wellness teachers developing the Skills-Based Health Education Curriculum. She is really looking forward to a terrific year and is thrilled to now have three “kids” in the MPS school system!
World Language
Our World Language teachers spent lots of time this summer with family and friends as well as working on new ways to inspire our students to speak more and use the target languages in classes. There was also some great travel involved!
Mrs. Toubman (Content Specialist) attended a four day proficiency academy sponsored by Massachusetts Foreign Language Association. The work left us with some new ideas and renewed enthusiasm for promoting proficiency targets at every level in every class. The enthusiasm is contagious!
Ms. Gonzalez traveled to Montreal with her kids, body surfed with her dad, and read more about issues of race and privilege in the US. She also took a couple of online classes, which made her want to try more strategies to engage all kids through effective differentiation.
Ms. Boulos spent precious time with her family and ran a lot (in preparation for a triathlon relay 5K on 9/11). She was at Cape Cod for a week. She tried her hand at learning some Italian in preparation for her trip to Italy. She also served a week at Crosswalk Youth camp (17th year on staff!) She traveled on 2 week tour of Italy with her husband, highlights being Venice, the Amalfi Coast and a delicious dinner at a vineyard in Tuscany.
Ms. Welling spent time at Cape Cod with the family, and also traveled to Rome, Italy with her two high school best friends. She spent some time reading and relaxing as well. Ms. Welling participated in a Mafla (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association) summer institute for a day-long workshop. She’s ready for the new school year!
Mrs. Batts Enjoyed trips with her family to the Outer Banks and Hershey, PA! She also loved the time spent exploring Pinterest and Twitter for ideas on "comprehensible input" and organic world language. She completed 2 mini-courses online and began a course on Ancient Mexican civilizations and savored every moment with her family and friends.
Ms. Buckham took a course at through EDCO called Extreme Makeover: Teaching French With Thematic Units. Also spent time visiting with family and friends on Martha's Vineyard.
We are excited to give a big Blake welcome to our new French and Spanish teacher Sam Cowell. Mr. Cowell reports that kids' first camping trip a great success in Western Mass and that he had lots of fun working at Franklin Country Day Camp with family this past summer.
In our continued efforts to keep families informed and updated about the curriculum at Blake, each month we 'highlight' updates from the different departments. We hope this will help facilitate conversations at home and maintain a bridge between home and school. Below please find a Summer 2016 Recap. You will see that our staff have enjoyed a nice mixture of relaxation/enjoyment with professional development/growth.
Art
All three art teachers at Blake spent their summer days recharging their batteries in a variety of ways: spending time with loved ones, traveling, being outdoors, doing artwork, and just relaxing.
Nancy Deveno and her husband went on their semi-annual pilgrimage to Italy, to spend quality time with friends and family. She toured Trieste, and then traveled over to Lignano, Udine, Bassano del Grappa, Asolo, and Venice. It was the perfect vacation -- a combination of relaxation and inspiration, filled with walking tours and gallery and museum visits. Ms. Deveno spent many hours setting up her classroom at Blake, as she will be there full time in 2016-17.
Christina Delaney and her son spent quality time at The Charles River Creative Arts Camp as an instructor and camper respectively. Ms. Delaney worked towards aligning the Dale Street curriculum with the Blake curriculum and reorganizing the art studio there. Kate Jones spent the majority of summer in Connecticut where she exhibitied in a couple of art festivals to break up the monotony of beach life. Curriculum writing was done by all of the art teachers concerning the summer reading book The Heart of the Samurai and we are in the process of looking at portfolio based assessment, as a way to evaluate student growth.
English
While parts of summer were filled with time for friends and family, teachers devoted a lot of quality time reshaping curricula, organizing new classroom delivery strategies, and reading young-adult fiction and nonfiction and professional journals. Grade 6 teacher Kathleen Caprio spent summer hours completing graduate coursework on differentiated instruction and launching a research and development initiative on standards-based grading for ELA. Focusing on ways to incorporate a standards-based approach to grammar, Mrs. Caprio is excited to use what she researched inside her classroom. Her colleague, Grade 6 teacher Eileen Hurley, met with each core content area in Grade 6 to look at the newly restructured MARS class. All are excited to present this project-based learning model with a standards-based report card to allow for more measureable extension and intervention during MARS class. Ms. Hurley also began work for her administrator’s license (LLP) and has completed courses titled, “The DNA of School Leadership: Strong Cultures Based on Honest and Open Communication” and “Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment.” Grade 7 faculty, Brian Gavaghan, Amy Reynolds and Nate Walkowicz spent research and development time planning new units for books recently added to the Grade 7 curriculum. One of the units will feature a new novel, The Color of My Words, and the other unit will feature The Giver. The Grade 7 team will use the nonfiction book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird to help students understand the tenets of nonfiction writing. Seth Hellerstein, Grade 8 faculty shared that in addition to the five books he read this summer, he completed two graduate courses and researched the new Grade 8 English writing lab assignment.
Guidance
Mr. Marenghi, Mrs. Dondero, and Ms. Allen are excited for another great school year! This year, Mrs. Dondero is working with our 8th graders; Ms. Allen with the 7th graders; and Mr. Marenghi with the 6th graders. The guidance classes are designed to provide students with certain outcome skills. These intended outcomes include:
Grade 6 Group Guidance: Making successful transitions, social skills, and empathy & sympathy.
Grade 7 Group Guidance: Resiliency, self-advocacy, and autonomy.
Grade 8 Group Guidance: Self-exploration, respect, and reflection.
Embracing Diversity: Multicultural awareness, social justice / civil rights, and human nature.
Ted Talk: Positive ways to use social media
Library
English teachers will soon begin gathering the names of students who have completed the summer reading incentive. Students who’ve read the all-school book plus four additional books from their grade list and have also made a short video, podcast, comic strip, or written review etc. on one of the optional books will enjoy our special pizza lunch with all of the trimmings in the Blake LMC. Students have until October 1 to finish their projects and the pizza lunch will take place in late October.
As you probably remember, our all-school summer reading book is Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. Our summer reading grade-level assemblies will take place on Monday, September 12
We are fortunate to have two great speakers: Mike Dyer, Senior Maritime Historian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, will discuss whaling life at sea in the 1840's and Gerry Rooney, Chair of the Whitfield-Manjiro Friendship Society will discuss the relationship between whaling ship Captain Whitfield and the book’s protagonist, Manjiro, which continues to this day through their descendants.
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/
http://whitfield-manjiro.org/
Mathematics
While vacation is always great, it’s wonderful to be home...at Blake! You can always count on math teachers to report wonderful summer happenings. Professionally, all math teachers time exploring the practice of standards based grading. We have fully aligned our content with the MA Mathematics Curriculum Frameworks, now we are examining those content standards with learning standards/skills. We look forward to implementing our work this school year. Several teachers took courses in the area of math as well as technology. Recognizing the importance of relaxing and recharging, Blake math teachers could be found in outdoors, boating, hiking and biking. Whether time in Chatham with family or in Florida with high school friends, we certainly enjoyed the summer sun. We even found time to drive our younger children to summer camps, visit colleges with our older ones and enjoy our very first Blake Math Department grandchild, Charlie! As always, let me take this opportunity to encourage an open line of communication between home and school. Do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s math teacher if you have any questions or concerns. Welcome back!
Music
Grade Six General Music
In our first classes we have been playing with rhythm and creating rhythm complements. Students are excited about the many opportunities to use our world percussion instruments in the classroom and to create music in GarageBand.
Grade Seven General Music
What is it about rock n’ roll or classic rock music that makes it sound like rock? How can we explain the difference between two genres such as opera and rock? These are a few of the questions we have been pondering in the grade seven general music rotation ‘The History and Evolution of Rock n’ Roll.’
Grade Eight General Music
Why would one write a musical? What influences the writing of a musical? These are some of the questions our eighth grade students are considering as they learn about the beginnings of the quintessentially American genre - the musical.
Orchestra
In July, Brenna Evans attended The Ohio State University's String Teachers Workshop in Columbus, Ohio. This week long workshop was attended by 90 strings teachers from all over the United States. She attended classes to refine secondary instrument skills, bowing styles, coaching chamber music, conducting, and alternative styles. Classes were taught by many leaders in the String Pedagogy field, including Dr. Robert Gillespie and Bob Phillips. Thank you to the Medfield Music Association for making it possible for Mrs Evans to attend such a vigorous and inspiring workshop.
Chorus
6th Grade Chorus is off to a great start!
There are over 40 singers in this performing ensemble with our new Chorus teacher, Mrs. Tremblay.
During our first rehearsals students have been getting to know one another and learning how to
work well as a team. Students have also been experimenting with new vocal warm-ups and songs.
The 6th graders bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm for singing so stay tuned for more exciting updates...
Science
The Blake science department teachers had a summer filled with family, friends, fun and science!!
The 6th grade team worked together to further develop their pilot program on Standards Based Reporting and create a curriculum based on the new Massachusetts Frameworks. In their free time they spent the summer with family enjoying the beautiful weather. Specifically Kristin Buley spent the summer vacationing with her husband and son in Maine. Kelly Ruminski gave birth to a brand new baby girl. Marjorie Heim spent time with her husband, 6month old twin girls and 4 year old son. They enjoyed a great trip to a lake in Albany, NY. The 6th grade team is joined by Elise Coughlin who will be filling in during Kelly's maternity leave. She enjoyed her summer with family and working at Hale Reservation Camp.
The three 7th grade science teachers (Mrs. Silva, Mrs. Dalzell and Mr. Walas) worked together investigating and developing standards based grading procedures to prepare for a pilot program during term 3. They modified the rubrics for their Project Based Learning unit on Ecology to align with standards based grading. Two of the stations in the Ecology Project were rewritten to include the new nonfiction book students will be reading in English class. Mrs. Judy Silva spent the summer on Kezar Lake in Maine where she serves as a Shoreline Steward patrolling for invasive plants. At the Lovell Old Home Days she can be found at a booth teaching the community to identify the native and invasive plants in the watershed. Judy also participated with the Forest Service to conduct a Brook Trout population study using electrofishing. While enjoying the lake, she did some organizational work for Nature's classroom. Mrs. Juli Dalzell spent the summer enjoying time with family between trips to lacrosse tournaments and hockey rinks. Zip-lining, hiking and swimming in waterfalls were highlights of her vacation in Vermont. Summer is also a great time for her to enjoy running, reading and gardening.
The 8th grade team worked together over the summer to create a weather unit aligned to the new science standards. Jillian Shaw took 4 graduate level courses in pedagogy, and spent some time with family in Maine and South Carolina. Jason Heim studied the field of realistic Mendelian genetics through the observation of his new twins and worked at Pilgrim Day camp where he managed activities in the woods of Framingham.
Social Studies
Sixth grade World Geography teachers had a great summer preparing for the 2016-2017 school year. All four social studies teachers used research and development time to reflect and improve upon the sixth grade curriculum. New lessons and projects that were developed by teachers in past years have been added to the general curriculum so all sixth graders can have similar experiences. Some lessons include a current events project focusing on world events and problems as well as a refugee unit that will focus on the refugee crisis around the world. Teachers also revamped units of study to focus on how humans interact with their environments in both negative and positive ways. For example, the unit on rivers now focuses on how humans use rivers to adapt to their environments by utilizing hydroelectricity and irrigation. Adversely, students will be able to study the effect and impact of river pollution and overfishing. Making these improvements will help world geography become more relevant and interesting to sixth grade students.
Social studies teachers have also taken steps to work more closely with English teachers to ensure writing skills are common across the curricula. By using similar rubrics and graphic organizers, students will have more exposure to writing skills necessary for student success.
The sixth grade teachers are well rested, reinvigorated and ready for an excellent year with a great group of new Blakers!
Summer 2016 was a busy one for the members of Blake's 7th grade Ancient Civilizations team. As a team, we met to do some R&D work on planning a standards-based unit for students this year. We discussed what skills were essential for our students to learn in the context of studying ancient history, and designed a unit geared towards developing these skills, including comparing/contrasting different cultures and civilizations, and looking at the cause and effect of key historical events on a civilization. In addition, the 7th grade Social Studies team met with 7th grade English to work on a Greek mythology unit. This is a new unit this year, and involves teaching mythology from both an ancient history and a short story perspective. We are excited to have students go deeper into this engaging topic this year.
On a personal level, we each 'experienced history' in different ways this summer. Greg Keohan (Red Cluster) took part in a National Endowment for the Humanities workshop in Richmond, Va. entitled "The Legacy of the Civil War: Changing Memories Over Time". This involved examining public art in Richmond and evaluating how the memory of this pivotal time period in American history has evolved with the passage of time. Greg also visited several Civil War battlefields (Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Appomattox) and spent time enjoying nature in the Shenandoah, Adirondacks, and White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Deb Manning (Blue Cluster) took part in a fascinating program at the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, learning about the important role that the whaling industry held in Massachusetts circa the 1850s. This course was taken through the Massachusetts Historical Society. Deb also enjoyed spending time with friends in the rustic wilderness of Maine.
Lucas Mihalich (White Cluster), new to Blake this year, spent time this summer working at a day camp in Nantucket, where he had previously taught 7th grade history. Lucas is excited to be joining the Blake team this year.
For our summer history assignment, we asked all incoming 7th graders to 'experience history' in some way. There were three ways that this assignment could be completed: 1) to visit a historical place 2) to read a book about history or 3) to have a conversation with someone over 65 about what life was like when they were growing up. Once students come back to school and are settled in, they will be asked to write a short essay about their summer history experience.
Welcome back! The 8th grade World History I team is excited to kick off this new year with the Byzantine Empire. We will pick-up right around the fall of Rome and explore why and how the Byzantine Empire was successful in surviving nearly one thousand years. In addition to looking at all the many factors that led to the empire’s success and failures, we will be working on skills and techniques for analyzing primary source documents, and answering analytical based questions. Students will continue to use geography skills by analyzing maps making connections between territories gained, lost, and the lasting impact these changes made on political borders. As the year progresses, students will revisit the Byzantine Empire and make continued connections to other units including Islam. The goal is that students will leave this year seeing how World History is more like an intricately woven cloth rather than a separate island of events.
Wellness
Kath McCullough spent the first half of the summer taking the following graduate courses: Prevention and Intervention of Bullying, Why Gender Matters, Social Effects of Media, and Personality Types and Education. In anticipation of her first child coming this September, it was a great way to stay cool indoors during this very hot summer! She also became a new aunt and was happy to spend time withher niece and family.
Mr. Nickerson spent the summer working at Pilgrim Day Camp in Framingham and coaching the 12 year old Medfield Baseball team. It was a great summer on both ends. Camp was amazing with the great weather and fun activities. The baseball team did very well, winning our district championship and going 26-3-1 for the summer. He is very excited for the amazing things that will be happening at Blake this year!
After a week's vacation on Prince Edward Island and Quebec City, Mrs. Cowell spent the summer working in the family gardens, reading, hosting extended family, and visiting the family at Franklin Country Day Camp. She spent several weeks in Medfield in her role as content specialist preparing for the school year and working with the grade nine Wellness teachers developing the Skills-Based Health Education Curriculum. She is really looking forward to a terrific year and is thrilled to now have three “kids” in the MPS school system!
World Language
Our World Language teachers spent lots of time this summer with family and friends as well as working on new ways to inspire our students to speak more and use the target languages in classes. There was also some great travel involved!
Mrs. Toubman (Content Specialist) attended a four day proficiency academy sponsored by Massachusetts Foreign Language Association. The work left us with some new ideas and renewed enthusiasm for promoting proficiency targets at every level in every class. The enthusiasm is contagious!
Ms. Gonzalez traveled to Montreal with her kids, body surfed with her dad, and read more about issues of race and privilege in the US. She also took a couple of online classes, which made her want to try more strategies to engage all kids through effective differentiation.
Ms. Boulos spent precious time with her family and ran a lot (in preparation for a triathlon relay 5K on 9/11). She was at Cape Cod for a week. She tried her hand at learning some Italian in preparation for her trip to Italy. She also served a week at Crosswalk Youth camp (17th year on staff!) She traveled on 2 week tour of Italy with her husband, highlights being Venice, the Amalfi Coast and a delicious dinner at a vineyard in Tuscany.
Ms. Welling spent time at Cape Cod with the family, and also traveled to Rome, Italy with her two high school best friends. She spent some time reading and relaxing as well. Ms. Welling participated in a Mafla (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association) summer institute for a day-long workshop. She’s ready for the new school year!
Mrs. Batts Enjoyed trips with her family to the Outer Banks and Hershey, PA! She also loved the time spent exploring Pinterest and Twitter for ideas on "comprehensible input" and organic world language. She completed 2 mini-courses online and began a course on Ancient Mexican civilizations and savored every moment with her family and friends.
Ms. Buckham took a course at through EDCO called Extreme Makeover: Teaching French With Thematic Units. Also spent time visiting with family and friends on Martha's Vineyard.
We are excited to give a big Blake welcome to our new French and Spanish teacher Sam Cowell. Mr. Cowell reports that kids' first camping trip a great success in Western Mass and that he had lots of fun working at Franklin Country Day Camp with family this past summer.