October 28, 2021
With the start of the new quarter next week, some of the middle schoolers will have a new set of electives!
In 6th grade, students have a set roster of electives that they take to help acclimate them to middle school. These electives include a technology class with a focus on digital citizenship, an emotional health class with a focus on building healthy friendships and solving conflicts, an executive functioning skills class to help build study and organizational skills, and a writing class to provide additional support for their Language Arts class. 6th graders also take a semester of studio art and a semester of music.
With the shift to the second quarter, 6th grade students who had Executive Functioning Skills in quarter 1 will begin Emotional Health, and vice versa. Those students who had a writing class in quarter 1 will begin their technology class. Students in music and art will remain in those classes until the start of the second semester.
In the 7th and 8th grades, students have many more elective options. During the first semester, students had a lot of options, including Science Olympiad, Yearbook, Painting, Mixed Media Art, Digital Media Workshop, Video Game Design, Drama, Outdoor Games, Model UN, Latin, Chimes, and Chorus. Some of these electives will continue throughout the first semester, while others will continue for the whole school year.
There were many highlights for teachers and students throughout last quarter’s electives. For example, students in Digital Media Workshop have been creating 3D animations, while students in Video Game Design have been creating simple games in Python. Meanwhile, in Model UN, students have been researching the death penalty, gender equality, and animal rights in countries around the world and debating these important issues. Our Yearbook students have settled on a theme— Lights, Camera, Action!— and run a cover contest, while students in Science Olympiad have begun work on their trebuchet, bridge, and electric plane events. And that’s just a few of our electives!
Last year was a particularly challenging year for our electives program, which is frequently based on more hands-on and collaborative activities, so I am excited to see us once again be able to offer many challenging and creative options for all of our students.
