Snapshots

Dear Families:

A walk through the Middle School finds:

Fifth graders:

  • exploring the challenging text The Breadwinner, which is the story of young girl in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban

  • attempting to satisfy a pharaoh’s demand to construct a pyramid with simple machines

  • learning to read a score and playing through a piece by Carl Orff, specifically written for our collection of Orff instruments

  • drawing area models to represent fraction multiplication and exploring problems that involve finding a “part of a part,” such as eating 3/4 of a pan of brownies that was 7/8 full

  • wrapping up the clothing unit that included a “Pase de modelos” (Fashion Show) in class where students described each others outfits and said what they liked to do and creating catalogs with different clothing items for each season

Sixth graders:

  • building scale models of medieval castles and researching their many architectural elements and impact on daily life
  • discovering “lost” chapters of Beowulf written by Sixth grade scribes
  • experimenting with the concept of proportionality in the science lab
  • exploring on recorder and voice the Medieval song “L’Homme Arme” (in English “Man in Armour”), which was used by many Medieval composers as the basis for numerous compositions, mass settings, motets, and part songs
  • constructing family trees in French and availing themselves of challenging vocabulary and sentence structures using new adjectives and colloquial expressions
  • exploring events that occur in repeating cycles, such as signs flashing at different intervals, or planets revolving at different rates and digging into questions like “How often will 13-year and 17-year cicadas appear in the same year?”
  • venturing out to Bomboleo, a Mexican/Spanish restaurant on Bleecker Street, to put new Spanish vocabulary and verbs to work in an real world context

Seventh graders:

  • wrestling with varied perspectives on the colonial experience
  • continuing to dig beneath the surface of their colonial museum research topics
  • practicing dances from John Playford’s English Dance Master in preparation for the Colonial Museum
  • writing original stories in French that utilize new verbs, both regular and irregular, and vocabulary related to place
  • designing, typesetting and printing colonial trade themed business cards
  • dialoging with each other in Spanish and exploring new vocabulary related to food

Eighth graders:

  • researching, writing, and discussing in Spanish works of art by Velázquez, El Greco, Goya, Picasso and Dalí
  • attempting to arrive at a compromise to avoid a civil war between the north and the south
  • harnessing Newtons’ laws of motion and the power of a mouse trap to propel a vehicle across the floor
  • completing a virtual shopping trip in Paris with pictures and descriptions, all in the future proche
  • rehearsing a composition based on their experience listening to the music of Steve Reich
  • applying finishing touches to this year’s rendition of the art room stools, which take as their theme favorite artists
  • photoshopping a set of images from a photo shoot in which students worked with a variety of different lighting situations

In addition to all of the hard work that is taking place in the Middle School classrooms, the members of the Middle School Chorus have been hard at work preparing for a concert next Tuesday at the Hudson Guild and for our Winter Concert next Thursday, December 14th at 6:30PM at the Charlton Street PAC. This is a wonderful evening of music that brings the three divisional choruses and the high school jazz band together. Also hard at work is the cast of the Middle School play, which is scheduled for this Friday (7PM) and Saturday (2PM and 7PM). All shows are at the Charlton Street PAC and tickets will still be on sale tomorrow morning in the Sixth Avenue lobby; they will also be available at the door before each show. The shows promise to be great fun. On the bill are . . . AFRAID OF THE DARK: A Mystery-Farce by James Reach and THE HITCH-HIKER: A radio play originally written for Orson Welles, by Lucille Fletcher. See you at the theater.

This Week’s Attachments
(Click on the links below to open the attachments. If you are having trouble opening the links, go to http://www.lrei.org/weekly/ms/ to access the files.)

General:
Book Fair Pre-Authorization Form
Parents in Action Flyer
Community Service Calendar
Eighth Grade:
Seventh Grade:
Sixth Grade:
Fifth Grade:

Of General Interest . . .

1) So as not to conflict with our Book Week Author Visits, Middle School “Pajama Day” has been postponed until Friday, January 12th.

2) A reminder that the school store will be open next week at Sixth Avenue on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings from 8:00-9:00AM.

3) There’s an updated Home Game only basketball schedule on the web – enjoy !
http://www.lrei.org/athletics/pdf/winter_sports_home.pdf

4) Please take a moment to review the Community Service calendar for a range of service opportunities.

5) For updates on faculty performances, openings, presentations, and publications visit the Faculty in the News page on the school web site.

6) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA). NYC-PIA provides parenting education, information and a communications network to help parents prepare their children and teenagers to cope with social pressures and to make sound choices towards a future free of alcohol and drug abuse. Please read the attached flyer to view their 2006-2007 calendar. You can also access their on-line calendar of events at www.parentsinaction.org.

For Eighth Grade Families . . . .
No updates this week.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .

1) Looking Ahead at LREI: All parents of third to seventh grade students are being invited to an informal evening with Director Phil Kassen for a conversation about “The Value of an LREI Education” as your child enters the middle and upper years. Invitations were mailed to you this week. Please note you are given three evenings to choose from in order to accommodate your schedule: January 9th, January 18th or January 23rd. If you have any questions, please contact Rowena Penaranda (ext. 295) or Sandra Song (ext. 275).

 

 

For Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) Looking Ahead at LREI: All parents of third to seventh grade students are being invited to an informal evening with Director Phil Kassen for a conversation about “The Value of an LREI Education” as your child enters the middle and upper years. Invitations were mailed to you this week. Please note you are given three evenings to choose from in order to accommodate your schedule: January 9th, January 18th or January 23rd. If you have any questions, please contact Rowena Penaranda (ext. 295) or Sandra Song (ext. 275).

2) The intramural basketball schedule ia available at http://www.lrei.org/athletics/wintersports.html#intramural.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .
1) Looking Ahead at LREI: All parents of third to seventh grade students are being invited to an informal evening with Director Phil Kassen for a conversation about “The Value of an LREI Education” as your child enters the middle and upper years. Invitations were mailed to you this week. Please note you are given three evenings to choose from in order to accommodate your schedule: January 9th, January 18th or January 23rd. If you have any questions, please contact Rowena Penaranda (ext. 295) or Sandra Song (ext. 275).

2) The intramural basketball schedule ia available at http://www.lrei.org/athletics/wintersports.html#intramural.

Middle School Sports
Schedules, permission forms and general information about Middle School sports programs can be found at http://www.lrei.org/athletics/index.html. Information is also available through the LREI Sports Hotline at 212.477.5316 x 494.

Looking Ahead . . .
On the LREI web site additional information about upcoming events can be found at http://www.lrei.org/caleven/index.html (the middle school events page can be found at http://www.lrei.org/midschool/Events.html)

  • Friday, December 15, 2006 — Winter Break – School closes at 12:00PM (school reopens on Wednesday, January 3, 2007)
  • Monday, January 15, 2007 — Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday-School Closed
  • Tuesday, January 16, 2007, 8:15AM — MS Parent Rep. Mtg.
  • Wednesday, January 17, 2007 — MS MLK Assembly
  • Thursday, January 18, 2007, 6:00PM — MS POCOC Mtg.
  • Friday, January 19, 2007 — MS End of 2nd Quarter
  • Friday, January 26, 2007, 5:00PM – Karamu
  • Friday, February 2, 2007, 7:00PM — MS Dance
  • Saturday, February 3, 2007, 7:00PM – Coffeehouse
  • Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 8:15AM — MS Parent Rep. Mtg.
  • Tuesday, February 13, 2007 — MS ERBs (through Thursday, February 15, 2006)
  • Wednesday, February 14, 2007 — MS Literary Festival
  • Thursday, February 15, 2007, 6:00PM — MS POCOC Meeting
  • Monday, February 19, 2007 — Presidents’ Weekend-School Closed (school reopens on Wednesday, February 21, 2007)
  • Wednesday, February 21, 2007 — MS Black History Month Assembly
  • Friday, February 23, 2007, 7:30PM — Eighth Grade DISC Dance @ Grace Church
  • Thursday, March 15, 2007, 6:00PM — MS POCOC Mtg.
  • Tuesday, March 20, 2007, 8:15AM — MS Parent Rep. Mtg.
  • Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 6:00PM — Sixth Grade Medieval Pageant
  • Thursday, March 22, 2007 — Fifth Grade Egyptian Tomb
  • Friday, March 23, 2007 — Founder’s Day
  • Friday, March 23, 2007 — MS End of 3rd Quarter
  • Friday, March 23, 2007 — Spring Break-School closes at 12:00PM (school reopens on Monday, April 9, 2006)

Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and interesting information – http://www.lrei.org.

Be well,
Mark

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