ALMS Weekly Update

Dear ALMS Families,

What a busy week here at ALMS. We saw the week start with Dress Up to Take Down Breast Cancer. Students and Faculty dressed in pink to help bring awareness to this important cause. Thank you, Ms. Neely, for organizing this event. Special shout out to our 6th graders for showing their support!! Tuesday was Halloween, and many students and staff participated in the festivities!

We began our annual Thanksgiving food drive; please see the details below. Thanks to Ms. Suplina, Ms. DelGuercio, and Mr. Ettlinger for putting out some great projects for our students to complete in Art and Science, respectively!

Clocks fall back an hour this weekend, so please keep that in mind on Saturday and Sunday!

Finally, next week, we also see a busy schedule. Tuesday, November 7th, will be a PD day, so there will be no school for students. Friday, November 9th, will be a day off to observe Veterans Day.

There will also be a very important PTA meeting on November 8th; our topics are Anti Bullying and Middle School Safety. Please join us!

Next week will also end our first marking period, and I look forward to all our school community has in store in our second marking period! Also, please look below for information about an upcoming Open House at New Rochelle High School.

Warm regards,

Camille Edwards-Thomas

• November 1st-9th - Food Drive
• November 1st-30th - American Indian Heritage Month
• November 5th - Daylight Saving Time ends (Fall behind, turn your clocks back an hour)
• November 7th - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS - Election Day, Superintendents Conference Day
• November 8th - PTA Meeting: Middle School Safety Matters: Insights and Strategies from New Rochelle Youth Officers, and Presentation by Kara Santucci on Bullying Prevention
• November 9th - End of Marking Period 1
• November 10th - NO SCHOOL - Veterans Day (observed)
• November 13th - Start of Marking Period 2
• November 13th-17th - Spirit Week
• November 21st - Rockwell 6 Breakfast
• November 22nd - HALF DAY - AM CLASSES ONLY
• November 23rd-24th - NO SCHOOL - Thanksgiving/Native American Heritage Day
• November 27th-December 1st - Scholastic Book Fair

Ms. Stella's 8th Grade Students & TEAM HOPE 143 will be hosting the

2nd Annual ALMS CANDY WARS beginning Wednesday 11/1 and end 11/9.

The 7th period class with the most pounds of candy per person will win:

1st Place ---ICE CREAM Party

2nd Place ---- Stella's Chocolate Chip Pancake Tacos

3rd Place- Brownie Cookies

For those of you who have forgotten...

- Mr. Ritter's class WON 1st PLACE last year... they filled nearly 4 bags of candy!!

- Your team will be your Day 1/Period 7 class.

- All donated candy will be packed and delivered to the Hope Food Pantry

From November 1st - November 2nd, Dia De Los Muertos is celebrated in Mexico! Mrs. Del Guercio's 6th grade student artists “travelled” to Mexico to join in on this celebration and create beautiful and fun artwork! Artists chose to create an animal inspired by the Dia De Los Muertos celebration. In this mixed media project, artists combined collage, color pencil, marker, and oil pastel! We also used contrast between very bright colors and our black skeleton animals. The full display is located in the music and art wing until mid November.

On Thursday, November 2nd, the ALMS sixth graders were treated to a presentation by the world renowned YouTube performer Mr. Nicky. Daniel Nicky is an English teacher who has become a YouTube sensation by taking contemporary songs and infusing them with world history-related lyrics. One of our 6th grade teachers, Mr. Kaplan, noted that Mr. Nicky’s songs are so engaging that, when students come back to visit from high school, they will often tell him they still remember how to sing Mr. Nicky’s informational parodies from their 6th grade social studies classes.

The same level of energy and enthusiasm was clearly evident throughout the student body when Mr. Nicky performed for the whole 6th grade via Zoom this past Thursday. Not only did students get to sing along with him to some of his greatest hits (Ancient Mesopotamia), he also worked with students to create their very own song about Geography Themes to the tune of Shake it off by Taylor Swift. He also engaged students in a very interesting Q&A about his family’s life living in Jakarta, Indonesia where he now lives and also how he developed his YouTube channel.

The final recording of our students’ song will be linked in a future edition of the newsletter. The Social Studies Department would like to offer a special thanks to the ALMS PTA for sponsoring this wonderful opportunity for all of our 6th graders!

On Wednesday, October 25th, 2023, at the Proclamation Ceremony for Italian Heritage and Culture Month at Eastchester High School, Elizabeth Rosenbluth was nominated by her Italian Teacher Mr. Maida, and was awarded a certificate of excellence in the study of the Italian language. Elizabeth was joined by many other students in Westchester, Dutchess and Putnam counties, being recognized for this achievement. Congratulazioni! Sei una studentessa esemplare!

Students have been learning about the concepts of Evolution (Natural Selection) and the Theory of Evolution, which Charles Darwin created. As is typical in life, another scientist opposed Darwin's view, named Jean-Baptiste Lamark, who stated species developed their adaptations within their lifetime based on their particular environment. To link these two concepts, students were asked to make cladograms (evolutionary trees) of how they thought the Pokemon evolved and linked them to a common ancestor. Students collaborated with their groups and brainstormed how they could connect the various Pokemon to 6 common ancestors. After the lab, students had to determine whether they thought the concept of Pokemon related more to Darwin's or Lamark's Theory of Evolution.

The school district renewed the tutor.com license for middle and high school students! See the attached fliers for more information!

Please see the fliers and QR codes below for information about SEPTA!