Amboy Middle School

Our amazing PTO provided breakfast for our staff as a welcome back to a new school year. Yacolt/Amboy PTO Rocks!!!

APPLY FOR MEAL BENEFITS

Free and reduced meal applications must be completed each school year. Only one application per household is necessary. 7th and 8th grade students who qualify for free and reduced lunch will automatically be enrolled in the College Bound Scholarship program. Contact our counselor, Kaitlyn Hagedorn, at hagedorn.kaitlyn@battlegroundps.org for more information about College Bound.

** Apply for meal benefits online through Skyward Family Access.

OR

**Print a paper application: ENGLISH / SPANISH / RUSSIAN

CONSENT TO SHARE

Families MUST be approved for free/reduced meals in the same year that they receive waived/discounted fee benefits and have a Consent to Share Form on file. If you qualify for free or reduced-price meals, you may be eligible for decreased fees to participate in other school programs. Due to confidentiality restraints on free/reduced income data, these events and activities require parental consent to release and share information with the programs. The online free/reduced application includes the Consent to Share authorization (you must check the box). If you apply with a hard copy free/reduced application, then you must also complete and sign the Parental Consent to Share form authorizing the release of their free/reduced eligibility status if you wish to benefit from the fee waivers. Submitting/not submitting this form will NOT affect your child’s eligibility for free or reduced-priced meals.

Consent to Share Forms: English / Spanish / Russian

5th graders have been busy learning the routines and expectations of their new school. We are safe, respectful, and responsible. Students are learning how to log in to Skyward to monitor their grades and how to email teachers and office staff if they have questions or concerns. Here are some of the things we'll be learning in our classes in October:

READING

5th graders will be reading some spooky and mysterious stories. We will focus on building vocabulary skills, comprehension and making inferences. We will also spend some time learning how to write compare and contrast paragraphs.

ELA

In language arts students are working on how to write a proper paragraph. They will continue to learn about the parts of speech as well.

SCIENCE/HISTORY

We will be wrapping up our science unit on mixtures and solutions and switching to history. Ask your students about the awesome science labs they've been conducting in class. Our first history unit will be on early civilizations.

MATH

We will continue studying volume throughout the year while also practicing multiplication strategies. In October we will be focusing on adding and subtracting fractions.

News from 6th grade…

We are off to a great start this year in 6th grade! Just a few reminders as we head into our 2nd month of school.

• Our expectation is that each student will have their Chromebook at school and charged every day. We are asking for your help in helping your student get into a routine to charge his/her Chromebook each night. We also want to remind families that Chromebooks should be used for educational purposes only.

• Please encourage your student to use iReady MyPath at home as much as possible. The program is aligned with Common Core standards in reading and math and is personalized with what each student needs to be working on. The more students practice, the more success they will find in class.

• Grade sheets are sent home at least every other week. Grades can also be found through Skyward’s Family Access. If you don’t have an account, please sign up in the office.

• Conferences - We’ll have four half days at the end of the month to conference with parents and students. Be looking for more information to be sent home in the next week or so. As a reminder, students are expected to be at their conference.

Reminders:

7th grade has a late lunch this year so we are allowing kids to eat a snack during their 4th period class. Please send a snack with your student if at all possible. Water is the only beverage allowed in our classrooms as spills of other beverages can be difficult to clean.

We have been making sure that all students are able to get on Skyward so that they are able to check their grades and check to see if they have any missing assignments. If you are having problems logging into your Skyward account or you are needing other assistance with your Skyward account please call our school office.

Math: To start the school year off we will be working in the Unit 1 workbook, Scale Drawings. We are also setting up our Math Journals where the students will be keeping their notes and work. Due to shipping problems, the actual workbooks haven’t arrived yet, so we will be using print shop copies till we receive them.

History: This month we will be studying Washington State Geography and the local tribes that lived in the area. We will be looking at how people used local resources to create communities. We are practicing answering questions in multiple, informative and complete sentences. We will have an art extension and an assessment project.

ELA: This month is about getting to know each other by writing about ourselves, learning to navigate Google Classroom, starting our root word vocabulary building, as well as reading and writing about informational text.

Science: We are learning a lot of procedures such as setting up our table of contents in our composition notebook and safety/behavioral expectations during labs and regular class time. We also did a science book scavenger hunt to learn where to find important parts of the book such as the contents, glossary and index - we learned what we can find in each of these locations, too. My hope is that with this extra introduction to the book, future learning and book use will be easier. We are starting this year learning about the cell.

We're off to a great start! Our i-Ready math and reading scores are in, and now the students can start using the i-Ready individualized lessons that are tailored to their needs based on their scores. These lessons will increase their knowledge and help them to advance from one or more grade levels higher. I-Ready suggests 2-3 lessons per week for students, but we can only do two lessons per month during school hours. You could help your child by scheduling some time after school (or weekends) to do 1-2 of those lessons in both math and reading throughout the week. As a parent you can check on their progress; ask your student to log onto i-Ready so you can view the lesson and their progress.

Through this year many of us will be using EdPuzzle and Flipgrids and other instructional ways that may require earbuds. Please have a pair of earbuds in their backpacks for when they have a lesson in EdPuzzle. EdPuzzle is a way to watch informative videos where teachers can insert questions/comments as they progress through the video. Sometimes we may have students present their work using Flipgrid, creating a video with their voice, versus having to stand up in class to present. Earbuds will help them record and make sure video sound is good.

Conferences will be the last week of October 25-28, Tuesday to Friday by Zoom, in person, or phone conference. About two weeks prior to the conferences, we will send out an invite via email for a conference. Please pick a time slot that works. If you want a phone conference, still pick a day/time slot that works best for you; it will ask for the phone number you prefer we call at that time. We will go over their i-Ready score and how they are doing currently in their academics. Please watch for emails coming through the Skyward system.

Thank you to those who joined us at Open House September 8. We created a bulletin board for parents/guardians to post advice for our 8th graders. If you would like to add your advice to the bulletin board, email Ms. Theis (theis.mellisa@battlegroundps.org) with your advice; in the subject line put Advice Bulletin Board. Thank you!

Our Amboy Spirit Wear sale is happening now through October 7. We are offering T-shirts, Beanies, Hoodies and more! Click here to place your order. Items will be delivered to the school 10-12 working days after the sale has ended. Show your Amboy pride!

I hope you all enjoyed your summer break. The Eagle's Nest (Amboy's Social Emotional Learning Center, SEL Center) hit the ground running this year with anxious student visitors on the very first day of school. I was so glad those students remembered that my room was a safe place to go to deal with their feelings, and then they head to class feeling better.

SEL Centers opened up in middle schools in the Battle Ground School District last school year, and this year SEL Centers have opened in each of our elementary schools. SEL Centers go beyond traditional "quiet rooms." They are staffed with trained professionals who work to support the social-emotional and behavioral well-being of students and educators. Students learn self-management skills and work collaboratively to return as quickly as possible to the classroom environment. SEL Centers are one part of the district's ongoing efforts to ensure all students have the tools and resources necessary to succeed, both in school and in life outside of the classroom, through a restorative process that empowers understanding and working through conflicts with a tiered support system. To learn more, visit the district's Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports website (P.B.I.S.)

Mrs. Wolden SEL Center Support Paraeducator

Did you know that you can excuse your student’s absences through Skyward? Select the “Attendance” tab, click on “Absence Requests”, plug in the absence dates, reason, comments, and save. It’s that easy! See screenshots below. You can also excuse absences by emailing our office at amboyoffice@battlegroundps.org.

Our amazing PTO volunteers working hard on the Payback Book fundraiser! Students sold almost $10,000 worth of books, with half of that money coming back to our school. Great job, Amboy Eagles!

Our top sellers for the Payback Book Sale! 1st - Kolten Funk, 2nd - Autumn Ganz, 3rd (tie) - Gatlin Brown and Willow Tormanen. Great job!

The Great WA ShakeOut is coming up! Schools, community organizations, businesses and families across the United States are participating in the biggest Earthquake Drill on October 20th at 10:20 AM. Attached to this newsletter are reminders of what to do during an earthquake in different places and steps in making a plan. We hope this helps prepare your family.