SAS Pudong Middle School

 Week of January 7 - 11

Ø    On behalf of Dr. Rosen and myself, we would like to thank you all for a great beginning to the year.  The holiday season for us is a chance to reflect on the progress we have made this year and reenergize our goals and expectations for the second semester.  We greatly appreciate the support, input and mostly your trust in allowing us to educate your children.  All of us in the administrative team and faculty wish you all a happy and safe holiday season.

Monday, January 7th - School Resumes

Tuesday, January 8th - Dr. Roukema leaves for recruitment fair in Bangkok

Wednesday, January 10th - New student orientation and language testing

Friday, January 11th - Last day of the 2nd quarter

Mark your calendars

Monday, January 14th 3rd Quarter/2nd Semester begins

January 17th - Middle School Coffee:  Topic:  The Middle School alignment process

January 18th - Report Cards go home

Ø    Thank you to all the parents who joined us this week on campus for our holiday concerts.  We hope that you were impressed with the quality of our music education program.

Ø    Parents wishing to volunteer in the planning or participating in events please contact Debbie MacDonaldsynchrodj@mac.com or Denise Morency chinamorency@yahoo.com

Ø    A Reminder to Parents:  If both parents are going to be away from Shanghai, please have your son/daughter collect a Statement of Temporary Guardianship form from the office.

Communication with the Middle School:
Ø    ** The most comprehensive school wide information is to be found at http://teachers.saschina.org/mspudong

Ø    Weekly Parent Talk articles
Ø    Weekly Middle School Notes
Ø    Edline - MS HomePage: https://global.edline.net/InterstitialLogin.page
Ø    Counselor’s Blog: http://schoolcounselor.teachtck.com/

The SAS Middle School Science program is a challenging, integrative, and exploratory experience for our students, who benefit from a vertically aligned, integrated approach to the major topics of Earth, life and physical sciences. Our science curriculum is designed to meet the affective needs of middle school children as well as the academic requirements to be successful in higher levels of scientific investigations beyond the middle school years.

Student-centered activities and learning objectives are designed to address the following goals:

• Facilitate our students with the development of reasoning and critical thinking skills in order to make decisions about the validity and reliability of what they observe
• Provide opportunities for our students to be reflective of their own impacts as consumers to make wise choices for the future.
• Empower students, through scientific literacy, to evaluate data and find solutions to real-world problems
• Encourage students to realize that scientific knowledge is dynamic and requires us to be open and adaptable to new information and situations
• Foster a sense of personal responsibility and independence in our students by taking the initiative to plan, organize and reflect on their own projects, progress and products.
• Develop effective group skills for working in collaborative settings.
• Instill in our students a sense that learning is a dynamic and ongoing process that takes practice and effort to be successful.
• Ensure that students are exposed to, and are skilled in, various technologies to enhance their understanding of scientific processes and content

In addition to representing the SAS science standards and benchmarks, this curriculum also reflects the SAS core values and EAGLES initiatives.

This week's Middle School Holiday Concerts:

• • Monday December 10^th

• Grade 6 Beginning Band and Music Exploration @1:30 pm in the auditorium

• • Tuesday December 11^th :

• Band Concert @ 6:30 pm in the auditorium

• • Wednesday December 12^th:

Strings concert @6:30 pm in the auditorium

A reminder that we will not be providing buses after the concert.

• December 14^th half day - School ends  at 11:30 am

• Our Kid's Literature Quiz team competed in the national finals at Concordia International school.  SAS teams placed 3^rd and 6^th out of 17 teams.  A great showing for our inaugural year in this competition.  Congratulations to Ms. Lewis and Mrs. McGillivary and all the students on the KLQ team.

• Please complete your SAS survey by visiting the URL below and entering the access code

http://web.nsse.org/nsse-surveys/src/index.php

• Parents wishing to volunteer in the planning or participating in events please contact Debbie MacDonaldsynchrodj@mac.com or Denise Morency chinamorency@yahoo.com

• A Reminder to Parents:  If both parents are going to be away from Shanghai, please have your son/daughter collect a Statement of Temporary Guardianship form from the office.

Communication with the Middle School:

• ** The most comprehensive school wide information is to be found at http://teachers.saschina.org/mspudong

• Weekly Parent Talk articles
• Weekly Middle School Notes
• Edline - MS HomePage: https://global.edline.net/InterstitialLogin.page
• Counselor's Blog: http://schoolcounselor.teachtck.com/

The middle school mathematics program at Shanghai American School is dedicated to providing every student a challenging program combined with a sense of accomplishment. The program gives each student the mathematical understanding, knowledge, and skills that serve as a base for further study throughout their education. Across all grade levels students apply their emerging capabilities of finding and imposing structure, conjecturing and verifying, thinking hypothetically, comprehending cause and effect, and engaging in abstraction and generalization. The math program enables students to organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking through communication with teachers, peers, and parents. Differentiated instruction within the standards are used in the math program to meet the needs of all students based on their readiness level, interest, and learning style. Calculators and other technology are used as a tool to develop a deeper understanding of concepts and student capabilities.