Middle School

In the Middle School there is a year A and year B. Each year there are five cycles. Each cycle has a theme, for example cycle five's theme this year is Balance. In each cycle we have two weeks of Social World (Social Studies), two weeks of Natural World (Science), one week for final projects, and one week for Theme Tests and finishing up work for the cycle. We are split into groups to work on projects and then we present our projects to each other for the information.

Each week on Monday's we make a Weekly Planner which is a schedule for what we are going to do each day. In the morning we have morning meeting where we share news, acknowledge each other for things we've done, do brainteasers, and do brain-gym to wake up our minds. Then there is a lesson if it's scheduled which is about twenty minutes. After that we do Homework Check, where the teacher checks if we did our homework and discuss what's happening in the novels we are reading. Next is group work where we split up into our groups to work on our Social World or Natural World projects depending on the week. Then we have math for 45 minutes until lunch. After lunch is Personal World (Health) where we quietly sit or lay down in our spots writing about our assignments. Next is Individual Work where we do literature work and writing assignments. Then it's time for jobs. Everyone is assigned to clean up certain parts of the classroom and when we're done we either go out for P.E. or have Foreign Language classes. They switch off every day. Then it's the end of the day and we go home at 3:45.

Friday's are different. We have a vocabulary quiz and in the first week or Natural World and Social World we have a Socratic Dialogue where we get a reading and discuss it. On the second week we have a test on what we've learned in the subject. Then we have an elective like drumming, bowling, juggling, etc. We also get an extended P.E. which is about and hour and a half.

Final project's week is where the groups get these huge projects to sum up what we've learned in Natural World, Social World, and Personal World. Then on Thursday or Friday we present them to each other and we get a grade. 4.0 is the highest grade and we get a rubric that we have to follow. Then in the last week of the cycle we have Theme Tests. These are three tests that take the entire day. They are on Social World, Natural World, and Personal World. For the rest of the week we finish up work and fill out our contracts which are like report cards. We have parent/student/teacher conferences where we go over our contracts.