Have a wonderful summer vacation!! Be seeing you in August. Read as much as you can over the summer!! 
Sara Lee, Mary & Jeff
6th - 8th Grade
May 6, 2010
Greetings, Parents! Time sure does fly by quickly! We have about four weeks left until summer vacation. Many events have happened in April and many more events will be coming around the corner soon upcoming weeks. There was a science fair. Second, there was an ASL poetry competition that involved 1st grade through middle school.
ASL Poetry competition- We learned about different types of classifiers to help the students with creating their own ASL poetry. We focused on rhyme, rhythm, stanza and use of figurative language. In ASL poetry, either handshape, movement or same line is repeated throughout the poem. Also, we could use signs that uses same kind of movement or handshape. Often figurative language is used in poetry so classifiers are like figurative language in ASL poetry. We viewed some other ASL poets to get some ideas. Then each student created his/her own ASL poem individually. We had a competition on April 29th with three judges (Kevin Souhrada, Valerie Sharer and Ryan Commerson). The top 8-9 students were taped and shown at an Art Show at the Very Special Arts center. The 9 students were: Sierra Herzig-Wilcox, Madison Latham, Mackenzie Latham, Brenda Ruedas, Carlos Perez, Colleen Gunst, Mia White, Payton Talbert and Rolando Middlebrooks. They were a part of the “Poetry in Motion” at the art show.
Thirdly, we went on a field trip to deaf and hard of hearing track and field day in Aurora last Tuesday. All deaf and hard of hearing students from all over Denver metro met at the track area near Hinkley High School in Aurora. The middle school students worked as volunteers helping out with Track and Field Day staff. Each student had different roles volunteering face painting, leading the group, giving out awards, collecting food for Food Bank, etc. Several middle school students joined the dash race after everyone complete their volunteering. It was a great day and the students enjoyed running around on the football field. Here are the images:
Tomorrow will be an exciting day for our students. First, we will have a special guest visiting RMDS. Luke Adams who joined with his mother on TV series “The Amazing Race” will be our guest speaker. On May 19, we will have another field trip to downtown Denver. The middle school students will be visiting Molly Brown museum. We will send home field trip permission slip next week.
Important Dates to Remember:
Our last Middle School Fun Night is on May 14th. I will send home permission slip with your child. Make sure to sign the form by next week before May 14th.
May 21- Golf Tournament
June 1st- Graduation and Honor Roll ( We will keep you posted with more information when time is near)
June 3rd- End of School Party (no Jeffco transportation)
Thank you,
Sara Lee, Mary and Jeff
April 16, 2010
Greetings, Parents! We have had many events happening after Spring Break! First, we started with Middle School Fun Night on April 9th. We went to Colorado Mills Mall for mini-golf at Putting Edge, dinner and shopping. The students had a great time! We invited many other deaf and hard of hearing students from another school. The students were making new friends. Our next Middle School Fun Night will be held on May 14th. The Middle School students will discuss our plans for that night. We will keep you update.
Secondly, our next exciting event was Honor Roll Assembly. It was held on Monday, April 12th. We would like to applaud to all of our students who received Honor Roll Awards. They have worked hard throughout the third quarter to achieve their awards. Here are the images:
Last, we went for a field trip to Boulder Ice Cream factory with the whole school. The students were able to experience going a walkthrough a freezer where they stored ice cream packages below 20 degrees for two to three minutes. Boy! It was cold! Then we walked through manufacture processing hallway and witnessed the workers making ice cream. Each student had a taste of vanilla ice cream recently made. It was delicious! Each students received small sampling of their ice cream. We went to the park to have our lunch. After lunch, we watched several dance performances by undergraduate and graduate students at Colorado University. At the last minute, our own Middle School students who was taking dance as elective performed for all of us! We all had a great time! Here are the images:
The Optimist Club competition went well even though it was postponed one day due to the snow day. Everyone did a great job. We will post pictures of the competition ASAP. Congratulations to the winners:
1st Place - Mia White
2nd Place - Greta Wolcott
3rd Place - Colleen Gunst
They will compete at the statewide competition at CSDB on Monday, April 12th. We wish them the best!!
Sara Lee, Mary and Jeff
March 22, 2010
Happy Spring!
First day of spring was last Saturday and last Friday was the last day of 3rd quarter, too. March has been a busy month with CSAPs. Last week we celebrated the end of CSAPs with a pizza party and jeopardy activities that the teachers participated. During the assembly last week, we had a visitor from England. He was an itinerant teacher for the Deaf. He shared his experiences and showed the studenst how to fingerspell using British alphabet. And the month isn’t over yet! We will have parent and teacher conferences this Wednesday. Hope to see you there.
Also, the middle school students are participating in the Optmist Club oral presentation competition. The local competition will be held at RMDS this Wednesday at 1 p.m. The topic for presentation this year is as follows: Cyber Communication: Progress or Problem? If you could come, come on over and watch our students present.
Finally, there is a student teacher from University of Northern Colorado in the middle school and his name is Craig Stalker. He will be working with Sara Lee in the mornings for 8 weeks until 1st week of May.
Sara Lee’s corner:
Both of my reading classes completed their books, took tests and presented their projects. Now both groups are working on pre-reading activities related to their new books: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Stone Fox.
In writing classes, we have been focused on descriptive writing. We learned about writing super sentences (adding more information to make our sentences more interesting). This week, our focus is on word choice (one of the 6 writing traits). We will work on synonyms in revelance to word choice.
In ASL, all the students have completed their power point presentations on their person who has contributed to the deaf history or community. We enjoyed learning something new about some people. Also, we have been working on our presentation for the optimist club competition.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
March 24th: Optimist Club competition at RMDS at 1 p.m.
March 24th: Parent/Teacher conference from 6 to 8 p.m.
March 26th: 3rd Quarter Honor Roll ceremony at 2 p.m.
March 29th: April 2nd: Spring Break
February 26, 2010
Greetings!!!
Wow! We couldn’t believe today is the last day of February. We have several events we would like to share with you. But first, we want to share with you about our Literacy Night in which was held on February 10th. Everyone had a great time! We started with Opening Ceremony, had four different Olympics theme areas, door prize and awards. Each family represented each country. Each family rotated from each Olympics theme areas. Here are the pictures:
We will having CSAP testing start March 1st - March 12th. Make sure your child have some plenty of rest for the next two weeks. We kicked off the CSAP testing with a Pancake breakfast this morning.
We have been working on preparing our students for CSAP in different areas. We reviewed inferencing, finding main idea and giving support to our answers with information from the text, writing our answers in full sentences, reading different charts, vocabulary, grammar rules as well as concepts for Math and Science. We will continue to do that on Monday and Friday when our students return to regular class schedule.
Now is a good time for the students to catch up on their missing assignments before the end of 3rd quarter (March 19th)
Sara Lee’s corner:
Both reading groups have completed their books. We are now reviewing and finishing up. The students will have a project to do in relation to their book. We will begin new books after CSAPS.
In writing, we reviewed the difference between narrative and expository pieces and what was expected in each type. We learned how we were evaluated in CSAP on our writing pieces.
ASL: We completed our power point projects on our person of choice for Deaf History. Currently the students are presenting their projects to the class.
Mary’s Corner:
Reading /Wizard Wands – We just started reading our new book, Bud, Not Buddy, written by Christopher Paul Curtis. It is about an orphan struggling to find his father during Depression Era.
Reading /Twilights- We started reading a new book called, Ramona the Brave. The students wanted to continue to read more about Ramona. In this book, she is a first grader and she is learning how to find courage.
Writing- We are still working on our writing projects about Winter. The students reviewed the differences between narrative and expository writing.
Purple/Orange Math- We have been reviewing different math problems for CSAP test.
US History- We are now studying Civil War. The students are working on their Civil War/Gettysburg project by researching different battle locations, generals, and the causes of the Civil War.
Us Georgraphy- We are researching about Great Lakes. Each students are researching for information on their assigned lake.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Middle School Fun Night will be held on March 19th.
Middle School Students will be involved with Optimist Club competition. The competition will be on March 24th.
Parent/Teacher Conferences will be on Wednesday, March 24th.
Happy March,
Sara Lee, Mary & Jeff
(Sorry this wasn’t published until now! It was saved as a draft instead of being published)
Happy February!!
We are now into the second half of the school year! Time sure flies!!
There will be a Family Literacy Night at RMDS on Wednesday, February 10th. The theme will be Winter Olympics. We hope to see you there. Also, there will be a book fair during this time.
We had a honor roll ceremony last Friday. Congratulations to our students who got on the honor roll.
We hope to see more students on the honor roll. The key to get on the honor roll is to participate, be ready for classes and complete their homework on time.
Here are tidbits from what is happening in our classes:
Mary’s classroom
Reading and Writing-We are very close completing our book reading. The students continued to work on answering reading comprehension questions and writing down their feelings/thoughts of each chapter of their book. The students are practicing with interference and prediction skills with different short stories. Winter theme essay is our current writing project. Some of the students are writing descriptive essay about their favorite winter sport. Other students are writing narrative stories. The students are still practicing writing topic sentences and paragraphs.
Math-The students are still working with Singapore Math strategy using word problems. Some students learned number theories with fractions such as divisibility, simplify fractions, equivalent fractions, addition and subtraction with fractions while other group of students started to learn number theories with factions.
U.S. History-The students just completed their history review test last week. The test covered what they have learned since beginning of August. We emphasized our studies on the tensions between the colonists and the British. The objective was to comprehend what events caused the start of the American Revolutionary War. Currently, we are learning about the strength and weakness of the British and Continental Armies. We will learn about the Constitution and Bill of Rights next week.
U.S. Geography- The students completed their studies on Southeast Regions. They created books or brochures on different states. Currently, we are focusing on Midwest Region. The students learned variety of geography vocabulary terms as we study each region.
Sara Lee’s corner:
ASL: We are focusing on presentation skills and how we can organize our thoughts and present them in ASL. We are participating in the ASL essay contest at Gallaudet University. Also for Deaf Studies, we are starting a biography project on Deaf People.
Reading: We focused on how to write great short answers by paraphrasing the questions. This is a great preparation for the CSAPS. We are starting new books and working on the setting. On Fridays, we work on specific skills involving reading comprehension and how to read charts in preparation for CSAPs, too.
Writing: We practiced writing great topic sentences for a variety of topics. Also, we are working on creating a multi-paragraph essay on the same topic as ASL essay contest. We are working on how to organize and expand the paragraph with examples or details.
The topic for both writing and ASL essay contest at Gallaudet University is as follows:
Helping Others: How I Can Make a Difference in My Community?
Sara Lee, Mary & Jeff
January 15, 2010
Hello, Parents,
We want to keep you in post that this week was the last week of 2nd quarter. The whole week, we focused on reviewing all the information that students have learn since beginning of 2nd quarter.
We want to let you know that we will post all the grades by next week.
Reminder! Middle school will be having Middle School Fun Night on January 22nd. Your child will bring home permission slip. We would like to have the permission slip by Thursday January 21st.
Have a good weekend!
Jeff, Mary and Sara Lee
December 4, 2009
Hello, Parents!
We hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving Break! We had a good week. There were several events happening during the week. Before Thanksgiving break, Middle School students were assigned a young student from either Learning Center, Preschool, Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten or some of first grade class to help them making a wish list for Signing Santa by choosing pictures from catalogs and helping them write. This was like mentoring. Last Monday, the Middle School students met with the younger students to rehearse signing their letters to the Santa with their wish list.
Last Tuesday, the whole school went to Cherry Creek Mall to meet Signing Santa. Middle School students met with the younger children to support them with Signing Santa. In fact, our event was captured by the CBS4 news!! Hope everyone did watched our event, but if not, don’t worry! Here’s the link: Signing Santa (be sure to link the signing santa picture below the current video)
Today, we had a guest visitor, Angelyne, “The Amazing Deaf Cattle Dog”. His owner, Eric Melvin demonstrated his tricks with Angelyne to the whole school. The students enjoyed viewing the demonstration. Several students participated using tricks with Angelyne.
Enjoy!
Jeff, Mary and Sara Lee
******
November 13, 2009
Wow, time sure flies fast! We have one more week before Thanksgiving break. Just a reminder, we will be having a Thanksgiving Feast on Thursday, November 19 in the evening. The RMDS Board members will provide food at the feast to show their appreciation for RMDS families. It would be wonderful to see you all. Students’ stories, performances and comments will be shown at the dinner.
Two Mondays ago (November 2nd), we had an award assembly for First Quarter Honor Roll.
Congratulations to our Middle School students for receiving their special awards for their hard work!
Perfect Attendance Award
Matthew Cowger, Carlos Perez, Caleb Pendley, Vladislav Malyshkin
Honor Roll Mention Award
Matthew Cowger, Justice Grumbach, Austin Wolfangle, Payton Talbert, Caleb Pendley
Honor Roll Award
Elijah Ruck, Renee Gunst, Sunshine Souhrada, Brenda Ruedas
Highest Honor Roll Award
Colleen Gunst, Mia White, Destiny Campion, Vladislav Malyshkin
Last week on November 6th, the Middle School students went on a field trip to the Boondocks in Northglenn. It was co-sponsored by CSDB Outreach program and a teacher at Hill Middle School. They invited all middle school deaf programs in the Metro Denver area to meet at Boondocks. The students really enjoyed their fun day by riding on the Go-Karts and playing arcade games. Not only they get to play games, it was a chance for our middle school students to meet other deaf students from another schools. There were about 7 programs in attendance and over 75 people attending. Here are the images from our fun day at Boondocks:
Check out our Newsletter:
Mary, Jeff & Sara Lee
October 22, 2009
Hello, Parents! It was a busy week! This was the last week of the first quarter. Last Wednesday, we held Family Math Night. Everyone had a great time. The most popular middle school math event was “Wild Trail Mix” with fractions. Many parents enjoyed the game. Families can continue to play “Wild Trail Mix” at home with their child. Here are the images from Family Math Night-
Last Night was a big event for RMDS. Jefferson County Education Center had approved our request for high school. Some of our middle school students did present on our behalf to the panel. They did an impressive job! We would like to thank Christine Pendley, David Wilcox, Greta Wolcott, Mia White, and Justice Grumbach. We would also like to thank Matthew Cowger giving the middle school students’ letters to the Jefferson County Board members. We want to thank all the parents, staff and students for showing up to show their support! Here are the images from Board meeting-
Today, we had our first SBG meeting. The students are planning different ways to set up fundraising and middle school events. We will keep you posted if we need your help with our fundraising and middle school events. Today at the assembly, we had a visitor from Jefferson County Police K-9 unit. He did some demonstration how the dogs search for drugs and bomb.
We teachers are currently working on Gradebook. You will expect to see your child’s final grades next week. Thank you for all of your patience.
Have a great weekend!
Here is our second newsletter: middleschool-nl-oct-23
October 5th to October 9th
It is hard to believe we have about two weeks left until the end of first quarter. Last Monday, we had Student Body Government election. The students who ran for different positions did very well with their speeches. We applauded to all of their hard work and effort running their own campaign. We announced the winner by the end of the day.
Winners:
President: Greta Wolcott
Vice President: Kevin Dale
Secretary: Renee Gunst
Treasurer: Sunshine Souhrada
Student Representative: Rebecca Olson
Congratulations to SBG winners. We will have our first SBG meeting on Friday, October 23rd. We will have our SBG meetings on Fridays twice a month. It will be a great year for SBG!
We have exciting news to share. Denver Commission for Disabilities contacted us about having our Middle School Dance Team (Noisy Hands Dance Team) to perform at their awards ceremony this coming Tuesday morning. It will be a great experience for our middle school students. You will get a permission slip for your child to be part of this event this Monday.
We mailed out the letters about the gradebook website. You should be expecting it soon.
Here is our new updated newsletter, Enjoy!
Mary, Jeff & Sara Lee
September 28 to October 2
This week went by so fast! We had a great week! Last Tuesday, the Deaf Festival was a success! The middle school students performed did a great job with ASL stories and dance performance.
Today, we went to a field trip to CSDB for College Fair. What an experience for all of the middle school students! There were so many booth tables of several different colleges and universities. The students asked several questions to the recruiters about certain colleges and universities. They collected different folders and brochures. Make sure ask your child to show you what they collected.
Tonight is Middle School Fun Night! We are looking forward enjoying our fun night after our hard work this week!
We will pass out the information about gradebook website and an updated newsletter next week! Thank you for your patience!
Have a great weekend!
Jeff. Mary and Sara Lee
