• A Message from Dr. Clapp and Mrs. Mohr

• Classroom Peeks

• HKMS Happenings

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Dear HKMS Families,

While it may seem like a long time off, the end of Trimester one is November 26. In actuality, that is only 21 days of school.  During this "home stretch" of the trimester, many subjects will have culminating projects, tests, essays, and other benchmark assessments.  This can be one of the most stressful times for your children.  While much of the news today focuses on the negative aspects of stress, learning how to handle productive stress is what has allowed human beings to be such a successful species.  Without some pressure to survive and thrive, its likely our ancestors would have become extinct.  This is a great opportunity to teach your children how to deal with expected stress in a healthy and productive way.  For many of us being prepared, organized, and able to anticipate stressors are helpful proactive strategies.  For others, mediation, mindful breathing, prayer, hobbies, music, art, and/or exercise are helpful reactive coping mechanisms.  Blending both the proactive and reactive strategies will give your children the tools they need to thrive in those productively stressful moments in school and later in adult life.  Remember children between 11-14 experience the most growth and development of their entire lives (except B-3), coaching them through normal levels of stress will engrain these healthy habits for a lifetime. 

As discussed at open house, each week we will highlight one skill that will give your child a competitive advantage in school and beyond.  These are skills we are working on in school, but will really only flourish if also worked on at home.   Each skill will include a rationale and some ideas on how you can promote it at home.  This week's skill is:

 Being Prepared

Rationale: 

• When we show up unprepared stress levels increase and our energy and attention is drawn away from the topic.

• When you're prepared confidence levels increase. Confidence leads to better engagement and performance!

• Preparation also leads to a calmer emotional state, allowing the reasonable parts of the brain to be in control. 

What you can do to promote:  

• Make your preparations practices visible to your child.  By over-explaining and demonstrating how you prepare for meetings, trips, shopping, chores, or other tasks, you validate the importance of preparation.

• Team up with your child to create systems and habits to ensure they are prepared for the next day of school.  A very popular and successful strategy is to have your child keep their school bag by the door from which they leave for school.  When they come home, out comes all the homework and their computer.  The computer gets charged while they complete their homework, then it all goes back in the bag. Now your prepared for tomorrow! 

• Going over their schedule while they lay out clothes for the next day (or even the week) will help them be prepared for the weather and any non-typical activities that may be coming up. 

This very newsletter can help you and your middle schooler be a bit more prepared for the weeks ahead.  At the very bottom of this  newsletter are upcoming events, you can plan what extracurricular actives they might want to try next week. You can even review what happened in classes this week, by discussing the classroom peeks (this may help activate memory of upcoming class assignments).  

It was another wonderful week of middle school teaching and learning at HKMS. I hope you can take a few minutes to check out the rest of this week's newsletter! 

Hoping you have a fantastic weekend!  

Sincerely,

Steve Clapp, Ed.D. &   Annie Mohr

Principal Assistant Principal

In 6th grade Spanish classes, students are designing a "Cuarto ideal" (dream room). In addition to the things you might expect like "la cama" (the bed) and "la ventana," some creative additions like "la hiedra artificial" (fake ivy) and las luces LED (LED lights) are appearing in many of their obras. Next week students will be giving guided tours of their rooms!

After finishing their very cool "synth wave" landscapes, our artists have moved on to knitting using self-made looms!

More Information about the 300 Boodle Brigade

SEPTA!

Easton's Special Education Parent Teacher Association