This course will focus on expressive writing in many different forms. Students in Creative Writing will write poems, short stories, plays, news stories, comic strips, children’s books, an autobiography and other types of writing that express creativity. Students will also study writing samples from professional writers as well as student writers to guide students. Strategies to avoid writer’s block and new ways to uncover ideas for writing will be studied. Peer reviews and sharing ideas are essential elements to this course.

Students will read several short stories with a focus on comprehension, oral reading, oral presentation, collaborative group discussion, vocabulary, literary elements, and written response. Stories are fun and high interest due to the surprising “twists” at the end!

This course is designed to help enthusiastic learners explore how every story, poem, or writing prompt gives us an opportunity to learn something new about ourselves or the world around us. As part of this course, students will learn how impactful close reading and critical thinking can be.

It's easy to make healthy meals with 5 ingredients or less!!! And it's easy to stay active and healthy using Math! The students will alternate cooking and physical activities every other day for a balanced and healthy lifestyle.

Cooking days include budgeting, meal planning, and actual cooking/baking.

Activity days include both indoor and out activities pending on the weather.

Students will need to wear tennis shoes on the activity days.

In this course students will review math standards from 5th and 6th grade that lead to common misconceptions in middle school math. Students will work on these standards while playing games and completing activities. This course will include student growth and imagine math completion.

Students gain essential STEAM skills as they build, code and play with remote-control model robots and intelligent creations that shoot missiles, play ball, drive around and more!

6th - 8th grade band for students who already play an instrument (or for students who are curious about playing an instrument). We will work on the fundamentals of music literacy and performance.

A brief look into topics that have been a part of the history most prevalent to the lives of black people. Units may include the following:

Blacks Lives Matter in:

Music →including singers, dancers, producers, composers, and events such as the Harlem Renaissance

Film→ a look at historical issues through the lens of Tv shows and movies

Business→ Black Wall Street, thriving black businesses and entrepreneurs throughout history

Everyday Life→ Commonly used resources that were invented or enhanced by Black people

Education→ HBCUs, fight for equality in education, Brown vs Board of Education

The culminating activity will include a living museum for the students to enact for the school (if possible).

Students will learn about entrepreneurship. Activities will include creating a vision board, SMART goals, and marketing reels to promote their products or service. Games will include landmine, the pipeline challenge, and the spaghetti tower tower to aid students in developing effective communication and teambuilding skills.

The summer leadership program will offer leadership activities from the Next Steps and YEP Program. Students will work on their own padfolio, as well as learn about resumes and career readiness.

Fitness for Life ( learn about nutrition) and use the Fitness Center. PE is geared toward life long vs competitive sports. Fitness and working out can be performed long term and outside of PE. A lifestyle that consists of physical activity and proper nutrition is important to your overall quality of life, more than just the benefit of weight loss. Both are essential to a healthy body and a healthy mind.

Students will produce a short play to be presented to an audience at the end of the summer school session. Each class will produce a different play to be present in a festival of one acts. Each class will be a self contained production team including actors and technicians.

Students will learn how to improve life skills through learning how to play different games. Games will be both Physical and Video games. Games will focus on Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving, Strategy Building, Improving Social Skills, Multi-tasking, and more. Students will get to explore, play, and discuss with peers 1-2 games each week that will allow students to dive deep on the skills listed previously. Potential games discussed and played will include: NBA2k21, Chess, Pokemon, Mancala, Mario Kart, and more.

The teacher will incorporate mindful practices to start each class session off by gentle movement, light stretching, and breathing. From this place of stillness, students will work collaboratively with their peers to create murals throughout the halls of Ferguson Middle. The murals will reflect diversity, student interest, school culture, and community. My goal as the facilitator is that by the end of the 4 weeks, students will be proud of all their hard work and take pride in their school to help build strong community and relationships.

Beginning Orchestra- Students get to experiment with and choose a string instrument (violin, viola, cello, or bass) to how to hold and make a quality sound on their instrument, how to read music at a basic level, how to play introductory songs, how to care for an instrument, and participate in many fun games and experiences with new peers.

Intermediate Orchestra-Students who have played violin, viola, cello, or bass in the last year are invited to attend the Intermediate Orchestra course. In this course, we will expand on our music reading skills and music technique concepts, learn new music, rehearse as an orchestra, record music learned at the end of the session, and participate in many fun games and experiences with fellow orchestra members.

Interest Based Learning- Science Creation Connection; In this course students will use their engineering and design skills to create fun and educational science experiments each week. Each week will have a different theme and follow the same schedule of Mon-Brainstorm, Tues-Research/Read, Wed-Sketch/Draw/Assembly, Thur/Fri-Test and Revise final product.

Students will learn the “science of sewing” by exploring the basic units of textiles. What certain clothing items are made of/from. Design a simple vest or skirt from a selected fabric. Apply the skill of stitching to create a stuffed animal.

Students will learn about thermal energy in terms of culinary arts and identify how thermal energy is all around them. I also want students to make connections between science, math, ELA, social studies, and the social justice issue of food deserts. I want students to see how they can apply what they learn in school to a real issue that can create change.

Students will engage in a social justice project where they identify a need/problem in their community and utilize math, ela, science, and social studies skills to solve the problem. Students can present a hypothetical solution to a real life problem or present an actionable solution. Students will engage in career development curriculum and identify various careers that they could pursue.

In this class we will analyze the historical role that Sports have had in society. We will focus on the emergence of modern sports and the role they play in the Americas, paying attention to the connection sports have with imperialism, race and gender. We will analyze baseball, soccer, basketball, and football in order to understand how their evolution over time is connected with relevant historical processes. Students will learn to think historically, which means that you will be able to see how different sports developed over time, and what are the factors that contribute to the way in which the sport was played, and to its meaning.

Students will learn how to make food items without the use of an oven or stovetop. This will be easy recipes for students to make on their own when an adult might not be at home. This would include salsa, smoothies, popsicles, pizza bagels, cereal bars, puppy chow, etc.