September Newsletter

Dear Team Keystone Families,

Welcome to Franklin Middle School and Team Keystone! We have had a wonderful first week of 6th grade! We are looking forward to a great year as we all work together to build our amazing middle school community.

We know that 6th grade is such an important transition period, and we believe that open lines of communication between school and home are crucial for student success. Here is some important 6th-grade information we wanted to share with you:

Schedule: 

We will be spending a lot of time at the beginning of the year helping students to learn the new Franklin Middle School schedule!  We have linked the FMS schedule here for your convenience. A couple things to note: 

• Advisory - Students start each day in the same classroom with their advisory teacher. This is a time where we listen to morning announcements, participate in Team Building activities, have small group discussions about different topics, etc. The main goal is for students to build positive connections with a teacher by meeting regularly together each morning. 

• A, B,  D, E & F periods will be the core academic classes (ELA, Math, Applied Literacy, Science & Social Studies)

• C  Period will be Unified Arts classes. Students will have Computers, Art, and  STE Foundations for one trimester each, and PE/Health (Wellness) for the whole year. Students will alternate between having Wellness and their trimester Unified Arts class each day.

• Compass Block - This is a period that happens at the same time each day where students participate in independent reading, independent math practice, catch up on work they are behind on, meet with teachers for extra help, receive special education services, or participate in our music program. 

Team Information:

Each teacher on Team Keystone has a Google Classroom page, which will be the primary tool for students to access their class materials and complete assignments this year. We also have a team webpage, which we hope will serve as a valuable resource for information throughout the year  providing monthly updates on upcoming events, as well as weekly updates regarding assessments within each subject.  We hope that you can use the website as a resource for class, team, and school information. Additionally, the team will send out monthly newsletters via email with important team updates at the beginning of each month.

Technology: 

In today’s world, technology is incorporated into every facet of education! Here in Franklin, we use the Google Suite with tools such as Google Classroom, Google Drive, and Google Calendar. We also use many other digital learning tools to help your child become sufficiently tech savvy, and develop both critical thinking, and communication skills. 

Your child’s Google user name is their LASID number followed by @franklinps.net. Your child’s LASID can be found on his/her schedule. The LASID user name will be used to access everything in Google. This year students are prompted to create their own Google Passwords. 

Aspen is our online grading portal which is also accessed with their LASID number and a different password. We will set up the accounts at school and every student will go home with the required log in info so everyone can stay up to date with grades. 

We strongly encourage students to write down all passwords in their planner to make sure that they always have the correct information to access their accounts. 

Chromebooks should be charged each night and brought to school each day! 

Homework:  

We believe that independent practice is important in order for students to learn the skills being taught in class. That being said, we also know that students are involved in many different activities outside of school. Your 6th grader can expect to spend between 30-60 minutes total on homework each night (including reading). We also focus a lot on building in new study strategies to help students find what works best for them. All homework assignments for Math, ELA, Applied Literacy, Science & Social Studies will be posted on our Homework Grid. This is also linked on our Team Google Classroom page and team website. We will also encourage students to write down their homework assignments.

Suggested Supplies:

One of the keys to success in middle school is working on strategies for organization. This is something that we will build into our daily routines at school. Here is a list of suggested supplies that might be helpful for your student in 6th grade.

Information from you!

You know your child best! Please take a few minutes at your convenience to complete this Google Form as a way of letting us know you received this information and to help us collect some more information about your student! (If you have more than one student in 6th grade, please feel free to fill out the form more than once.) 

As always, if you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to any of us! We are all in this together and want to make sure everyone has a successful and enjoyable 6th-grade year!

Best regards,

The Team Keystone Teachers