Mr. Bliss created a mini Olympics for his classes in P.E. this week. Students worked together to show sportsmanship and practice a range of skills in the mini games. Students in 3rd grade were looking forward to it all morning and raved about it when Ms. MacLean picked them up. 

The 8th graders ended their final year at Winter Hill with a trip to Boston. We took a ride around Boston to learn about its history on a Duck Boat. All students had a chance to drive the boat once we got on the Charles River. 

7th and 2nd graders got together once a month to build community. Our final event involved us coloring fish and reflecting on our year. We had lots of fun and joy getting to know our buddies. 

An egg-cellent tradition in 8th grade is designing and building a contraption that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a high height. Here are this year's results! 

Thank you Mr. Bliss for a fun field day! 

Girls in grades 6-8 had the opportunity to visit Gillette headquarters last week to participate in STEM activities. They had three stations: build a razor and get it quality checked, vision boards, and build and race pasta cars. It was a fun day! Thank you to Ms. Murphy and Ms. Barros for organizing. 

This past Monday we had the final presentations for the first year of Climate Club! It was a great turn out and the students were great! We had representation from Newcomer Academy, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th. I am so glad that the climate future is in their hands 🌎♥️.

We had a fabulous group of high school mentors that I would like to shout out: 

Bhavika Kaila 

Chahat Kalia

Nimra Sheikh

PreKindergarten loves telling stories! This year we have been telling and retelling stories in different ways. Taking inspiration from our unit of study, the children tell and retell their own stories in the dramatic play area or with shadows and using props such as animals, doll house people, and blocks.  Our favorite way to retell stories is to act them out. Each week we choose one story which enhances what we are currently studying, presently spring  and trees.  This year some of our favorites have been Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault and Moon Bears Shadow by Frank Ashe.

This year, our student council brought back an old Winter Hill tradition of a staff versus 8th graders volleyball game. Our 8th graders faced off against the staff in a volleyball game in our outside courtyard. The entire school cheered on the teams! The staff tried hard, but in the end, the students did win more matches. However, in the final game of staff against the volleyball team, the staff came out on top. Until next year! 

Three of our fifth graders represented us in the All-State Treble Chorus in Worcester this weekend. All three worked countless hours at home and after school and then rehearsed 8 hours between today and Friday to put on an inspiring performance! They were directed by a well known and beloved composer and sang in English, Spanish, Swahili, Latin and Arabic. They sang alongside 3 students from the Kennedy and students from all across the state. 

Today, I uploaded the 3,000th piece of artwork to the Winter Hill ARTSONIA account for the 2024-2025 school year! I have been documenting student progress for grades PK- 8, by adding completed projects to their online portfolios. My goal in their art education is to be introduced to a wide variety of materials and techniques to find an art form they connect with. Witnessing student self expression, problem solving and pride in their work continues to be one of my favorite parts of the job. Families can connect and comment and even order their child’s art on T-shirts, mugs, pendants, keychains, magnets and more! Currently there are 102 parents and guardians connected. I look forward to seeing students' portfolios grow over their time at Winter Hill. Thank you all for your continuous support of the arts! 

Ms Han's class is piloting the new Illustrative Math curriculum this year! We just finished a unit where students were able to work with 2-digit numbers. We noticed when we had big quantities to count, it was easier to organize the items into groups of 10s and ones. We practiced identifying how many tens and how many ones are in 2-digit numbers, and got to add and subtract multiple groups of tens from 2-digit numbers too! Up next: adding 2 2-digit numbers to each other!

In honor of Autism Awareness Month coming up in April, students from Ms. DiPaolo's room set up a shirt-selling booth by the cafeteria. The shirts were on sale for staff to purchase. All staff is encouraged to wear the shirt on April 2nd to celebrate and support the kick-off to Autism Awareness Month. Thanks to our sales associates for doing such an amazing job. Every experience was fun and easy. They even gave each customer a receipt. All customers rated their experience a 10/10. 

On Friday, the 8th grade civics students in Ms. Brady's classes celebrated the publication of their second podcast episode (which you can listen to on instagram and youtube) with a tea party! Municipali-Tea is a student-created podcast series where students talk about their life in their city and their school. We are excited to host a special guest after break for a tea party and important conversations!!

📷: 8th Graders

This past week students connected their second grade lessons around Black History Month to being accepting, respectful  and thoughtful to their classmates. This week we learned about the wonderful author Jacqueline Woodson!  We recognized some of her books she has written, learned about her life, and read and discussed the book  Each Kindness. We then had a class conversation about the book and talked about how we can send our kindness  to one another, like the ripples in water which was discussed in Jacqueline Woodson’s book. The students then showed kindness by writing thoughtful  things about one another while passing around their compli-mats. Each student had a turn to write something nice about their classmate as they sat in a circle passing their mats around. At the end of the lesson we talked about how happy and excited we felt to have our kindness “ripple out” towards each other. Feel free to ask any second grader all about the importance of kindness and showing ROAR any time you stop by Mrs. Manning’s room! 

Ms. Davies' second grade class had an exciting week of learning! This Friday we celebrated the 100th day of school by holding a 100 Days  Olympics in the morning.

Throughout the morning, we rotated through centers including: paint 100 gumballs in the gumball machine, build a castle with 100 blocks, flip a coin 100 times, give 100 compliments, make a 100th day crown, and more! We listened to a poem about the 100th day of school. We also wrote and drew about what we might look like and enjoy at 100 years old.

We were excited to celebrate the number 100 this week! Next week we will begin to learn addition and subtraction strategies for 3-digit numbers, so we reached 100 in perfect time!

Mrs. Robert’s 3rd graders are working hard in math! Here you can see some multiplication games we are playing. We are also working on a card sort where we are matching story problems with an equationl

Ms. Jen's 7th/8th grade theatre classes performed their first show last Friday called Noses Off.  This year students in grades 7 and 8 have the opportunity to choose their specialist classes each semester. Ms. Jen's offerings were performing arts or stagecraft. Both classes worked towards creating the final product. Students auditioned roles, memorized lines and blocking, made costumes, learned how to do stage make-up, designed and built the set, and performed it live. Thank you to our neighbors at East Somerville Community School for allowing us access to your stage for our final performance. Check out the photos! A recording of the play is coming soon. 

What’s all the buzz in room 201? Ms. Shemie’s little bumblebees have been hard at work throughout Quarter 2. We've been practicing our reading and sequencing skills. We’ve also been working hard on solving two-digit addition problems with regrouping. Boy, those big numbers were pretty intimidating at first, but after lots of practice, those big numbers were a breeze. We had so much fun learning during swim instruction. Lots of us mastered the perfect cannonball! We worked so hard preparing for the Winter Concert and gave a stellar performance for all our families. We learned how to share, play together, and problem-solve.  

In science fourth graders are investigating how landslides occur.  We built some land models and experimented with the effects of wind, rain, and slope. The photos show how we created steep slopes and poured water on our land models.  We collected runoff and the eroded soil.  This investigation showed the steeper the slope the more runoff and erosion we can observe.  

In math we are wrapping up our unit on adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions, mixed numbers, and whole numbers.  The photo shows a small group in xblock working together to talk and write about strategies for adding tenths and hundreds.  Students are also sorting answers into groups of fractions greater than 1, equal to 1, or less than 1.  

In writing we are working on rewriting a narrative story from another character’s perspective.  Students are using the PLAN, WRITE, REVISIT process on all writing assignments.  We are working hard to start with an interesting lead, include dialogue, and have a satisfying ending with feelings, inner thoughts, life lessons or all of that.  The photos show students working independently in their writer’s notebook or on a Chromebook. 

On Wednesday, December 18th, 2nd and 7th grade buddies collaborated on a drawing activity. We did a jigsaw snowman coloring page to form a giant snowman! We then pranked Ms. Barros by hanging our masterpiece on her door! 

Last week, 7th grade science students attended Biogen Community Labs. While there, students conducted a chromatography lab and got to practice using pipettes. Students worked together to figure out what colors combine to make a brown M&M. 

Last Friday, Ms. Stier led the whole school in our Winter Concert. It was a wonderful day of music and song. Here is the 4th grade singing. Thank you to Ms. Stier and the whole orchestra and band team for helping out students put on a wonderful concert. 

Coach Bliss continued the wildcat tradition of hosting a Turkey Bowl the day before Thanksgiving. Middle schoolers chose between capture the flag, soccer, or cheer squad. It was a fun day for all! Ms. Berkowitz's class came out with posters to cheer on the players. Thank you to Coach Bliss and the specialist team for making the day special. 

5th graders have been very busy in Math! We have transitioned well into the new math curriculum, and students are talking about the differences THEY notice from previous years.  Ms. Palmer, our amazing math coach, helped us create this wonderful anchor chart of student ideas of what to do when we are stuck in class.  It's great hearing students talking about Math in positive ways! 

The annual middle school treasure hunt was a big hit this year. Students had a BEAUTIFUL November day to explore the city's East side. Students explored the history around their school neighborhood, Union Square, Conway, and around City Hall. It was a fun day for all. 

Kids on the Run, a program for running and social-emotional learning, is finishing up our season with a community impact project. This season, runners decided to host a food drive for WHCIS families. We will be donating the food to Ms. MaryLou and Ms. Karla to distribute. 

Our food drive is taking place on Thursday, November 14 from 3:00-3:30. Please come to the Cross Street play area with any non-perishable food donations. Students who are unable to drop off non-perishable food donations during that time window may bring it to Ms. Moore's room between 8:20-9:00 tomorrow (Thurs). 

Thank you in advance for your generosity and support!

Second graders have been hard at work learning about how elections work! After much research, discussion, analysis, and caucusing, second graders identified two candidates for Grade Two Mascot: the snow leopard and the lion. We had a lot of fun making campaign posters, which showed our reasons for choosing each candidate!

On Monday, seventh graders volunteered as "poll workers" to help us cast our final ballots. After a very close race, Snow Leopard was declared the winner. Grade 2 will now symbolically "adopt" a snow leopard from the World Wildlife Fund.  We are looking forward to having a mascot that is quiet, likes the snow, and eats rodents!

In Ms. Pino's group students work on all four language domains in English- listening, reading, speaking, and writing. These pictures show how students are using their chromebooks and headphones to listen, read, speak, and write about grade level topics. Students are practicing the skills they need to be successful on standardized tests and across all subject areas. By using content and language objectives, students are deepening their understanding of the English language and grade level curriculum.  

In 7th grade, we finished working on scale factor and proportional relationships. We are now beginning a unit on circles and looking at circumference and area. 

In 8th grade, we are working on dilation and similar figures. We finished transformations, which looked at how the shapes stayed congruent. Now, they are looking at what makes shapes similar when they change their size through scaling. 

In English class, we are exploring the effects of video games and wrote an essay arguing if they are harmful or beneficial. Here is an example of a student essay. In Social Studies, 7th graders are exploring the interaction between society and geography in South and Central Asia. Here we were analyzing images and videos of geographic and climatic features of this area including the Himalayas, Ganges River, and monsoons.

Students in the newcomer academy studied ecosystems last month. The observed their monarch butterfly "Harry" through his whole life cycle and then released it. More content can be found on Instagram @winterhillscience

At Monday's School Committee meeting, the school committee unanimously passed a resolution to formally recognize last year's 8th graders for their epic civics project and to endorse the students' four asks. 18 former students came in person to get their official city commendations. 

Happy October! Ms. Brown’s class has been incorporating functional tasks (like sorting silverware and matching socks) in our activity schedules. We work on these to promote our independence and leisure skills! Each day we complete a Daily Review, where we recall the events of our school day. In addition to our individual student academic goals, we also practice social skills (waiting, turn taking) in our class game group. We are so excited to continue our weekly engineering class with Tufts students this month! 

Students in 7th grade Newcomer Academy math have been learning about scale and scale factor and area and perimeter. In this image they are working with their partners to determine the area and perimeter of different shapes hung up around the room.

Students in 8th grade Newcomer Academy math have been learning about shape transformations (rotations, reflections, and translations). In these images they are working with their partners to use angle measurements to determine corresponding angles and sides in order to describe each transformation.

Students recently finished the graphic novel New Kid by Jerry Craft. Through reading and analyzing this novel, they explored how history can be seen through lenses of turning points, communities, and narratives among other themes. They then designed and constructed their own historical timelines for Jordan Banks—the main character in New Kid. 

This week in Mr. Vang's Social Studies class, students collaborated to make and signed on to community class agreements.

Our 7th grade homeroom playing against Ms. Moore's homeroom in a community-building and get-to-know-you game during RISE this week!

This week in middle school science, 8th graders started investigating whether genetic or environmental factors affect an organism’s growth more. We started looking at adaptations that plants have, and we wondered how the plants got those adaptations. In 7th grade, we started learning about biotic and abiotic factors in ecosystems, and we got to do a scavenger hunt to identify as many biotic and abiotic factors we could find! 

The first few weeks of school can bring on an array of emotions. Each student experiences the transition back to school differently. For instance, some students may quickly feel energized and motivated, while others might need more time to adjust to a new grade level, a new classroom, a new teacher, and more. 

During these first weeks of school, our counselors have been offering support to returning students, as well as introducing themselves to new students joining us at Winter Hill. 

“We are looking forward to a fun and successful year with our Wildcats!”

Our staff have been busy getting our school ready for all our students. We are very excited to have our entire Winter Hill community back under one roof. We can't wait to see everyone tomorrow!