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Bell Schedule
Monday - Bell 1
Tuesday - Bell 1
Wednesday - Bell 1
Thursday - Bell 1
Friday - Bell 1 |
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Immunization Alert
Thank you for your responsiveness to make sure that students are immunized.
Students who have not received all of their shots by Friday
will not be able to attend class with their peers. Students who are not fully immunized by this date will be held in gymnasium until they receive all of their shots or provide a doctor's note showing a scheduled appointment to receive shots.
Deal will host nurses from DOH on Monday and Tuesday from 9 - 4:30pm. If you would like your child to get the shots with this service, please contact nurse Pringle at 202-939-2009 with questions or download the consent form which is on our website: .www.alicedeal.org
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Come to the 1st
Deal PTA meeting this Thursday!
We have a busy Thursday evening this week! The schedule is as follows:
6 -7 pm, cafeteria, Deal Music Department Family Night
Find out how to get your child involved in the many music options before and after school at Deal! Last year, nearly a third of the students were involved in our robust vocal or instrumental music programs!
6-7 pm, location TBD, Ed-line Parent Workshop
This is for parents who want to see a demonstration of how to log on to Ed-line after getting the sign-in and password information, which will be distributed next week.
7-8 pm, gymnasium,
Welcome and Greetings by PTA & Deal Staff
Come find out how to get involved in our dynamic learning community! Students do better in school when their parents are actively engaged! Meet the new-to-Deal teachers as they introduce themselves to our community!
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| Upcoming Dates |
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August 31
Submit pink monthly attendance card (DC STARS)
New to Deal Teacher meeting; 3:30-4:30pm
Optional Smartboard Training; 4:30 - 6pm
Music Family Night; cafeteria, 6 - 7pm
Ed-line Parent Workshop; locations will be posted, 6 - 7pm
PTA Welcome Reception; gymnasium 7 -8 pm
September 4
LSRT meeting; 7:30am
Teacher deadline for making schedule changes
September 7
Labor Day Holiday
Faculty meeting; 3:20 - 4:30pm
September 9 & 10
DC-BAS
(adjusted Bell Schedule)
September 11
Student Council Assembly (Bell III)
World Language Trip Meeting; 5:30 - 6:30pm
Back to School Night; 6:30 pm - 9 pm
September 16
Department Chairperson Meeting; 3:30 pm
September 17
Hispanic Heritage Assembly (Bell III)
Faculty meeting, 3:20 - 4:30 pm
September 18
Professional Development Day (no school for students)
September 21 - 25
Spirit Week
September 23
Deficiency Notices submitted to homeroom teachers
September 24
Woodson SHS cross country invitational meet
September 25
1st Advisory Midpoint
Deficiency Notices to grade-level administrator
September 30
Department Chairperson Meeting; 3:30pm
October 15
Faculty mtg; 3:20 - 4:30pm
October 16
8th grade trip to Jamestown; 6:30am - 7:30pm
October 20
Portrait Day
October 21
NHD workshop for families; 7pm
October 22 & 23
IB Authorization Visit
October 28
Halloween Party
3:30 - 6pm
October 29
End of 1st Advisory
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October 30
Professional Development Day - No school for students
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Stay Informed!
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Community information... (items on this list are not connected to Alice Deal in anyway)
Looking for an after-school program?
For families who are looking for after-school care, City Gate offers daily homework support (directed by a DCPS teacher), and enrichment and recreational activities at the Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church. The location is just several blocks from Deal, with a staff escort provided at 3:15 from the school to the program site. City Gate has been vetted by the DCPS OST office as an out-of-school time service provider. For more information or a registration form, visit http://city-gate.org/programs/after-school-tenley-circle.php or call (202) 528-0162
Looking for girls' soccer?
The Bobcats, a 6th grade girls recreational soccer team consisting
largely of Deal students, has room for two or three additional players.
We practice on Monday afternoons from 5 - 6:15 pm and games are on
Saturdays. We can provide transportation from Deal to practices.
Please contact Mark Snyderman at (202) 966-9444 or Mark.Snyderman@ed.gov for additional information. Fall 2009 Design Apprenticeship Program at the National Building Museum
Saturdays / October 10 - November 21, 10 am - 3pm
Students with a demonstrated interest in art or design have the
opportunity to get hands-on advanced experience. In this short-term
free program, middle and high school students design and construct full
scale projects that they control from concept to completion.
Students can receive community service hours upon completion.
Register online: http://www.nbm.org/families-kids/teens-young-adults/design-apprenticeship-program.html
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The Weekly Bulletin
"Think Globally. Listen Compassionately. Act Inclusively." |
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Our mission:
Alice Deal Middle School inspires excellence, curiosity, and compassion through intellectual and social engagement. |
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Thought for the Week
"The beginning is the most important part of the work."
-- Plato |
Message from Principal Kim
What a strong start to the new school year! Nice work everyone! I was proud to see so many students helping each other out in the hallways.
Several reminders for students: - Write your name in the inside flap of your textbooks and get them covered. You are responsible for the care of these books.
- This week your teachers will be expecting you to arrive to class on time, with your learning materials in hand.
- Recess will begin again on Thursday after the construction work is finished. Until then, you might bring a book, Uno cards, or a Rubik's Cube to the cafeteria. Thanks for your patience.
- Your teachers and administrators all agree that you are an impressive group! Keep up the good work!
Families, I hope to see all of you at the PTA welcome reception this Thursday evening! All of Deal's new teachers will be there, along with many of our returning teachers. This is also a great time to connect with other Deal families! A detailed schedule of the evening is available on the left.
Teachers, now that you have done such a terrific job with school procedures, please dive into rich content this week if you have not yet done so. I had a great time celebrating Week 1 on Friday afternoon. Special thanks to Ms. Lerum for organizing the event and to Mr. McDowell for being the Grill Master!
Principal Kim |
This week at Deal. . .
Immunization
Students who are not immunized received an informed consent letter from our nurse to bring home to you. You have several options:
- You can choose to take your child to your pediatrician and complete the necessary
immunizations by September 4th or bring in a note from the doctor with the scheduled appointment.
- Or, you can choose to come to Deal today or tomorrow between the hours of 9-4:30pm to get your child immunized by a team of nurses from Department of Health that will be on-site at Deal.
- Or, you if you cannot be at Deal with your child on those days, you can choose to send in the informed consent letter to allow your child to receive these vaccinations without your presence.
A blank copy of this consent form is posted on our website (www.alicedeal.org) just in case you need another copy.
Finally, we appreciate your cooperation in helping to ensure that our students stay healthy by making this a priority. Please contact Nurse Pringle at 202-939-2009 if you have further questions.
Debate Team
Our first meeting of the Debate Team will be today at 3:25 in Ms. Sweeney's room E304. Please go to your locker first and bring your backpack with you. The meeting will be brief. I will distribute parent permission letters and give you the schedule of tournaments.
Girls' Soccer try-outs
Girls' soccer try-outs will take place on Wednesday from 3:30-5:00pm. Interested students should report to Room CG21 (Mr. Ngwa) on Monday at 3:15pm to get a permission slip and learn more about soccer try-outs. Only those with signed permission slips will be considered for try-outs.
Girls' Volleyball try-outs
Girls who are interested in trying out for the girls' volleyball team will need to come to the girls' locker room after school today to pick a permission form. Permission forms must be turned in by the first day of try-outs. The first day of try-outs will begin on Wednesday from 3:30-5:00 in the gym. Please be sure to bring athletic wear and sneakers. Students who do not have sneakers, athletic clothes, or their permission form will not be permitted to try out.
Cross Country sign up meeting
Come join the 2008 City Champion Boys and Girls Cross Country Teams. The teams are open to all 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. The meeting will be held on Tuesday at 3:20pm in the Gymnasium. You need to attend the meeting to get practice information, meet information, and important paperwork. If you have any questions, see Mr. Geremia in Room W104 or Mr. Jenkins in the Gymnasium.
Student Council
Interested in playing a leadership role in our school? Want to plan our school dance? Want to help plan our community service activities? Plan to run in the upcoming election to represent to your homeroom this week. Elections will begin on Wednesday.
Ultimate Frisbee Club
Ms. Wadsworth is starting up an Ultimate Frisbee club which will meet every week Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30-4:30. Anyone is welcome to join regardless of experience. If you are interested please see Ms. Wadsworth next week to sign up, her room is E105 or come to the first practice on Thursday. |
Student information...
DC BAS ASSESSMENT
September 8th and 9th 2009
Our first DC BAS Reading and Math assessment will be administered Tuesday and Wednesday September 8th and 9th. The make-up day will be Thursday September 10th. It is important for students to arrive to school on time. They must also bring two # 2 pencils.
Team Rome
Please remember to get your textbooks covered. Congratulations on the successful completion of your first week of middle school. If you have any questions for your humanities, language a, math, or science teacher, please send us an email at dealromans@gmail.com.
Introduction to knitting
This club is open to anyone interested in learning how to knit. Students will receive clear step-by-step instruction using the basic stitches. Come learn how to make easy projects like a scarf or an IPod cover. We will explore more challenging projects like handbags and pillow cushions. Classes will meet every Tuesday starting on September 15th. See Ms. Simpson-Wayne in Room 306 for more details.
Library Media Center
General Information
Library Hours: 8:00am - 5:00pm
Before School: 8:00am - 8:40am
After School: 3:30pm -5:00pm
Librarians:
Mrs. Brown patriciae.brown@dc.gov
Mrs. Allen
Circulation
· Students may check-out 2 items for 2 weeks.
· Items may be renewed when they are brought
into the library.
· Reference books are used in the library only.
· There is a 5cent/day fine for overdue materials.
· Overdue notices will be distributed through
homeroom teachers.
· Students are responsible for materials checked
out in their name.
· Lost books will be charged the replacement fee
or can be replaced with the same title.
Passes
Morning: 36 passes are available for each morning.
Lunch: 36 passes are available for each lunch session.
After School: Sign-up in the library the day before and get a form for parents to sign; bring form to library for admittance after school. 36 slots will be available every day. The student will not be granted admission without a completed and signed form.
Rules
Student must:
· Have note, pass, or purpose.
· Sign-in and out of library.
· Be respectful of self, others, and space.
· Handle library materials with care.
· Leave library in same condition as it was when you entered.
Using the library is a privilege which may be revoked anytime a student is disrespectful or irresponsible.
Deal's Scrabble Club: Get Your Word On!
Did
you know that ZA is a word meaning "pizza"? Or that an AI is a
three-toed sloth? Or that AA is a kind of Hawaiian lava? Those are
common words in the game of Scrabble. Now you can learn to play like a pro at the new Deal Scrabble Club.
Starting
Monday, Sept. 14, the Deal Scrabble Club will meet after school on
Mondays in the cafeteria from 3:30 to 4:30 pm and is open to all students.
It will be led by
Stefan Fatsis (the author of the New York Times bestselling book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players), Douglas Goralski (better known as Mr. G, an instructor with the Douglas Goralski, better
known as Mr. G, an instructor with the U.S. Chess Center who teaches
chess in D.C. schools), along with Deal teachers Ms. Wadsworth and Ms. Clements.
More
than a dozen Janney students last year competed in several Scrabble
tournaments, at Janney, in Maryland and Virginia, and at the National
School Scrabble Championship in Providence, R.I. That event had a first
prize of $5,000 and one of the two-player teams from Janney - including
Deal seventh-grader Emma Keyes - placed 25th out of more than 100 teams from around the country. The next national championship is planned for the spring of 2010. School Scrabble is challenging, competitive and, most of all, fun. For more information, contact Stefan at sfatsis@gmail.com.
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Staff information...
DCSTARS Attendance Cards
All teachers are reminded to submit the (pink) DCSTARS Attendance Cards to Ms. Mills in the Welcome Center by 3:30 today. Forms for September will be placed in your mailbox Tuesday morning.
Homeroom Teachers
Please hold your Homeroom Student Council Elections this week, starting on Wednesday. You need to elect 2 representatives for student council. After your elections, please complete the Student Council Election Results form and return it to Mr. Kirschenbaum. WTU Chapter meeting this weekAll teachers are invited to a brief meeting of the Deal chapter of the Washington Teacher's Union this
Wednesday at 3:30pm in room W201 (Lerum). The main purposes of the meeting will
be to nominate members for open leadership positions and disseminate
information and forms regarding membership and benefits. Please stop
in to get this important information. DC STARS URL
https://dcstars.k12.in.dc.gov/ Student attendance
Homeroom Teachers
Complete the Homeroom Attendance/Membership Form and the HRAC Form (DCSTARS) and return it Ms. Mills in the Welcome Center by 9:30 am daily. Use yellow attendance cards to document student attendance.
All Teachers
Use blue or black ink to document attendance for students on the Monthly Attendance Card (DCSTARS). We will use this form until teachers have received a DCSTARS Password. Once you receive your password, you will have to enter attendance data into DCSTARS beginning with information from the 1st day of school.
- Write A for students who are absent.
- Write L for students who are tardy.
- Do not write anything for students who are present.
- Add the names of students who are not on the roster.
- Return the Monthly Attendance Card to Ms. Mills in the Welcome Center by 3:30 pm at the end of the month.
Teachers Who Have a DCSTARS Password
Should record Period by Period attendance in DCSTARS starting with data from the 1st day of school. If you don't remember your password, please should have connected with Ms. Baxter by this point.
The point is that we must document accurate attendance for all students beginning on the first day of school! Please be accurate and timely with submissions of attendance data.
Health Benefit Deadline:
New employees must enroll in health and life benefits within thirty-one (31) days from their first day of employment. Benefits enrollment may be completed online by visiting https://pshcm.dc.gov. Please remember that online enrollment may only be done through a DC government networked computer. The Office of Human Resources will provide computers to register online and HR assistance with benefits enrollment from 4:30pm through 7:30pm on the following dates: September 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, and 16.
New to Deal meeting
The "New to Deal" Meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm in the cafeteria. Please bring your journals.
Smartboard training
All staff members are invited to attend Smartboard Training on Thursday, September 3 from 4:30 pm until 6 pm. Please see Mr. Dacoba for further information.
Keep classroom windows closed
Teachers are reminded that all windows must remain closed. Keeping the windows closed helps us maintain a controlled climate throughout the building and is much more energy efficient.
Submit to the 1st edition of the PTA Newsletter!
The deadline for submission is September 11th. Possible ideas? Summer PD experiences that connect to what you will do with students this year, high-light your Bell 2 activity, high-light your extracurricular activity, inform parents and students about up-coming IB units or field trips! All submissions should be sent to dealnewsletter@gmail.com
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Before & after school activities this week...
Monday PM
Debate Team information session, 3:25 pm, RM E304
Girls' Soccer try-out information session, 3:30-5 pm, RM CG21
Tuesday PM
Cross Country meeting, 3:20 pm, Gymnasium
Wednesday PM
Girls' Volleyball try-outs, 3:30-5 pm, Gymnasium
Girls' soccer try-outs, 3:30-5 pm
Thursday, PM
Girls' Volleyball tryouts, 3:30-5 pm, Gymnasium
Ultimate Frisbee Club, 3:30-4:30 pm
Friday, PM
Girls' Volleyball tryouts, 3:20-5 pm, Gymnasium |
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Food for Thought...
Even if you are not a World Language teacher, there are some good teaching tips in this article that would apply to any content area!
Effective Use of Comics in World-Language Classrooms
"There has never been a better time to be a language teacher," say Salisbury University professors Claire Kew and Arlene White in this article in The Language Teacher. They cite abundant, high-quality curriculum materials in a variety of media and tout a resource that is underused by many teachers, they say: comic books (a.k.a. graphic novels). They especially recommend the Tintin series (22 full-length adventures available in 91 languages) and the Asterix series (33 adventures in more than 100 languages). Kew and White suggest the following ways to use these and other high-quality comic books:
� Developing and reinforcing communication skills - Students can work in small groups to describe and answer questions on what's happening frame by frame, take the role of a character, detail the sequence of events and cause and effect, and communicate with classmates in the target language.
� Teaching vocabulary and grammar in context - Students at different levels can answer questions on events, characters, and verb tenses.
� Teaching culture - "Comic books abound with cultural lessons waiting to be explored," say Kew and White, both about the countries in which the adventures take place and European attitudes toward some of the places Tintin and Asterix visit.
� Teaching history - Both the Tintin and the Asterix books can be used to explore eras in history and the biases of the authors.
� Teaching geography - All but one of the Tintin books place the hero and his friends in different parts of the world - Peru, Scotland, Congo, Soviet Union, Tibet, the South Pacific, etc.
� Teaching reading strategies - The comic-book format, with information coming in bite-size chunks with plenty of illustrations, is less overwhelming to students and provides plenty of context clues. The fermata - dramatic pauses at the end of each page in a comic-book adventure - can be used to teach how an author chunks the story and builds suspense.
� Introducing literary analysis - Comic adventures use the same conventions as novels - exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement - and these can be used to introduce students to these elements in novels. Comics are also rich in similes and metaphors, onomatopoeia and symbolia, and character development.
� Providing fun and motivation and building students' confidence - Comics engage students and provide a welcome change of pace.
As a follow-up to reading graphic novels in another language, students might create their own comics using websites Strip Generator - http://www.stripgenerator.com - and Comic Creator - http://www.readwritethink.org/MATERIALS/COMIC.
Kew and White also list websites with links to comic-book material in several other languages:
� German - Fix and Foxi by Rolf Kauka: http://www.kauka.de and the Goethe Institute in Stockholm: http://www.goethe.de/kue/lit/prj/com/enindex.htm.
� Spanish - Quino's Mafalda, an Argentine comic: http://www.quino.com.ar , also http://www.patoruzu-web.com.ar.
� Japanese - Manga Museum: http://www.kyotomm.jp/HP/international/english.
"Thinking Outside the Bubble by Adding Comic Books to Your Language Curriculum" by Claire Kew and Arlene White in The Language Educator, August 2009 (Vol. 4, #4, p. 49-53), no e-link available
© Copyright 2009 Marshall Memo LLC
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