AHERA Annual Notice

Holiday Door Decorating Contest

The eighth grade Blue Team was honored and excited to have won this year’s holiday/winter themed hallway decorating contest. The students are already hoping for another opportunity to come together to make the hallway beautiful and maybe win another bagel party!

School Counseling Department

The School Counseling Department has been busy leading up to and returning from winter break. Counselors collaborated with the child study team for the “Giving Garland” program and are thankful to our staff who donated gifts to ensure our students had gifts this holiday season. Upon returning to school, counselors attended physical education classes for two days and taught lessons related to mindfulness, meditation, and yoga.

Morris Area Mathematics Alliance

The Morris Area Mathematics Alliance (also known as MAMA) presented a workshop on Mathematical Mindset and Google in the Math Classroom at CCM. This mathematics alliance was created in each NJ County and the Morris Area Math Alliance is the only one still in existence, 20 years later. Three members of the Math Alliance Steering Committee (for the last 4 years) are Jefferson Township Mathematics teachers and two are teachers at the Middle School, Ms. Rachel Koenig and Mrs. Jennifer Escolano. MAMA holds two workshops a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The most popular workshop is the roundtable discussion, where teachers volunteer to turnkey the great things they do in their classrooms. In past few years the Math Alliance has had presenters from Jefferson Township who teach at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels.

Art Classes

The seventh and eighth grade Art students finished a unique clay unit. They created a utilitarian piece inspired by the “Face Jugs” made by the African- American slaves in the mid 1800’s. Though the jugs' exact purposes are unknown, many scholars believe they have either practical or spiritual value. Students’ clay vessels were mugs, with the traditional “Ugly face”, as seen on the face jugs. As a culminating activity, students participated in a hot chocolate party to test out the functionality and craftsmanship of their “beautiful” art work. And finally, with left over clay, students created small clay “smiles”. These smiles were given to the School Counseling department to be used to spread kindness and make students smile when they may be having a bad day.

6th Grade Earth Science

In 6th Grade Earth Science, students concluded their study of earthquakes. In doing so, students learned how to locate the epicenter of a quake, investigate tsunamis and learned that although they do not happen often, there are earthquakes on the east coast of the United States. It was surprising to many students that the Ramapo Fault is one of the largest on the east coast and runs through the Jefferson Township area. In addition, Mrs. Helfand's students continued to study the development of rainbow trout and currently have approximately 250 fish in the fry stage.

Computer Science Discoveries

In Computer Science Discoveries, students began applying the different concepts and commands to manipulate characters, called sprites. As they continued to learn the basic skills used in Javascript, students were able to create their own interactive greeting cards, just in time for winter break.

The Core Skills Language Arts

In the Core Skills Language Arts program, sixth graders wrapped up their study with the classic Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol. Within this unit, the students continued to annotate their text and crafted compare and contrast essays using various dramatic adaptations of the original work. In the seventh and eighth grade classes, students concluded reading their Socratic circle novels and fine-tuned their annotation and Socratic seminar discussion skills. Both grade levels have since begun to explore the world of argumentative writing in preparation for crafting and publishing their own essays.

Score Skills Mathematics

In the Core Skills Mathematics program, sixth graders explored adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions through the use of brownie pans and learned how to share a tray of brownies equally...yum.! Seventh graders finished adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing integers; learning all the rules through songs and online games. They extended their knowledge by applying these concepts to fractions and decimals as well. And finally, our eighth graders concluded learning about making connections of finding slope through the use of a table, word problem, equation and/or graph.

Ms. Stewart’s seventh-grade Civics class

In Mrs. Stewarts, 7th Grade Civics class, students began making earrings to sell as a project for Supporting Communities. The money collected will be used to benefit "The Safe House" project in Kenya to help prevent girls from being sold into slavery and forced into labor or marriage.

Speak Up and Write All About It

The seventh and eighth graders in the Speak Up and Write All About It classes researched various job positions within a typical newsroom and then applied for a position that interested them. Students are now working to put together a class news broadcast. Students pitched their news story idea to our editors and directors. Very soon, students will be writing the scripts, selecting pictures to go along with their stories, and filming the content for their broadcasts.

21st Century Research

The sixth graders in the 21st Century Researchers classes worked on synthesizing the information they gathered from on-line research. Once analyzed, each student shared what they learned with the class. The goal was to "own" what the students researched.

Robotics

In Robotics, students finished building drones! The students recently learned how to correctly bind the drone to the controllers using the BetaFlight software. Students will soon begin flying the drones by first learning to hover directly above the ground. Once the students have the basic flight movements down, they will use the First Person View (FPV) goggles to get their own virtual reality feel.

Chorus

In Chorus, the 6th, 7th and 8th graders performed exceptionally well at their Winter Concert. Students sang beautifully and appeared to motivate all in attendance to feel the spirit of the holidays. Students are now working to learn special music for the NJ Devils and Dorney Park Trips. In Music Exploratory, students learned basic music notation such as rhythm, and treble and bass clef. Students are mastering the concepts very quickly!

Geometry

The eighth grade geometry class has been progressing quite well. Students studied triangle congruence/similarity theorems and proofs. The general math 8 classes began their study of linear relations and functions with domain and range.

Mathcounts Team

The JTMS Mathcounts Club continues to train for the school competition in mid-January. From there, the top ten competitors will travel to NJIT for the North Central Mathcounts Competition held in mid-February.

7th Grade Language Arts

Seventh grade Language Arts students wrapped up their mystery and suspense genre by creating a narrative story and focusing on writing techniques such as: developing character and setting, understanding various plot elements, and using dialogue appropriately. In addition, students presented an iMovie trailer based on their independent AR novel which incorporated characters, settings and plot events.

8th Grade Language Arts

The Eighth Graders finished up Unit One of the new ELA curriculum where they finished reading selections by Edgar Allan Poe and completed writing a narrative story in the style of Poe or Agatha Christie. Students are looking forward to ending the marking period with a trip to Pax Amicus Theater where they will see the live stage production titled, “The Life and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe". In addition, eighth graders also attended an assembly called "Hopes and Dreams" given by Jack Elsmore, who lost a son to drug use and addiction. Students were engaged and moved by Mr. Elsmore’s presentation.

7th Grade ELA

In the seventh grade ELA department, students concluded their Dystopian unit by participating in Socratic Circles. In doing so, students analyzed text and participated in high level academic talks. Students are currently working on their argumentative writing skills while preparing for much anticipated debate showcase.

8th Grade ELA

In 8th Grade ELA, students used the mentor text, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton to discuss character traits and motifs in order to build theme. The grade’s culminating activity will be dressing up like Greasers and Socs for the day. Students will then transition into Socratic Book clubs where they will be provided choices of books to be read within the club.

Social Studies

The eighth grade Social Studies students studied the Roman Empire and conducted a Socratic Seminar on Julius Caesar. All students participated well during the student-led academic discussions.

8th Grade Science

The 8th Grade Science classes completed a unit on the benefits and risks of chemical use. During this study, students created presentations and evaluated the alternatives to the use of DDT as a pesticide. Leading up to the holiday break, students will study physical and chemical properties as well as chemical reactions.

World Language

In World Language, sixth graders learned how to describe their community and created projects in the process. In addition, students applied new vocabulary by making maps of their dream community and then narrated their descriptions to the class. Seventh graders learned how to describe themselves and others. They applied this skill to the creation of a family album project where they narrated the descriptions of members of their family. Eighth graders discussed free-time activities and learned about the conjugation process. Students have shown their ability to engage in conversations in which they elaborated on what they do and how they feel about it. In the ESL program, students continued to prepare for the ACCESS exam through various presentations and writing activities.

Physical Education

During Physical Education, the sixth, seventh and eighth graders participated in new activities during the 2nd marking period such as Pickleball and Nitroball. The two games coincide with volleyball skills previously learned and will be utilize during upcoming matches.

Health Classes

In the seventh grade Health classes, students created greeting/holiday cards and pictures for senior citizens who reside at Cedar Crest Village.

Forensics

In Forensics, students finished their unit on identifying an individual while using physical evidence. Students are now starting a unit on how to bring an investigation to trial. Students learned how to write a police report as well as a search warrant. They will finish the marking period with several case studies about famous forensic investigations and the trials that followed each of them.

STEM Grade 6

The students learned about the Engineering Process, the backbone of every project that they will complete over the length of their time in STEM. The first project they completed involved the design of a tower of a certain height made of drinking straws. The tower was designed and built in a manner capable of holding a tennis ball at the very top. There were many impressive towers that were constructed, with one being able to hold a grand total of twelve tennis balls! The students will round out the unit on structures by analyzing all of the data from the constructed towers and creating a lab report on how they could improve their tower in the future.

STEM 7th & 8th Grade

STEM 7th and 8th Grade: The students created blueprints detailing the type of straw rockets they wanted to create. This included the number of fins, fin shape, nose cone shape, and length of the rocket body. Each group created two rockets and tested them to see which one could fly the farthest and which one could most accurately land on a given target. The month ended with the students learning how to use a new program called, Sketchup in which they created 3-D drawings of detailed objects such as houses.

JTMS Band

In the Band department, the 7th and 8th grade band students began composing their own pieces of music, using a software program called Noteflight. Also, the JTMS Jazz Band is currently rehearsing for the many performances this year. Finally, the 8th grade band is preparing for their combined concert with the high school. The anticipated performance will take place in February.

Family and Consumer Science

Students in the seventh and eighth grade Family and Consumer Science classes prepared a variety of homemade holiday treats. They boxed the treats and made brightly colored gifts to share with their families. This unit was called, "Gifts From the Kitchen." This project gave the students a chance to demonstrate the spirit of giving and to showcase their hard work and cooking talents. A good time was had by all!