Monday Memo: Student Led Conferences & Idea Showcase

Spring conferences will be student led conferences this year. Conferences will be a half hour long and will be conducted by the students. We teachers will be on hand to answer any questions we can, but the kids will be responsible for highlighting their learning and talking about their grades. A letter which goes into a detailed explanation of student led conferences can be found here (Student led conference link). We will have conference sign-ups like we have in the past and time slots will be publicised in February. There should be ample time slots available. Over the next couple of months, we will be periodically talking to the kids about conferences and preparing them for this experience.

Next Tuesday, February 2, we are out of the building for a Career Fair field trip. We return about 12:30 and we will have lunch on team. Planet Sub orders are due this Friday. For $7.00, kids get an 8" sub, chips, drink and cookie.

On February 16 from 8:45-11:10 in the Hixson Library, we will have our 20% Time Idea Showcase. This is a chance for kids to show the progress they've made on their 20% Time projects. The event is open to all Hixson students and staff as well as district staff, parents and community members. Come by the library to see some amazing projects. We hope many of you are able to attend.

Digital volunteers are needed! As part of our 20% Time projects, kids are keeping blogs. If you have time, please read a couple of the kids' blog posts and leave a comment or two. The blogs can be found on the right-hand side of our 20% Time blog, harmonizedlearning.blogspot.com. Kids really light up when they see that they have a real audience. Thanks in advance for taking the time to offer feedback to the kids.

JA Field Trip Information

On Tuesday, February 2, we will be going on a field trip, the Junior Achievement Career Fair. We will leave Hixson at 9:55am and be at the career fair until 12:15pm. We will be making arrangements to eat on team when we get back to school. If you do NOT want your child to go on the field trip, then please sign the form linked here.

For lunch this day, we students can bring their own lunch, get a sack lunch from the cafeteria or order from Planet Sub.  The Planet Sub box lunch includes an 8-inch sub, chips, cookie and drink for $7.00 per student.  It is a choice to order.  If your student decides to order from Planet Sub, we will need money by January 29th to turn the order in by the weekend.  When students bring in their money, I will have them fill out an order form. Click here to view the menu.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Monday Memo: Career Fair and Digital Volunteers

On Tuesday, February 2, we will be going on a field trip, the Junior Achievement Career Fair. We will leave Hixson at 9:55am and be at the career fair until 12:15pm. We will be making arrangements to eat on team when we get back to school. Look for more information about lunch later this month. If you do NOT want your child to go on the field trip, then please sign the form linked here.

We are looking for Digital Volunteers. As you know, we have been working on our 20% Time projects for a couple of months now. One of the things that we ask kids to do is blog about their learning. We would like some of you to take a look at the kids' blogs, read a few posts, and leave a comment or two. Kids are very excited when they see how many views their blogs are getting and closely track where those views are coming from. It will be even more exciting and relevant for them when they see comments on their blogs. To see the list of student blogs, go to harmonizedlearning.blogspot.com and look at Must Read Student Blogs on the right side of the page. Each blog title is a link to that blog. Thanks for helping out.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to Hixson! We hope that everyone had a great winter break. The kids seem well-rested and ready to go! On February 16 during hours 1-3 (8:35-11:10), we will have our 20% Time Idea Showcase. This is an opportunity for students, teachers, administrators, parents and community members to come into the Hixson Middle School library to see the kids' projects so far. Each of the kids will build a visual (usually resembling the science fair tri-fold posters) that tells about their project. They will also be on hand to talk about their project and learning goals with interested guests. This is always a fun and informative day so please put it on your calendars and come by if you can. Click this link to see photos of previous Idea Showcases.

This March, we will have student-led conferences. We will begin preparing the kids for those conferences within the next two weeks. Each conference will last 20-30 minutes. The students will talk about their learning, using work examples to explain their strengths and weaknesses. Teachers will be on hand to answer any questions that parents may have. We will have more information about student-led conferences in February.

Semester grades will be coming out in the next week or so. Second semester is a fresh start and grades will be cumulative from January 5 through the end of school.