11/10/23
Upcoming Dates:
11/22-11/24- No School
11/28- Early Release
12/19- Early Release
12/22-1/7- Winter Break
What’s Happening at Twin Groves?
Spanish
6th-grade Spanish students completed a Mini Alfabeto project at the end of October to show their proficiency with the Spanish alphabet and understanding cognates (words that look alike in the two languages) - ask your student to show you their finished product! Then students started working on our next topic, the calendar, where they learned to discuss how old they are, when their birthday is, what day of the week it is, and what is today's date. We took a week-long break to teach about the Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead and to show the movie The Book of Life. This past week students also had the opportunity of a last optional assessment to boost their average on the Interpretive standard for Trimester 1. Next, we will jump back into our unit on Calendar until Thanksgiving break.
7th-grade Spanish students finished their Súper 5 review unit a couple of weeks ago with a presentational writing letter. Then we did a lesson on numbers 0-100. We then moved on to learning how to conjugate verbs ending in AR in the present tense. This skill will allow them to communicate in the target language to a much larger capacity! We took a week-long break to learn about the Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead and to watch the movie Coco. This past week students also had the opportunity of a last optional assessment to boost their average on the Interpretive standard and/or presentational standard for Trimester 1. Next, we will jump back into our unit on conjugating ar verbs.
8th grade Spanish - Please see Mrs. Barnes’ ‘8th Grade World Languages Information’ section of the principal’s message for information on the upcoming 8th grade Stevenson placement testing for Spanish and the option for additional testing for Latin, Mandarin, Hebrew, German, and French.
8th-grade students recently finished their Súper 7 verbs unit with a presentational writing assessment and an interpersonal speaking assessment. The speaking assessment was 1 on 1 with their teacher. While waiting to do their speaking assessment students worked on a review of ar/er/ir verb conjugation with a BINGO choice board. The past week we have worked on preparing for the Stevenson Interpersonal Speaking portion of the placement test. Sometime between November 8th-21st students will be paired with another student during class and have an unplanned conversation with their partner in front of their teacher about one of four topics: basic introductions (where are you from, age, birthday, likes/dislikes, descriptions), family, food, or school. This speaking assessment will be used for Stevenson placement and a TeacherEase score. While students are waiting to do their speaking they will work on our placement test review packet for the other 3 parts of the test: listening, reading, and writing. When we return from Thanksgiving break students will have a class day to practice the AAPPL site and prepare for testing. Placement testing for the AAPPL sections of the placement test will take place during their PE/Exploratory timeslot (1:03-2:30) on both November 29th and 30th. If you have further questions about the placement testing process please contact your child’s teacher or the office.
Band
This month of November we are working on selecting our music for our winter concert, the Honor band contest band, and solo and ensemble contest. We have been practicing and listening to many different pieces to carefully select the pieces that we will be practicing for the next several months. By the end of the month all students will have a solo and an ensemble they will be practicing over the winter months for performance in February.
In addition to selecting music, we have been creating music as well. Each student is composing a short piece that corresponds to the scale we have been learning that month. This month our focus in composing is theme and variations.
The Twin Groves 6-8 Fall band concert is on Monday, December 18. The concert will begin at 7:00 PM. All Twin Groves Band students will be performing at the evening concert.
Congratulations to Meadow Christi who performed with the District 7 Honor Band. She was part of an excellent performance. This is a very high honor.
Orchestra
Mrs. Anderson is excited to be back! It has been so wonderful seeing all of the students this week! The 6-8 Orchestra students are preparing for their upcoming TG Orchestra/Chorus Concert on Wednesday, November 29th at 7 pm in the TG Large Gym. Please refer to my previously sent email for more information. We are looking forward to a great performance!
Just a reminder to please make sure to purchase the appropriate orchestra book for your child, if you have not done so already. Also, all violin/viola students are required to have a shoulder rest instead of a shoulder sponge. More information about these two items will be sent out soon!
8th Grade World Languages Information (repeat)
Dear Families -
In the month of November, 8th-grade students will participate in the AAPPL (The ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages) assessment to assess their communicative competency with the Spanish language. The purpose of this assessment is three-fold:
1. D96 will collect valuable data that will inform our instruction to continue to enhance our Spanish curriculum and instruction.
2. Stevenson High School will use this proficiency data to make initial recommendations for Spanish coursework when your student is in high school.
3. Students will have the opportunity to have experience with an assessment that can lead them to earn the Seal of Biliteracy on their High School diploma when they are in high school.
Tell me more about the assessment.
Your child’s Spanish Teacher will share the specific assessment schedule. The tasks included in this assessment are similar to tasks we use during our regular instruction and assessment cycle in Spanish classes. The students are asked to engage in interpretive listening and reading tasks. This includes listening or reading authentic Spanish pieces and answering questions, in English, about those pieces based on the language the students already know or context given. Additionally, the students will respond to writing prompts in Spanish utilizing learned language skills. The final piece of the assessment is an interpersonal speaking opportunity in which your child will perform for the classroom teacher and will be scored based on a rubric co-constructed with all Spanish teachers across the consortium (D96, D102, D103, and D125) for consistency of expectations.
When will the test be administered?
Speaking- (in class administration) November 8th, 10th, 14th, 16th, and 20th
Listening and Reading- November 29th from 1:06-2:30
Writing- November 30th from 1:06-2:30
What do students need?
Please make sure your student has headphones.
Please make sure your student has a charged iPad.
How will this information be used to make course recommendations?
Your student’s level of proficiency (interpretive listening and reading as well as writing) as indicated by this assessment combined with an analysis of their interpersonal speaking skills and teacher input will be used to make an initial course recommendation that is optimal for your student. You will receive this information in the mail in late January/early February before needing to select courses at Stevenson. You can find the specific course sequence in this course book. In general, recommendations will be made for the following courses based on this assessment:
-Spanish 2
-Spanish 2-3 Accelerated
-Spanish 3-4 Accelerated
As this is a recommendation, your family will have the opportunity to provide input as you make the final selection for a course should your child choose to continue studying the Spanish language.
What is the Seal of Biliteracy?
The Seal of Biliteracy is intended to recognize students for multilingual skills and is indicated on a student’s high school diploma. Additionally, Illinois universities are obligated to offer college credit to students who have earned the Seal of Biliteracy through meeting the requirements.
For more information about this opportunity, use this link and click on the Seal of Biliteracy Tab.
What if my child would like to participate in a benchmark or placement assessment for a language other than Spanish?
Stevenson also provides individuals with experience in Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, or Latin could take a placement exam to decide if a higher level language course placement would be appropriate for their child. Please visit the Stevenson website for more information and to register for the exam via this link. The deadline to register is Friday, December 8th.
The purpose of the benchmark exam is two-fold:
As indicated by this assessment, your student's level of proficiency will be used to determine the appropriate level for course recommendation. This information will be mailed in mid-January before Stevenson's Course Selection evenings.
Course selection data collected in February is crucial to determining appropriate staffing, the number of sections, fiscal decisions, and building the master schedule for the following school year.
Finally, more information is available on this Benchmark FAQ document. For additional questions, please email [email protected].
Daily Announcements
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Twin Groves Athletics
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