1/26/24
Upcoming Dates:
1/30- Early Release 1:30 PM Dismissal
2/16- Half Day 11:10 AM Dismissal
2/19- No School
2/27- Early Release 1:30 PM Dismissal
What’s Happening at Twin Groves?
Spanish: 6th-grade students are wrapping up their unit on likes and dislikes. They should now be able to discuss what they like to do and don’t like to do in the target language. Next up we are learning the Spanish personal pronoun words in order to be able to talk about more people than just I and you. Then we will start a unit on describing themselves and others with personality and physical adjectives and the verb ser (to be). First, they will discuss what they are like as a person and then later on we will add in family members' vocabulary in order to describe our family as well. As we wrap up the trimester, students will have opportunities to improve their interpretive and presentational communication standard scores either through a retake or an optional extra assessment. Please continue to encourage your student to study our current vocabulary for 5-10 minutes daily on conjuguemos or IXL.
7th-grade students are continuing to work on their food unit. Students have completed interpretive reading and presentational writing assessments over food vocabulary and main questions. Next, we are working on our first scored interpersonal speaking assessment. Students will have a one on one conversation with their teacher about what they like, dislike, eat, drink, and share with regard to foods and drinks. After that speaking assessment students will learn how to conjugate ER and IR ending verbs in the present tense in order to talk about what others eat, drink, and share. As we wrap up the trimester, students will have opportunities to improve their interpretive and presentational communication standard scores either through a retake or an optional extra assessment. Please continue to encourage your student to study our current vocabulary for 5-10 minutes daily on conjuguemos or IXL.
8th grade students are continuing to work on their house and rooms unit describing the house, rooms, and furniture. They have completed an interpretive reading assessment and a presentational writing assessment. Next, we are going to learn about stem-changing verbs like dormir (to sleep), poder (to be able to) and review jugar (to play). Lastly, we will work on presentational writing and speaking assessment where students pick images to discuss their ideal house. They will be making a recorded video with narration and inspirational pictures discussing what their ideal house includes. As we wrap up the trimester, students will have opportunities to improve their interpretive and presentational communication standard scores either through a retake or an optional extra assessment. Please continue to encourage your student to study our current vocabulary for 5-10 minutes daily on conjuguemos or IXL.
SHS course placement letters have been mailed out and students should have received their overall Spanish placement. Students who would like to be placed into Spanish 2/3 accelerated but did not qualify can discuss which score(s) is holding them back and how to retake it. Listening, Reading, and Writing AAPPL test retakes will take place at SHS and students will need to sign up with a link provided by their teacher. The Speaking assessment retake will take place the next couple of weeks after school with the TGMS Spanish team. Please reach out to your student’s Spanish teacher or their SHS counselor if you have any questions or concerns about their language placement for next year.
If your student wanted to take the AAPPL placement exam to place into a higher level of Mandarin, Latin, Hebrew, French, or German but missed the test in December, please contact their teacher for the makeup test sign up link.
Band: The band is in the middle of its busy season. We are preparing for the D96 band festival on February 2; we are preparing for the Solo/ Ensemble contest on February 10; we are getting our music ready for the music in our school concert on Thursday, March 7th concert, and finally, for the Organizational Band contest Friday 8th or 9th.
The District 96 band festival is an exciting event. This year it features Chip De Stefano as our guest conductor for the honor band and 6 master teachers who will be giving master classes to our students from 5th through 8th grade in Flute/ Clarinet/ Saxophone/ Low brass and bassoon/ Trumpet/ Trombone/ and percussion. The afternoon is sponsored by our Music Boosters. This will be our 5th year of doing the band festival. The festival is from 2:30 - 6:00 pm for Honor Band students and 3:15 - 5:00 PM for concert band students.
The Solo/ Ensemble contest is at Aptakisic Junior High this year. We have a record number of students preparing to go to the contest. Students are practicing on their solos during class, before and after school, and at home. It is fun to see their growth in the pieces.
Smart music is still happening and we are having students work on scales. This month the scale is the C concert scale for 6th graders and the A minor scale(Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic) for the 7th grade students.
Our 8th-grade students just finished their consortium at Stevenson High School. They did great.
Orchestra: Happy New Year! The Orchestra students have been working hard since we returned from break. In 6th Grade Orchestra, the students are learning new rhythms. In 7th Grade Orchestra, the students are learning how to use SmartMusic, which is a practice/assessment tool. Students should be using this at home to practice with as well! In the 8th Grade Orchestra, students were working on their consortium music and also had a playing test on excerpts from that music.
Congratulations to the 8th Grade Orchestra students on a wonderful SHS 8th Grade Orchestra Consortium Event on Monday, Jan. 22nd! The students worked very hard and learned new music for the event. They had a fantastic performance! They also got to work with the SHS Orchestra Directors and get a preview of what orchestra is like at SHS.
Upcoming Dates/Events
Saturday, Feb. 10: IGSMA Solo/Ensemble Contest, 8-4 pm @ Aptakisic JHS
Wednesday, Feb. 21: TG Chamber Orchestra performance at 5th Grade Orchestra concert, 7:30 pm @ SHS
Thursday, March 7th: “Music in Our Schools” Month Concert (6-8 Orchestra & Chorus), 6:30 pm @ TG
24-25 Kindergarten Registration Open
Are you the parent of a kindergarten student or friends with someone who is? Please help us get the word out! Kindergarten registration is now open for the 24-25 school year. Families who complete registration by April 30th may attend Kindergarten Kick-Off in May at Willow Grove Early Learning Center and receive a free t-shirt while at the event! Kindergarten Kick-Off is an exciting event designed to welcome and introduce incoming kindergarten students and their parents/guardians to Willow Grove, supporting a successful transition into school and kindergarten. Please follow this link to learn about the steps to register. Fully registered families will receive additional
information about Kindergarten Kick-Off and more in early April.
If your child is already attending Willow Grove in the early childhood program, you will automatically receive a registration link in March for kindergarten. Please wait until you receive that link to proceed with registration. You will still want to complete the registration process by April 30th to receive your child's free t-shirt and attend Kindergarten Kick-Off.
Please note that your child must be 5 years old by September 1st, 2024 to attend kindergarten for the 2024-25 school year.
https://www.kcsd96.org/wg/kindergarten-registration
Daily Announcements
Please see the Twin Groves website for up-to-date school announcements. The announcements let you know what exciting activities and clubs are going on at Twin Groves. Please click HERE to access the Daily Announcements.
Twin Groves Athletics
Please click HERE to access the Twin Groves Athletics site.
This site will be updated frequently.