Dear Advising Families,
To those of you new to Trillium Middle School, welcome to our Advising class! Welcome back to the folks from last year. I am privileged to work in such a caring and progressive school with such amazing students.
My name is Kurt Maier. I will be starting my third year at Trillium and my thirteenth year of teaching professionally. I feel I finally have a solid understanding of all aspects of the school. I am language arts instructor for the Upper School and this year I will also teach West African drumming to the Lower School as well as the Upper School.
As your student’s advisor I will be helping with learning plans, class selection, publishing work, managing their new e-Portfolio, building community and having fun in advising class, and much more. It is also a large and important part of my job to help navigate the new, more social waters of middle school.
I will be contacting you for a home visit at the end of August and the first week of September. School begins on the 8th of September. You will receive a detailed home visit packet in the mail that needs forms filled out and material signed by the time I arrive. This is a very important meeting. It is our first chance to let you know about changes in the Middle School schedule and program, come up with a plan for the year, conference about passions, hopes and dreams, challenges and worries, and get most of the paper work and activity fees paid for the year.
We are having a Middle School potluck on Wednesday, August 27th at Overlook Park from 5:30 – 7:00. If this time/date changes we will let you know. It will be another good chance to mingle and talk to new and veteran Trillium families and get a feel for what is in store
We have two new MS advisors this year (Nina and Amy), and they are truly amazing people. We have the strongest, most well rounded staff in the Upper School than ever before with people finding the perfect niches. We have included a summer homework assignment for your student! Check it out…it should be fun.
The best way to contact me is through email. Mine is kurt@trilliumcharterschool.org. (NOT Kirk@tr…..) You can contact ANY staff member of the school by entering their first name and then the school’s name as seen above. We all have blogs too! This is a place for assignment updates, due dates, announcements, syllabi for all classes, and more. To access my Advising Blog go to: http://kurtadvising.blogspot.com/ Aside from newsletters, my class liaison, (Any volunteers for this spot? I haven’t ever had a full time liaison and I REALLY need one badly!) the occasional phone call, these two methods are the best for gathering information.
Thanks for choosing Trillium. Thanks for being in my class. Welcome! Let’s have a great summer and come back relaxed and refreshed and ready to get our learn on!
Sincerely,
Kurt
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Summer 2008 Project Assignment
YEA!!!!! Your First Project for next school year!
You will need to present to your Advisory how you spent your summer. This presentation can be about any one part of your summer or encapsulate the entire thing. You get to choose what you present and how you present it, but present you will. Your presentation should not exceed 5 minutes. You will also need to be prepared to answer questions and comments from your Advisory.
There are many, many possibilities. Here a few examples for you to consider:
• demonstrate or teach a skill or game you learned
• write an essay that sums up your whole summer or a just few special moments
• make and show a scrapbook
• design a website or power point presentation
• present writings from a summer journal
• show a video of edited highlights
• write and recite a poem about your summer
• show-n-tell with souvenirs you’ve gathered
• any combination of the above or something you think of on your own!
Here’s a quick example of the sort of thing you might do: Let’s say that over the summer you trained your dog (or cat!) to do a new trick. You could present a video that showed your pet doing tricks it already knows as well as the new trick you taught. Then you could explain to the Advisory what other things you are planning to train your pet to do and why working with your pet this way is so rewarding for you.
Please keep in mind that this is a required assignment that should be a complete, finished work that reflects your best effort (best effort = neat, organized, proper spelling, etc). Not only will you be using your presentation to introduce or re-introduce yourself to your Advisory but it will be assessed as a part of your Advisory evaluation. If you have any questions please email or call your Advisor. This assignment is due on the first day of school, Monday, Sept. 8th.
HAVE FUN!
Your Middle School Advising Team,
Amy, Kirk, Kurt, and Nina
You will need to present to your Advisory how you spent your summer. This presentation can be about any one part of your summer or encapsulate the entire thing. You get to choose what you present and how you present it, but present you will. Your presentation should not exceed 5 minutes. You will also need to be prepared to answer questions and comments from your Advisory.
There are many, many possibilities. Here a few examples for you to consider:
• demonstrate or teach a skill or game you learned
• write an essay that sums up your whole summer or a just few special moments
• make and show a scrapbook
• design a website or power point presentation
• present writings from a summer journal
• show a video of edited highlights
• write and recite a poem about your summer
• show-n-tell with souvenirs you’ve gathered
• any combination of the above or something you think of on your own!
Here’s a quick example of the sort of thing you might do: Let’s say that over the summer you trained your dog (or cat!) to do a new trick. You could present a video that showed your pet doing tricks it already knows as well as the new trick you taught. Then you could explain to the Advisory what other things you are planning to train your pet to do and why working with your pet this way is so rewarding for you.
Please keep in mind that this is a required assignment that should be a complete, finished work that reflects your best effort (best effort = neat, organized, proper spelling, etc). Not only will you be using your presentation to introduce or re-introduce yourself to your Advisory but it will be assessed as a part of your Advisory evaluation. If you have any questions please email or call your Advisor. This assignment is due on the first day of school, Monday, Sept. 8th.
HAVE FUN!
Your Middle School Advising Team,
Amy, Kirk, Kurt, and Nina
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