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The Fifth Grade Chorus class is designed to encourage students to get on their feet and sing with enthusiasm. Everyone practices good posture, pronunciation, and performance techniques. Students are required to memorize the lyrics and melodies of the songs chosen for concerts. The curriculum explores the folk songs of America: songs of the workplace, spirituals, and songs of hearth and home.

The Sixth Grade Chorus class continues the work of the fifth grade, with a concentration on international songs. Students investigate their family roots, and compile a list of countries of origin. Songs are selected that represent the always varied, and often fascinating, backgrounds of our students. Each year, the sixth graders get a chance to sing in Irish, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Korean, Czech, or any combination of these and many more languages. It brings the students closer together.

Meeting once a week, Fifth grader use writing workshop as a supplement to their English class to continue to build their developing writing skills.

Public speaking class begins with the students reflecting on the typical feelings and fears surround speaking in front of others. The elements of public speaking (content, intent, audience, delivery, etc) are reviewed and students are asked to watch and review several examples. Students take turns practicing many of these elements in several different class activities, while receiving and provided feedback on delivery and presentation. In the final weeks of the term, students study rhetorical devices, watch and review several famous speeches, and then write and deliver their own original work in the Assembly Hall.

The Eighth Grade Study Skills focuses on two main topics. First and foremost is the research process. As the students work their way through term papers and assignments in other courses, they learn methods and techniques that support these assignments and other work to come in future courses. Time is spent investigating effective and efficient means to conduct internet research, how to find pertinent information in gathered sources and how to organize materials and information. The class also learns ways to enhance a paper through proper formatting and the introduction of graphics. The second topic of the course is preparation for comprehensive exams. Review and study techniques are covered.

The Eighth Grade Study Skills focuses on two main topics. First and foremost is the research process. As the students work their way through term papers and assignments in other courses, they learn methods and techniques that support these assignments and other work to come in future courses. Time is spent investigating effective and efficient means to conduct internet research, how to find pertinent information in gathered sources and how to organize materials and information. The class also learns ways to enhance a paper through proper formatting and the introduction of graphics. The second topic of the course is preparation for comprehensive exams. Review and study techniques are covered.

In Design and Coding class students explore the rudiments of the computer language, Swift, via the Playgrounds app on their iPads. This is a language developed by Apple for the creation of apps for their devices. The more overarching aim of this course was for students to engage in the Design Thinking process, which includes ideation, selection, sketching, and prototyping. Students engage in the various aspects of this process as they develope ideas for a product that uses recycled materials. Within this framework, students discuss affordances and signifiers as principles of design. They become critics of good and bad design. In the ideation process, they learn how to cross-ideas and use associations to innovate. Some students also explore the possibilities of the Reality Composer app for prototyping in augmented reality. At the culmination of the course, students present pitches in three minute videos for the object they would like to produce before an audience of teachers and peers. They prepare multiple sketches of the object and provide a detailed explanation of how it would work, what ages and genders they are targeting, and what problem or issue the product would address in the lives of their target group.