Middle School – Page 4

A Shrek-Tastic Success

A big congratulations to our amazing middle school students on their wonderful performance of Shrek The Musical, Jr. at Town Hall Theatre in Lafayette last Friday evening. From the hilarious characters to the toe-tapping songs and heartfelt moments, the cast and crew brought the story to life with creativity, talent, and heart. Bravo to everyone involved for a truly unforgettable show!

Special thanks to the many people who helped make the show happen.

To Town Hall Theatre for their grace in allowing us to share their beautiful and historic space. We are so grateful to be a part of your community.
To Javier Yacarini, for his work on the sets.
To Jayme Feldhammer for her time, sewing machine, and deep kindness.
To Emily and Shay for their help with the program.
To Kim Parks for all her help and organization.
To the Middle School Teachers for their help with props and rehearsals, their willingness to share their class time, and their encouragement of all performers.
To the Middle School Parents for helping their performers run lines and gather their base costumes.
To the Middle School Students for their creativity, courage, and humor. Your performance was inspiring!
To Dianne for all the hard work, dedication, and passion put into the show. Your casting created magic on the stage and allowed the students to shine bright. Inspiring middle school students to share their creativity, compassion, and courage on the stage is no easy feat, but you did it with ease. Thank you!

Exploring Energy: Cars, Cookies, and the Power of the Sun

Over the past few weeks, Saklan’s sixth graders have been immersed in an exciting unit on energy transfer. Their hands-on exploration began with a journey through the electromagnetic spectrum, recreated right in the classroom. Using tools like prisms to investigate light waves and tuning forks and whirly tubes to observe sound waves, students experienced firsthand how energy moves and transforms.

From there, the class explored the three modes of heat transfer: radiation, conduction, and convection. This led to a deeper understanding of how energy can move from one object or substance to another. Students connected these concepts to real-world examples, such as how chemical energy in fossil fuels transforms into motion in a car or electricity to power devices.

As their understanding grew, so did their awareness of the environmental impact of fossil fuel use. This naturally sparked an investigation into alternative energy sources, with a focus on the power of the sun.

In the final week of their unit, students harnessed solar energy in two creative and engaging projects. First, they built their own solar-powered cars, turning radiant energy into kinetic energy to drive tiny motors—and then put their creations to the test in a thrilling classroom race. Next, they constructed solar ovens designed to capture the sun’s rays and transform them into heat energy. Their goal? Bake a cookie using nothing but sunshine!

These activities highlighted the incredible potential of renewable energy and gave students a sense of innovation, teamwork, and scientific discovery. It’s safe to say that the sixth-grade classroom was buzzing with energy of every kind!

#SaklanHandsOn

Class of 2025 Graduation

You are Cordially Invited to Attend

We are excited to invite you to a graduation ceremony celebrating the Saklan Class of 2025! This year’s ceremony will be held on Friday, May 30th, at 10:00 a.m. on the Saklan Sports Court. We kindly request that those joining us RSVP by May 23rd.

RSVP for Graduation Here!

We look forward to celebrating the Class of 2025 with you!

#SaklanGraduation #Classof2025

Join Us for the Middle School Musical

The Saklan Middle School students are very excited for their culminating project for music class, a performance of Shrek The Musical Jr. Every student in the Middle School is participating in the production, whether it is acting in a main role, taking care of props, helping with costumes, or being a stagehand. The show is a true collaborative effort!

On Friday, May 16th, the students will perform at 7:00 p.m. in the Town Hall Theatre in Lafayette. The entire community is invited to the show. Tickets are required for attendance and can be purchased by clicking the button below.

Middle School Musical Tickets

We hope you can join us for what is sure to be a wonderful show!

#SaklanMusicals #SaklanCreative

Bug-tastic Learning

Saklan’s Preschool, Pre-K, and 7th grade students have been diving into the fascinating world of bugs, and recently had a visit from a special guest expert, Los from SaveNature.org, and some of his six-legged (and many-legged!) friends!

Los brought the Insect Discovery Lab to Saklan, where students had the opportunity to meet live invertebrates up close and learn what makes a bug a true bug. It turns out, not all the little creatures we find crawling around are actually bugs! Thanks to Los, our students learned that millipedes, snails, slugs, and spiders are all invertebrates (animals without backbones), just like insects—but they aren’t classified as true bugs. To be a real bug, a creature must have three body parts—a head, thorax, and abdomen—and exactly six legs. That means slugs and snails (with no legs) and millipedes (with way too many legs!) don’t qualify.

Los introduced the students to some truly incredible insects, including:

Darkling Beetles – Nocturnal neighbors we might spot nearby!
Malaysian Thorny Stick Bugs – Experts at camouflage.
Australian Giant Stick Bugs – Mimic scorpions to scare off predators!
Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers – So toxic that predators steer clear.
Giant African Millipede – The star of the show!

Our youngest learners—the Owlets—showed amazing bravery and curiosity. Every single one held or touched one of Los’s fascinating bugs, and some even did so more confidently than the adults! After the visit, the class voted on their favorite, and the winner was no surprise… the Giant Millipede stole everyone’s hearts.

To reflect on the experience, the Owlets used Model Magic to sculpt their favorite bugs from the visit and then dictated fun facts they had learned. The Hoot Owls also jumped right into hands-on learning, creating models of the bugs and sharing their knowledge. From mimicking scorpions to ward off predators to being brightly colored to warn of toxicity, our students discovered just how smart and strange bug adaptations can be.

#SaklanHandsOn

Measuring the Earth

Eighth-grade geometry students have been busy diving deep into the world of circles. Building on their foundational skills, students used compasses to construct parallel lines, equilateral triangles, and perpendicular bisectors, setting the stage for more advanced discoveries.

Their curiosity led them to explore the properties of chords, where they quickly observed that the center of a circle lies on the perpendicular bisector of any chord. From there, their investigations expanded to include central and inscribed angles, as well as arcs, deepening their understanding of how all the parts of a circle connect.

Students then took on a historical challenge by stepping into the shoes of Eratosthenes, a 3rd-century BCE mathematician who famously calculated the Earth’s circumference. By using the length of a shadow cast by a meter-long stick, just like Eratosthenes did in Syene and Alexandria, students applied proportional reasoning to calculate the Earth’s circumference, arriving at an impressive 24,869 miles!

This hands-on exploration showed just how relevant geometry can be beyond the classroom—and gave the eighth graders a meaningful connection between math and the real world.

#SaklanHandsOn

Change for a Cause

Sixth Graders Take Action to Protect Endangered Species

Over the past few weeks, the sixth graders have been learning about ecosystems in science class. They’ve gained an understanding of how organisms become dependent on each other within a healthy ecosystem and the threats that they may face. In doing so, they have learned about the loss of species through invasive species, disease, and human impact. Therefore, the students wanted to help a species in need. In groups, the students researched several species, including the Hector’s dolphin, the Pangolin, the Axolotl, and the Amur Leopard. They found out where each species is located, why they are important to their ecosystem, and what threats there are to the species.

In order to raise money to help these species, students are going to hold an election, and the entire Saklan community is invited to participate. Starting on Monday, you will see decorated buckets on the tables near the office, and you can lend your spare change to vote for the species you want to help the most.

Each cent you contribute will count as one vote. One penny will count as one vote, a quarter will count as 25 votes, a dollar will count for 100 votes, and so on. All of the money raised will go to the World Wildlife Fund, which is working to help these species.

We will collect for one week and then we will symbolically “adopt” the species that gets the most votes, and will announce the winner to the Saklan community.

#SaklanCompassionate

Taking on Invasive Species

As part of the sixth-grade earth science curriculum, the students learned about how pests and invasive species can affect an ecosystem. One species they focused on was the Crown of Thorns (COT) sea star. They learned how the sea star’s fast reproduction and limited predators on the Great Barrier Reef are creating quite a problem for that precious ecosystem. The COTs eat the algae in the coral, which is causing the coral to die at rapid rates. Students then learned how scientists are using Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to learn to identify and inject vinegar into the COTs. The vinegar dissolves them from the inside out. These ROVs can work 24 hours a day in all kinds of weather conditions.

Ms. O had the 6th-grade students team up to create their own ROVs. With a grant from National Geographic Education, the students were able to use SeaMate Angelfish ROVs to simulate the work of the scientists out on the reef. The students had to design a frame, add motors, learn how to work their control box, and decorate their ROV.

With the ROVs completed, the students were given the challenge of collecting COT’s from the local MCC Augusta Pool. Students had to figure out how to maneuver their ROV and remove the imitation COTs from the pool.

It was amazing to see the engineering and design process happening while the students took the role of scientists.

#SaklanHandsOn

From Cottage Industry to Factory Floor

Hands-on Learning about the Industrial Revolution

In their Humanities lessons, 8th graders are studying how technological and social changes during the Industrial Revolution transformed the lives of Americans across all social classes in the early 20th century. Alongside their examination of historical events, students are reading the historical fiction novel Uprising, which follows the intersecting stories of three young women before and during the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan on March 25, 1911.

Through hands-on simulations, students have explored how technological innovations altered the manufacturing process during the Industrial Age. They examined how craftspeople who once worked from home were replaced by factory systems, where individuals performed repetitive tasks to perfect a single part of the production process.

Hand-Crafted Products

Each student started as a master craftsperson whose task was to assemble one pair of in-line skates from start to finish. The skates had to be cut out, the blades glued on, and the final product colored. Each student kept track of the time it took for their single pair of skates to be assembled.

A total of 10 pairs of skates were produced, with a production time per pair ranging from 14 to 29 minutes.

Moving to the Factory Assembly Line

Next, the students took their assigned jobs on the factory production line to mass produce in-line roller skates for the “Get In Line Skating Company” in the Humanities Room. Their individual work tasks ranged from cutting out the right or left blade, cutting out the right or left boot, gluing or taping the blades to the right or left boot, and coloring the skates.

Each pair of skates had to pass final inspection by Luke, or they went back to the assembly line. Like real assembly line workers, the students were not allowed to sit down or remain idle during their work time. And talk of “unions” or “strikes” was strictly prohibited.

As the students worked, they considered how American and immigrant workers in the first American factories completed repetitive tasks for 12 hours per day, 6 days a week, often having their pay cut if a product was considered defective by their bosses. The student workers also discussed what they learned about the unsafe working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where workers were locked inside to prevent theft. After the fire started in 1911, 146 young women died from being trapped on the top three floors of the Asch Building with only one fire escape and one working elevator.

In the much safer Humanities Room, the 8th-grade students manufactured 18 pairs of skates in 40 minutes.

#SaklanHandsOn

Beliefs, Behavior & Belonging

In humanities, sixth graders have been exploring the early civilizations of the Indian subcontinent and the origins of Hinduism and Buddhism. The class welcomed Saklan parents and guest experts, Manju Rajashekhar and Toshie Baba, to share their personal experiences and perspectives on Hinduism and Buddhism.

Recently, the sixth graders visited a Buddhist Monastery in Lafayette. Students heard more about the story of Siddhartha and various Arhats, participated in seated and walking meditations, and explored more evidence for the 3B Framework and 3 Claims About All Religions they have used to discuss religions throughout the year. Students met with monks and volunteers at the monastery, who showed them the buildings, grounds, and statues.

3B Framework– an individual’s religious identity may be a unique mix of

beliefs- ideas about holy scriptures, sacred texts, teachings
behavior- actions, habits, practices
belonging- sense of community

3 Claims About All Religions

All religions are internally diverse
All religions evolve and change over time
All religions are informed and influenced by the cultures they are situated in

Last week, the class enjoyed a field experience at the Blackhawk Museum where they toured the Into China exhibit as a kick-off to their unit on ancient China. This was followed by a visit from Asian Art Museum storyteller docent Nancy Parker who shared stories that connect to the museum’s artifact collection about Confucius, Buddha, and the Silk Road trade.