MS Newsletter 10/23/2026

Upcoming Events:

October 30:  Half day for students - dismissal at 11:30am.

October 30:  Halloween dance and party for grades 5-8 (REMINDER:  There are criteria for kids to attend based on behavior, academics and attendance)

Athletics:

Monday October 26: Modified Boys Soccer Home at 4:30

Wednesday October 28: Modified Girls Soccer Home at 4:30

Wednesday October 28:  Modified Boys Soccer at Harpursville at 4:30

Thursday October 29: Modified Football at Hancock at 6

Boys modified soccer

Our boys modified soccer team is wrapping up a good season next week! They will be playing their final two games, including one home game.

Let's finish the season strong—come out and show your support for our hard working athletes!

5th Grade:

5th Grade ELA

Core Reading: Students continued reading Esperanza Rising, analyzing Esperanza’s emotional growth and how her family adapts to major life changes. Instruction focused on identifying textual evidence and correctly integrating quotes to support literary analysis.

• Upcoming Assessment: Chapters 1–5 novel assessment next week.

Language Skills: We explored figurative language—specifically similes, metaphors, and personification—and examined how authors use these techniques to bring text to life.

Writing: Students have begun drafting their independent reading book responses.

• Key Date: Final drafts are due November 13th.

Vocabulary: Homework will be assigned Monday through Wednesday. Due to Friday’s half-day schedule, vocabulary quizzes will take place on Wednesday and Thursday.

5th Grade Social Studies- 5th graders had another productive week! We continued our unit on governments by taking a closer look at democracy and dictatorship. To solidify their understanding of everything we've covered so far, students created interactive flip books comparing all four government types we learned about: monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, and democracy. Toward the end of the week, we transitioned into studying economies, kicking off our exploration with traditional economies. Great effort from everyone on Friday’s vocabulary quiz to wrap up the week Any questions, please reach out! Have a wonderful weekend!

5th grade math, we spent the week writing, interpreting, and comparing numerical expressions. Mathematicians also wrote their own word problems involving the four operations. We ended the week by reviewing and then taking our end-of-module assessment. Our 5th graders have been working very hard! Have a great weekend! 

5th Grade Science is working on reading articles to find details about water health.  We have also been looking at water samples from the community under the digital microscope.  Thank you to all who have sent water samples from our local environment in.  The next vocabulary quiz will take place on Tuesday October 27th.  I have been posting the lists to Parent Square.  Please let me know if you are not receiving them and reach out with any questions or concerns. 

6th Grade:

  6th Grade ELA

Core Reading: We are now past the midpoint of Bud, Not Buddy. Students completed the Chapter 1–10 assessment, and graded tests will be returned next week.

Language Skills: Instruction centered on how adjectives enhance written communication. We focused on descriptive, demonstrative, comparative, and superlative adjectives.

Writing: Many students have submitted rough drafts of their independent reading letters for peer and teacher review.

• Key Date: Final submissions are due November 13th.

Vocabulary: Homework will be assigned Monday through Wednesday. Due to Friday’s half-day schedule, vocabulary quizzes will take place on Wednesday and Thursday.

6th Grade Math: The students have been working hard solving percent problems all week.  We have focused on finding the percent and the part.  Next week, we will find the whole and then review for our first unit assessment at the end of next week.  Have a great weekend!  

6th Grade Social Studies- Our 6th graders had an exciting and busy week! Students finished up their travel brochures showcasing their chosen continents, wrapping up a great creative project. To prepare for Thursday's unit test, we played an energetic review game to reinforce key concepts. We ended the week on Friday with our vocabulary quiz on word parts and officially kicked off our new unit on Early Humans! Any questions or concerns, please reach out. Have a fabulous weekend!

6th Grade Science is working on looking at weather phenomenon.  This week we went outside to check ground temperatures in the sun and in the shadows.  We also looked at weather maps and began to discuss what temperatures are like in the sky.  The next vocabulary quiz will take place on Tuesday October 27th.  I have been posting the lists to Parent Square.  Please let me know if you are not receiving them and reach out with any questions or concerns. 

7th and 8th Grade:

 📚 ELA 8: Another Great Week of Learning!

✏️ Bell Ringers
This week, students practiced grammar, mechanics and usage skills by editing quotes by NFL players. Students are continuing to work on the importance of using their best handwriting and taking pride in the work they put on paper.

📖 Vocabulary
Students worked on the Anchor Terms 3 vocabulary list this week. On Monday, students received 10 important ELA vocabulary words. Throughout the week, they completed fun and meaningful activities to help them learn and remember the words. The week wrapped up with a vocabulary quiz on Friday.

📚 Independent Reading
Students completed an Independent Reading Page Check this week. Students are doing a great job establishing reading habits. I am very proud of their progress!

A reminder that students should be reading for at least 30 minutes each day. Reading progress will be checked weekly through our page checks. Our next page check will be Thursday, October 29th. Their first independent reading book needs to be completed for this page check.

Reading Competition Standings:

 First Place: 8th Period-6,167 pages!!!

 Second Place: 5th Period-1,699 pages

 Third Place: 7th Period-1,629 pages

Thank you for encouraging your student to read at home and for supporting their learning! Your partnership makes a difference.

As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns at ncrandall@oxac.org. I look forward to another great week of learning with your students!

7th grade Social Studies - Please remember the Albany Trip is Tuesday, October 27.  We will arrive back in Oxford at 5:30.  You will need to be picked up.

8th grade Social Studies students have been learning about Reconstruction.

ELA 7:  This week ELA students continued with our novel unit.  Students read the third and fourth chapters of A Long Walk to Water and completed brief notes demonstrating an understanding of the gist as it relates to the two main characters, Nya and Salva.  Students also learned how to locate and cite text-based evidence to support their analysis of each character’s identity, or personality traits. 

Students also read a short piece of non-fiction to develop background knowledge for the novel.  To gain understanding of this article, students were instructed on how to annotate a text and were given an opportunity to independently demonstrate this skill by annotating it. 

Earlier this marking period, students were assigned their first independent reading assignment of the school year.  The book chosen must be a minimum of 200 pages. The in-class assessment is scheduled for 11/2  Please encourage your student to read daily.

Math 7: This week we worked on solving expressions with negative numbers using order of operations.  We applied all our adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing rules with negative numbers to solve these expressions.  Next week, we will take a field trip to Albany, and begin a unit on proportional relationships when we return.  Enjoy the weekend! 

Spanish:

¡Hola, familias de 7.º grado!

What a fantastic and busy week we had in Spanish class! Our students worked incredibly hard and showed amazing curiosity and enthusiasm during our activities.

Here is a quick look at what we accomplished this week:

Students mastered numbers 1 to 60 in Spanish! We practiced through interactive games and listening exercises to build their confidence with pronunciation.

Everyone did a wonderful job researching different Hispanic countries. They discovered unique cultural traditions, landmarks, and interesting facts.

Mystery Paper Bags: To share their research, students created "Mystery Paper Bags" filled with clues and fun facts about their assigned country. The class loved guessing the secret destinations based on their classmates' creative clues!

I am pleased with their effort, creativity, and participation this week. ¡Buen trabajo! (Great job!)

¡Hola, familias de 8.º grado!

Our 8th-grade Spanish students had a wonderful week diving deep into vocabulary about family members and descriptive adjectives!

This week students learned how to name different family members and express how to describe their personalities and physical traits in Spanish.

Family Tree Projects: Everyone did a terrific job creating personalized family trees! They brought their vocabulary to life by including pictures and detailed descriptions of their loved ones (or favorite fictional families).

It was beautiful to see their creativity on display and to hear them proudly sharing stories about their families in Spanish. ¡Excelente trabajo! (Excellent job!)

News / Programs / Clubs / Related Arts:

Students in our Catalyst and Art programs have been experiencing the perfect blend of relaxation, cultural exploration, and hands-on creativity through an exciting new pilot collaboration designed to bring more fun into the school day.

The partnership kicked off with a serene, multi-sensory project. Gathering inspiration from traditional Chinese culture, classes combined to create vibrant Chinese cherry blossom trees. As they worked, students immersed themselves in the calming sounds of traditional Chinese instrumental music and practiced the precise art of writing Chinese symbols, blending visual art with mindfulness and cultural education.

This past week, the energy shifted from serene to high-voltage fun! The latest session featured an upbeat, high-energy game of freeze dance, where students used their own body poses as inspiration to design "Dance Floor Mummies." Amid the laughter and movement, students were introduced to a fundamental art concept: learning how to use armatures to build structural support for sculptures.

We are incredibly proud of our students' hard work and enthusiastic engagement. We are also thrilled to announce that a selection of these "Dance Floor Mummies" will soon be stepping off the dance floor and into the spotlight. Keep an eye out for our talented students' work on public display at the Chenango Arts Council!

Congratulations to our Middle School Students who had work selected for the Chenango Arts Council's Student Halloween Art Show:

Julian Smith, Emma Ryan, and Addison Williams (Cultural Mask)

Freedom Wright, Brea Fowlston, Zoe Davis, Bailey Jenks, and Ryann Walling (Dance Floor Mummies)

FFA:

In conjunction with the Craft & Vendor Fair being held on November 14th, Ms. Johnson (HS Agriculture Teacher) is looking to host a Youth-Entrepreneur portion of the day! Ideally for students in grades 5-12, this is an opportunity for a student with a business mind to learn first hand how to turn a passion project into a small business. Learning basic skills, students will be able to have their own table at the event!  ***See Graphic below.** 

Parents should email rjohnson@oxac.org for the sign up form and details. 

Amelia's Voice AW5K

Let's bring our community together for a great cause!

The race is a 5k walk/run through the streets of the Village of Oxford we hold this race every October to raise awareness against domestic violence Amelia’s was a beautiful 16 year old girl that tragically murdered by her boyfriend 5/3/2019.  We created Amelia’s voice Inc to raise funds and we are starting an annual Amelia Wakefield grant fund for help restore hope center for domestic violence assist any needs domestic violence victims may arise for them to get free from the violence and control.  We are Amelia’s voice and will always hold this race and other events to raise funds and awareness always and help domestic violence victims. 

This is a professionally timed race and medals for Top 3 male, Top 3 female, Top 3 teens and Fashionably Late are awarded.  

Course Oxford High School left onto south washington, left chenango st, left scott st, right state st and up the big hill, left grays heights rd,, follow that around and down park st, right south washington, left alice st and the loop around to south washington right and then  left into the school and across the finish line. 

FAB LAB:

Freedom Wright created this ring using Tinkercad to design, and then 3D printing it with our Bambu printer.  

Aleigha Adams made a pumpkin  design out of cardboard using our laser cutter.  While Adeline Ohl created her pumpkin design out of luan plywood, also using the laser cutter.  

PRINCIPALS MESSAGE:

• Thank you for sharing your children with us.

• Be great everyone.