Departments
Welcome to the Departments' Home Page. Please Click on any of the Department Links below to learn more about us.
MISSION STATEMENT
In pursuit of excellence, Grand Avenue Middle School strives to create an academically challenging, socially equitable, and developmentally appropriate learning environment which will equip each student to thrive in our school and the global community. Within Grand Avenue’s culture of Respect, Impulse Control, Compassion, and Equity, we encourage every student to learn well, stay safe, graduate, and participate, empowering all to become productive citizens.
Department Navigation
Art
Seventh grade students participate in the Art program for one semester of the seventh grade. The curriculum is very diversified and includes many areas of interest, such as:
- Color and Design Theory
- Interpretations of painting, including:
- Abstract and Non-objective art
- Expressionism
- Modern Primitive
- Surrealism
- One point perspective where students develop the illusion of depth on a flat surface.
- Experience with many different media is provided:
- Clay Modeling
- India Ink
- Papier Mache
- Pastels
- Tempra
- Water Color
Representative artists in each area are included as an integral part of class study.
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English
The basic components of English curriculum on each grade level are classified under four learning standards. Students will read, write, listen and speak for: information and understanding; literary response and expression; critical analysis and evaluation; and social interaction.
In Grade 7 emphasis in the language skills strand is placed upon development of such fundamentals as spelling, identification and proper use of four parts of speech, parts of the sentence, simple punctuation, capitalization of proper nouns and following written and/or oral directions. Language arts skills comprise the major focus and are reinforced through the teaching of literature, reading and composition. Seventh graders are introduced to library facilities by means of group orientation sessions conducted by the librarian.
Writing skills focus upon the construction of good sentence and paragraph structure through creative and expository writing. Writing is integrated throughout all four learning standards. Writing is also offered in a special course on an every other day basis opposite our Home & Careers course.
The study of literature provides an opportunity to develop vocabulary, examine simple literary concepts like setting, plot and characterization, and to enhance students' understanding of logic.
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Health
Health education is a discipline characterized by study of the physical, mental and social dimensions of the individual. These three concepts are the processes affecting human behavior, and serve as the unifying threads of the curriculum.
Course content includes study of Mental Health, Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco Education, Diseases, Nutrition and optional Family Life segment. Numerous and varied techniques are utilized in teaching health, such as role playing and cooperative learning activities.
The health course has been structured to present relevant, accurate and current materials that will help the student identify his/her own health needs, and to prepare the student to meet the health problems of today. This course meets for one semester in the seventh grade.
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Home & Career Skills
Seventh grade students participate in Home & Career Skills for one semester on alternate days during the seventh grade. Home and Career Skills is a program of instruction, primarily through applied activities, designed to prepare students to meet their responsibilities and understand their opportunities as parents or other members of families, consumers, home managers and wage earners. This subject meets every other day for one semester.
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World Languages
The study of a language other than English begins in grade seven. The four skills of second-language acquisition, listening, speaking, reading, and writing are stressed. Through vocabulary building, role playing, and basic grammatical structure, students learn to use the target language in meaningful ways. A comprehensive regents examination is taken at the end of the third year of study in the tenth grade.
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Mathematics
The Mathematics curriculum offers the student a variety of courses consistent with the maturity and ability level of each individual.
An Accelerated program, which commences in the seventh grade, offers the student who exhibits interest and talent in mathematics an opportunity to consolidate seventh and eighth grade mathematics into one year. These students advance to ninth year math in the eighth grade. Students who are enrolled in the accelerated eighth grade math program will be required to take the Algebra 1 Common Core Regents examination in June.
For the student whose prior mathematics background in elementary school indicates a need in upgrading basic math skills, a seventh grade Skills Enhancement Program is offered. If the student shows sufficient growth during the year, placement in the average ability group is recommended.
The Mathematics program places an emphasis upon improving students' skills in the solution of verbal problems and developing, applying and reinforcing reading and study skills. Students are expected to achieve a mastery of whole number operations, common fractions and decimal fractions. Geometric concepts of perimeter, area and volume, ratio, proportion and percent, operations with integers, probability and statistics and basic algebra are also emphasized.
Mathematics Resources
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Music
Students are surveyed by a letter to determine their musical interest. Students are assigned to one of the courses described below on an alternate day basis for a full year.
- Instrumental Music
- Band: Students who have experience in playing an instrument of the band will be assigned to "Band 7" and students without playing experience will be assigned to "Beginning Band 7".
- Orchestra: Students who have experience in playing a stringed instrument will be assigned to the "Concert Orchestra".
- Vocal Music: Students with experience, who express a desire to sing and accept the responsibility to perform at our Concerts will be assigned to "Chorus 7". Students without experience who desire to sign up are assigned to our non-performing chorus.
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Physical Education
All students are assigned to co-ed physical education classes on an alternate day basis for a full year. The classroom activities are designed to provide physical activities for the individual as a member of the team. These skills stimulate an interest in recreational activities that can be continued into adult life. Examples are: basketball, calisthenics, soccer, track and volleyball.
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Pupil Personnel Services & Special Education
Special Education programs at the middle school level are designed for students who, due to learning problems, are experiencing significant difficulty in meeting success in school. The goal of all Special Education programs in the Central High School District is to help our students grow academically, socially and emotionally. We accomplish this by providing the best possible educational experience to challenge each of our students.
Students are assigned to special education classes, Resource Room, Alternate Day Support class or the collaborative program by the Committee on Special Education.
Resource Room Program
The Purpose of the Resource Room is to provide support and supplemental instruction for students in mainstream class placements and activities. Organizational and study skills are emphasized, as needed, in the areas of reading, writing and mathematics. A variety of interventional techniques are utilized. Ongoing communication between Resource Room and mainstream teachers and parents is considered very important to ensure congruence with the mainstream class and the greatest possible success for each student. Students are scheduled for Resource Room on a daily basis.
Alternate Day Support
Alternate Day Support classes provide support and supplemental instruction to students who attend this class on an alternate day schedule. Organizational and study skills are emphasized.
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Science
The obligation of the Science Department to students and parents concerns itself with the past, present, as well a with the future. The needs of society, its effects on environment, and the role of individuals, produces an interplay that makes for many specific demands on the youngster of today in our ever changing scientific world.
Attention is given in all grades to the relationships between man and his ecological environment. The student is made aware of the occupations in current fields of science, as well as new vocations in the scientific world. The technique of problem solving is inherent to the teaching of science, and with the advent of a metric system of measure, much effort is placed on this area.
Our approach to the teaching of subject material is both from a theoretical and practical "hands on" approach. Students work with a variety of scientific apparatus in order to develop more meaningful concepts of science knowledge, strengthen practical aspects of content material, and to develop skills in the use and application of the tools used in science.
Seventh grade science bridges the gap between the introductory science experiences of the elementary school and the more formalized program of the secondary school. Here, pupils take part in a science orientation designed to make the transition a smooth one. Students are exposed to various branches of science including metric system, biology, and matter. Students will partake in many practical experiences.
A student taking science on the accelerated level will be doing aspects of both the seventh and eighth grade science curriculums in preparation for Earth Science in the eighth grade.
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Social Studies
Grades 7 and 8 will be a two-year, chronologically organized history of the United States with a parallel study of New York State integrated throughout the program. Hemispheric context will be provided by references to Canada and Mexico at appropriate points in the development of those nations. A major characteristic of the program will be a more intensive use of social history which deals with the lives of ordinary people in the various period being studied. Social history is broad and personal and examines such factors as family, race ethnicity, patterns of work, recreation and community life. The course content is divided into eleven units, tracing the human experience in the United States from pre-Columbian times to the present and develops the five learning stands for Social Studies: United States and New York History; World History; Geography; Economics; and Civics, Citizenship, and Government. Students will experience historical research, including the analysis of primary source materials. They will also develop the skill of answering document-based and constructed-response questions.
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Technology
Technology education is a program of instruction designed to develop an understanding of systems in fields such as production, transportation, construction, communications and agriculture by emphasizing applied activities through working with tools, machines and devices used in the home and workplace.
Ten weeks of this twenty week course is designated for computer instruction.
The computer literacy course is designed to meet the needs of students with little, if any, exposure to computers. Students will be introduced to the use of microcomputers and specific applications such as word processing, drawing and painting graphics, database management, and spreadsheet analysis. Additional units to be covered are; Introduction to the Computer, Hardware & Software Operation, and The History of the Computer.
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