Middle Years Program| 6th- 8th

This unit helps build empathy.Students research and learn about different types of disabilities and choose one to crate a presentation for the class.  They study a program called Makers Making Change and learn about the competitions they hold to create assistive devices for people with disabilities.  The students also watched and discussed the documentary  Target, "Design for All". Students research different types of disabilities.  As a summative assessment, students are put in groups and given a real-life scenario about a disabled person.

In addition to core classes, MYP students take an exploratory class each trimester. These classes are designed to give students exposure to various experiences, including visual and performing arts. Recent exploratory offerings have included choir, drama, creative writing, robotics, textile arts, acting and drawing.

The arts in the MYP seek to stimulate young imaginations, challenge perceptions and develop creative and analytical skills. Involvement in the arts encourages students to understand the arts in context and the cultural histories of artworks, thus supporting the development of an inquiring and empathetic world view. The arts challenge and enrich personal identity, and build awareness of the aesthetic in a real-world context. Through development of the imagination, students can become more empathetic and compassionate, they can enrich their cultural lives and discover new ways to contribute actively both to their own communities and to the world.

The MYP values the processes of creating, performing and presenting artwork, and gives students opportunities to function as artists and to develop as learners. Students learn to use the arts to convey feelings, experiences and ideas about the world, and in doing so they acquire and develop techniques and creative skills. They learn the value of reflection and evaluation as a means of developing their ideas, their skills and their work.

Key concepts such as aesthetics, change, communication and identity broadly frame the MYP curriculum. Related concepts promote deeper learning grounded in specific disciplines. Examples of related concepts in MYP arts include audience, expression and genre.

The MYP curriculum framework offers schools the flexibility to determine engaging, relevant, challenging and significant content that meets local and national curriculum requirements. This inquiry-based approach explores factual, conceptual and debatable questions in the study of the arts. Student learning may be focused on one or more of the following arts disciplines:

• Fitness
• Music
• Theatre
• Media Arts
• Visual Arts

Exploratory classes in support of the school musical consists of stage performance, sound & lighting, marketing and promotion and backdrop painting (and more!). Students perform three shows for the school and community to attend. Final performances serve as the summative assessment.

The MYP individuals and societies subject group incorporates disciplines traditionally studied under humanities and social sciences. This subject group encourages learners to respect and understand the world around them, and equips them with the necessary skills to inquire into historical, geographical, political, social, economic, and cultural factors that affect individuals, societies and environments.

The study of individuals and societies helps students to appreciate critically the diversity of human culture, attitudes and beliefs. Courses in this subject group are important for helping students to recognize that both content and methodology can be debatable and controversial, and  for practicing the tolerance of uncertainty.

Key concepts such as change, global interactions, time, place and space, and systems broadly frame the MYP curriculum. Related concepts promote deeper learning grounded in specific disciplines. Examples of related concepts in MYP individual and societies include causality, globalization, culture and sustainability.

The ability to communicate in more than one language is essential to the concept of an international education that promotes intercultural understanding, and it is central to the IB’s mission. The study of additional languages in the MYP provides students with the opportunity to develop insights into the features, processes and craft of language and the concept of culture, and to realize that there are diverse ways of living, behaving and viewing the world.

Acquiring an additional language and exploring and reflecting on the cultural perspectives of our own and other communities:

• are central to developing critical thinking and international-mindedness
• provide an intellectual framework to support personal development, cultural identity and conceptual understanding
• greatly contribute to the holistic development of students and to the strengthening of lifelong learning skills
• equip students with the necessary multi-literacy skills and attitudes to communicate successfully in various global contexts.

Key concepts such as communication, connections, creativity and culture broadly frame the MYP curriculum. Related concepts promote deeper learning grounded in specific disciplines. Examples of related concepts in MYP language acquisition include word choice, conventions and idiom.

In a unit entitled Ropa y Colores, MYP students explore the above statement of inquiry.  Students engage in various activities to learn vocabulary and structure statements and questions that require them to use articles and adjectives correctly and to use both singular and plural forms of verbs.

After practicing with dialogue, dictations, readings, and dramatic presentations, the summative assessment is a narrated fashion show in which each student presents another student modeling an outfit of various clothing. Students describe styles and colors using correct grammar.

Language is fundamental to learning, thinking and communicating, as well as providing an intellectual framework to support conceptual development. It plays a central role in developing critical thinking, cultivating international-mindedness, exploring and sustaining personal development and cultural identity, and responsibly participating in local, national and global communities. MYP language and literature courses equip students with linguistic, analytical and communicative skills that help to develop interdisciplinary understanding. Students develop the following skills in six domains both independently and with others. 

• Listening.
• Speaking.
• Reading.
• Writing.
• Viewing.
• Presenting.

Inquiry is at the heart of MYP language learning, and aims to support students’ understanding by providing them with opportunities to independently and collaboratively investigate, take action and reflect on their learning. 

As they read and share poetry, students identify and explain the effects of the creator's poetic choices on the audience. To activate prior knowledge, they explore various examples of figurative language, as well as poetic forms and devices, using a shared wiki: this is a resource for them to see online samples as well as to share the examples they have written.  The wiki has been added to by students over several years, so it is both a rich resource and a showcase for students' thinking. Along with the wiki, students explore poetic imagery through an activity to engage their senses and inspire their own poetry about the natural world. 

As students move toward the summative assessment, students choose an example children's book to use as inspiration and identify author's poetic choices and structures. They inquire into how that author showed creativity and created a message to share with readers. For the summative assessment, students transfer their knowledge of poetry and the craft of writing verse as they create a children's book, written in verse, for a kindergarten audience. They then read aloud their books to our kindergarten students in small groups.

Students discover rules and patterns on their own before they learn them formally.  They "discover" tangent before knowing how the "tan" button works on the calculator and then create the unit circle based on previous knowledge. 

Students use their knowledge of slope and similarity to compare the measure of interior angles in similar right triangles to their side lengths to discover the sine, cosine, and tangent ratios. They collaboratively practice using sine, cosine, tangent in patterns of special right triangles to find unknown sides and angles in right triangles. Students use their knowledge to coordinate plane and special right triangles to create the unit circle and observe patterns when finding sine, cosine, and tangent using the unit circles reference triangles.  This unit helps students see connections among previously learned mathematical concepts and introduces concepts they'll use in the future. The unit circle stems directly from the concepts in this unit, so it is a meaningful and appropriate extension.

MYP physical and health education aims to empower students to understand and appreciate the value of being physically active while developing the motivation for making healthy and informed life choices. To this end, physical and health education courses foster the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes contributing to a balanced and healthy lifestyle.

Students engaged in physical and health education will explore a variety of concepts that help foster an awareness of physical development and health perspectives, as well as positive social interaction. Physical activity and health are of central importance to human identity and global communities, creating meaningful connections among people, nations, cultures and the natural world. 

Through physical and health education, students learn to appreciate and respect the ideas of others, and develop effective collaboration and communication skills. This subject area also offers many opportunities to build positive interpersonal relationships that can help students to develop a sense of social responsibility and intercultural understanding.

Key concepts such as change, communication and relationships broadly frame the MYP curriculum. Related concepts promote deeper learning grounded in specific disciplines. Examples of related concepts in MYP physical and health education include energy, balance and refinement.

With inquiry at the core, the MYP sciences framework aims to guide students to independently and collaboratively investigate issues through research, observation and experimentation. The MYP sciences curriculum explores the connections between science and everyday life. As they investigate real examples of science applications, students discover the tensions and dependencies between science and morality, ethics, culture, economics, politics, and the environment.

Scientific inquiry fosters critical and creative thinking about research and design, as well as the identification of assumptions and alternative explanations. Students learn to appreciate and respect the ideas of others, gain good ethical-reasoning skills and further develop their sense of responsibility as members of local and global communities.

Key concepts such as change, relationships and systems broadly frame the MYP curriculum. Related concepts promote deeper learning grounded in specific disciplines. Examples of related concepts in MYP sciences include energy, movement, transformation and models. Additional concepts may also be identified and developed to meet local circumstances and curriculum requirements. 

In a unit called "What's the Matter with Chemistry?", students in 6th grade examine the properties of matter and changes in matter through various experiences. For example, in a solubility lab, students identify whether substances are soluble or insoluble in water. In the s'more lab, they look for evidence of physical and chemical changes while making (and eating) s'mores. Using a computer program, students explore various states of matter, investigating the participle behavior of different substances at different temperatures and the relationship between heat and pressure.

As a Catholic school, our Catholic faith is infused throughout the school program, including daily prayer, regular attendance at Mass, observance of religious seasons and feast days.  and community outreach.

Religion is taught as an academic subject, and all students participate, regardless of their religious background. The religion curriculum follows the PreK-8 Religion Standards and Framework developed by the Archdiocese of Seattle.  In sixth grade, the main area of study is the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures. In seventh grade, students study the life of Jesus, as related in the Gospels. For eighth graders, the main areas of study are morality and church history.

Service to others is an important emphasis throughout our school. MYP students are required to complete 15 hours of independent service in their communities each trimester. They .log their service and complete a reflection at the end of each trimester to think about the impact that service had on them and their impact on the broader community.

In religion, as in other classes, students explore conceptual questions, make connections between religion and other subjects they are studying, and apply their learning to their own lives today.

Meaningful relationships with caring adults are an important support for middle-school students. Each year our middle school students are part of an advisory cohort with an advisor who is a teacher or administrator. Advisory groups meet weekly.  Through a variety of activities, they build connections with one another, set goals for themselves, and reflect on their own growth.  Service learning is also a part of advisory, including one full service day each trimester in which advisory groups reach out to the community to meet various needs.

Info Coming Soon

At St. Luke School, the Community Project is a capstone project for eighth-graders. With guidance from their advisors, students consider the needs of their communities, and they select one area of need to investigate in depth.  They work individually or in small groups to plan an action that they can undertake to address this problem, and they implement their plan.  The final step is to share their projects with the school community. This is just one of the ways that IB helps all students to see that they can make a positive difference in the world.

Info coming soon.