Enrichment

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Enrichment Courses
Sidwell Summer Studies offers a variety of enrichment and review courses each summer to allow participants to brush up on academic skills or learn new ones, further develop writing or math foundations or explore interests to round out other summer programming.  Combine one or two enrichment courses along with other summer program offerings to create a full day program. Students entering grades 6-9 may choose to participate in the ExploreStar program and create their own full day program by combining Summer Studies courses with enriching workshops or sports options.

For Summer 2008, the following enirchment courses will be offered. Please click on the title or scroll down to see course descriptions, teacher bios, and text book information.

Contact Sidwell Summer for assistance in planning an enriching summer experience at summer@sidwell.edu.

COMPUTER APPLICATIONS ESSENTIALS
This course will provide the computer applications skills essentials to foster a successful academic year.  Emphasis is placed on Microsoft Office 2007 applications, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.  Students will be equipped with skills to aid them in their academics such as creating spreadsheets and graphs, interactive yet effective PowerPoint presentations and useful features in Word such as tables, diagrams and page layout.  Students will also be introduced to the basics of Tablet PCs and Inspiration a graphic organizer program. This course is open to students entering 5th - 9th grades.

Charmaine Thompson is the Director of Academic Technology at Sidwell Friends Middle School.

ENGLISH ENRICHMENT READERS WORKSHOP AND WRITING CLINIC
This course is for students entering Grades 6-10 who wish to enrich or supplement their eading and writing skills. In consultation with the teacher, students will select and read four challenging novels. Students will be asked to write both formally and informally about the books they are reading. They will write daily, participate in consultations with the teacher, and share in group discussions. The course provides an excellent framework for students to complete their summer reading lists. Students are expected to purchase their own novels and to bring one of them the first day of class.

Barbara Taylor, a former Sidwell Friends School teacher, has taught this course in Summer Studies for over 10 years.

ENGLISH REVIEW AND READINESS
This class is designed for students entering Grades 7-10 who want to strengthen their reading, writing and classroom skills before moving to the next grade. Daily writing practice, supported by work in grammar and punctuation, will emphasize clarity of expression and proper sentence structure. A variety of readings will provide ample opportunities for improving comprehension and discussion skills. Most instruction will be tailored to individual needs, and students will be able to utilize computers as they work on grammar and writing skills.

Diane Scattergood has taught English at Sidwell Friends for over 20 years.

FRENCH LANGUAGE REVIEW
This course is open to students entering grades 9 -10, who want to improve their aural/oral expression, review the fundamentals of grammar, conjugations, and syntax. The course is tailored to students’ individual needs.  Students in this course will have the opportunity to practice speaking in a state-of-the-art digitized, audio-visual, and interactive language laboratory to enhance their pronunciation and enunciation skills. Class activities will include simulation of every day life situations in French.  The textbooks for the course are: Communicating in French (levels I&II), by Conrad J. Schmitt; Le Francais essentiel, by Gail Stein

Mamadou Guèye has been teaching French at Sidwell Friends School for 19 years.

INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH AND NUTRITION
This course will serve as an introduction to the many components of understanding health, fitness, and human nutrition.  The primary objective of the course is for the students to obtain practical knowledge that can be easily retained and applied both now and later in life, so that they are able to remain fit and healthy over their lifetime.  The students will gather this knowledge by discussing the practical issues related to proper nutrition and dieting, such as the effective means for managing body weight and current issues with nutritional supplements, as well as discussing training theory in sport and exercise, so that students understand the most effective means for having a healthy body.  In the process, the students will receive an overview of the fundamental principles of exercise physiology and social psychology.  This course is open to all students in Grades 9 – 12.

Mike Hamberger, who has been coaching cross-country and track & field at Sidwell Friends School for the past 4 years.

KEYBOARDING
To provide a good foundation of basic skills and touch-typing, this personal typing course introduces students to the keyboard and proper typing techniques. Emphasis is on basic skill-building, development of speed and accuracy, and creative typing and composition at the machine. Students will use IBM compatible computers. Open to students entering Grades 7 - 12.

Ellen Rue Pierson has worked at Sidwell Friends and has taught keyboardingn for over 20 years.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH REVIEW
This course for students entering grades 6 - 8 will seek to bolster students’ pre-algebraic computational and reasoning skills.   Extensive practice dealing with rational expressions involving fractions, negative numbers, percents, and decimals will sharpen students’ computational fluency.  Furthermore, an introduction to basic algebraic notation will give students an opportunity to apply these skills towards simplifying and evaluating expressions involving variables.   A review of fundamental geometric formulas and principles, along with a study of linear graphing techniques, will enable students to improve their computational accuracy while developing their spatial reasoning skills.   An emphasis will be placed on developing a neat and organized problem-solving style, as well as the ability to check work methodically for careless mistakes.   The class will be appropriately paced to address misconceptions students may have about certain topics from previous math classes.  

Jason Mc Neil is a returning summer faculty.

MUSIC THEORY
This course for grades 6-12 develops the student’s understanding of music structure and compositional rocedures. Strong emphasis is given to listening skills, particularly those involving recognition and comprehension of melodic and rhythmic patterns, harmonic functions, small forms, and compositional techniques. The following topics are covered: music terminology (intervals, scales, cadences) notation skills (clefs, key signatures, transposition) basic compositional skills (four-voice realization of figured-bass symbols, adding bass lines to a given melody) score analysis (cadence identification, roman-numeral and figured-bass analysis, including non-harmonic tones, secondary dominants)melodic organization (motivic development, inversion, retrograde, sequence) rhythmic and metric organization (augmentation, diminution) textures (monophony, homophony, polyphony) formal devices (phrase structure) aural skills (sight-singing, melodic and harmonic dictation, chord inversions, key relationships). This course is designed to help prepare students who are interested in taking the Advance Placement test.

Michael Henderson, is All-school Curriculum Coordinator and Music teacher at Sidwell Friends School.

9TH AND 10TH GRADE ENGLISH REVIEW

 PRE-ALGEBRA REVIEW
This course is designed for students entering Grades 8, 9, or 10 who want to solidify their understanding of basic mathematical concepts and processes before taking Algebra I. Emphasis will be on approaching problems with an algebraic perspective. Computation reinforcement will focus on fractions, integers, and order of operations.

Jason Mc Neal is a returning summer faculty.

READING AND STUDY SKILLS
Our course for improving the way students read and study academic material is designed to maximize students’ ability to comprehend and retain what they read and study in textbooks. The application of proven study techniques for different subject areas is emphasized as are note-taking and test-taking skills. The focus of the program will be on study strategies that students will be able to utilize in their classes. This course is recommended for any student who wishes to achieve greater academic performance. For students entering Grades 6-8.

Robyn Nichols has taught at Sidwell Friends Middle School for the past six years.”

SAT I  REVIEW
This course for Grades 10 - 12 offers no magic formulas for raising verbal or math aptitude scores but will quite helpful to those taking the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) or the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). In addition, to reviewing basic concepts, facts, operations, and skills, the teacher discusses test-taking strategies. Photocopied materials and the College Board publication 10 Real SATs are used. Students may enroll for both or just one part of the course.

Verbal: 10:30 am - Noon
The new SAT consists of two components: Writing and Critical Reading.  In the Writing section, students are required to know how to improve sentences and paragraphs and to identify sentence-level errors.  They are also asked to write an organized and developed essay.  To this end, we will spend time in class reviewing basic writing skills: some grammar review as well as basic compositional techniques.  Students will practice planning and developing timed essays as well.  The Critical Reading section no longer has analogies.  Instead, there are sentence completions and more short reading passages.  Students will practice reading skills, particularly ways to read quickly yet retain essential information.  Vocabulary development will continue to be of importance, and we will make that a weekly endeavor, using words drawn from past SATs, so that students improve their understanding of connotation and diction.

Dr. Jennifer Solomon teaches English at Sidwell Friends

Math: 1:00 - 2:30 pm
Students review relevant mathematical skills. Results on actual SAT exams taken in class computer-analyzed to pinpoint specific weaknesses. Topics include arithmetic skills (negative numbers, fractions, decimals, and percentage problems), equations, inequalities, exponents, geometry review, ration and proportion, and word problems.

SPANISH REVIEW AND SERVICE
This language enrichment and community service course is designed for all students from grades 9-12. The course will provide the students the opportunity to review grammar structures, enhance their vocabulary and increase their proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The class will be conducted in Spanish and will engage the students in varying speaking activities in order to improve fluency. This year, students will take a placement test on the first day that the class meets.  Students will then be grouped according to their level.  Each level will meet for 1 hour and 45 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  At the beginner level, instruction will be geared toward the Spanish student who is in need of review of basic skills before going to the next level.  The advanced level instruction will include a review of complex grammar structures and tenses, essay-writing practice and some literature. The service component will allow students to interact directly with children of the Hispanic community.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they will work at the Spanish Enrichment Education Center, a bilingual preschool in Adams Morgan.  Service will include classroom activities directed by the preschool teacher and interaction with the children during recreation.  Students are expected to arrive at Sidwell by 8:30 AM and will be off campus until noon on these days.

Patricia Balestra is a returning summer faculty

WRITING REVIEW - GRADES 6 - 8

This course is aimed at rising 6th to 8th grade students. Emphasis will be placed on precise word choice, sentence crafting, paragraph development, and correct punctuation.  Drawing on numerous fiction and non-fiction sources, students will write a variety of short pieces, including analysis, reflections, and personal essays.  Daily reading, writing, and discussions will hone the students' academic skills.