Clarenville Middle School

NEWSETTER

March 02, 2005

 

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER
Tuesday March 15th (to Friday March 18th) Scholastic Book Fair  
Thursday March 17th Term 2 reports sent home
Parent Teacher Meetings (6:30 - 8:30 p.m.)
Call our secretary between 9:00 - 11:30 a.m. or 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. to reserve your meeting time
Friday March 18th  Parent Teacher Meetings (8:40 a.m. - 12:00 noon)  No school for students
Friday, March 18th Teacher In-service  (1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.) No school for students

 

SCHOOL CLOTHING SALE

Through the efforts of Mr. Randell we will be making available for purchase the following school clothing items (Navy in colour)

School hoodies $ 42.00 (hand stitched cresting)

School t-shirts $ 15.00

School shorts $ 21.00

Parents are asked to note that sizing items will be available at the school in the afternoons from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and during parent teacher meetings on March 17th and 18th . Orders will be placed with our supplier at 4:00 p.m. on Friday March 18th (deadline).

 

RECENT STUDENT "WAY TO GO’S"

The following items were published in the daily morning bulletin. The intention is to celebrate the many wonderful student actions and deeds that occur in and outside our school. We have much to be proud of !

Way To Go: to Ms. Winsor, who noticed a hungry colleague behind her in the Tim Horton's Drive-Thru on Saturday.  When the colleague got to the pick-up window, he was given a timbit - compliments of Ms. Winsor, who had by then driven off.  Great Middle School behaviour, Ms. Winsor!

Way to go: to Hailey Morgan and Emily Vey who contributed a bundle of Campbell soup labels for our rewards program. Also, to Nicholas St. Hilaire and family for donating 200 labels to our program. Super achievement!

Thanks to all who contributed many Campbell Soup labels for our rewards program.

Way to go: to Sarah, Breanna, and Melanie (From 5Pye) who volunteered to clean up spilled milk in the gym Tuesday lunch time.

Way To Go: to Jordan Vokey, Kenneth Neil, Brett LeDrew, Stephen Ryan, Shawn Bennett, and Ryan Mercer who came to the gym before classes on Monday and helped return our gym to normal by setting up cafeteria tables and returning several pieces of volleyball equipment over to the high school. Thanks!

 

HOT MEAL PROGRAM MENU

Monday : Pizza from Pizza Delight & milk.  Occasional Substitute: Mary Brown’s chicken, taters or fries and milk

Tuesday: Nachos and Cheese, fruit and milk

Wednesday: Chicken Noodle Soup, sandwich and milk.

Thursday: Rotation of meals : Spaghetti with garlic bread (this week’s selection) / Tacos / Hamburgers and carrot sticks. Served with fruit and milk.

Friday: Chicken nuggets, fries and choice of drink.

Turkey sandwiches, again thanks to Mr. Calvin Drodge (Goobie’s Irving), are available daily for purchase.

 

TIDBITS

Welcome to Amy Keats - who will be returning to her previous classmates in Grade 4Vey. A HUGE welcome to Amy and I’m sure she’ll enjoy the middle school.

The Feb . 15th newsletter highlighted several middle school students who auditioned for cast of a television production by ‘Pope Productions’. Luke Squires also auditioned but his name was omitted. Good luck Luke!!

Grade 7 & 8 Girls Volleyball Teams played in a Grade 9 and Under tournament in Arnold’s Cove on Saturday Feb. 12th and did great! While both teams played well, one team advanced to take 4th place. A great show of talent was displayed by our athletes on both squads!!

Clarenville Winter Carnival Scavenger Hunt winners were : Rebecca Rideout; Charlie Brinston; Anna Brinston and Rebecca’s younger brother ‘Reid’.

Mr. Baker will be volunteering on Friday’s to help out with Chef and Mrs. Ennis to prepare the wonderful meal of nuggets and fries, starting next week! Way to go Mr. Baker. Chef Ennis will have his hands full but he is up to the task!

Middle School Boy’s Basketball Team played Random Island Team on Saturday Feb. 19th at the complex. Our grade 7 & 8 boys demonstrated good endurance and skill and came away with a win over the grade 9 and Under team from Random Island. This game was a good tune-up for the upcoming GRADE 9 and Under tournament this upcoming weekend at Random Island!!!

Middle School Teachers captured in Wednesday Feb. 24th issue of the Telegram. Way to go to Ms. Pye, Ms. Budgell and Ms. Vey who can be seen on page B8 telling about their classes usage of the newspaper. Middle school teachers captured preparing for their classes. See Bulletin Board outside main office for photo.

 

EDITING STRATEGIES (the use of conventions in writing)

With conventions being very important in writing, the following are some tips or strategies to use when looking for errors in your own work or the work of someone else:

Look closely at the beginning and ending of each sentence. This is a fast way to spot some of the most common mistakes that writers make, such as leaving out a capital letter at the beginning, or forgetting to add a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.

Read carefully for words that do not look or sound correct. This is often a sign that a word is misspelled or used incorrectly.

Look for proper nouns (names of people, places, products and so on) that might be missing a capital.

Keep an eye out for I . It’s a fairly common error to use a small i instead of a capital I.

Look for commas to separate items in a list.

Be on the lookout for apostrophes used in contractions or in nouns or pronouns to show ownership. (Not every word that ends in ‘s’ needs an apostrophe. Some are just plurals)

Good editors say, "Make sure quotation marks are used in actual speech!"

 

LEGION CONTEST WINNERS

Legion Branch 27 contest winners were announced on Feb. 16th . The geographic region covers 9 schools and this year the contests saw a record number of entries, 719 participants . To have 8 winners in the Middle School is a big achievement. Way to go to the following who placed in the top three in their division:

Junior Poster : Alex Doyle (1st) and Hannah Tilley (2nd)

Int. Essay: Katie Walsh (1st )

Junior Poetry : Breanna Drover (1st ) and Adam Vey (2nd )

Junior Essay: Lucas Slade (1st ) ; Nick Mercer (2nd ); and Nathan Vey (3rd )

Mr. Harold March , accompanied by Mr. Bill Meadus (District Commander) and Mr. Mark Murphy (Legion Secretary: Branch 27) visited our school on Wed. Feb. 16th to present and have a few words to our students and the winners. They commented on the involvement of the middle school staff in making these awards possible. Super!

 

Tigers didn’t always have stripes. They were all orange from head to toe. Until this story.... There was once a tiger named Bob. See, Bob was different, he had a big imagination and he always wanted to stand out from all of the other tigers, he lived with. They laughed at him too. One day Bob couldn’t stand it anymore. He ran away, going far, far from the other tigers. Finally he stopped by a factory where workers were painting the factory black. Bob saw the workers from a mile away so he took a nap. What he didn’t know was, the piece of grass he was napping on was covered with black stripes! The workers used that piece of grass to wipe the black paint from the paint brushes! When Bob woke up, he was covered with stripes! "I can go back home and I can stand out from the rest of the tigers. They will like me"! he thought. He headed home and when he got there all the tigers were amazed and loved his stripes. They also said sorry for all the mean things they did to him and everyone became friends. Eventually all the tigers went and got stripes. That’s how tigers got their stripes.

 

INGREDIENTS FOR GOOD WRITING [A Curriculum Note]

Content: content describes how the student selects and includes ideas (ie. events, opinions, emotions, information, etc.) and details to make the story. (i.e. evidence, examples, descriptions, etc.). The sequence of events should be effective for the reader.

Organization: the creation of a good opening; always maintaining a focus for the story; orders and arranges the events; relationships between the events; a good conclusion.

Sentence Fluency: how effectively the sentences are created and when conversation is used, it sounds natural and realistic.

Voice: the writing is expressive, revealing the writer’s stance toward the subject. The reader clearly understands where the writer is coming from.

Word Choice: student chooses words and expressions effectively.

Conventions: punctuation, spelling, capitalization, grammar and paragraphing.

 

HOST AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ?

Schools in the Clarenville System (Balbo Elementary, Clarenville Middle and Clarenville High) of the Eastern School District are exploring the possibility of hosting international students in the upcoming school year. This will be a unique opportunity for our students and communities to learn more about different cultures around the world and open our doors to students from other cultures.

In order for this to be successful we must have some members of our community who are willing to host these students. If you are interested in learning more about this unique opportunity please complete and return this section of the newsletter by March 15th. We hope there will be enough interest to make this venture possible.

NEXT NEWSLETTER TUESDAY MARCH 22 nd, 2005