Newletter march 07

mouth Middle School during pod is finished the seventh graders will move into those noon. In the morning day, June5th. This is ONLY dergoing a major renovation of 2008 construction will be the sixth graders will get completed in the other areas off their bus and get on a March/April 2007 year and finished for the fall home for the sixth graders. Mar. 13 Student Council fundraiser tion pods, one each for Apr. 2-9 Spring Break Apr. 10 School resumes Students Must Keep Cells Phones OFF and in Their Locker Spring sports begin Apr. 12 Statewide tornado drill udent safety and learning are our top priorities at Plymouth Middle School. In an effort Apr. 16 PPA meeting, 7 pm, media to preserve instructional integrity and personal safety, the use of cell phones by students center will be strictly prohibited in all areas of the building. Cell phones must be turned off at all Apr. 17, 18 MCA Math Test 6, 7, 8 times and kept out of sight. Phones will be confiscated and turned over to the grade Apr. 19 Musical at RMS e l principal if they are seen during the school day, and in all instances a parent s t come to the school to pick up their students cell phone when it has been Apr. 24 National Jr. Honor Society taken away. Parents may pick up cell phones between 7:00 and 3:30 unless other ar-Induction 7 pm rangements have been made. Plymouth Middle School will not investigate or be held re- sponsible for any lost or stolen cell phones. In the event of an emergency during the school day, please call the main office at 763-504-7100 and we can help you get in d . Thank you for your help in this important matter! Congratulations to all Plymouth orchestra students who participated in the Solo and Ensemble Festival on February 6th at Robbinsdale Middle School! Students in the sixth grade performed solos, duets, trios, and quartets with great musicianship at recitals, while many 7th and 8th grade students received high scores in their judged performances. Plymouth 6th grade orchestra students are working hard to prepare for the annual Spring Festival concert in the Cooper High School gymnasium on Saturday, March 3, at 7:30pm. 6th graders will report to the Cooper auditorium at 2:15pm to prepare for an afternoon of rehearsals, and will be dismissed at 4:20pm for dinner. They will return to Cooper at 7:00pm to prepare for the evening concert, which features a special guest violist -- the current Miss Minnesota, Nicole Swanson! Ms. Swanson will also be visiting Plymouth Middle School on Friday, March 2nd, to visit with orchestra students about her experiences as Miss Minnesota, and as an advocate for music education. Winter Weather and Instruments -- Does your string instrument keep going out of tune during the winter? The problem is the lack of humidity in the air during the colder months -- all students are recommended to buy a "Damp-it" or other hu-midification system for their instrument or case at their local music store. These devices help keep the instrument at a tol-erable percentage of humidity, which helps keep the pegs from slipping and the instrument from going out of tune! Registration for Spring sports begins on March 18th. Team Multiculture Day at Plymouth Middle School will be held meetings and practices will begin the first day back to school Friday, March 30 this year. Dr. Leonard King Jr. will be after spring break (April 10) Make sure your students listen our guest at the assembly for students where he will per- to morning announcements to learn when and where their form “Drum Fun and Vocals, Too”. Our own Madrigals sport will be meeting. The athletic fee is $36. The following choir will also perform. For lunch we will “Mix It Up” sports are available this spring: w h e r e s tudents and staff eat together at different tables We will be having a Picture Day in March! Watch for information that will be sent home with your student soon! Call Janet if you are interested or if you The food shelf items for March are pancake mix and syrup. Student Council appreciates all the donations we have re-ceived thus far! March Madness and Plymouth! Student Council will sponsor college hoops fun for Home Bases. Each Home Base is ran-domly assigned one female and male NCAA team. As teams are eliminated, Home Bases are as well. The lucky Home Bases assigned to the ultimate winners get a special treat from Student Council. So now your student has a legitimate rea-son to be studying the brackets! Student Council will be hosting a benefit at Noodles & Company in Plymouth on Tuesday, March 13 from 4-8 p.m. Donations from all sales will go to help Student Council fund the various projects they do throughout the year. Noodles is located at 3425 Vicksburg Lane N. Please have a delicious dinner and support Student Council! Student Council participated again in Pennies for Patients a fund raiser for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Last year PMS raised $1,125.88. Our goal this year was to beat that amount and raise $1300. Pennies for Patients is a national program where students bring in spare change and the fund raiser helps to create public awareness for blood cancers. Funds raised go to patient aid and research at the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic. Students were asked to bring in spare change between February 12th and March 2nd. Thank you for your support! Plymouth art students are participating in art exhibits celebrating Youth Art Month. Congratulations to Cameron Clarke (8), Ashley Eliason (7), Christian Willner (7) and Laura Appelen (6). Their art work was included in a special k-12 art exhibition at the State Capitol from Sunday, February 25th- March 10. A reception hon-oring these students was held at the Capitol Rotunda on February 25th. Congratulations to Colleen Larson (6), Chris Arneson (6), Michael Hagstrom (6) and Sydnie Merriman. Their art work was selected for display at a state wide middle school art exhibition at the Perpich Center for Arts Education in Golden Valley. Their art work was on display from Feb. 12 through March 11. An open house recognizing these students will be held on March 11. A special thank you to these students for representing our school so well! What are They Learning in Middle School Science? All science classes at Plymouth Middle School offer students numerous opportunities to explore the natural world around them. The sixth grade science classes are working with a new curriculum on Physical Science. The students have been busy read-ing, discussing, and experimenting with Matter and Energy. They have been learning many new concepts, as well as mak-ing connections to their own lives. Students still have many things to learn about as they begin to move into their new books. Their next book will be Chemical Interactions. It is sure to be exciting! Students have been to or are getting ready to go to Deep Portage Environmental Camp. This is always a highlight of the 6th grade year. In the seventh grade the focus is on Life Science. Mr. Hancock’s students turned in their “Cell City” project at the begin-ning of 3rd quarter and are now finishing up Cells. They are about to start Genetics. They will work with probability and Punnet Squares. Ms. Aber’s science classes are beginning a unit on Microorganisms: viruses, bacteria, and protists. In this unit the students will construct a model of a virus attacking a host cell. Additionally, they will use the microscope both to observe bacteria taken from their own mouths and to look at and identify living protists. In Ms. Olson’s class they just finished studying Protists and Fungi. They made "protist guide books" and used them to identify protists in pond water. Next, they will have an introduction to Animals and then look more in depth at Invertebrates. Mr. K. Johnson’s Life Sci-ence classes are working on the Animal unit. Highlights for his students are the Earthworm and Frog dissections. Earth Science is the focus in eighth grade. Mr. Burnes’ classes are working on Astronomy and just completed a planet comparison PowerPoint project called “Just the Right Planet.” Mr. K. Johnson’s classes are exploring Water on Earth and will be going into Weather and Climate later this spring. Mr. R. Johnson’s Earth Science classes are finishing a unit on the development of Plate Tectonics and will soon investigate Earth History which includes the construction of an illustrated classroom Geologic Time Scale. The eighth grade pre-AP science classes continue to use the systems-based CUES (Constructing an Understanding of the Earth System) curriculum. These students have recently investigated and modeled large scale forces acting on the Geosphere - Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Mountain building. They have also looked at how these forces have shaped Earth’s History and will soon investigate Rocks and Minerals. Each pre-AP Science student continually records his/her ideas, observations, investigations, and their understanding through their science journal. TEAE testing dates in March The TEAE (Test of Emerging Academic English) will be administered to ELL students (both direct service and transitional) in March, as follows: TEAE Reading – Tuesday, 3/13, TEAE Writing – Wednesday, 3/14, Make-up testing – Thursday, 3/15 The purpose of this test is to ensure that ELL students are making adequate progress in reading and writing. This is one of the measures that is used to determine when students are ready to be exited from ELL services. If your student is required to take this test, a letter will be sent home from the district office. As with all testing, please help to make sure that your student attends school on these dates, gets a good night’s sleep and eats a healthy breakfast. This is an important test, and we want all students to do their best work! If you have any questions, you may contact ELL teachers Jennifer Hernandez (504-7080) or Deidre Enyart (504-7079). Nurse News . . . As you have heard on the news the Influenza season is late getting started in Minnesota. We have had students with flu symptoms now missing school. There is still flu vaccine available. The flu is caused by a virus with symptoms of body aches and fevers. It is important to control the fever. Make sure your child has enough fluids such as water and juices when they have a fever. There are medications that will help with the fever also such as Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Contact your child’s health care provider with questions. These symptoms can last 4-7 days and then the virus causes a cold. Any child with already existing chronic health problems should get a flu vaccine. Please encourage your child to wash their hands, cover their coughs in their elbows and do not come to school sick. Talk with your child about keeping their hands away from their nose and mouth unless they have just washed their hands. As spring is coming we at school prepare for the new school year next fall. All sixth grade students will be mailed immuni-zation records (shots) to up date for seventh grade. The doctor may tell you your child is up to date but the school may not have all those records so check carefully when you receive the mailing to make sure the records are compliant. You may certainly object to having your child immunized and the school needs a signed notarized note stating that. That state-ment is on the back of the blue health/physical form that is part of the mailing. Please make sure your mailing address is up to date so you can receive this important information. Students whose shots are not up to date will be excluded from school in the fall. Please send in the required immunization records as soon as you can. Many parents think their child can bring it on the first day of school which means your child waits in line with over 200 other students for the health of-fice to check records before they can go to class. We will accept the up to date immunization (shots) records at any time.

Source: http://www.rdale.k12.mn.us/cgi-bin/pms/File/ParentNewsletter/March07.pdf