Souper Bowl Of Caring Contest

This week Ms. Hill decided to have a Souper Bowl of Caring contest in honor of the Super Bowl. The Souper Bowl of Caring is a national effort that uses the energy of the Super Bowl to mobilize youth in a united national effort to care for people in their local communities who are hungry and those in need. You can read more about the mission here: http://bit.ly/1KdhlK1

This being the first year we tried this, we didn't know what to expect. We were surprised and extremely pleased when the canned goods and items started rolling in. By the time we announced the winners Thursday afternoon, we had collected 1,223 items to be donated to our local food bank. This computes out to almost five items per student! Ms. Hill played the Fox NFL theme song over the intercom and then announced the winners of each grade. Finally, she announced the top three classes. In third place, Mrs. Buck's class with 108 items, an average of 7.2 per student. In second place, Mrs. Rutan's class with 126 items, an average of 8.4 per student. And the winner...Mrs. Wiley's class with 152 items, an average of 11.69 items! Because of this awesome performance, they will have a party tomorrow with pizza, snacks, and a football movie!  Along with that they have taken back the Spirit Stick! Way to go team!

WOW! What a great job everyone!

I am including for your enjoyment the video of Mrs. Wiley's class as the winners are announced. : )

Great job everyone!

Veteran's Day Celebration 2014

Medicine Lodge has always made an effort to recognize the veterans in the community with a district-wide day dedicated to teaching the students about service and sacrifice.  Although the ceremony is not as big as it once was, it is still a great day to remember those veterans that have protected freedom that we enjoy in this country today.

At the grade school, each grade has a branch of the military that they study.  During their study, the make decorations representative of that branch and post them in the hallway.  Our fourth grade students make invitations to all of the local veterans to come and eat with us at the school.  When they come, they can see all of the decorations that the staff and students made the previous week.  Here is a folder displaying some pictures of the decorations this year: Veteran's Day 2014 Decorations

We scheduled our veteran's lunch at 11:00 this year.  We changed this up in order to allow the veterans to eat together at one time, instead of spreading them out over the entire lunch period.  If the veteran had a student that they wanted to eat with, we pulled the students out of class to eat at that time.  This year, we served around 60 veterans a great lunch of chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, rolls, and peach cobbler.  Our stuco kids served them and kept them going with tea and water.  Overall, I was very pleased with the change of the time and the way the lunch went.

After lunch, we got the students loaded up to go to the high school for our assembly.  Mr. Moore, our board president led the ceremony and gave a good message about recognizing our World War 2 veterans.  Then the grade school students sang some songs and read a poem.  Two high school students read essays that they had written about the importance of Veteran's Day.  We finished up with the band playing a medley of all of the branches songs.  When each song was played the veterans stood for their branches part.

Overall, it was a great day for our students.  I hope that the veterans in this community felt enjoyed the day!  We are so thankful for them!

Here are some other pictures from the day:

 Veteran's Day Lunch and Ceremony 2014

MLGS Rappers Present: Kindness is cool!

During the month of October, Ms. Hill discussed kindness for their character ed trait.  She wrote a rap for all of the students to learn and perform, here is the AWESOME result:

Mrs. Feely 3rd Grade 'Kindess is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/kyfDugB6bDI

Mrs. Rambat 3rd Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/OomBS7OLiUY

Mrs. Wiley 4th Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/3Zb_jNL17UE

Mrs. Rutan 4th Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/JlXGCYgkMVA

Mrs. Hrencher 5th Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/scFipQT4_Mk

Mrs. Boyce 5th Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/nWcp4TZayiU

Mrs. Hanna 6th Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/3PR_tcVnios

Mrs. Buck 6th Grade 'Kindness is Cool' Rap

http://youtu.be/aSnNoT_P8nM

Way to go MLGS rappers!

So...I decided to change the name of my blog!

Let's be honest, I was having a hard time focusing on Friday!  I had a few people reminding me that my Friday Focus was not out yet...on the next Monday. : ) So, from now on, it will be published whenever I can get to it.  Most of the time it will be weekly!  However, I reserve the right to miss a few weeks if a bulldozer rips my internet line from the ground and my phone company does not get it fixed for a month.  : )  Now I feel better!


Today, Mrs. Buck's  6th Grade Science Class was doing a simulation on offshore drilling.  They had been discussing rocks and fossil fuels.  In our area of the country, there is a great deal of oil drilling going on, so they spent some time discussing oil, where it comes from, and how we depend on it.  This led to a conversation about offshore drilling and Mrs. Buck had this simulation to give the students a better understanding of the process involved and the risks in doing it.  First, they made models with play-doh representing the different parts of the ocean floor.  Then, they buried some black in the play-doh to represent oil.  Next, they swapped models for the simulation so they would not know where the oil was located.  In their group, they had to learn and understand the process and the general cost of a drilling project.  Then they had to review the environmental risk of drilling and make a decision on where to drill.  Then they were ready to drill for oil!  To drill they poked a straw into the play-doh to see if they found any black (oil).  Some of the groups hit oil the first time and were able to finish.  Others missed, and had to weigh the risk of drilling again while consulting with an environmental specialist to measure the impact of another drilling attempt.  Finally, they had to finish recording all of their data and information and calculating the final cost of their drilling project.  This was a great project that forced the students to think about a real world issue that we are facing and gave them some background knowledge to help them form an educated opinion on offshore oil drilling!

 It looked like they had a blast!

The First Nine Weeks is Over!

It is hard to believe that we are already a quarter of the way through the school year!  We have parent-teacher conferences this evening and then we begin what I believe is the fastest nine weeks of the school year.  After Halloween, there is Thanksgiving, and then Christmas right after that.  It just seems that this part of the year flies by!  With that said, I wanted to share a few highlights of the first nine weeks here at MLGS. 

Here are some preschoolers getting ready to accomplish their "Monday Mission".  Everyone is excited to see this group out and about!

Cindy Brungardt comes to the school each fall for Indian Summer Days and helps the First and Second Grade students make stick horses to ride in the parade.  It is a blast and the kids always enjoy it!

Cowboy and Indians day during homecoming week.

 

 

Face Painting for Homecoming

Mini Cheerleaders

Ranger Rick visits the school to help the kids understand the rules

Pyramids and Plant Life Cycle Drawings

The last couple weeks have flown by!  We have had lots of different things going on here at MLGS.  Here is the rundown on a few of those things:

Mrs. Hanna's Sixth Grade classes have been studying ancient Egypt in class.  As a project, they created pyramids out of sugar cubes.  For extra credit, some of the students also created pyramids with legos, with buildwithchrome, a lego building app on the chrome browser, or in a computer game called minecraft.  The students really got into this and were very creative with the projects.

Our Fourth Grade students have been working on a plant life cycle project in Science.  Like most schools, we are trying to conserve paper as much as possible, so Mrs. Rutan and Mrs. Wiley decided to have the kids put together a diagram of the process in computer class using Google Drawing.  Mrs. Schield did an excellent job teaching the student to do this, and they picked up on it quickly.   They were surprised at how quickly the students picked up on it.  I am including a student example.

Finally, the Stuco purchased new welcome rugs for the school.  The rugs came in last week and they look great!  Thanks to Mrs. Buck and the Stuco kids this year!





This week is Fire Safety week, we have activities planned this week to help the kids learn about fire and how to stay safe.

Have a great week!

And the winners are...

Mrs. Farrar's Kindergarten Class

This year as part of our Indian Pride Character Education program funded by a grant from the South Central Community Foundation, we are awarding a "Spirit Stick" to one class for outstanding effort.  Throughout the year, we will continue to award the Spirit Stick to a different class every couple of days or so.  While the class has the spirit stick, they will be able to earn double Zing cards for the drawing in the next month's Indian Pride Assembly.  Our first winner this year is Mrs. Farrar's Kindergarten class!  They earned the spirit stick this week for listening, being kind and encouraging to others, and trying their best!  Way to go everyone!!!


I am really excited with the way this program is going.  Our staff, led by our counselor Ms. Hill, has really bought in and is teaching and encouraging the students.   It is nice to see everyone working together and being genuinely excited for each other.  Our shirts came in last week and we are distributing those out to everyone today.  It will be awesome to see all of the kids wearing their shirts and showing off their Indian Pride!