SUPER HEROS!

BENJAMIN LOGAN MIDDLE SCHOOL

DECEMBER 2015 VOLUME 4, ISSUE 4

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATTERS

As winter fast approaches and we pre-pare for the cold and snow our teachers have created and posted lessons online for “snow days” 6, 7 and 8. You can find these calamity day lessons on our Dis-trict home page and Middle School home page. On the district home page simply click on the Resources tab and

scroll down to calamity day lessons, then click on Middle School. On the Middle School home page click on students and scroll down to the calamity day lessons link.

If we miss school for days 6, 7 and 8 we will utilize the calamity day les-sons. Students will have two weeks to complete the work and students do not need to print off all the material. They may use their own notebook paper to complete assignments. If your child does not have internet access they will be allowed to get material at school on the next school day we are in session.

Please understand that we are here to assist you in any way we can with this

so please feel free to call my office or your child’s teacher if you have any

questions. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jeff McPheron Jeff McPheron, Principal

Benjamin Logan MS

December Important Dates 1: After School Detention 8th Grade Washington, D.C. Trip Deposit Due 2: Basketball Games vs Ridgemont Boys : Away/Girls: Home 5pm 3: Study Tables 4: FLL Open Table 5: Wrestling: North Union Invite 10am 7: LPDC OMUN Art Club Basketball Games vs Greenon Boys: Home/Girls: Away 5:30pm 8: After School Detention Winter Band Concert 7PM in Gym 9: Basketball Games vs Shawnee Boys: Home/Girls: Away 10: Study Tables Wrestling: Logan County Meet Indian Lake HS 6pm 12: FLL Competition at the Boonshoft Museum in Springfield Wrestling: Aqua Fall Invite 9am Indian Valley Middle School 14: OMUN Art Club Basketball Games vs Northridge Boys: Away/Girls: Home 5:30pm Board of Education Meeting 7PM 15: After School Detention Winter Choir Concert (5th & 6th Grades) 6:30PM in H.S. Auditorium Winter Choir Concert (7th & 8th Grades) 7:45PM in H.S. Auditorium 17: Study Tables Basketball Games vs Jackson Center 5pm Boys: Home/Girls: Away 18: Winter Dance 1pm 1 hr. Early Release 19: Wrestling: Sidney Pool Tournament 9am Sidney High School 21-31: Winter Break -No School

STUDENT COUNCIL

December 1st – 4th,

Student Council held a

bake sale during lunch-

times. They collected

several hundred dollars that will go to

help support the local food banks during

the holiday season.

2015-2016 YOUTH LEADERSHIP

Several Benjamin Logan Middle School students have been selected to partici-pate in this year’s Logan County Youth Leadership program. Youth Leadership is a program designed by the Midwest Regional Educational Service Center to

provide our future leaders with a variety of skills such as: Communication, Stress Management, Conflict Res-olution and Diversity. These sessions are facilitated at Benjamin Logan Middle School by a variety of commu-nity leaders and instructors. This year’s Youth Leader-ship members include:

8th grade:

Gavin Clay, Dylan McManus, Alex Naragon, Duncan Wilber, Noah Wilcoxon, Emily Folk, Hanna Logsdon, Kiersten Maxwell, Bailey Shope, Emma Wenger

7th grade:

Trey Allen, Zach Boger, Leland Hawkins, Ethan Rick-etts, Dominic Roose, Alexis Achor, Taylor Carnes, Josie Davis, Corinne Herring, Molly Vance

Susan Headings

BLMS Guidance Counselor

BOX– TOPS FOR EDUCATION

Builders club is

continuing to col-

lect Box Tops for

Education. Last

year we collected a

total of $935.80 in box tops. As of Oc-

tober we have collected $141.10. This

project helps fund the Washington D.C.

trip. Please continue

to send in box tops

and help us reach our

goal of $1,000.00.

BLMS W INTER SPORTS UPDATE

Benjamin Logan Middle School athletics has

had a great start to the winter season. Girls

Basketball had a quick start to the season

and has 20 girls that are participating. We

have both coaches back from last year with

Coach Hughes working with the 8th grade

girls and Coach Inskeep working with the 7th grade girls. In

boys basketball, we have two new coaches working with our

boys. Coach Conley has 15 boys on the 7th grade team and

Coach Allen has 12 boys on the 8th grade. On the mats this

year, we have both of our coaches returning. Coach Whit-

low and Coach Newland are working with 14 wrestlers this

year and they have gotten off to a great start to the season

doing very well with the first tournament of the year. Final-

ly, we have great numbers out for winter cheerleading with

12 girls participating. Our cheerleaders are led by their ad-

viser Coach Skidmore. All in all, our winter sports are in full

swing and we are excited for another successful season.

Please visit our website at BLMS Winter Sports Schedule to

find the schedule for all of our winter

sport activities. We would love you see

you come out and support our Raiders.

ALL ABOUT THE 5TH GRADE

The fifth grade science classes have been busy this year by beginning with basic science investigations and process skills. We

started the year by performing some science activities to review the scientific method. During a colored water lab we

confirmed what colors can be made by mixing other colors. This was only successful by following directions and making care-

ful measurements. Later we practiced using the design process by creating foil boats, and then seeing how many pennies it

would hold. The goal was to then alter the designs to allow the boats to float even more pennies. Most recently we have been

studying the relationship between the earth, moon, and sun and all other parts of our solar system including the planets and

heavenly bodies like asteroids, meteors, comets and dwarf planets. We focused especially on what causes night and day and

the seasons. In our scientific future will be investigating ecosystems including food chains and food webs, force and motion,

and forms of energy such as sound and light.

SCIENCE

GOOGLE CLASSROOM

What’s Google classroom? How can it help my child to improve on their writing skills? Those are ques-

tions you might be asking yourself at the beginning of your child’s fifth grade year.

Fifth grade students have been working in Mrs. Gill’s and Mrs. Wishin’s rooms on their typing skills by

using the tool Google classroom, which is a way to organize student assignments, gives teachers and stu-

dents a chance to communicate through the computer on your child’s writing assignments, and gives

them an opportunity to practice their typing skills on a weekly basis. Google classroom will send your

child’s teacher an email when they have a question or concern about the writing assignment. Google

classroom is a great tool that provides students and teachers a platform to communicate about your child’s writing!

In writing, we’re working on the writing model 6+1 Writing Traits, which asks students to work on their writing in the follow-

ing categories: word choice, conventions, ideas/content, sentence fluency, voice, organization, and presentation. The purpose

of the model is to get students to understand how to improve their writing through thoughtful reflection and focus during the

editing process. We’re currently working on the sentence fluency trait by exposing students to a variety of sentences and dis-

cussing what makes a complete sentence.

Our goal for students, in writing, is to expose them to a variety of sentences and encourage them to use it in their writing, use complete sentences with a subject/predicate, and to continue to practice their writ-ing/typing through Google classroom. We want to help improve their typing skills, so they can have the stamina to type for longer periods of time and the ability to get their thoughts on the computer.

ALL ABOUT THE 5TH GRADE

As easy as pie! It’s raining cats and dogs! Break a leg! A needle in a haystack! What do all of these phrases have in common? They are all examples of figurative language!

The fifth grade students in Mrs. Wishin’s and Mrs. Gill’s ELA classes have been learning about different types of figurative language. The students have been identifying the differ-ent types, writing examples of figurative language, and searching for examples of figura-tive language when reading from books. Similes and metaphors were introduced and the

students added notes in their Interactive Notebooks. The students also created simile posters by writing similes about themselves, and identifying and illustrating similes from their reading book, The City of Ember. Idioms are common phrases that have a different meaning than what the words say. The students have been learning the meanings of these phrases, such as “break a leg” and “hold your horses.” To finish the unit about figurative lan-guage, students will next be learning about personification and hyperboles.

Our goal is not only for the students to be able to identify figurative language when reading someone else’s writing, but to improve their own writing. Using figurative language when writing helps to create better images in the reader’s mind!

The 5th grade math classes finished a multi-digit multiplication unit and are currently working on a long division unit. During the multi-digit multiplication unit, students completed various activities, such as, completing task cards in-volving word problems and computation, playing Largest/Smallest Product, as well as identifying and analyzing mul-tiplication errors in problems. They also worked on a Resort Report to reinforce multi-digit multiplication in a real world setting. Students were given the task of figuring the cost of building, supplying, and managing a resort. They found out that it requires a lot of money and planning to make a resort successful and run smoothly!

Students are currently working on a long division unit. They are solving long division problems with 2 digit divisors using the standard algorithm as well as equations and area models. They are working on a Movie Marathon project that involves long division in a real world setting.

ELA

MATH

ALL ABOUT THE 5TH GRADE

The fifth grade social studies classes are finishing up their study of U.S. regions. We have learned

not only the names and locations of the states in each region, but have completed small projects as

we study each one. Some of the projects included advertising posters from a state, menus from a

state in which the foods served all had to come from that region, acrostic poems, and songs about a

state that listed information about it. These projects helped us to learn about the climate, products,

and economy of each region while also incorporating ELA skills into our social studies class. We

finished the unit with a test on which we could earn bonus points for identifying the location of all

50 states!

SOCIAL STUDIES

BLMS PICTURES