Puma PressSouth Meadow School

Issue 9 - March 17, 2016

Puma Pride Winners for February 2016

BOX TOPS FOR EDUCATIONby Meara McCluskey

Since September, SMS has been collecting box tops. Each box top is worth ten cents. SMS has already c o l l e c t e d $500 worth of box tops. That’s about ten box tops per person! Col lec t ing box tops is a

great way to help your school, and it’s easy to do. Box tops come on the tops of General Mills products. All you have to do is cut or rip the top of the box! The money collected from this program is going towards field trips, school supplies, and extracurricular pro-grams. Even if you bring in just one box top, it helps the school. Please bring in more box tops to help the school!

Ms. Russell Art ClassBy: Gabby Oja

In the seventh grade art class with Ms. Russell we are working on clay pots. We have to make a pinch pot then add clay coils around the top of the pot to make the pot tall-er. We can add feet to the pot, a spout or a handle. Some people are putting decorations on their pots with extra clay or drawing de-signs on the pots with clay tools. The pots will be put in a kiln to harden them and then the class will glaze the pots in different colors. You can then use the pots for whatev-er you want such as jewel-ry or flowers. Working with clay is a lot of fun and every-one enjoyed the project!

Puma Press March 17, 2016

Select Chorus Field TripBy Bella Schwabe

The Select Chorus is took a field trip to Keene State college on March 11. We, along with a few other middle schools, were selected to sing with the Keene State chorus. We learned a song that we sang with the chorus; we have also practiced some of our old songs and songs the regular chorus sang in the Winter concert. We were critiqued by judges on our technique and our overall sound. The first thing we did is when we got to Keene State was a group warm-up. Then listened to two choruses. They sang two songs each, and then one of the judges told them how they could experiment with their sound. Next we were taken to another stage, and we practiced before our actual performance. After we performed, one of the judges told us how we could possibly make the songs better. We had a short lunch break and returned back to the auditorium. Then we per-formed our group song and got back on the bus. On the way back to the school most of the select chorus had a very fun time, singing their favorite songs. This was a very special honor and all Select Chorus had a very fun time performing.

Door Decorating Acrostic Poemby Reagan Riffle

Dairy and Grains; 8th GradeOnly decorate door and door frames

Originality will be a key criteria for judgingRepresent a food from your grade’s given food group

Decorations can include student drawn pictures or printed pic-tures

Each advisory will compete to win a certificateCreativity will help your advisory win

Our SMS Student Council sponsors this contestRead the criteria! Make sure not to miss anything

A secret piece of candy must be incorporated with the designThursday, March 17 will be the judging day

Information about your food must be includedNeat Presentation will also be a criterion

Grade 7; Protein. Grade 6; Fruits. Grade 5; Veggies

Door Decorating Contestby Reagan Riffle

This Spring, the Student Council will sponsor the Door Decorating Contest. The theme is Food. Each grade level has its own food group to base their design on. The 5th graders have veggies, the 6th graders have fruit, the 7th graders have protein, and the 8th graders have dairy and grains. Each advisory will make their own design and compete to win a certificate to hang on their door. The advisories will be decorating their doors during advisory time from March 8 - March 14. After the advisories finish, their doors will be judged on March 17. The judges will be using the following criteria; representation, originality, creativity, humor, color, informa-tion, neatness, and the inclusion of a secret piece of candy within the design. Good luck!

NH Spelling Beeby Gabby Oja

Seventh grader Grace Phillips com-peted in the New Hampshire Spelling Bee in late February at the Capitol Center in Concord. There were 184 students in the spelling bee, and Grace made it to the top 30 finals. Grace had a written test that was graded, and the top thirty went on to the final rounds. She unfortunately lost in her 4th round (out of eight) with the word Real-schule (noun: A modern non-classical Ger-man secondary school preparing students for commercial or technical occupations that do not require a university education). Her other words were Cadenza, Hypocrisy and Azimuth. Grace was given a medal and a certificate. She has done a great job rep-resenting SMS, and Grace has made us all very proud!

Puma Press March 17, 2016

Stamping Blocksby Ella McCullough

Ms. Russell’s art class have recently been working on carving out a design of their choice onto a stamping block. The students in her art class are allowed to come up with their own design, or they can use something from one of the past projects like calligraphy, tree paintings, or a self portrait. Once they have decided what design they would like to use, the student then sketches out their design onto a piece of paper cut to the size of the rubber block they will be using. Af-ter that is finished, they transfer the design onto the stamping block they will be using. When that is finished the student is allowed to start carving out their design. Finally, once all of the carving is done, the student can add color onto the block and then stamp it onto a piece of paper. Viola! They have created their own stamp.

Scott Kelly LandingBy Kylie Johnson

After spending 340 days in space, Scott Kelly has finally returned back to Earth. We all know that when you’re in space you have some changes that occur within your body, and they sure did happen to Scott. Scott actually went into space for a year as a informational science project in a way. It was just for NASA to gain more information. “My level of muscle soreness and fatigue is a lot higher than it was last time,” he told reporters. One of the changes in his body was his skin, it was hypersen-sitive for a little while, and that means that his skin is abnormally sensitive. This was probably just a reaction to the oxygen making contact with the skin. When he landed, he had a need to eat a banana. Also, he immediately asked about the Super Tuesday results, crazy right?

Lorien

QuinnGrace

Nick Bella

Ella

Erin

Adam

Gabby

Maddy

Reagan

Jade

Sarah

Kylie

Nicky

Meara

Jack

Kendall

The Puma Press Staff

by Erin

Puma Press March 17, 2016

The fifth grade science fair is finally here! Kids in the fifth grade think of scientific questions that they have always wanted to figure it out and get the answers to their questions. Students would have to come up with a hypothesis, a procedure, and most importantly, a question! The students could partner up with a friend or just do it by themselves. On Thursday, the class got judged by Mrs. Brezovec, Mr. Dunning, Mrs. Garceau, Ms. Kava, Dr. Minnihan, Mrs. Norby, Mrs. Pease, Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Vann, Mrs. Warwick, and by Mrs. Wrubel. On Thursday night the students got to share their projects with their parents, and the judges revealed the winners. Everyone got a participant ribbon. If you were in third place you got a bronze medal, if you came in second you got a silver medal, and if you came in first you got a gold medal. There were more than one winner in each place. Some of the projects were: electric projects with fruit, lemon battery, orange battery, and lime battery. Other projects were about food such as, which popcorn bag pops the fastest? Which gummy bear melts faster? Does the flavor in gum last better in home made gum or store bought gum? On Thursday night some students who did food related experiments would bring out the food that they experimented with. For example, if a student did an experiment on popcorn they would bring out a bowl of popcorn. Other stu-dents brought their experiment with them and let parents and peers try out the experiment. All in all, every kid had a fun time sharing their experiments with parents and peers. This science fair was a huge success!

Fifth Grade Science FairBy Jack McLaughlin

SIXTH GRADE FOOD VIDEOMeara McClusky

In Social Studies, 6th graders are watching a video on how food is made. The 6th graders are watching this because they are doing a unit about food around the world. This video caused many differ-ent reactions. Most people were very sad and kind of scared. The video, made by Food Inc., gave the sixth graders a lot to talk about. “It was really disturbing to see where our food comes from,” says 6th grader Kendall Larson. The video talked about the advantag-es of local food and the disturbing factories in which our food is made. Lots of kids were saying that they couldn’t watch the video, because it scared them too much. This video was pretty scary, but it taught us a lot.

Puma Press March 17, 2016

Magazine Coversby Grace

Mrs. Fox’s eighth grade art classes have recently completed a new project! This project involved creating a magazine cover us-ing, Photoshop. Students began by learning all of the tools in the Photoshop program, and they applied their new skills to their magazine covers. Students could create a maga-zine cover that was based on any school appropri-ate subject. Stu-dents first made a note plan that explained what they had done each day and included what in-formation and pictures they were going to put on their cover. Students had to include a bar code and a price on the cover of their magazines, so that they will look as realistic as possible. The students could either draw a picture or find one on-line to include on their covers. Just like every other magazine that you might read, these magazines also include information about what stories would be inside. Their finished products look great Of course, the students didn’t create the whole magazine, but these awesome covers will be sure to make you wish that you could look inside.

Seventh Grade Plane Making with Ms. Russell

by Reagan Riffle

This term in art with Ms. Russell, the seventh graders are making paper airplane designs. But, these aren’t ordinary planes. They are mak-ing precise de-signs on their paper before flying, and

then folding in intricate patterns for aerodynamic flight. The seventh graders might even be able to go outside and test their planes in flight! They are having a very fun experience making the planes, learning about aerodynamics, and making ruler /cir-cle-tracer made designs.

7th Grade Spanish Classby Maddy Cilley

In Spanish class, the 7th graders have hit a milestone. Now we are starting classes off every day by having the students ask our daily questions in Span-ish. For the past few weeks Senorita Hoy has been ask-ing these questions, but now it’s our turn. Every week, there will be a new student who asks questions in Span-ish, such as ‘’What is the weather today?”, “What is the date?”, “What season is it?”, and “How are you feel-ing?”. They can then call on students to answer the ques-tions in Spanish. Senorita Hoy has designed wheels to help us answer these questions. There are three wheels. One for the seasons, one for feelings, and one for the weather. Each wheel has different words and pictures that correspond to that wheel’s topic. For example, the feelings wheel has eight pie slices, and each one has a feeling in Spanish, along with a picture to help us

tell which one is which. One “slice” says fe-liz, with a pic-ture of a smiley face. After that, we go through the date on the chalkboard, and even have to spell it out to-gether. On our first day, Seno-rita Hoy told us that eventually we would be replacing her in

this routine, but we didn’t think we’d ever be able to do it! Now we know we can.

BeHappy!

Seventh Grade FACSBy Reagan Riffle

In this term of FACS with Mrs. Couture, the seventh graders are making some salty treats. They’re making pretzels with yeast, wa-ter, and flour. They’ve been following a set of instructions to make their pretzels perfect! Once they finish, they will take their toasty treats out of the oven and enjoy them! The seventh graders are having a really fun time making their pretzels and have learned lots about making rising food/yeast.

Hey Kid are you going to bring in some boxtops?

I can’t!

Why not?

Because only nerds bring in Box Tops!

But if you bring in Box Tops than you can make money for the school. That money could be used for Field Trips! Are field trips nerdy?

Field Trips? I love Field Trips! I’m going to bring in as many Box Tops as I can!!!

BRING IN BOX TOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YOU DO LIKE FIELD TRIPS,

RIGHT?

Excuses, Excusesby Nicky Dinino

Mini Golfby Jade Tarango

In P.E the students are playing a mini golf course that Mrs. Fox and her art class have been working very hard to create. The course is both challenging and fun! Some obstacles on the course are a unicorn, a gum ball ma-chine and a Harry Potter themed obstacle. The students in P.E love the course! The students each have five strokes to get their golf ball in the hole. The 8th graders that worked on these holes were very creative coming up with holes such as a Titanic themed one. In this hole you must put your golf ball through the Titanic and into the hole on the other side. Many students enjoy this fun activity. Thank you everyone that helped make this amazing course!

BeNiceOutThere

Puma Press March 17, 2016

Drama Clubby Ella McCullough

With the school play, James And The Giant Peach, quickly approaching many of the students in drama are very excited for everything to come together, and to be able to put the show on for the whole school. The cast is putting on the show for the whole school on March 18th, but if any family members, siblings, or friends would like to see the play there will be two other showings of the play on the nights of the 18th and the 19th. The whole cast is very excited about how well the play is coming together and are looking forward to everyone seeing it!

St. Patrick’s DayBy Kendall Larson

When we think of St. Patrick’s day, we think of the color green and shamrocks, a big feast, and leprechauns and their gold. Although, you might think, why do we think of these things? Or even why we celebrate that day. St. Patrick’s Day is an annual holiday celebrated on March seventeenth by the Irish, people of Irish descent, and the Irish-at-heart. It celebrates the passing of St. Patrick, a well known and worshipped saint of Ireland. First, you may think of shamrocks, or clovers, and the color green. In fact, we wear green because it is the color of a sham-rock! Shamrocks are celebrated because St. Patrick used them in explaining to his patrons about the Holy Trinity, a theory of their gods. He lived from A.D. 385-461, dying at age 76. Also, many people celebrate with a feast of corned beef and cabbage. This tradition started hundreds of years ago, when Ireland was a major producer of salted meat. Any beef, at the time, was very expensive and considered a luxury, so until beef was cheaper, they original-ly used dairy or salted pork. Cabbage, on the other hand, was a very cheap vegetable and easily paired with beef. Finally, a leprechaun’s green suit and pot of gold may pop into mind. A leprechaun is a fairy-like creature found in Irish folklore. Leprechauns are known as mischievous shoe makers, who hid their profits around the forests and mountains, and, under the rainbow. The reason leprechauns connect with St. Patrick’s Day is leprechauns are an Irish symbol of good luck, since St. Patrick himself was very lucky to escape all the people who captured him. In conclusion, many things come to mind when we think of St. Patrick’s Day. Whether we think of green, sham-rocks, eating, and naughty leprechauns, believe it or not, they all tie back to St. Patrick and Irish history. There are many things to celebrate, and many things to learn about St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you have learned a lot, and have a great St. Patrick’s Day!

Puma Press March 17, 2016