On Friday, October 2nd, the FHS Cheerleaders held a cheer clinic for younger students at Central and Jefferson. They had 54 future FHS Cheerleaders participate. The girls spent the afternoon learning cheers, playing games and eating snacks! To end the clinic, the girls put on a performance for friends and family, where they did a wonderful job. For the girls that wanted to participate, they were able to go to the Varsity Football game vs. Lincoln Lutheran and perform with the HS Cheerleaders until halftime. All girls involved did a fantastic job!! As a sponsor, I am very proud of the hard work they put into this!!
The Interesting World of Monogastrics
Students in the Agricultural Science and Technology class examined many characteristics of the monogastric digestive system of a fetal pig. Unlike polygastric (ruminant) animals that have multiple compartments to their stomach, monogastric animals have a simple digestive system. This system contains one stomach that uses acids to breakdown food. This dissection also helped students get a 3-dimensional picture of how all the systems fit together in an entire organism. They had seen separate diagrams of many of the major systems previously, but they got to see how they are all arranged spatially through the dissection lab.
Integer Tournament
Ready, set, ROLL!
Students in Mrs. Petersen’s General Math 8 class spent Friday morning rolling dice with enthusiasm! Each student held a red and green dice; red = positive numbers and green = negative numbers. With two dice bouncing on the table, students race to find a sum first. Gathering up to fifteen points, students worked their way through a double elimination tournament.
Do they know they solved up to 105 math problems today? Positive energy was evident in the numerous smiles, unseen during a traditional math worksheet. Whether you add and subtract integers with a number line, colored coins, algorithms (step by step rules) or a pair of dice, students are mastering Nebraska Math Standard 8.1.2a.
Learning can be loud. The sound of dice landing in the table and students shouting answers filled the classroom.
Junior High Students of the Month – September
September students of the month are: Samuel, Kennedy, Brynn and Josh. Students of the month are nominated by their teachers based on friendliness towards other students & staff, respectfulness, extra efforts displayed in the classroom, being helpful towards others, and working hard in the classroom.
Thinking Caps ~ When will I use this in life?
When will I ever have to solve a proportion in life? That’s a great question! Students in Mrs. Julie Petersen’s 8th grade math class selected a fun hat – Thinking Cap – to wear during class. While wearing that hat they wrote short stories about how that particular hat-wearing-person would use a proportion in life.
Joel stated, “Bonnie the bunny is looking for three carrots to eat for the next five days. If she looks for 15 days, how many carrots does she need?”
Bri may find a future in the royal family. “The princess had 100 pieces of jewelry and the prince had 50. They both went to the store and the princess came back with 500 pieces of jewelry. How many did her prince bring home?”
Other students were talking about bananas, fish, books, horses and even tigers jumping through flaming hoops! They didn’t even pause to ask why they were writing complete sentences in math!
The smiles continued as Trent asked, “If I told 12 jokes and my sister told 7 jokes, then next day I told 24 jokes, how many did my sister tell?”
Life application of math lessons add value to long term memories.
Hat donations are accepted. 🙂
Students Demonstrate Sales Techniques
Intro to Business students had the opportunity to practice their sales techniques in class on Friday, September 25. Students learned about sales tactics during the marketing unit and applied their knowledge by giving a sales demonstration of a product of their choosing to the rest of the class. Students enjoyed playing the role of the consumer as well and challenged each other with questions about the products.
Flowcharts ~ Visualizing Proofs
Geometry proofs can be extra challenging for students. Even parents remember solving proofs when they were in school. Paragraph proofs and two column proofs can be simplified by making them visual with a flowchart proof.
Students in Mrs. Petersen’s geometry class assembled their knowledge of congruent angles (vertical, alternate interior, angle bisector) and congruent segments (midpoint, isosceles triangle, reflexive, parallelogram) to prove triangles are congruent. All the needed information was given for students to cut and paste in the right order. Then arrows can show the flow through the process.
Although still challenging, students worked hard and found success. At the end of class Mrs. Petersen said, “I can hear your brains getting exhausted.” It is rewarding to see the skills of the first month of school assembled in to one problem. One of the students in class replied, “I think I actually understand flowcharts! It was easier than I expected.”
With all of the cutting and pasting, students saved paper by recycling (better known as reusing) old softball game programs.
APPLY2 COLLEGE CAMPAIGN SPONSORED BY EDUCATIONQUEST FOUNDATION
The EducationQuest Foundation piloted an Apply2College Campaign in 2014-2015 where select schools would host a day or two where every senior applied to at least one college of their choice. Even if a student did not plan on pursuing a post-secondary education, they had to apply to at least a 2-year community college. The hope is to get every senior to apply and see that college is an option for everyone. Fairbury seniors will be joining this campaign on October 27th & 28th. The first half of the alphabet will be applying to their selected college(s) on October 27th and the later half on October 28th. In order to make this happen, students will need to have access or knowledge of specific information. There is a checklist that each senior was given last week at the senior meeting. Please help your child by having this information ready for them to bring to school. Contact Mrs. Biehl at the high school with any questions.
Geometry Students Discover Yoga
Geometry students discover yoga poses aid in their understanding. While studying congruent triangles the class was saying “Side Angle Side”. These spatial relationships can be studied while experiencing a yoga pose such as triangle or side angle.
Taking this adventure outside, students were grounded and balanced as they tried something new. After big smiles and a few giggles, the triangle pose was attempted.
Rielee asked, “Can we do this more often?” The mental and physical benefits of yoga will become more frequent in geometry class.