March 2016 Newington, CT
March Madness is here!
Pep Rally
By Allison Wnuk
This quarter’s pep rally was better than the last one. There was an AWESOME dance by the school’s Cultural Dance and Step Club. They did a great job with their dance this pep rally. Good job guys! The next thing was the knock out competition! Congrats to our finalists! You all did an amazing job and I hope that we can do more things like that in the future pep rallies, also congrats to all of the people who got a prize because they got a star from their teachers! This pep rally was the best one yet! And I hope the next ones are even better.
This quarter’s pep rally was better than the last one. There was an AWESOME dance by the school’s Cultural Dance and Step Club. They did a great job with their dance this pep rally. Good job guys! The next thing was the knock out competition! Congrats to our finalists! You all did an amazing job and I hope that we can do more things like that in the future pep rallies, also congrats to all of the people who got a prize because they got a star from their teachers! This pep rally was the best one yet! And I hope the next ones are even better.
Here are the results from our last poll asking for your thoughts about school pep rallies!
Hour of Code Contest Winners
FEATURED TEACHER
Mrs. Falkenberg- Kellogg Kurrent Interview
. Mrs Falkenberg is a 6th grade teacher at MKMS. She teaches math and she loves to watch and play basketball. Mrs. Falkenberg- Kellogg Kurrent Interview : . Mrs Falkenberg is a 6th grade teacher at MKMS. She teaches math and she loves to watch and play basketball. 1.What’s your favorite part about being a teacher? Working with the students 2. What are 3 things you can’t live without? My family, sleep, and snacks. 3. What made you want to become a teacher? I wanted to work with kids. 4. Any other jobs in the past? I have worked as an operations manager, nurses aid, basketball coach, and cashier. 5. Favorite food? Steak 6. Tell us 3 crazy facts about yourself… I speak Danish, I love candy in the morning, and my dog was on Animal Planet 7. Favorite sport and sports team? Ringkobing Haandbold. |
8.. Favorite place to be?
In Denmark with my family 9. Where are you originally from? Rodovre Denmark 10. What things do you like to do when you're not teaching? Spending time with my family. 11. What’s the hardest thing about being a teacher? All the work you bring home. 12. Any Pets? A dog |
Science Spotlight
Exploring the Electromagnet Spectrum
Grade 6 Students Create great projects to show Atmosphere
Click on the above button to see a beautiful website by Kevin Khuu detailing the layers of the atmosphere! Great work Kevin!
Some of the outstanding projects made and presented by students to model the layers of the atmosphere can be seen in the gallery below:
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Kat the Scientist does a great job explaining the Thermosphere in a YouTube video! Looks like she really knows her stuff!
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Writers' Block
Starting Fresh
By Allison Wnuk
Ok, I am not going to say what you think is not true. I am a new student who has a passion for acting and being on stage! And also, I came from Montana and my family has yet to move into our new house. At my old school in Montana, people were really nice everyone was friendly. Teachers, other staff, students, they were all nice people. Teachers BARELY gave homework when they did it was usually coloring.
Tomorrow is going to be my first day at a school called MKMS. Martin Kellogg Middle School. Now I looked on their website and it looks like a really good school. I am very nervous though because at my old school, we never had lockers. No, even in 4th grade. We would have had to wait for high school until we get lockers! I am only a fifth grader, and I have yet to see the point of forcing kids to do something they do something they don't want to do. Some kids feel that way, none that I know of.
“Bye Mom, I’ll miss you,” I say to her as I close the door to her minivan and start heading where I see children standing.
I walk up to an adult to ask him where I am going.
“Excuse me, I-uh just moved here and I don’t know where to go,” I say to the man.
“You must be Mary, our newest student. I’m Mr. Pilz and welcome to Martin Kellogg.” He says.
Then he points over to someone else standing next to him towards the 4 doors.
“That is Mrs. Siano.”
I wave hi and then I hear the bell ring. Someone is standing at the end of a long hallway.
“I hear them say, “All fifth graders over here!”
I wave goodbye to Mr. Pilz and start to walk down the hallway, I bump into a few people and apologize. (balance has never been my forte) and then I come an across 2 flights of stairs, one heading up and one heading down. I look up to where I see older kids walking back and forth and teachers welcoming them. I look down and see the same thing. I start to walk down the stairs and then I pull out my class schedule. My first period is Mr. Dowle for Math. I walk downstairs and look at every classroom… Mrs. Brown, no. Mrs. Ritacco, no. Mrs. Stumpo, no. Mrs. Leavitt? No.
“Ahhh, here we are, Mr. Dowle,” I say to myself.
His classroom is at the end of the hallway right next to the conference room. I walk into the classroom and I see someone sitting in the teacher’s desk when I first walk in. I inferred that it was Mr. Dowle because he is the only male teacher in fifth grade currently. I slowly walk into the room and stand next to everyone at the back on the room waiting to get their seats.
“Hi there,” He says.
“Hi, I’m Mary, I am a new student here,” I say.
“Well hello, my name is Mr. Dowle and I am your science and math teacher for this year. Why don’t you go wait next to Billy back there.” Mr. Dowle explains.
I do a slight nod with my head and start to the back of the room. Billy put his hand up so I knew it was him.
“Hi, I’m Mary,” I say.
“Pleasure to meet you,” He says back to me.
I could already tell he was going to be that guy who ALWAYS raises his hand first. I don’t have a problem with that.
“Alright, hello everyone, I’m Mr. Dowle and I am going to be your science/math teacher for this year, now please there are cards at your desk for where you are supposed to sit.”
I start to look around the room for my card. I walk up to the front and then to the back again. I go up and down the aisles until I see a place card that says, “Mary Johnson.” I put my lunch box down on the table and take my backpack off. I shove it underneath my desk and scooch my chair forwards and look up at Mr. Dowle. A girl was sitting next to me by the name of Rebecca. She looked over at me and smiled and said hi. Now being a normal person I responded back with hello.
“Mr. Dowle is like the best teacher you will ever have. He is so nice and funny!” She explains. “My sister had him 2 years ago and she said he was awesome.”
“Cool.”
“So Mary what do you like to do for fun?” She asks.
“Well, I really like swimming and reading and I do have a passion for acting,” I said.
Rebecca’s big smile got even bigger as she said, “I think we are going to be friends.”
After Mr. Dowle went over all of the rules and fifth-grade expectations, the bell rang and we went out to find our lockers.
“934, is my locker number. Can you help me find it?” I ask Rebecca.
“Well, mine is 932, so our lockers are next to each other! Yeah!” She jumps with joy as we go looking for our lockers. Once we found them and loaded everything in them, Mr. Dowle brought us back to the classroom to go over the schedule. Right now was something called ‘Reach’, and then we have my FAVORITE subject… LUNCH! It might be a subject, but when we are at school everything is educational whether you want it to be or not. I sat with Rebecca and her friends every day at lunch. I felt like I was finally getting the hang of middle school. My Chromebook was always charged, I always did my homework AND studied. I am taking after my mom she was valedictorian at her high school and I want to do the same thing to make her proud. It is going to be a little hard because she is always working so I can’t get any advice from her on how I can become valedictorian. Everything was good and well until something happened.
The very next day when I came into school everyone was looking at me differently. When I was at my locker, I said hi to Rebecca. Nothing. Not a wave, not I hi how are you? Absolutely nothing.
“Ummmm, Rebecca? Can you hear me?” I say to her.
She looked past me to the person behind me…
“Gabi, hey! So did you ask your mom about the sleepover?” Rebecca said.
“Yeah I did and my mom said yes!” Gabi responded with joy as they walked into Mr. Dowle’s room together. I walked right in and sat down in my assigned seat, next to Rebecca. to bad Gabi was sitting right behind us.
“Rebecca, why are you not talking back to me?” I say directly to her face.
“Gabi? Did you hear something? Sounded like an echo..” Rebecca said.
“Oh my god really Rebecca we are going to do this?” I say.
I just turn around as Mr. Dowle is passing back tests from the week before.
“Good job Rebecca.” Mr. Dowle says as he hands her the test. Then he just plops mine down on my desk. Rebecca turned her over and she got a 100! I flipped mine over and I got a 57.
“A 57?” I say out loud.
“Oh wow, maybe you're just as dumb as I thought you were.” Rebecca said and then looks back at Gabi and laughs.
I walk up to Mr. Dowle’s desk and ask him about the F I got.
“Mr. Dowle, I really don’t understand this 57? What mistakes did I make?” I say.
I hand him my paper, and then he realizes that that was the wrong test. That was supposed to be someone else’s grade in the other classes he has. He fixes the grade and then sends me back to my seat. I flip it over again and this time, it was a 98.
“Yeah! An A+!” I say.
“Well, you might have gotten an A+, but I got a 100, which is more than you got because my grade in this class is perfect. I wonder what your’s it. Wait! Don’t tell me! An F maybe? Like the grade you were supposed to get on that test.”
“Suppose to? What does that mean? What did you do?” I ask her.
“Oh nothing, but maybe in the future you should be nicer to me, you never know what I can do.”
Months past, Rebecca was avoiding me, my grade in Math went down drastically, I was so focused on Rebecca I didn’t study or do my homework anymore… I decided after months of F’s and sitting alone in the cafeteria that I was going to confront Rebecca, my mom always told me that, if you are going to win someone back, don’t do it quietly, do it bold and brave, because then you are not afraid.
So the very next day at lunch I got up to go get a fork and instead of getting one I went right up to the microphone…
“Rebecca?” I said into it.
All the teachers swarmed around me including Mr. Dowle.
“Please let me do this, I won’t have another chance if I do it later,” I say to him.
“Ok, but make it quick.” he says.
“Thank you!”
“Ok, Rebecca I need to say something to you…I know that we had a falling out, but I don’t understand why? Don’t you remember all of those months of sleepovers and makeovers? Don’t you? I know I do, so why don’t we just make up and get this over with. I know that’s what you want. And that’s what I want. The only thing holding you back is Gabi, I knew she was the person who set me up on that test to fail and please just gives me another chance. You won’t regret it.”
She stands up from her seat with Gabi and walks over to me.
“Oh come on! She’s no one! She’s SUPER weird!!!” Gabi says.
“Miss. Jones-” Mr. Dowle said. “Come with me…”
Rebecca and I hugged and made up… So after all of this happened, I realized middle school is about education I know that, but where’s the fun if you can’t do it with your best friend? After all this, I think I have understood how to conquer middle school.
Ok, I am not going to say what you think is not true. I am a new student who has a passion for acting and being on stage! And also, I came from Montana and my family has yet to move into our new house. At my old school in Montana, people were really nice everyone was friendly. Teachers, other staff, students, they were all nice people. Teachers BARELY gave homework when they did it was usually coloring.
Tomorrow is going to be my first day at a school called MKMS. Martin Kellogg Middle School. Now I looked on their website and it looks like a really good school. I am very nervous though because at my old school, we never had lockers. No, even in 4th grade. We would have had to wait for high school until we get lockers! I am only a fifth grader, and I have yet to see the point of forcing kids to do something they do something they don't want to do. Some kids feel that way, none that I know of.
“Bye Mom, I’ll miss you,” I say to her as I close the door to her minivan and start heading where I see children standing.
I walk up to an adult to ask him where I am going.
“Excuse me, I-uh just moved here and I don’t know where to go,” I say to the man.
“You must be Mary, our newest student. I’m Mr. Pilz and welcome to Martin Kellogg.” He says.
Then he points over to someone else standing next to him towards the 4 doors.
“That is Mrs. Siano.”
I wave hi and then I hear the bell ring. Someone is standing at the end of a long hallway.
“I hear them say, “All fifth graders over here!”
I wave goodbye to Mr. Pilz and start to walk down the hallway, I bump into a few people and apologize. (balance has never been my forte) and then I come an across 2 flights of stairs, one heading up and one heading down. I look up to where I see older kids walking back and forth and teachers welcoming them. I look down and see the same thing. I start to walk down the stairs and then I pull out my class schedule. My first period is Mr. Dowle for Math. I walk downstairs and look at every classroom… Mrs. Brown, no. Mrs. Ritacco, no. Mrs. Stumpo, no. Mrs. Leavitt? No.
“Ahhh, here we are, Mr. Dowle,” I say to myself.
His classroom is at the end of the hallway right next to the conference room. I walk into the classroom and I see someone sitting in the teacher’s desk when I first walk in. I inferred that it was Mr. Dowle because he is the only male teacher in fifth grade currently. I slowly walk into the room and stand next to everyone at the back on the room waiting to get their seats.
“Hi there,” He says.
“Hi, I’m Mary, I am a new student here,” I say.
“Well hello, my name is Mr. Dowle and I am your science and math teacher for this year. Why don’t you go wait next to Billy back there.” Mr. Dowle explains.
I do a slight nod with my head and start to the back of the room. Billy put his hand up so I knew it was him.
“Hi, I’m Mary,” I say.
“Pleasure to meet you,” He says back to me.
I could already tell he was going to be that guy who ALWAYS raises his hand first. I don’t have a problem with that.
“Alright, hello everyone, I’m Mr. Dowle and I am going to be your science/math teacher for this year, now please there are cards at your desk for where you are supposed to sit.”
I start to look around the room for my card. I walk up to the front and then to the back again. I go up and down the aisles until I see a place card that says, “Mary Johnson.” I put my lunch box down on the table and take my backpack off. I shove it underneath my desk and scooch my chair forwards and look up at Mr. Dowle. A girl was sitting next to me by the name of Rebecca. She looked over at me and smiled and said hi. Now being a normal person I responded back with hello.
“Mr. Dowle is like the best teacher you will ever have. He is so nice and funny!” She explains. “My sister had him 2 years ago and she said he was awesome.”
“Cool.”
“So Mary what do you like to do for fun?” She asks.
“Well, I really like swimming and reading and I do have a passion for acting,” I said.
Rebecca’s big smile got even bigger as she said, “I think we are going to be friends.”
After Mr. Dowle went over all of the rules and fifth-grade expectations, the bell rang and we went out to find our lockers.
“934, is my locker number. Can you help me find it?” I ask Rebecca.
“Well, mine is 932, so our lockers are next to each other! Yeah!” She jumps with joy as we go looking for our lockers. Once we found them and loaded everything in them, Mr. Dowle brought us back to the classroom to go over the schedule. Right now was something called ‘Reach’, and then we have my FAVORITE subject… LUNCH! It might be a subject, but when we are at school everything is educational whether you want it to be or not. I sat with Rebecca and her friends every day at lunch. I felt like I was finally getting the hang of middle school. My Chromebook was always charged, I always did my homework AND studied. I am taking after my mom she was valedictorian at her high school and I want to do the same thing to make her proud. It is going to be a little hard because she is always working so I can’t get any advice from her on how I can become valedictorian. Everything was good and well until something happened.
The very next day when I came into school everyone was looking at me differently. When I was at my locker, I said hi to Rebecca. Nothing. Not a wave, not I hi how are you? Absolutely nothing.
“Ummmm, Rebecca? Can you hear me?” I say to her.
She looked past me to the person behind me…
“Gabi, hey! So did you ask your mom about the sleepover?” Rebecca said.
“Yeah I did and my mom said yes!” Gabi responded with joy as they walked into Mr. Dowle’s room together. I walked right in and sat down in my assigned seat, next to Rebecca. to bad Gabi was sitting right behind us.
“Rebecca, why are you not talking back to me?” I say directly to her face.
“Gabi? Did you hear something? Sounded like an echo..” Rebecca said.
“Oh my god really Rebecca we are going to do this?” I say.
I just turn around as Mr. Dowle is passing back tests from the week before.
“Good job Rebecca.” Mr. Dowle says as he hands her the test. Then he just plops mine down on my desk. Rebecca turned her over and she got a 100! I flipped mine over and I got a 57.
“A 57?” I say out loud.
“Oh wow, maybe you're just as dumb as I thought you were.” Rebecca said and then looks back at Gabi and laughs.
I walk up to Mr. Dowle’s desk and ask him about the F I got.
“Mr. Dowle, I really don’t understand this 57? What mistakes did I make?” I say.
I hand him my paper, and then he realizes that that was the wrong test. That was supposed to be someone else’s grade in the other classes he has. He fixes the grade and then sends me back to my seat. I flip it over again and this time, it was a 98.
“Yeah! An A+!” I say.
“Well, you might have gotten an A+, but I got a 100, which is more than you got because my grade in this class is perfect. I wonder what your’s it. Wait! Don’t tell me! An F maybe? Like the grade you were supposed to get on that test.”
“Suppose to? What does that mean? What did you do?” I ask her.
“Oh nothing, but maybe in the future you should be nicer to me, you never know what I can do.”
Months past, Rebecca was avoiding me, my grade in Math went down drastically, I was so focused on Rebecca I didn’t study or do my homework anymore… I decided after months of F’s and sitting alone in the cafeteria that I was going to confront Rebecca, my mom always told me that, if you are going to win someone back, don’t do it quietly, do it bold and brave, because then you are not afraid.
So the very next day at lunch I got up to go get a fork and instead of getting one I went right up to the microphone…
“Rebecca?” I said into it.
All the teachers swarmed around me including Mr. Dowle.
“Please let me do this, I won’t have another chance if I do it later,” I say to him.
“Ok, but make it quick.” he says.
“Thank you!”
“Ok, Rebecca I need to say something to you…I know that we had a falling out, but I don’t understand why? Don’t you remember all of those months of sleepovers and makeovers? Don’t you? I know I do, so why don’t we just make up and get this over with. I know that’s what you want. And that’s what I want. The only thing holding you back is Gabi, I knew she was the person who set me up on that test to fail and please just gives me another chance. You won’t regret it.”
She stands up from her seat with Gabi and walks over to me.
“Oh come on! She’s no one! She’s SUPER weird!!!” Gabi says.
“Miss. Jones-” Mr. Dowle said. “Come with me…”
Rebecca and I hugged and made up… So after all of this happened, I realized middle school is about education I know that, but where’s the fun if you can’t do it with your best friend? After all this, I think I have understood how to conquer middle school.
Winter Themed cupcakes
By: Michaela Feldblum
Hot Chocolate with Marshmallow Frosting
1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
One cup of hot cocoa mix
Ingredients
Hot Chocolate with Marshmallow Frosting
- To make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners; set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, hot cocoa, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, until just combined then stir in the vanilla and oil. Sprinkle 1/3 of the flour mixture over the butter mixture and gently stir in until barely combined. Add half of the milk, mixing until just combined. Repeat these steps with the remaining flour mixture and milk, ending with the flour. Do not over mix.
- Fill each cupcake tin with 2 tablespoons of batter, or until the cupcake tin is filled half way. Bake the cupcakes for 14 to 16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with one or two crumbs clinging to it. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
- To make the frosting: In a large bowl or mixing bowl, beat together butter and extract
- Add powdered sugar and continue beating on medium speed until mixture resembles a frosting
- When mixture is creamy beat in marshmallow creme or fluff. This is going to get sticky
- If frosting gets too thick you can add a teaspoon of milk or cream to thin it out. If it gets too thin add a little more powdered sugar
- Pipe or spread onto your favorite cupcakes and enjoy!
1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
One cup of hot cocoa mix
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (1 stick)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1⁄4 cup vegetable oil
- 1⁄2 cup milk
Ingredients
- 2 sticks of butter, room temperature
- 13 oz jar of marshmallow fluff or creme
- 4 cups powdered sugar
Vanilla Blueberry With A Vanilla Ice Cream Frosting
Ingredients
- To make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners; set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour,blueberries,baking powder,and salt; set aside.
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, until just combined then stir in the vanilla and oil. Sprinkle 1/3 of the flour mixture over the butter mixture and gently stir in until barely combined. Add half of the milk, mixing until just combined. Repeat these steps with the remaining flour mixture and milk, ending with the flour. Do not over mix.
- Fill each cupcake tin with 2 tablespoons of batter, or until the cupcake tin is filled half way. Bake the cupcakes for 14 to 16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with one or two crumbs clinging to it. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
- To make the frosting: In a large bowl or mixing bowl, beat together butter and extract
- Add powdered sugar and continue beating on medium speed until mixture resembles a frosting
- When mixture is creamy beat in the vanilla ice cream . This is going to get messy
- If frosting gets too thick you can add a teaspoon of milk or cream to thin it out. If it gets too thin add a little more powdered sugar
- Wait until your cupcakes are fully cool1ed to pipe the frosting on
- You can put blueberries on the top after you frost
- 1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
- As many blueberries as you want
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (1 stick)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1⁄4 cup vegetable oil
- 1⁄2 cup milk
Ingredients
- 2 sticks of butter, room temperature
- 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
Rooster Co. supports healthy eating at Martin Kellogg.
In February, Kellogg students got a special, and healthy, treat when K.C. Ward, chef at Rooster Co. in Newington visited all lunch waves and gave students the opportunity to taste test a sampling of his healthy butternut mac n' cheese. Students welcomed the chance and there were rave reviews from all the grade levels.
After the tastings, Chef Ward asked students to take an opinion survey online. We sure hope we will get more visits from the fabulous Rooster Co! |
Video produced by Hugo Bernadino
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Drama Club Update: Shrek the Musical
Tech Time
Apps and More!
Akinator
By:Michaela Feldblum
The game Akinator is a creepy game. The reason why this game is so creepy is because the game is about a genie that asks you yes or no questions about the person you are thinking of. It works better with people that are famous or have a YouTube channel, if you chose your mom or dad then you can put their name in the app plus other people you want the genie to guess in the app. For example, if you think of Shawn Mendes, it will ask you question about gender,age,and other things until it gets an idea about that person and then it will ask questions about that person. When the genie gets to the star it will guess. Most of the time it gets who you are thinking of right but, if there are more people that the genie thinks of then the answer could be wrong. Finally, the app is $1.99. I hope you get the app because it is a really fun and creepy.
By:Michaela Feldblum
The game Akinator is a creepy game. The reason why this game is so creepy is because the game is about a genie that asks you yes or no questions about the person you are thinking of. It works better with people that are famous or have a YouTube channel, if you chose your mom or dad then you can put their name in the app plus other people you want the genie to guess in the app. For example, if you think of Shawn Mendes, it will ask you question about gender,age,and other things until it gets an idea about that person and then it will ask questions about that person. When the genie gets to the star it will guess. Most of the time it gets who you are thinking of right but, if there are more people that the genie thinks of then the answer could be wrong. Finally, the app is $1.99. I hope you get the app because it is a really fun and creepy.
Election Tech Help!
Did you know that if you want to know how a candidate feels about an issue, you can simply search Google with the candidate's name and the word "stance"? (ex. Hillary Clinton Stance) Google has designed their search engine to organize important information like this to make it easier to find more information about our potential presidential candidates! Try it out and get informed about our government!
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TIps for creating better google Slides presentations
Help! My Chromebook isn't working!!!Before you seek help for problems with your Chromebook, try this! 90% of the time, it seems to fix the common problems we are seeing with Chromebooks.
Oh, and as always, please be sure it is CHARGED before you try any troubleshooting. Many students are simply forgetting to charge devices and wondering why they are not working. |