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The science club had their first official meeting on January 22, 2003 for 1 hour after school. Ms. Gosse would like to inform us that every one is welcome in grades 8 and 9. They are having so much fun dissecting owl pellets to reconstruct the skeletons of their food, they plan on making rubber flubber, goofy glow gel, model rocket, and science Olympics. The science club is held on various days of the week!

On Tuesday, January 21, Mr. Gatehouse held a presentation on Snowmobile safety. He showed two ‘films’ on safety and answered questions asked by the students.

Mr. Gatehouse is part of the ‘Notre Dame Snowmobile Association’ which encourages snowmobile safety. The ‘NDSA’, a voluntary association, visits different schools in the Lewisporte area. The purpose of these presentations is to raise awareness of snowmobile safety, laws, and enforcement of these laws. Currently, about 75% of Lewisporte Middle School students operate snowmobiles.

We would like to thank Mr. Gatehouse for coming on his own time to help students learn snowmobile safety. Hopefully this will help stop accidents that happen every winter to the students of Lewisporte Middle School.

In May, the Lewisporte Middle School is sending 20 students:10 from Grade 8 and 10 from Grade 9, to Quebec City on a French trip. The students will be going to one of Canada’s oldest cities for one week to learn all about French Canadian life and culture. Some will finally be able to use their knowledge to speak to other French people.

The teachers planning the trip (Mr. Tucker and Mr. Clarke) have a week of fun filled and interesting activities planned for the students. They will be encouraged to speak French continuously, to experience French Cuisine, to enjoy an I MAX Theatre movie, as well as going sightseeing and shopping.

The trip is expensive, but the students have that covered too! They plan to do many fundraisers to help lower the cost of the trip. They have also applied for a grant from the Government and are still hoping to receive one. They have already started 2 fundraisers: a sub sale, where all the supplies were donated; and the Lewisporte Middle School is also teaming up with the Lewisporte Co-op, in giving out “Henny Penny Chicken” coupons and some profit from the coupons will be given to the student whose coupon was redeemed. The students are also planning a yard sale.

So be on the lookout for great fundraisers and help your fellow students get to Quebec City!

We are very proud of one of the grade 7 students at our school. Jessica Oake a student that had been skating ever since she was four years old, recently went to Brampton, Ontario to compete in the Canadian Junior Nationals Skating Competition. Before she left, people in the town, staff and students of Lewisporte Middle School, and people from her skating group gave her money to help with her immense expenses.

On Thursday January 30^th, she competed in her classification. Jessica came fourteenth in her group. Although she came last in the competition, we are all very, very proud of her accomplishments. After all, Jessica is the first person from Lewisporte to ever win a skating spot at any Canadian National Skating Competition.

Jessica had to skate about three hours a day to get ready for her competition. She said that when she wasn't skating, she did other things like shopping and visiting her relatives. She also said that while she was in Brampton she saw Joan Rivers! Jessica said that she made a lot of new friends and would love to go back to skate in Brampton if she could!

All students at Lewisporte Middle School have recently started a Sustained Reading Period, which takes place at the beginning of each school day. The object is to get students interested in reading and to get enjoyment out of reading. Students are allowed to bring books and/or magazines from home.

The Staff feel that it is our way of promoting reading and literacy in our school. It’s an idea that’s been around for a long time. Lots of schools participate in this type of program. The Staff also feels that by doing this we can help students realize that reading can be lots of fun. It helps our imagination and can improve our reading ability.

On February 10^th - 12^th the members of the student council helped to sell Heart O’grams for a loonie, which consisted of a Kit-Kat Chunky Bar, a red ribbon and an AIDS awareness pamphlet; as a fund-raiser to help raise money for the Have A Heart Campaign. The Have A Heart Campaign is a national school-based program which helps create awareness for HIV and AIDS. The goal of The Have A Heart Campaign is to help Canadian youth become HIV and AIDS smart and to raise funds for HIV/AIDS research. All of the funds raised from this campaign will go to the Canadian Foundation for AIDS research. The student council has work during recess and after school to help make this fund-raiser possible. The members of this years student council are as follows:

This special day in the school year falls traditionally on Valentine’s Day, February 14^th. Please donate the equivalent of your recess to this special cause.

Teaming has become a very important aspect of our school program, since the 2001/2002 school year. It went very well last year, as you can see from the wonderful display of paintings all around our school, which was a project organized by teaming. It is now is continuing on this year in Lewisporte Middle School this year. Teaming is a program which the teachers of our school have adopted from a school in Nova-Scotia. It started at a middle school initiative, whose aim is to help bring better education to the students, to bring teachers together to give better service, and also to improve our school.

There are five teams of teachers in our school. One team for each grade. In grade five there is Mr. Nichol and Mrs. L. Freake; in grade six, Mrs. Legge and Mr. Preston; in grade seven, Mrs. Sceviour, Mr. Keeping and Mr. Clarke; in grade eight Mrs. W. Wheeler and Ms. Gosse, and finally in grade nine there is Mrs. Blagdon and Mrs. Willams.

In this Issue of The LMS Links, we interviewed the teachers of the grade five and six teams. Some of the main purposes of teaming according to the them, are things such as: for the teachers of a particular grade to get together to plan instruction, tests etc; to discuss student problems; to monitor students progress; to provide any extra help to students and to meet with students and parents if needed. Also to make sure the same things are going on in the classes of the same grade; to put together and share ideas and resources; to do any long range planning and to make sure they are teaching the outcomes the are supposed to teach. These are some of the things the teachers do during teaming periods, which are twice a cycle.

Teaming makes a big difference in our school according to both grade 5 and 6 teams. One of the main points that came up about how teaming makes a difference, was that it improves the education of our school. It also makes the teachers more effective; it lets the students see teachers work together; it creates more consistency and helps teachers cover the same things too. But these are just a few of the beneficial outcomes of teaming. Mr. Preston, of the grade six team quotes, “It takes a team to win the Stanley cup, and it takes a team to run a school.”

When we asked the grade 5 and 6 teams if they recommended teaming for all schools, both teams replied, “Yes defiantly.” We also asked if they think teaming will continue in our school in future years. They think, if it has been as successful as it has been so far, they hope it will continue because it works, it improves on our students and improves teacher morale.

Lately the grade 5 students have been participating in a reading log. Each month every student is given a sheet to encourage them to read more often. Whoever reads the most each month wins a free lunch. The winner for December was Adria Hynes, who read 22 books which came to 906 pages. The runner-up was Brittney Marshall, who won a pack of stickers for reading 24 books which came to a total of 833 pages.

Mr. Nichol and Mrs. Freake are very impressed with the number of participants and everyone is going to receive a certificate of participation.

Student of the week is one of many activities that grade five students are participating in. Each week Mrs. Freake picks a name of a boy or girl to be the student of the week. After their name is drawn, there is a chart put on the door with information about them such as their favorite food, family, birthday, what they do best, favorite picture, and what they like to read and write about.

They get to sit in the front of class and tell things about them. Everyone gets a chance to be the student of the week.

The Grade 5 students are really looking forward to their day in Grand Falls-Windsor on Valentine's Day. They'll be participating in Glow Bowling and a visit to McDonald's. Have a great time, you guys!

Valentine Word Search

Chocolate Heart Cookies

Cookies:

1 cup (250 ml) sugar

1 cup (250 ml) margarine or butter (softened)

¼ cup (60 ml) milk

1 tsp. (5 ml) vanilla

1 egg

2- ¾ cups (600 ml) all-purpose flour

½ cup (120 ml) cup unsweetened cocoa

¾ tsp. (4 ml) baking powder

¼ tsp. (1 ml) baking soda

Frosting:

2 cups (500 ml) powdered sugar

½ cups (120 ml) margarine or butter (softened)

Red food coloring

2 to 3 tbsp. (30 to 45 ml) maraschino cherry liquid or milk

Here’s what you do:

1. In large bowl beat sugar and 1 cup (250 ml) margarine or butter until light and fluffy. Add milk, vanilla and a egg blend well. Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda; mix well. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate one hour for easier handling.

2. Heat oven 350◦ F (190◦ C). On a floured surface roll out 1/3 of the dough at a time to 1/8- inch (3 mm) thickness. Keep the remaining dough in the refrigerator. Cut with floured heart shaped cookie cutters (you may want to use different sizes) Place the cookies one inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Return any unused dough to the bowl for rerolling.

3. Bake at 350˚ F (190 ˚ C) for 9 to 11 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheets immediately and allow to cool completely.

4. In a small bowl combine all frosting ingredients adding enough cherry liquid or milk for desired spreading thickness; blend until smooth. Frost top side of whole cookie.

5. ENJOY!!


The Grade 5 team, Mrs. Lisa Freake and Mr. Llewellyn Nichol.	The Grade 6 team, Mrs. Sherry Legge and Mr. Lindsay Preston