December /

January

2016

From the Desk of the Principal Important Dates:

Monday, December 12th:

Middle School Orchestra and

6th Grade Band Concert

Johnny Carson Theater

7:00 pm

Thursday, December 15th:

Middle School Choir Concert

Johnny Carson Theater

7:00 p.m.

December 23rd—January

1st:

No school for students-Winter

Break

Monday, January 9th:

School resumes

Monday, January 23rd:

No School

Monday, January 30th

PTO Meeting @ 6:00

February 6th & 8th: 5:00pm –8:00pm

Parent Teacher Conferences

February 9th:

11:30 Dismissal

1:00-4:00 Parent Teacher Con-

ferences

Friday, February 10th:

No school

It is hard to believe December is here, and the end of the first semester is

near. Our Middle School staff has enjoyed getting to know your child. Please

help your child wrap up the semester by checking their grades on Infinite Cam-

pus. If you need information on how to do this, please contact the office.

Weather: Students will be going outside, weather permitting, during the win-

ter months for activity time. Make sure your child comes to school with warm

coats, hats, and gloves. If you know of a child that needs a coat, hat, or

gloves, contact our guidance office and we may be able to help out that child.

Lost and Found: Our lost and found is overflowing right now. If you child is

missing something, please have them give our lost and found a look. The three

clothing bays are located right outside our office.

Drop off and Pick up: Continue to be courteous drivers to one another at

drop off and pick up times. Keep reminding your students to utilize all cross-

walks as they walk to and from school.

Supervision: We do not have supervision for students until 7:40am. Please

keep that in mind when you drop off your child in the morning. Our after

school supervision ends at 3:40pm. Make sure that your child is picked up prior

to that time, unless a teacher has made arrangements with you.

Northeast Community College Basketball: At our October Character Educa-

tion Assembly, Dan Anderson and the Northeast Men’s Basketball team visited

with our students about courage. Dan is the current Men’s Basketball Coach at

Northeast. The Men’s Basketball team then went through some drills and put

on a great show for our students. As I have continued to talk to Dan and his

staff, they would love to host a Middle School day at Northeast. On Saturday,

January 28th, they will allow any Middle School student into the games for

free. More information will be coming home in the future for this event.

Thank you for all your support this school year. On behalf of

the Middle School staff, we would like to wish each one of you a

wonderful holiday season.

Mr. Hughes

Norfolk Middle School 1221 N. 1st St. Norfolk, NE 68701 402.644.2569 402.644.2576 Fax

Thomas Edison said that he did not fail at making the light bulb one thousand

times, but rather that “the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games.

Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot….and missed.

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I suc-

ceed.” (Michael Jordan)

“Making mistakes is a natural part of all learning. Those who we consider to be

“great” are clear that mistakes lead to learning.”

The latest research on mathematics shows that mistakes are a very important part

of learning math! When a person makes an error in math and they have the oppor-

tunity to learn from it, the actually develop a much stronger understanding. In

fact, the research states that students learn more from making mistakes than from

getting all the right answers. When your child makes an error, it offers insight into

what understanding your child has about a mathematical idea. It allows parents

and teachers to talk to the child about what they know, and ask questions to stretch

their thinking around where they are currently developing their understanding.

Parents can ask, “How do you know that? What was your thinking here? Is there

another way you could solve that?” This conversation helps to develop the crucial

skills of reasoning and communication and is therefore more helpful than simply

showing a child how the math is done. When you support an attitude that values

learning from mistakes, you are telling your child that, mistakes are a valuable and

natural ingredient in learning and lead to deeper understanding. Research shows

that this attitude supports stronger achievement!

From the Principal

Reminder to Parents:

We will be taking your children outside

for activity time unless it is raining or

there is snow on the ground. Please make

sure they come to school with coats,

gloves, hats and proper shoes.

Come one, come all!

The Middle School choir will be performing their winter program on Thursday,

December 15th at the Johnny Carson Theater. The performance will begin

promptly at 7:00pm. Students need to be at the Senior High no later than

6:30pm.

Box Top Contest Ends December 22nd

Boys vs Girls!!!!! Winners will be allowed to go first in the lunch lines for an entire week. Keep saving those box tops!! Good

luck!!!

Don't forget that Artsonia can help you with your Christ-

mas Shopping. You can buy personalized gifts featuring

your child's artwork or even order your Christmas Cards.

My personal favorites are the blank cards, for my kids to

write thank you's, and the snap my art jewelry.

6th Grade Team 1 would encourage all parents to start a Twitter account with your son or daughter. Once you have joined the Twitterverse, we hope you follow @NMS_6thGr_Team1. By following us, you will be treated to notices about upcoming tests, project due dates, pictures of projects, and students, and info about students. Team 1 teachers would love to see you follow us. Mr. Lichty, Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Priebe, and Miss Uttecht

Dear Parent(s),

Team 2-6th grade is now a user of Twitter. Follow our handle: at:

@Team2_6th_NMS

We will be posting announcements regarding homework, tests, quizzes, special projects, and other

great things your children are doing here at the Norfolk Middle School. Join today and stay in touch.

Looking forward to your follow,

6th Grade-Team 2 Teachers

Mrs. Brummond, Mrs. Dinkel, Ms. Mimick, Mr. Skiff

Challenge/HAL Program

(High Ability Learner)

Highlighting the 6th grade Challenge classes in the first semester included students competing in the “Great Plains Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl.” States competing in this division included Nebraska and Kan-sas. This on-line competition included 100 multiple choice questions based on various subjects: math, sci-ence, history, current events, spelling, government, sports. Teams receive two tries on each question, but speed and accuracy on the first attempt build the highest score. The winning team for the Great Plains division was Gretna Middle School scoring 1277 points. Four teams from the Middle School competed and our top scoring team only missed 2 questions and fin-ished a strong 5th out of 27 teams in the Great Plains Division. The following includes the scoring of the 4 NMS teams: 5th (1214 pts) 8th (1130 pts) 13th (1067pts) 22nd (977pts)

Fifth Grade Team 1A is connected. Please follow us on Twitter as we use this social media tool to share our work,

learning, and life at school.

Follow Class Tweets @ afullclassroom

Catch a glimpse into our classrooms and your child’s learning in a new exciting format.

“Tweetfully yours,”

Mrs. Full and Mrs. Pieper

Dear Parents,

We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose

to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly hinge on understanding how technology

works. But only a tiny fraction of us are learning computer science, and less students are studying it

than a decade ago.

That’s why our entire school is joining in on the largest learning event in history: The Hour of Code,

during Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 5-9). Last year, 15 million students tried computer

science in one week, including Norfolk Middle School. This year, we're again joining students world-

wide to reach 100 million students!

Our Hour of Code is a statement that Norfolk Middle School is ready to teach these foundational 21st

century skills. To continue bringing programming activities to your students, we want to make our

Hour of Code event huge. I encourage you to volunteer, reach out to local media, share the news on

your social media channels and consider hosting additional Hour of Code events in the community.

This is a chance to change the future of education in Norfolk].

See http://hourofcode.com/us for details, and help spread the word.

Sincerely,

Nancy Polodna

Keyboarding/Technology

Norfolk Middle School

Bring computer science to your school. Start with an Hour of Code

Computers are everywhere, but fewer schools teach computer science than 10 years ago. Good news is, we’re

on our way to change this. If you heard about the Hour of Code last year, you might know it made history. In

one week, 15 million students tried computer science! The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to com-

puter science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. Sign up to host an

Hour of Code this December 8-14 during Computer Science Education Week and help reach 100 million stu-

dents by the end of the year. Add your school to the map, go to http://hourofcode.com

Nancy Polodna

Keyboarding/Technology —-Norfolk Middle School

November 2015 At Norfolk Middle School we have created a character education program

with a monthly emphasis on various character traits. This months character

trait is empathy. These are the students that best exhibited the character

trait of empathy this month.

5th Grade Team 1A: Coleson Barritt

5th Grade Team 1B: Rachel Basabe Cruz

5th Grade Team 2A: Kayla Bobeldyke

5th Grade Team 2B: Tanner Bloom

5th Grade Team 3A: Tasha Eisenhauer

5th Grade Team 3B: Caiden Bredehoft

6th Grade Team 1: Michael Barritt

Makenzie Splater

6th Grade Team 2: Ruby Mitchell

Mason Dixon

6th Grade Team 3: Jack Armbuster

Ashlynn Millikan

Specials: Daxton Dickey

Ashlynn Millikan

Haley Felgate

Gage Schwartz

A reminder for Jump and Hoops for Heart partici-pants....the envelopes and donations are due to their PE teacher the week of Dec. 5, 2016. Thank you once again for allowing your child to be involved in saving lives! *Did you know...the pacemaker was developed with the use of a $500 grant from the American Heart Associa-tion?