2013-2014 Wall Calendars

The district wall calendars are being distributed to students before they leave for the summer tomorrow (6/6/13).  The district is only sending one home per household so if your student didn't receive one, that means a sibling in the elementary or high school has received one.

Lemonade for Alex’s Lemonade Stand

As a connection to the current “Coffee Shop” project, 8^th grade students will have the opportunity to purchase Lemonade for Alex’s Lemonade Stand on Thursday and Friday in math classes.  Cans of lemonade will be $1.  All proceeds will be given to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer. 

See the CBS Sunday Morning video here: http://www.cbsnews.com/sunday-morning/

Organization’s website: http://www.alexslemonade.org/

Parent Survey

Thank you for a great school year! To help guide the 8th grade team in planning for next year, please take our survey. We will use your responses to guide changes for the 2013-2014 school year. 

2012-2013 Parent Survey 

Middle School Library

The library will be closed this week (June 3 through June 7). Students with books to return or who have printing needs are welcome.

Students are reminded to return their overdue library books. They were told today in homeroom the titles that needed to be checked-in. 

Reading Final Exam

The Beowulf Final Exam will be tomorrow, Friday, May 31st.  The 40 question final will be worth 40 points.  Students can use their study guide and book during the test.

Bridge Expo and Testing Day

8^th grade students tested their bridges today, 5/29/13, after building the structures for six class periods. Twenty-six bridges were tested by adding weight to the span until it collapsed. The winner, yet to be determined, is the strongest bridge but didn’t cost too much money. We will be creating graphs, analyzing ratios of bridge cost to live load weight, and attempting to conclude which bridge was the winner of the competition. A special thanks to our guest experts, bridge engineers and architects from the Pittsburgh Region. Representatives from Michael Baker Corporation, HDR, Inc. and Penn Dot District 11 used their insight and expertise helped to enrich this learning activity.

Bridge designs can be seen on the classroom website. Also, messages about the test day have been posted to twitter under the #lab110 hash tag. 

Special guest during financial literacy unit

A special thanks to Mr. Leo Grandovic from Northwest Savings Bank in Sewickley.  He visited Ms. Costantino's pre-algebra classes on Tuesday, May 28th to discuss the banking industry, investing, and budgeting.  This speaker helped us wrap up our financial literacy unit in math!