JAY — Spruce Mountain Middle School has announced the following news and activities.

The winners of the SMMS spelling bee were, first place, Mason Shink; second, Jaice Alsaedy; third, Cecelia McDonald and fourth, Jordan Daigle.

2013-14 student council members are, grade six, Skye Chretien, Jaycee Cole, Sophie Moreau and Jacob Paradis; grade seven, Jasper Butler, Bryce Chavez, Hallie Pike and Garrett Smith; grade eight, Alison Acritelli, Garrett Benedix, Brooke Bolduc and Morgan Dalton. Alternates are Annabelle Collins, Joel Hussey and Mikenzie Parker.

In conjunction with Mr. Methvin’s intramural program, in an attempt to make these weeks before spring more enjoyable, the student council will host a Spirit Week the week of March 10-14. Students and teachers will show their school spirit by participating in a variety of dress-up days such as Mismatch Day, Crazy Hair Day, Pajama Day, Twin Day and Phoenix Pride Day. The week will culminate with a special schoolwide relay in which students will be teamed up across grade level and assigned a group color.

Later in March, the student council will host the Pennies for Patients program, raising money schoolwide for cancer research.

For the past several weeks, sixth-grade science students have been learning about the earth’s various land and water ecosystems. In addition to their learning, student’s chose an ecosystem to research, and have been writing reports and creating projects. The glass case at the top of the stairs in between the science labs includes a variety of ecosystem models such as rainforests, deciduous forests, deserts, taigas, the tundra, oceans and coral reefs.

Grade 7 East students have chosen Iditarod mushers in math class and will be following their musher throughout the Iditarod. They also will be doing many activities in math, science, social studies and language arts connected to the Iditarod. For example, students are reading “Woodsong,” doing narrative writing about the travels of the musher and making fact cards for the KWL chart regarding the Iditarod. In math they are working on a cryptogram on the Iditarod, following mushers and charting their progress mathematically. In science, students are researching dog breeds and studying the climate of Alaska, while in social studies they made a map of Alaska including topographical information. The kids will also be tracking their mushers on the map. Students will be reviewing facts throughout the race.

Mr. Michael Kahler, a student teacher from the University of Maine at Farmington, has joined the Spruce Mountain Middle School 7/8 East team as a seventh-grade language arts teacher working with Lynn Ouellette. Kahler is in his final semester at UMF and is teaching seventh-grade students about the traits of narrative writing. Students will work their way up to writing narratives and will even potentially have the experience of writing screenplays. Kahler will be with the students until the beginning of May, when he will graduate.

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